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.
There actually has been an update on this. The advanced flow has been revealed and it’s like a 24-hour wait and a few prompts to go through and I’ll reboot and enabling developer mode… Bit of friction but all in all it’s better than nothing I guess.
The dev verification is “optional”. With the condition that if a developer doesn’t then users can only install after jumping through a few hoops.
Yeah at least it’s better than Apple’s approach, where you have to connect your phone to a PC once every 7 days to reactivate Developer Mode. Don’t have a computer? Fuck you!
That said, I have zero faith in Google sticking with the compromise solution in the long run. They’re going to try to force the change on everyone again in the future, once they’ve broken us down a bit more.
Meanwhile at least we have a little longer than September before they actually ruin the platform completely… How long? Who could say but I’ll take what small victories I can get
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There actually has been an update on this. The advanced flow has been revealed and it’s like a 24-hour wait and a few prompts to go through and I’ll reboot and enabling developer mode… Bit of friction but all in all it’s better than nothing I guess.
The dev verification is “optional”. With the condition that if a developer doesn’t then users can only install after jumping through a few hoops.
Yeah at least it’s better than Apple’s approach, where you have to connect your phone to a PC once every 7 days to reactivate Developer Mode. Don’t have a computer? Fuck you!
That said, I have zero faith in Google sticking with the compromise solution in the long run. They’re going to try to force the change on everyone again in the future, once they’ve broken us down a bit more.
Meanwhile at least we have a little longer than September before they actually ruin the platform completely… How long? Who could say but I’ll take what small victories I can get