
Google Warns Developers That All New Android Apps Require 3 Days for Approval - dfabulich
https://www.choiceofgames.com/2019/08/google-warns-developers-that-all-new-apps-require-three-days-for-approval/
======
ajross
Obviously the article is a complaint from an app developer, but... sorry, I'm
on Google's side here. Rushed, rapidly-updating, poorly-reviewed games with
unvetted malfeatures are a plague. The _last_ thing the smartphone community
needs is "more apps faster".

I think a soft 3-day review period is very reasonable, even if it comes at the
cost of making launch marketing harder for developers.

~~~
dfabulich
OP here. We're happy to endure a three-day review process, but if it's going
to take that long, then there needs to be a way to _schedule_ an app release.

Today, Google has a "timed publishing" system for app updates, allowing you to
submit an app update today and schedule it to go live on a future date (after
successful review). We need the same system for new app releases.

Apple, which also has a multi-day review process for new apps, allows you to
submit an app for approval and then hold it for manual release. After
approval, you push the button on release day, and the app goes live
immediately.

Also: surprising us with this on release day is really unprofessional of them.
The "we'll take more time" warning banner doesn't show up until after you
submit the app. There was no way to know we had to submit early until it was
already too late to act.

~~~
colechristensen
Your post would benefit from focusing on the two real problems here

* Lack of timed publishing feature

* Lack of messaging about review until after submission

The message isn't clear and people seem to be reacting to the three day
process (not the problem) instead of the messaging and features around it.

~~~
cannam
I thought the post was pretty clear on both of these things. I'm surprised
that all the top-level comments here (at the time I write) are addressing only
the longer review time - it seems clear enough that the real problem is that
it's impossible to schedule a release properly.

~~~
Deimorz
So many people comment--on everything, not this post specifically--without
reading anything more than the title of the HN post. They basically treat the
title as a "topic suggestion" instead of reading the article itself.

It's a pretty annoying behavior because it means that discussions often end up
wildly off-topic or with a lot of comments missing the point, or just re-
stating the exact same things that the article already said (often because
people ask questions that the article answered, but they didn't read it).

Unfortunately there's not really any good way to fix it. We had a big
discussion about this same issue on Tildes recently too:
[https://tild.es/gjb](https://tild.es/gjb)

~~~
c22
I consider this a feature more than a bug. I don't come here for the links.
They're the same links that get posted to all the other link aggregators.
Often the content is disappointingly thin, poorly written, or just a ranting
opinion. Usually the content is packaged with an inane amount of bandwidth-
hogging privacy-invading tracking scripts and malware. I make a point of not
clicking the link unless something in the comments leads me to believe it will
be compelling.

I come to hacker news to find out what the hacker news userbase thinks. I get
a lot more value learning about a topic from the questions and answers smart
people are posing to each other on a domain that isn't trying to cram garbage
down my throat, even if they do end up rehashing one of the scant details or
traipsing off-topic from the original submission.

~~~
Dylan16807
You're talking about reading the comments before the post. That doesn't cause
problems. The issue is for people making comments, and specifically comments
_about_ the article, without having read it.

~~~
c22
I totally get it. I'm just saying those comments don't bother me. Oftentimes
they lead to a correction and more interesting conversation that, again, saves
me from having to click the actual link.

Of course I live for the comments where someone who _has_ read the article
posts a concise summary.

------
_nickwhite
If Google are _really_ reviewing the apps, creating a 3-day backlog to get
approved, then I say "Bravo! The world could absolutely use less crapware on
the Google Play store." But, the cynic in me tells me this is just a ploy by
them to put on a masquerade of actually caring.

~~~
bogwog
Yeah this seems strange. How could they go from no reviews whatsoever to being
so efficient they can review all app submissions in just 3 days. The Play
Store gets more app submissions per day today than the App Store did back when
it took Apple weeks to review each submission. Google doesn't even provide
human customer service for most of their products, so how are they suddenly so
efficient at this?

~~~
jolmg
They could start by automatically accepting apps they haven't gotten around to
after 3 days of being in-queue. After some period of practice and
improvements, if the team they prepared still can't handle the workload
without the automatic acceptance fallback, then they can increase the team
size. I'm just guessing a plan like that is doable.

They could also have been practicing with a simulation of the review process
using real-world app submissions for a while before this, and gotten the
experience from that.

------
samcat116
This really shows how much Apple's review process has improved:

\- Usually under a couple days, sometimes same day

\- Doesn't immediately hit the store upon passing review, instead hits
"Pending developer release"

\- Expedited option for critical bug and security fixes

\- Preorders

Now if only they would stop those apps that trick people into crazy
subscriptions.

