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Two weeks of dealing with Google as a developer

danfitdegree.hashnode.dev

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Re: Two weeks of dealing with Google as a developer

#211

Post by bogwog »

cwkoss wrote: post #17
dekhn wrote: post #14

Is there any large group representing App developers that could manage the large-scale negotiation and legal wrangling required to force Apple and Google to be more helpful when rejecting legitimate applications? When I worked in Google (Ads, then later in Recommendations for Play and youtube) people often said this was intention to avoid teaching spammers how to get around the rules. But it's clear there are enough…

A union for customers of monolithic tech companies who provide negligent support could be cool.

That is a completely ridiculous solution to a very simple problem. How do we give bargaining power to developers? We break up the app store monopolies. That's it.

Google/Apple giving you shit? Give them the finger and put your app on another store. There's no stronger bargaining chip than the free market.

Re: Two weeks of dealing with Google as a developer

#212

Post by bogwog »

smsm42 wrote: post #206
dcdc123 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Support legislation requiring Apple and Google to allow third party app stores.

Google allows third party app stores, or just installing apps without any app stores at all. But there's much less $$$ in targeting users outside of the walled garden.

> But there's much less $$$ in targeting users outside of the walled garden.

That's due entirely to Google's aggressive anti-competitive business practices. Legislation that "allows third party stores" would also need to include rules preventing Google from, for example, blocking non-Google app installations unless users flip a switch buried in the settings app (which looks different on every phone), and then plastering the screen with scary technobabble about security vulnerabilities to scare the average consumer away.

Re: Two weeks of dealing with Google as a developer

#213

Post by tadfisher »

supernova87a wrote: post #35

I want to guess the following and maybe knowledgeable people can chime in: I would guess that the people reviewing these are contractors , paid by the app they review, and with a certain set of criteria that they're supposed to apply, but they make mistakes. And the supervisors of these contractors (who themselves are contractors) don't have great ways of comparing the work of one person to another / enforcing consis…

At least for my company's app, 100% of logins for the Google Play reviewer account come from IP addresses which geolocate to various cities in India. These are absolutely human reviewers because they have to use backup codes for TOTP. I don't know if the reviewers have a contractual or employee relationship with Google, though.

Re: Two weeks of dealing with Google as a developer

#214

Post by public_defender »

ok123456 wrote: post #41

At what point will developers just detect if it's being tested by the play store and just disable any feature which would prompt further review?

It's Stripe for Play Store reviewer sandbox detection and anti-analysis!

I'm ready to invest.

Re: Two weeks of dealing with Google as a developer

#215

Post by tadfisher »

ignoramous wrote: post #109

Just this past week, our app got the boot too. The reason was that the app was in violation of "user privacy". May be it was strings.xml that angered the Algorithm , may be it was the user reviews, may be it was something on our website... Then, magically, the app came back up. It turned out that as we were migrating our domain name to a new DNS Nameserver, the cached DNS entries probably pointed to an IP address tha…

How are you able to sign your own APKs? Are you grandfathered in before the change to require Google Play app signing?

Re: Two weeks of dealing with Google as a developer

#216

Post by theamk »

matheusmoreira wrote: post #117
dekhn wrote: post #14

Is there any large group representing App developers that could manage the large-scale negotiation and legal wrangling required to force Apple and Google to be more helpful when rejecting legitimate applications? When I worked in Google (Ads, then later in Recommendations for Play and youtube) people often said this was intention to avoid teaching spammers how to get around the rules. But it's clear there are enough…

It's insane enough that we even allow corporations to own platforms and users. Software development should be free. They should not be able to reject anything. We should reject that notion entirely instead of playing the game they made up.

Software development, on Android at least, is already free. It only takes a few clicks to enable third-party apt files, and then you can install software from any source. (And if you complain that this is too complex.. well, it is simpler than many Windows InstallShield wizards at least). You can even install f-droid and then you have appstore experience without a review.

What Google controls is "endorsement" and that's where Google is rejecting things. If you want to reject it, go ahead... but a lot of people actually want it.

Re: Two weeks of dealing with Google as a developer

#217

Post by hugh-avherald »

dekhn wrote: post #14

Is there any large group representing App developers that could manage the large-scale negotiation and legal wrangling required to force Apple and Google to be more helpful when rejecting legitimate applications? When I worked in Google (Ads, then later in Recommendations for Play and youtube) people often said this was intention to avoid teaching spammers how to get around the rules. But it's clear there are enough…

National governments.

Re: Two weeks of dealing with Google as a developer

#218

Post by theamk »

jfoster wrote: post #205
sircastor wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It may be hard to believe, but free software development stacks are a relatively new thing. When I was growing up, you had to buy the compiler, and the documentation for how to use the tools, and the language. (Though I think most 70s and 80s era computers came with BASIC) While I sympathize with the idea that this should be open and free and easy, there are too many bad actors out there, so we can’t have nice things…

But there might be alternate approaches that allow for more freedom. For instance, what if Google assessed the risk level of each app and presented that to users, rather than blocking publishing entirely? They could add all sorts of scary warnings in-between a user and a suspicious looking app, but eventually still allow both users & app developers to proceed if they have sufficiently high intent. They could even mon…

That already happens -- google already allows both users & app developers to proceed if they have sufficiently high intent. Here is one example:

https://www.expressvpn.com/support/vpn-setup/enable-apk-inst...

Re: Two weeks of dealing with Google as a developer

#219

Post by theamk »

bogwog wrote: post #212
smsm42 wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google allows third party app stores, or just installing apps without any app stores at all. But there's much less $$$ in targeting users outside of the walled garden.

> But there's much less $$$ in targeting users outside of the walled garden. That's due entirely to Google's aggressive anti-competitive business practices. Legislation that "allows third party stores" would also need to include rules preventing Google from, for example, blocking non-Google app installations unless users flip a switch buried in the settings app (which looks different on every phone), and then plaster…

My Samsung phone comes with Samsung App store, ready to use. No need to flip a switch or accept scary warnings.

Re: Two weeks of dealing with Google as a developer

#220

Post by bogwog »

criddell wrote: post #178
dcdc123 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Support legislation requiring Apple and Google to allow third party app stores.

And Sony, Nintendo, and Microsoft! I’d love to write software to run on my PS5.

Homebrew development has been a thing for as long as video game consoles have been around. I don't think it'd be reasonable to require Sony/Nintendo/Microsoft to provide the development toolchains/SDKs/software they've developed for free.

However, it would be good if they were required to allow third-party software installations with software written using third party toolchains (like the homebrew ones). Consoles like the PS5/Xbox really aren't all that different from PCs nowadays, even from the software library side. Most games are cross-platform, and even Sony has been bringing their exclusives to PC.

So really, a PS5/Xbox/Switch is just a gaming PC with arbitrary anti-consumer, anti-competitive restrictions. Even if these restrictions actually subsidize the price of the hardware, it's still harmful to consumers since they end up spending a lot more money on software over the lifetime of the console. Plus, that hardware is extremely locked down, so it's not like consumers are really benefiting from those supposed subsidies. They're just paying slightly less up front for a machine designed to take a lot of money from them.

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