Google has always tried to highlight tablet-specific apps in Google Play, but often it has just been a curated list of apps showing some of 30-50 tablet apps. It is changing now. Starting today, in the latest Google Play store client on tablets, you can tap on “All Apps” in any section like Top free, top paid, top new free etc. to see tablet optimised applications.
Does it work as advertised?
Not really, Google does remove several of the apps from the selection, but many of the applications showed in “Designed for tablets” view are also not tablet-optimised. Like in the above screenshot, you can see that Swiftkey keyboard is not tablet-optimised, it has different tablet-focussed version, which is actually meant for tablets.
Similarly, ROM Manager Premium is also not a tablet optimised app, it is in fact not really a full app, and it just unlocks ROM Manager’s premium service to paid users.
This is just a quick assessment of just ten apps and we are sure, we will surely find many more apps that are shown as tablet-optimised but clearly are not.
As, it is still early, we hope that Google fixes these issues over the coming days and weeks and gives up a better “Designed for tablets” section.
