In July, Google introduced a new feature called “Collections” for the Play Store, which is now rolling out widely in the US. This feature comes with two types of widgets you can add to your home screen: a small bar or a full-screen feed.
The Collections widget organizes apps into different categories: Watch, Game, Read, Listen, Food, Shop, and Social. When you tap on a category, you get a fullscreen feed with various app suggestions and a tray at the bottom that shows apps related to that category. Some categories have special features:
- Listen: Includes “Continue listening,” “Your shows” (for podcasts), “Mixed for you,” and “Similar to [artist].”
- Watch: Shows content from YouTube subscriptions and Google TV genres.
- Read: Displays “Continue reading” from Play Books and other book recommendations.
- Food: Highlights nearby restaurants from Google Maps and “Cooking & recipe videos” from YouTube.
- Social: Shows a “From your feed” carousel from Reddit.
- There’s also an “App library” feed, which acts as an app launcher with folders for Top used and Recently added apps, plus other categories.
You can customize your Collections by tapping your profile avatar in the top-right corner. From there, you can turn off certain feeds, rearrange them, or disable app suggestions.
Currently, this feature is only available in the US and requires version 42.5.15 of the Play Store.