This year, Google has been working on increasing app download and update limits on the Play Store. A few weeks ago, the company rolled out simultaneous updates for multiple apps. Earlier this year, the app store got the ability to download multiple new apps at once. Now, Google is testing simultaneous app update downloads, but without limits.
In August, Google enabled the Play Store to update up to three apps at a time for all users. A few weeks later, some users reported that they could update up to four apps simultaneously. The latter seemed to be a limited-scope test, as not everyone could replicate it on their devices.
Some users getting limit-free simultaneous app updates in the Play Store
Now, apparently as a test, the Google Play Store is allowing some users to download all pending updates for their apps at once. Basically, the Android app store forgets about limits with this new behavior. This will be especially useful for taking full advantage of the capacity of both modern fiber optic connections and the high write speeds of the latest UFS storage formats, as well as the processing power of mobile chipsets.
Thanks to the new feature, you could set up a new smartphone with all your apps in just a few minutes with a good internet connection. That said, even though the Play Store downloads all apps at once, there still seems to be a queue for installation. Reports indicate that the Play Store will download all app updates in the background and install a maximum of three updates simultaneously.
This is likely a server-side change
Android Police says they spotted the new behavior on a Pixel 9 Pro XL running Play Store version 43.1.19. However, as with previous download limit increases, the change is likely server-side. So, you might not have the feature available even if you have the same version of the Play Store.
There are no details on a potential wide rollout of the new Play Store behavior. Since this is a test, it’s even possible that it never happens or that Google makes some tweaks beforehand. Hopefully, more news will emerge from the company on this matter soon.