(Update: Google confirms) You no longer need a Google+ account to post Play Store reviews

Original post, August 11: For the longest time, Google pushed Google+ hard. So hard, in fact, and in such invidious ways it angered a lot of folks that were, let’s say, a little less-than-inclined towards the niche social network. But following the slow dismantling of Google+ in recent times, Google now seems to be giving up on various implementations of Google+ within the Play Store too. Namely, the +1 button on app pages and the requirement for a Google+ account in order to write a review.

Android Police has already received a couple of tips indicating it is now possible for some users (but not all) to write reviews in Google Play with a Google account that has no Google+ profile. (I’ve checked with a non-G+ account and the feature is not available for me, but if you manage to write reviews on non-G+ accounts, be sure to let us know.) This doesn’t mean Google+ is dead, just a little less entangled with other Google services.

The news follows previous reports that the +1 button on app pages, which is directly linked to Google+, is being removed from the Play Store as well. Again, the changes are not universal but come in the wake of Google+ being scrubbed from other Google properties: signing in with Google+ got rebranded as signing in with Google; YouTube comments lost their dependence on Google+; Photos got split from Google+; and Play Games inherited Gamer IDs in place of a G+ sign-in.

What are your thoughts on Google+? Is it time Google stopped pushing Google+?