Family Sharing Gifting Finally Comes To Play Store

Family Sharing Gifting Finally Comes to Play Store

BY GreenBot Staff

GreenBot Staff

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Published 6 Nov 2015

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Google rolled out a new feature that could make it easy to share apps, games, and more with family members. According to a teardown of Play Store, a family library was on the way. This allowed one account holder to create and invite others to their family. To share apps, games, TV shows, and other content purchased from Play.

Apple’s App Store already had a similar feature. Which was very popular with parents who wanted to buy apps for use by everyone. family 2

The code doesn’t specifically indicate what type of controls the master account holder would have. But in the past had hinted at kids’ accounts, which would presumably have more restrictions than the parents. An early look at the code indicated that there would also be a gifting feature. Whereby you could purchase an app and gift it to someone else outside the family. This would be useful as a one-time treat. You wanted to send to a friend or someone not connected to your family hub.Why this matters: Google has sought to make Android more family-friendly with new features like a dedicated family section of games and apps specifically for kids. But no one wants to buy an app multiple times. So a shared family account is needed. Parents don’t feel the urge to jump to iOS with its substantial catalog of educational apps with family-friendly features.