~~~
wil93
That's what 99$ per year can do, as opposed to a one-off 25$

~~~
codinghorror
wow the Google Play fee is only $25 one time _ever_? That's nuts!

------
mikedilger
There is no three day approval process needed for me to install software on my
desktop. By going this way, Google is taking Android further and further from
a general purpose pocket computer. I expect this move will quiet some squeaky
wheels, but it also further opens up the market place for general purpose
pocket computers like the forthcoming librem 5.

~~~
paxys
You can install software on your Android phone instantly as well. It just has
to be from outside the Play Store.

~~~
Wowfunhappy
Yeah. I'm significantly less sympathetic to these arguments on Android than on
iOS.

~~~
jnbiche
You _can 't_ install iPhone apps from outside the App Store on an iPhone
(unless it's rooted, which most people prefer not to do for reasons of
complexity and security).

I'd say the Android app store is a nice balance.

Also, if you want to install some other, less-well maintained app store on
your Android, that's also possible (on non-rooted phones, too). Indeed, I've
got F-Droid enabled on my Android.

That said, if Google ever pulls the ability to sideload apps on non-rooted
phones, I'll not be happy at all.

~~~
CannisterFlux
I'm surprised Google didn't pull the ability to download an APK and install it
from Android Q. They modified the permissions slightly so now you have to
click "allow" again every time an app wants to install an APK it has
downloaded. Up until Q, once you used an app to e.g. update itself, it
maintained the ability to download and install updates forever.

When Fortnite was distributed outside the Play store I thought that would be
the catalyst for removing side-loading permissions, only retaining them over
ADB so developers would not be totally screwed. Maybe the news of that arrived
too late in the Q cycle for it to be implemented. I'm sure that one day on-
the-fly side-loading is going away. Maybe not in Android Q, but in R or S
definitely. It's too consumer-friendly and useful! Removing it will "help
user's security" while at the same time removing the ability to install 3rd
party VPN-faking ad-removers or games like Fortnite that don't have to pay
Google 30%.

~~~
vxNsr
Is fortnite still sideloaded? I thought they did it mainly because there were
some issues in distribution, not because of the 30% cut.

~~~
CannisterFlux
Yes, it is not available on Google Play. The issue in distribution was totally
down to Google's cut :-)

------
t0astbread
Mozilla has also recently introduced a 24-hour timeout for new extension
submissions to AMO without telling anyone. (I only heard about it after filing
a complaint to AMO moderators after my addon has been queued for almost a
day.)

What's particularly annoying about the AMO case is that you can't even
sideload addons on Firefox but that's a different issue.

~~~
ChrisSD
Have they stopped allowing you to locally sign addons automatically?

~~~
t0astbread
As far as I know you can't install addons not signed by Mozilla in official
Firefox builds. (Though I also haven't been able to get it working in my
unofficial build.)

~~~
ChrisSD
Sure but I thought they signed unlisted addons using a quick automatic test?
Sorry it's been awhile so I might be behind the time.

~~~
t0astbread
Oh, that might be possible. I've not looked into that.

------
slezyr
Well this might stop some malware, but what stops to push app with some kind
of VM(or browser view) that load remote code and later update it to something
else?

~~~
baumandm
Ionic provides this as a service:
[https://ionicframework.com/appflow](https://ionicframework.com/appflow)

~~~
d0100
Expo has it for free (for now)

------
Causality1
What they really need to address is hostile entities buying the rights to an
app from the original developer and then using app updates to fill devices
with malware.

------
drawkbox
Reviews aren't bad, but they don't necessarily stop bad apps, and they slow
down good ones.

The worse part of approval delays is that they are almost never given time in
development schedules made by project managers, bizdevs, marketing etc. They
just absorb that few days into the dev time or take from testing etc.

In a way, having long app reviews, or delays to update, causes worse quality
apps from having dev days or testing days taken from the app development cycle
and rushed fixes just to get it back in the pipeline. This is a very common
occurrence in app/game development. I wish it weren't this way but quality has
to be fought for and it can harm the people pushing for it perceptually as
'slow'.

Basic heuristics on release for bad actors is enough, then upon launch have
random reviews that check out what people are doing past the point. The
problem apps are usually getting through the review by cheating and then
turning on features that are dark patterns or malware type junk.

Any reviews over a day or two add to bad quality simply due to compressed
timelines.

------
himes19
It’s really annoying, we have an app that fixes a really big problem in
Mexico, it’s been doing great on Apple Store, and android users are breathing
on our neck waiting for the release, sore but I disagree, I don’t think that
Google taking more than 3 days is going to benefit anyone. Shorter review
process increases availability an that raises the playing feel. From where I
stand, Google is just taking more time to review the apps, not necessarily
improving the way they do it. Longer review times encourage more feature pack
pack updates with more bugs, and linger time for users to get bug fixes...

------
pier25
I think both Apple and Google should make reviews optional.

Sure, give preference to the reviewed apps in the store, put a nice badge on
it when it's reviewed, add a setting to allow unreviewed apps to install,
prevent kids from installing unreviewed apps, etc, but at least let me upload
my app when and how I want to.

