Google's Cubes coming to the Play Store could help Android users discover new apps to install
Google is believed to be developing an app for the Play Store called Cubes. First discovered earlier this year, in February Google News Telegram said "All we have at the moment is a shortcut that opens up a blank page and a 'Cubes entry point widget'. That said, both the shortcut and the widget are part of the Play Store app." Android Police now says that the Cubes app could be a central hub that will be used to discover new apps across a wide variety of categories.
In other words, the Cubes app could help users find new apps to install based on the category of apps already installed on the phone. Google News Telegram editor Nail Sadykov writes, "My assumption is that Cubes will be the kind of 'entertainment center' where purchased movies, games and books will be stored. I might be wrong, though." Sadykov's assumption could be a good one.
There is a Settings page that has a list of "Cubes." That list includes:
- Watch
- Social
- Shopping
- Listen
- Games
- Read
- Food
- Sandcube
The directions say to "arrange the order of your Cubes and manage the apps within each of them." Opening the Watch Cube, with it toggled on, the directions read, "Select which apps to see content from in this Cube." Code tipster AssembleDebug discovered that users will be able to shop from Cubes although it isn't clear what Android users will be able to go shopping for with the app. One possibility would be paid-apps.
When Cubes was first spotted in January of this year, the app was just an outline that didn't feature clue about what the app was designed to do. The UI has been fleshed out a bit since but there is no content in the app yet since the backend has yet to be made public.
Google has a habit of testing things and then, without giving away too much information about what was being tested, doing away with the project completely. Right now, Cubes is alive and well although we have no idea when Google will get to that point where it is supposed to let us know what Cubes is and what it is going to do for Android users.
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