We recently published an article covering the “Best of 2017” list from Google. In the list, Google outlined the most popular apps, games, books, TV Shows, and Movies of 2017. The list is nothing new as Google releases this list every year, however, this year marks the first time when Google amended the list within a few days of releasing it. This development is perplexing, to say the least. What’s even weirder is the fact that Google amended the list quietly, hence, not many people have caught onto this change. Well, if you are one of those people, here are the changes Google made to its best of 2017 list:
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Changes Made To The List Structure
The first major change that you will notice is that the “Most popular new apps of 2017” and “Most popular new games of 2017” list have been replaced by the “Best App 2017” and “Best Game 2017” list. The second change is the content of the above-mentioned lists. While the earlier best apps and games lists contained 5 apps each, the amended lists now only show 1 app and 1 game respectively. Also, the best app (Socratic – Math Answers & Homework Help) didn’t even feature in the original list. However, the best game (CATS: Crash Arena Turbo Stars) did feature in the original list.
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Changes Made to The Most Popular Apps List
What makes all these changes even more confusing is the fact that when you go to the Play Store listing of “Best of 2017” list, apart from the best app and best game, you will also find you will find 6 other apps and games in each list. There you will find a subsection for the Most Popular Apps and Games. That said, even this list has a major change. If you read our previous article, you know that the most popular app of 2017 was Photo Editor – Beauty Camera & Photo Filters, however, now the app has been replaced by FaceApp.
Why Google Changed The Best Of 2017 List
All these changes confused the hell out of me, mostly because Google didn’t give out any information on the matter what so ever. As far as I have figured this out, I think the first list was released based just on numbers and didn’t take any other important criteria like user appreciation and security into account. For example, the original most popular app (Photo Editor) requires really shady permissions like rerouting outgoing calls, making calls directly, reading and writing the call log, and changing/intercepting network settings, and more, none of which should be required by a photo editing app.
Considering Google’s recent stand against apps requiring permissions that they don’t need, might be the reason behind the removal of the apps from the best of 2017 list. That said, all this is still a speculation from my side as Google has not released any official statement. I would love to hear your thoughts on this development. Click on the links to read both the original list and the amended list, and let us know your thoughts by dropping them down in the comments section below.
