If you haven’t seen this yet, Google is planning to require mandatory developer
identity verification for all Android apps, including apps distributed outside
the Play Store, taking effect September 2026. This affects every independent
and open source Android developer directly.
This is not just about the Play Store. After September 2026, on any certified
Android device, applications from unverified developers will be blocked by
default. The only proposed bypass, the “advanced flow”, exists only as a
blog post and has not appeared in any beta, dev preview, or canary release.
No one outside Google has seen it.
I’m mostly annoyed about the reboot and wait period.
I can guide my users through selecting the right options, but rebooting your phone is a nuisance. And getting back in touch with them after 24 hours loses the sense of urgency to install my app and probably at that point they’re already gone.
It really doesn’t matter if it’s 24 hours or 5 minutes.
Hopefully some popular OEMs choose not to implement this so it’s possible to know based on the user agent if the user is unlikely to be able to sideload.
This is what pisses me off the most, but as a user. When I reboot my phone, my apps aren’t open anymore (no matter what bullshit the app switcher tells me), and my notifications are gone. It just throws me off, especially if I left some of those notifications there on purpose because I wanted to take care of them later.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: [email protected]
DROID DOES
Welcome to the Android community on Lemmy. Here you can participate in amazing discussions and events relating to all things Android.
5. Engage respectfully: Harassment, flamebaiting, bad faith engagement, or agenda posting will result in your posts being removed. Excessive violations will result in temporary or permanent ban, depending on severity.
6. Memes are not allowed to be posts, but are allowed in the comments.
7. Posts from clickbait sources are heavily discouraged. Please de-clickbait titles if it needs to be submitted.
8. Submission statements of any length composed of your own thoughts inside the post text field are mandatory for any microblog posts, and are optional but recommended for article/image/video posts.
I’m mostly annoyed about the reboot and wait period.
I can guide my users through selecting the right options, but rebooting your phone is a nuisance. And getting back in touch with them after 24 hours loses the sense of urgency to install my app and probably at that point they’re already gone.
It really doesn’t matter if it’s 24 hours or 5 minutes.
Hopefully some popular OEMs choose not to implement this so it’s possible to know based on the user agent if the user is unlikely to be able to sideload.
This is what pisses me off the most, but as a user. When I reboot my phone, my apps aren’t open anymore (no matter what bullshit the app switcher tells me), and my notifications are gone. It just throws me off, especially if I left some of those notifications there on purpose because I wanted to take care of them later.