Updating apps on the best Android phones should be quick and easy. Google Play used to let you download updates for multiple apps at the same time, but that feature was removed about a decade ago. But after many years, Google has brought the feature back, making it much easier to keep your apps up to date.
9to5Google has been keeping a close eye on the Play Store changes, which are a positive move for Android users.
Of course, you're still limited to only being able to download three app updates at a time, but it's still a big improvement over the previous implementation, where you could only download one update at a time, which is always a good thing as it brings the Android app update process closer to Apple's.
If an app has had more than three updates, the remaining updates will show as “Pending” while they wait for a slot to open up. Once an update is complete, the next update will change from “Pending” to “Downloading.”
It makes sense to see the multiple update feature back, as Google also introduced the ability to download two new apps at once back in April, and now with this update you can download three new apps at once, which is a welcome change.
As for why Google did away with this, many speculate that it was because the OS couldn't install multiple apps at the same time due to limitations in smartphone write speeds. Modern smartphones have super-fast internal storage thanks to UFS and NVMe technology, which allows multiple large files to be written at once, making the feature usable again.
The update appears to be rolling out gradually to Android users, so you may not be able to install multiple updates at once just yet. But if you wait a little longer, it should arrive on your device soon, whether you have a Pixel 9 Pro or one of the other models on our best phones list. At the time of writing, it's unclear whether Google dropped this update server-side or if it's an update to the Play Store itself.