Android TalkBack: The Play Store

Hi, my name is Ricky Enger, and today we're gonna check out the Play Store, where we can find lots of great new apps to install. We're using a Google Pixel phone for our workshop here, but what we're learning should be pretty much the same for a lot of other Android phones as well. Every phone is a little different though, so if things are in a slightly different place on your device, or if there are other little changes in how things work, that's okay. If you scroll down a little ways on the Workshop page here, you'll find some great resources, plus there's info on how to contact us if you need to.

You know, one of the best things about having a smartphone is that there are so many apps available. There are entertainment apps, online banking apps, apps for reading books, and the list goes on and on. So how do we find all those lovely apps and get them downloaded? Well, that's what the Play Store is for. Just like any other app, there are lots of ways to open it. We can either do it from the home screen, or by bringing up the apps list, or activating the Google Assistant, and saying "Open Play Store".

Google Assistant: Play Store, Google Play, double tap to activate.

Ricky: All right cool, our Play Store is now open, and we're actually focused on our search box. We'll need to double tap it before we can start typing, which we'll do in just a second. Just a quick note though that this search box is at the top of our screen, right below our status bar area, so if we ever need to find it when our focus isn't there already, that's where it is. Okay, let's get to the fun part here and find an app. So we'll double tap.

Google Assistant: Search for apps and games, edit box. Showing G board. Double tap and hold to long press. Actions available, use tap with three fingers to view.

Ricky: Yep, now we're ready to start typing in our search words. You know, we always seem to talk about NLS BARD for our examples, and why not? Free audio books are great, am I right? So yeah, let's search for NLS. We'll head down to the bottom quarter of our screen to find our keyboard.

Google Assistant: Space, window G board.

Ricky: And here we go, just typing N.

Google Assistant: N.L.S.

Ricky: And let's stop typing here. We're gonna head back up to the top of our screen, just below our search box. So we'll just touch here near the top.

Google Assistant: Search for NLS BARD.

Ricky: Hey cool, that's exactly what we're looking for. So instead of having to type the whole name, we just go up here to our suggestions, and see what's available. There are other suggestions here that we can find, either by swiping right, or just moving our finger down the screen a little, but this one is actually what we want, so let's go ahead and double tap it.

Google Assistant: Navigate up, button, out of list. Keyboard hidden, double tap to activate.

Ricky: All right, so what just happened is that we performed our search, and we're now on a new page. Our little keyboard has disappeared. It's a good idea to just explore this new page whenever it pops up. We can swipe right through our different items, read the whole page, explore by touch, whatever feels comfortable. As we explore, we'll either find multiple apps that have the keywords we searched for, in which case we'll double tap on the one we want. Or, we'll find that we're already on the app page, and ready to install, and that's actually what has happened this time.

So here's a quick little tip, once you're on the app page, like this time we're on the NLS BARD page, and there's a description of the app, some reviews, and of course an Install button, we can get to that Install button pretty quickly, just by swiping right a couple of times, or we'll find it in the top right hand corner of our screen. So let's just touch near the top right hand corner.

Google Assistant: Voice search button.

Ricky: Okay, yep, we're close. Now we'll move our finger down just a bit.

Google Assistant: Install button, double tap to activate.

Ricky: Yay, there's our button. So let's double tap here.

Google Assistant: BARD Mobile, open.

Ricky: Hey cool, there we go. We've installed our NLS BARD app, and what do you know? That button changes to an Open button once the installation is finished, and that's all there is to it.

There's one little button we haven't talked about yet, which is the navigate up button. This button is in the top left hand corner of our app screen, and it's pretty cool, because it's gonna be in most of our apps. This button will take us back a screen in our app. So in this case when we tap it, it will take us back to our Play Store page, where we can search, browse app categories, and so on, so let's just touch our top left hand corner of our screen.

Google Assistant: Navigate up button, double tap to activate.

Ricky: And there we go, we'll double tap.

Google Assistant: Search for apps and games, double tap to activate.

Ricky: Awesome. We're right back on our Play Store main screen, focused on the search option. Seems like we're in the perfect place to search for even more great apps.

And if you're wondering how to keep all these apps updated once they've been downloaded, well of course we got you covered there too. Scroll down the Workshop page to find the Resources area, and check out our little handout on how to keep your apps up to date. I'm Ricky Enger, and I'm glad you could spend a little time with me today, learning to download apps from the Play Store. See you next time.