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Comment by carstenhag | Hacker News Reader

I have compassion with you, some of my private apps were also affected.

But we were being told this deadline for many months now. It was clear that at some point they would show it more in your face. I also disliked the way it was formulated, also, even if everything was fine in production, it complained when testing versions didn't comply (doesn't make sense).

Also, it was always only about pushing new updates (it's ever year like that). You could still keep the app live for some time.

Saying you only had two weeks is not correct.

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My understanding from earlier notifications was that updates would not be accepted unless you targeted a new api version. That is fine, since I haven't updated the Google Play "app" since I first released it. This is because the real app is a PWA that I update through the web, and the Play Store app is just a shell around that.

The first time I was aware that the app would be delisted in the Play Store for new devices was in the August 18th email.

They only sent the “you’re being delisted if you don’t do this” email like a week ago.

But then you were using an even older targetSdkVersion anyway. See this image from https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...: https://storage.googleapis.com/support-kms-prod/giq7ZW7jcnFV...

> Apps with a target level of Android 11 (API level 30)* or lower will not be available to new users running the Android OS higher than apps’ target API after August 31, 2023. >Apps with a target level of Android 10 (API level 29) or lower have not been available to new users running the Android OS higher than apps’ target API after November 1, 2022, or May 1, 2023, if your app had an extension.

This email was the first I'd ever heard of it.

Play has raised it's tarter API requirements several years now and repeatedly warns a full year ahead of next change.

If you never heard of it you've been deliberately playing dumb.

In my case, I was hired to work on an update to a legacy app ~8 months ago. So this is my first round of bs. Been writing software for 20 years and I’ve never seen this before… I wouldn’t consider it playing dumb, I’ve just never had cause to care or receive an email like this.

Well, that's just how the Play Store and App Store work. As an android dev it's really a regular thing you can basically plan in each year.

You’ve been writing software for 20 years and never had to update an app for a new operating system version?

Not with a deadline (aka Windows).

I usually work on the backend and/or front end (Web). This is a pretty new world for me.

And you have also never had a security vulnerability in one of your dependencies causing you to update your software? A new database version? A new version of whatever runtime you were using?

I guess that’s the difference between a free marketplace and whatever this is; because this IS NOT a free market.

In a free market, you set the deadlines. If your publisher reaches out to you about a security issue you don’t have to fix it and they aren’t obligated to pull your product. In fact, you might make it into a feature or simply reconfigure a WAF.

Probably the closest thing to this would be in the early/late 00’s when some idiot would buy an ad in the paper/magazines. You’d have a fire under your ass for that. Even then, it was self-inflicted.

So the answer is no. I’ve never dealt with a publisher that had you by the balls, imposing random deadlines. There’s always been a human on the other end who has their own agenda, but also respected ours.

Why do you continue asking after you already got a "no"?

Like...is it so difficult to understand that someone hasn't had an issue like this before?

I agree with this being very expected for android devs. But not everyone's role is being an Android Dev. Don't call other people dumb for this.

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