~~~
Arainach
The entire point of the App Store is to have a curated experience to keep
malware out. Review is the essential component.

~~~
pier25
The point of the app store is to have a centralized distribution point for
apps of the OS.

~~~
Gustomaximus
I think this statement would be better as;

The point of the app store is to have a centralized AND TRUSTED distribution
point for apps of the OS.

People can install non reviewed apps by using non-official app stores. There
is good reason most people don't as these are plagued or perceived to be
plagued with malware.

~~~
pier25
> _People can install non reviewed apps by using non-official app stores_

Not on iOS

~~~
anticensor
_Cydia says you welcome_

~~~
pier25
You can't expect regular users to jailbreak their iOS devices

~~~
jjwhitaker
Which is one reason a lot of regular phone users are on Android anyway.

------
writepub
After dealing with Apple's process, no one EVER said we need more of that!
Among other things, the ease of approval is waht makes Android more loved by
many devs, please don't spoil that

~~~
edf13
And also makes it so loved by spam, fake App and other malicious devs

~~~
writepub
Oh what a beautiful lie. "If only Google blocked devs more, we'd all live in
security Utopia".

And that's why folks, what the world really needs is _not_ the open web, or
open anything, but an Apple/Google/UltraMegaCorp approved whitelist of
domains, for _your_ own safety. Because _Apple_ cares, unless it's a nation
state like China, then Apple folds, because hard spun tales of user safety and
empathy be damned when bottom lines are in play

------
megaremote
Wow, Apple is down to a day for brand new apps.

------
pie420
this is like a kid waiting until 11:59 Pm to submit his homeowrk, and then
blaming the professor when the upload process takes 5 mins and his submission
is late.

If your app needs to launch on a specific day (it doesnt), it should have been
uploaded and field tested at least a couple of weeks in advance.

~~~
dfabulich
OP here. Google offers no way to submit an app for approval in advance. You
can upload a build as early as you like, but they won't start reviewing it
until you try to go live. Then the app will go live immediately after
approval.

In the past, we've handled this by submitting the app for review 24 hours in
advance; luckily, that turned out to be just enough time to make our app go
live this afternoon.

Google offers a “timed publishing” feature, but it only works for app updates,
not for new apps. If Google is going to put apps through a multi-day review
process, we need timed publishing for new apps as well.

~~~
cameronbrown
I know it's definitely a hotfix solution until Google fixes things, but would
a soft-launch followed by a properly timed launch a few weeks later be better?

~~~
mfduffy
I mean, that’s sort of what we’ve been doing. (Hi, OP’s coworker here.) We’re
a bit unusual in that we release games on Thursdays. In our busy season, that
can be every other Thursday, with an email and social blast accompanying it.
In the past we’ve submitted and been approved on Wednesdays so our customers
know they can often sneak in Wednesday night and find our release before the
marketing blast. In future, our soft launch will be two days or more, I guess,
but we will submit according to that three day buffer. It’s totally doable.
The problem is we can’t market a new game until it’s available on all
platforms, which we time on each platform to the day. Ie we know how long
ahead of time for iOS and Steam, and we (until now) also knew when to submit
for Google.

And a quick word on soft launch periods: It’s ok, it’s not the worst thing,
but it’s not preferable itself. Hence the need for a timed release tool.

~~~
jayd16
Have you tried launching early in no regions or excluding every device then
enabling everything on launch day?

~~~
mfduffy
I don’t know about the feasibility of that, but I’m intrigued...

~~~
MaulingMonkey
I haven't heard of doing 0-region releases, but 1-region soft launches are
common - e.g. soft launching in a smaller, possibly english speaking country
like New Zeland - fixing and tweaking based on the feedback and data you get
from that - before hard launching with the marketing push to the wider world.

------
ejefz
Little by little Google seems to be adopting all the policies for Android that
made the iPhone simply a higher quality experience.

(Enforcing using Google services to deliver notifications, aggressively
killing background apps, limiting access to external storage, making it
impossible to record calls, now this... and many other things I can't
remember)

On one hand I'm happy because iPhones are too expensive and having more
options is good, but on the other, this is still Google :P

~~~
listic
How does making it impossible to record calls make phone a higher quality
experience?

~~~
edoceo
"security"

~~~
rimliu
I think you will find many examples proving that quotes are not necessary
there.

------
gok
A waiting period is good. A $10,000 bond which gets surrendered if the
submission contains malware would be better.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Not really, this would kill most independent/hobbyist app developers' ability
to submit entirely.

~~~
hanniabu
Could be a nice either-or option. Deal with the waiting period or post
collateral.

