Google is retiring the Play Store’s Movies & TV section in favor of the Google TV app
In October 2020, Google released the Google TV app toreplace the Play Movies & TVservice of old. Despite being pre-installed on most Android devices, Play Movies & TV never really took off as it primarily only acted as a gateway to the Play Store to purchase or rent new content. Now, the company hasannouncedthat it is retiring the “Movies & TV” section from Google Play on your Android device. Instead, purchases and rentals will solely be available from the Google TV client.
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How to use Google’s version of Plex
Unlike the Play Movies & TV app that only acted as a storefront with a built-in video player, Google TV provides you with content recommendations from and deep links into various streaming services. The app is pre-installed on most Android devices and is available in almost all parts of the world except Aruba, Brazil, New Zealand, South Africa, and South Korea. It also features avirtual remote for your Android TVorChromecastto make your life easier.
Interestingly, the big G’s announcement only talks about the changes in the Play Store app — it is not clear if the Movies section will be retired from the web or not. Nonetheless, the change does mean that the Play Store will no longer act as a unified store for purchasing all kinds of content — TV shows, movies, music, apps, and games — from Google. Additionally, there’s still no Google TV client for iOS. Instead, it looks like iPhone and iPad users will have to continue using the Play Movies & TV app for purchasing and renting content from Google.
All in all, this feels like it could become a messy transition right in the spirit of thenew Google Pay appand theswitch from Google Play Music to YouTube Music, with Play Store credits still usable on Google TV and your purchase and rental history still syncing up with the Play Store.
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