Comment by izacus
16 hours ago
I find this kind of posting deeply ironic, since HN and ArsTechnica has been ripping Android a new one before this policy came into effect for allowing apps to exploit old APIs for stealing data, triggering popups, spamming notifications and many more changes that have been done from there. Many praises were sung to superiority of iOS and their demand to keep up to date with new policies and even new design.
And now we hear complaining again over things like... (a few posts lower)... having to implement permission dialog to show notifiactions? Right :D
The reality of the situation is that without required SDK changes, every single app - from your banking app to every game - would STILL demand access to all your files, all your documents, all your photos (and their locations) before they run. And then proceeded to spam you with notifications from background trying to sell you crypto.
Fixing those things unfortunately means that also the opensource developers need to move their behinds and implement APIs in a way that respect users more.
So just don't let developers push updates targeting old SDKs? Show a scary permission dialog on every app launch for dangerous permissions? Delist only the apps that actually use or at least register those permissions?
There are many possible solutions and none of them are "you have to recompile once per year or we ban you".
Ehm, that's EXACTLY what happens now.
Noone is being banned because of this. You can't publish an update if it targets old Sdk and old sdk targeting apps don't appear to users (unless the user has already installed that app before).
That's it. Google is directly following your recommendation. Developers have usually more than a full year to comply (e.g. Android 16 has just released, developers will have to target Android 15 at the end of August. Android 15 beta was released around march 2024 giving developers ability to prepare and test).
What part of what I said suggested "old sdk targeting apps don't appear to users (unless the user has already installed that app before)" would be fine?
If the app works and doesn't do anything bad, there's no reason to delist it.
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Sites like HN are different people with different opinions posting different views, so of course some of that will conflict. I don't get why this staggeringly obvious fact needs to be explained over and over again...
And beyond those things there are often performance / battery optimization related things as part of the update too. Just because an app claims it respects your privacy, it doesn't mean that it is a well behaved app.
Most other android app stores enforce a high target sdk. Fdroid is the only one I know that doesn't and allows apps as far back as Android supports. Android has been yearly, except Android 16 it seems, raising the minimum installable target sdk so eventually updates will be needed to run on new devices.