Top 5 Tricks to Tame Google Play Store
One thing that distinguishes Android from iOS is Google Play Store. It gets frequently updated, and provides an array of apps, games, movie, books, magazines and many more. The Google Play Store is not just about the content and offerings to you, but gives you the power to manage your Android devices, customizing settings and preferences and manage the store shopping in a smarter way. Here are the five tips and tricks to get the most from your Play Store.
Take hold of the app updates
Do you know that you can easily control the app for updates? You can choose to update the apps automatically or manually. To make the changes, go to ‘Settings’ in the Play Store and select the apps you want or do not want to auto-update. You can also select if the app will get manual or automatic update. This comes as a great tip, when you are on a limited data plan and prefer to update the apps under WI-Fi connection only.
In case you frequently miss out the updates, you can choose to auto-update the apps without annoying update notifications. If you want to enable automatic app updates, click on the Menu icon and go to ‘Settings’. Go to the ‘Auto-update apps’ option under ‘General’ section and then tap the option and confirm it in the popup box. This way your apps will get updated directly without too much of notifications.
Manage if the recently installed app shows on the home screen
Whenever you download or install any app, it goes to the home screen. But, if you want to keep the space free or are just too particular about your home screen, you can customize this too.
You can easily turn it off. To do it, when you go to the Google Play ‘Settings’, de-select the box that says ‘Add icon to Home screen’. This way the app will be installed and can be seen in the app drawer, but will not show on the screen. You can decide whether you want to show them on screen or not as per your usability.
Keep your mind free with Parental Alert
Kids have learnt a lot about the smart phone and latest technology much before you did. It is not uncommon to see a five or six year old kid playing with their parent’s smartphone. This brings in the risk of both app purchases burning a hole in your pocket as well as access to inappropriate content for your kid.
You can avoid this situation by turning on the Parental Control of Play Store. To activate this, go to ‘Settings’ and the look for ‘User controls’. Now under the Parental Controls section, you can restrict games by their respective rating levels and customize changes guarded with a security PIN. You can also change the settings and customize the Play Store to ask for the password each time a transaction is being made.
Request a refund
Did you recently buy an app or a game and are not really happy with it? Or there may be a chance that you or your kid purchased an app by mistake which has cost you a fortune. Fret not, you can always claim for a refund on any app you don’t like.
One thing that you need to take care is to ask for refund within two hours of your purchase of the app. To initiate the refund, go to Play Store, look for the app you are seeking a refund and tap on the green ‘refund’ button. Isn’t that really simple?
Manage your devices via the web
Another feature of Google Play Store which gives more power to its users is the ability to manage the devices via the web. When you go to your app store via the Android gadget, you can see only a few options and apps associated with your device. But when you access the Play Store via the web browser, you can see all the Android devices that are associated with your Google account and thus can view them and manage better.
You can visit the Google Play store on the web, at play.google.com. When you sign in with your Google account, click on the small gear icon to go to the ‘Settings’ menu. You can see a list of all your registered devices under your account. If you want to change the name of a device in the list, you can click on the ‘Edit’ option and change the name of the device. Then click on ‘Update’ to save the changes.
So what are you waiting for? Take your phone and start exploring the Play Store now.
Emma Pacino is a creative person who is writing the blogs and articles about cyber security. she writes about the latest updates regarding AVG.com/retail, webroot.com/safe, Mcafee.com/dellactivate or www.office.com/setup and how this software can improve the work experience of users. Her articles are usually published in many popular e-magazines, blogs and websites.
