Unless you live in China or something, I don't think there are very many Android users who do not find their way to the Play Store at least once a month, whether it is to download a new app or update existing ones. It's the Android marketplace and it's a staple of the experience.
Now, the Google Play Store has finally gotten an update that it should have had ages ago (but which most of us have gotten used to). Yep, the Play Store will finally be able to download and install two applications at the same time, after years of being teased with this.
Simultaneous Downloads Are Finally A Thing On The Google Play Store
Look, we've probably all been there before at some point or the other. Maybe you just got a new smartphone and you're trying to get your usual suite of applications downloaded and set up on the device, so you have several apps queued up and ready for download. Unfortunately, with the way things were before, you'd have to sit and wait for each app to download before the next one could come in.
Well, thankfully, that has finally changed. For a long time, Google was testing out simultaneous downloads but never stuck to it for good. However, it looks like a large rollout of this feature has finally happened, and it is more than due. You can now have two apps installing at the same time instead of each one having its own turn. Just keep in mind that this feature doesn't extend to updating applications; at least not yet.
I'm on the latest version of the Google Play Store and the latest version of Android, but I have yet to see this change on my side of things, though I assume it simply hasn't rolled out to my region. 9to5Google has been able to test this on Pixel devices and tablets, so perhaps it is one of this Google-first perks.
But Wait, Couldn't The Play Store Handle Multiple Downloads Way Back In The Past?
If you've been an Android user since the early days of the treat-focused version names, then you might feel like this was a feature that your Android phone had before, and you wouldn't be wrong at all, because it did. However, if you try to do your research on why this was eventually replaced by the single download model that we now all know, you won't find anything conclusive.
However, today, I spotted a Reddit post regarding this exact topic, with many long-time users talking about when Android used to have this feature, and for the most part, it seems it had to be dropped because it seemed to be hogging a lot of system resources. With multiple applications queued up and downloading in the Play Store, it would slow down the smartphone and even freeze it at times.
Thankfully, considering how advanced our smartphones are with all their fancy Snapdragon and Dimensity chips, we can finally go back to enjoying multiple downloads at a time, even if it is just two at once for now.
