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Screenshot by Sarah Mitroff/CNET
Can’t wait for a hot new app to appear in Google Play? According to a post over at Android Police, the Android app store now lets you preregister for forthcoming games and apps so that you’ll be notified on your Android phone or tablet the second they’re available to download.
The first app to get this honor is Terminator Genisys: Revolution, a game with no set release date or price quite yet. However, the app’s landing page has all the other details you’d expect, including a video, screenshots and a description. The preregistration feature let the game’s developer, Glu Mobile, advertise that the game is coming soon, before it’s actually ready to play.
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The upside of this is that developers will be able to assure customers that their Android apps are in the works. So often today a popular new app shows up in the Apple App Store, leaving Android fans wondering if and when they’ll be able to get their hands on it. A prime example is Twitter’s Periscope , which is currently iOS-only, with no word on when it will show up in Google Play. Letting people preregister for an app sends a clear message that they will, eventually, be able to download it for their devices.
The downside is that because there’s no release date or price, you’ll never now how long you’ll be waiting for that title to arrive or what it will cost when it does. What’s more, there’s no mention of device compatibility, so you won’t know if the app will run on your phone or tablet or if it’s available in your country until it goes live. In the future, I hope that Google lets developers add those details.
Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
