Google is always tweaking things on the Play Store to help you find apps that might be of use. After all, it’s in the company’s best interest for you to download and install more apps, as there’s a chance you might spend money.
Now, as spotted by Android Police, Google is experimenting with a feature that’ll compare similar apps, helping you choose between multiple applications that can perform the same or similar functions.
Google’s New Play Store Experiment
If you’ve ever seen a shopping website that lets you directly compare the features of two or more products, you can probably picture how this works. Basically, a “Compare apps” section shows up in an individual app listing near the bottom of the page. It displays popular apps that are similar to the current one.
The feature compares metrics like the ease of use and whether an app supports a certain feature. Presumably, Google is pulling data from user reviews to build these comparisons, but we can’t be sure until the company officially announces something.
When Will Google Start Comparing Apps?
As this appears to be an experiment, it’s not clear when the feature will be available for all users and all apps. Android Police was able to get it working with VLC on Android, but it didn’t show up for me when I tried, so your mileage may vary.