Why are everyone looking forward to Google Play returning to China?

Google Play is coming to China, maybe it’s true! After the new advertising law came out, it said that things can’t be too absolute, so I added a “maybe” in front of it. If nothing unexpected happens, it will be true. In fact, I have answered a similar question before: What do you think of the rumor that Google Play will return to China in June 2015? First, let’s do some popular science——

[[148537]]

What is Google Play?

In the United States, Google Play includes the Play App Market and content (movies, music, newspapers, books, etc.). Google Play is only a part of GMS (a large number of applications and services pre-installed by Google on Android phones), and does not include conscientious applications such as Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube, etc. that everyone is very familiar with, and of course does not include search, cloud services, etc. Here is a screenshot from my Mi 4i:

It is very obvious that if we go back to China, there will probably only be an app store. Of course, the most important part is games, because games are the most profitable part of the app market, no doubt about it.

However, given Google's willfulness, game payment is unlikely to work in China. Games on the Play Store still rely mainly on operator SMS payment. To be honest, I am not very optimistic about this area. After all, major domestic application markets are more extreme and willing to do the dirty work. Don't even think about other video and book content. Of course, even if these contents exist, they are not competitive.

In fact, there is an invisible but very important part, Play Service.

Here we need to focus on popular science.

Google Play Service is an app, but it takes on many things that the Android system should take on, such as some API calls and corresponding services. It is the most critical tool for Google to gradually regain the right to speak on Android in the past two years.

Android phone manufacturers were not very active in upgrading the system, which led to serious fragmentation. Google was very angry, but there was nothing it could do. Until one day, it came up with this trick, putting many APIs that should have belonged to the Android system into a place called Google Play Service. Even if the manufacturer does not upgrade the system, Play Service can be upgraded separately.

Gradually, many core functions of Android have become part of Play Service, and many foreign apps must rely on Play Service to run. This is why many foreign apps cannot run on domestic mobile phones, because according to Google's policy, there is no Play Service on domestic mobile phones.

The lack of Play Store and Play Service on domestic mobile phones has caused a major split in the Android world, resulting in foreign apps either being unable to land in China or having to abandon Play Service and release a Chinese version alone. Of course, domestic apps cannot use the various high-end functions provided by Play Service. Especially those domestic Android phones that are known as high-end phones and cost more than 3,000 yuan, when they go abroad, they find that domestic apps are not easy to use, and some foreign apps they downloaded also cannot run. The most typical example is maps. After going abroad, they found that this and that did not work. High-end people should just use Apple honestly. In fact, it is because of the lack of Play Service, not because Android is bad, and it is taking the blame for nothing.

Therefore, if Google Play returns to China, it will end the great division in the Android world and greatly improve the user experience of domestic mobile phones, which is a great thing.