There have been a lot of unfounded rumors and speculation about KitKat and the Nexus 5 (and even the good old Nexus 4) floating around the web in the last few days, so why don't we take a break from those and switch things up for a change? Here is the work-in-progress UI from the next major update to the Play Store app for Android, version 4.4 (just to be clear: the Play Store's version is 4.4 - I'm not talking about Android 4.4).

What's new?

The biggest change, as you can see, is the move to the "hamburger"-style slide-out navigation. The current version of the Play Store app, 4.3.11, which you can see in the 6th screenshot, has everything crammed into a single menu.

Play Store 4.4

Left, middle: Play Store 4.4; right: Play Store 4.3 with everything in a single menu

The slide-out navigation has the following tabs:

Store home

My apps, My movies & TV, etc., depending on the section you're currently in

Shop - this one doesn't appear at all times

My wishlist

Redeem

The menu, shown in the 4th screenshot, is now down to just Settings and Help - exactly how it should be.

As I mentioned, this is work-in-progress, so I'm expecting further refinements by the time Google starts pushing it to devices around the globe.

Update: Uh-oh, I think they're onto us.

Rumor time

And now, it's time for a little rumor. While the build that I've seen doesn't have other UI changes, I've heard that Google will change all the things to be even more card-like. The UI transformations will be akin to the latest Gmail update - something I'm quite excited to see myself. Once again, it's just a rumor until we see some evidence, which I'm hoping to dig up at some point.

Release timeframe

Play Store 4.4 should at the very minimum be released with KitKat, as it's already being tested on Android 4.4 devices (4.4 on 4.4, get it?). Whether we'll see it pop up earlier or not is, unfortunately, unknown to me at this point.

As for compatibility, don't fret - v4.4 is backwards compatible all the way back to Froyo.

Poll

Do you like this new direction for the Play Store? Yes

No

Don't care

I like polls with at least 4 options View Results

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APK

Sorry, this is not something I can share at this time. Bummer, I know. This version is not complete anyway, from what I can tell, so let's just give Google some time to drive it to completion.

Thanks, anon!