Google has begun pushing out a major update to the Android Market. Unfortunately, the two biggest new features — the ability to rent movies and purchase books — won’t be available outside the US.
That doesn’t make the update a total bust, since it also incorporates speed improvements, additional listings of popular apps, the ability to swipe between listings, and general interface tweaks. It’s annoying not to have the additional media features, but given the complexities of rights issues, we’re not holding our breath for movie rentals or book purchases to appear on Australian devices in a hurry.
The update will be rolled out automatically to Android 2.2 and higher phones over the coming weeks.
A new Android Market for phones, with books and movies [Google Mobile Blog]
Scott
Wednesday, July 13, 2011 at 9:26 AMI actually think Google should try an expansion to Australia.
Since REDgroup’s collapse most people I know have been cautious about buying books from Angus & Robertson and Borders. So Amazon has the monopoly on Australian Ebook’s.
Movies would be a lot harder as many Australians haven’t embraced downloading movies yet…
Michael Aulia @CravingTech.com
Wednesday, July 13, 2011 at 11:12 AMWe always get left behind :( Not to mention we don’t get the Amazon free app a day thing *sigh*
James
Wednesday, July 13, 2011 at 11:39 AMI would love to understand what exactly the free trade agreement between the US and Australia actually means.
Surely ‘free trade’ means that we should be able to buy and sell between the two countries ‘freely’?
Cameron
Wednesday, July 13, 2011 at 12:33 PMThere isn’t really any law stopping your from buying something from the US, but the US publishers rights will only allow them to sell stuff to people located in the US.
Ollie
Thursday, July 14, 2011 at 1:13 PM“Free Trade” means we give them everything we’ve got cheap, pay a tonne of taxes and get nothing in return.
Andrew
Wednesday, July 13, 2011 at 1:35 PMWill market enabler fix this?
Matthew
Thursday, July 14, 2011 at 8:58 AMDoesn’t appear too =( then again, maybe the books/movies haven’t made their way online yet.