This article is part of our Play Store Downloads series.
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Simultaneously with the Android 4.3 release, Google started rolling out an update to the Play Store with version 4.2.9, which follows closely behind 4.2.3 from last week’s Nexus 4 system dump leak.
And a few earlier ones:
What’s New?
Version 4.2.3 already paved the way and gave us a clue that restricted accounts would be coming – a fact that was confirmed as a big new feature in 4.3 yesterday. 4.2.9 seems to be an even more minor release, with several new image assets, a few new strings, and supposedly some minimal UI changes to the widgets (the word hotseat comes up a lot). Neither Ron nor I were able to discern the differences in any of the widgets, however. Again, this is really minor stuff here. You can find Ron’s teardown here, but essentially all the stuff he mentions is below.
The new images are:
- flo_widget_empty_logo.png
- ic_menu_check_holo_light.png
- ic_hotseat_check_book.png
- ic_hotseat_check_magazine.png
- ic_hotseat_check_movies.png
- ic_hotseat_check_music.png
The new strings are:
<string name=”widget_hotseat_title”>Explore great content on Google Play</string><string name=”widget_hotseat_welcome_title”>Start exploring great content on Google Play</string><string name=”widget_hotseat_completed_title”>”You’re all set up!”</string><string name=”widget_welcome_empty_legend”>Your recent Google Play items will appear here</string><string name=”done”>Done</string>
The new layouts are:
now_playing_widget_hotseat.xmlnow_playing_widget_hotseat_choice.xml
Layouts changed in some way:
now_playing_base.xmlnow_playing_widget_four.xmlnow_playing_widget_three_left.xmlnow_playing_widget_three_right.xmlnow_playing_widget_two.xml
Update: Thanks to Ron and Daveon Jackson, we figured out where the new images surface in the Play Store. Mystery solved:
File Size History
- com.android.vending-3.10.14.apk 5.88 MB (6,174,123 bytes)
- com.android.vending-4.0.25.apk 5.89 MB (6,183,354 bytes)
- com.android.vending-4.0.26.apk 5.89 MB (6,181,405 bytes)
- com.android.vending-4.0.27.apk 5.89 MB (6,181,458 bytes)
- com.android.vending-4.1.6.apk 5.75 MB (6,036,474 bytes)
- com.android.vending-4.1.10.apk 5.76 MB (6,040,792 bytes)
- com.android.vending-4.2.3.apk 5.76 MB (6,046,580 bytes)
- com.android.vending-4.2.9.apk 5.84 MB (6,129,144 bytes)
The APK is signed by Google and upgrades your existing Play Store. The cryptographic signature guarantees that the file is safe to install and was not tampered with in any way. Rather than wait for Google to push this download to your devices, which can take weeks, download and install it just like any other APK and enjoy the new Play Store experience.