【passively-induced auto-eroticism】

Believe it or passively-induced auto-eroticismnot, Google's Play Store is 10 years old today.

OK, not really. The original Android app store was actually launched as Android Market in August 2008, just a month after Apple introduced its App Store. But Google Play came to be as a combination of several other services, including Google Music and Google eBookstore.

The company rebranded all of the above into a single service called Google Play back in March 2012. For some reason, however (we asked why and will update this article when we hear back), Google is celebrating Google Play's birthday on July 25, making today the service's 10th anniversary. Weird, but alright.

To honor the occasion, Google has introduced a brand new logo for Google Play, and at first, I had to squint really hard to see how it's different from the old Google Play logo. That's because the new logo, just like the old logo, is still a right-pointing-arrow thingy with several colored shapes overlapping to create a combo of green, blue, red, and orange.

There are some differences, though. The new logo has slightly duller corners than the old one and the colors are uniform instead of gradients. To my eyes, it's not a particularly exciting change, but it's part of a recent design trend at Google (and some other internet companies) that aims to make everything as flat and simple as possible.

Google is also giving certain benefits for Play Points members, who will get 10 times the points when making Play Points purchases starting July 25. If you're unfamiliar with Play Points, they're a reward program in which you earn points when making purchases, with the ability to redeem them for certain in-app items or Google Play Credits, which in turn are used for renting movies or buying audiobooks.

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