Android app developer verification and Principia

About a week ago now Google announced probably the most insane thing I've read from them ever since they removed dislikes from YouTube. They will be tightening up the security of Android by disallowing directly installing APKs from developers that do not go through their upcoming verification process, killing off the previous freedom of allowing you to install any apps you want onto your Android device even if it is not available on Google Play.

The announcement in question, straight from Google:

https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/08/elevating-android-security.html

How this is relevant to Principia? Well, Principia is already not on Google Play, and the only way to get Principia on your phone is by installing it as an APK either from this website or from F-Droid.

While I personally used to have a Google Play developer account, it was deleted earlier this year for not agreeing to the new privacy invasive developer verification policies first announced on Google Play in 2023, and if that experience is anything to go off of I am very sceptical of these verification requirements Google has announced for apps that aren't even under their direct jurisdiction.

However there is one glimmer of hope that they have in the form of a specific distribution type for "students and hobbyists developers" with lesser requirements and waivers the verification fee, but it appears to come with limitations such as a capped number of total installations. The exact number is not yet stated but it might not be enough to cover how many devices have the open source version of Principia installed on it (I don't have the number but would likely exceed one thousand at this point).

As you may know, there are already a set of hoops you need to jump through to directly install an APK on a regular Android device. I don't know if they will have another way to circumvent these new requirements. Hopefully they do, but it likely won't be pretty, probably requiring a computer to install apps with USB debugging via ADB.

Internationally it will not be until sometime 2027 or later the requirements come into effect, as the plan looks like right now. Maybe things will change by then, or it will be the end for Principia on Android.

This doesn't affect those who're on custom ROMs even with GApps right? I think they would need deeper changes to Android to make this work than just shipping an update to Play Services. Concerning nontheless.

Google Play Services has some pretty high privileges over the system, they can probably make it work retroactively on older versions of Android. Maybe custom ROMs where you install them after the fact can defang them but I don't know. Completely degoogled ROMs won't have the restriction of course but those are useless for everyday usage anyways, so this would still hit the vast majority of Principia players on Android who want to play on their daily driver phone.

I don't know when this appeared but this Google support article now contains a FAQ about the new verification process, which includes this question and answer which I found specifically interesting:

Posted by Google

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Q: Is there a way for power users to turn this verification requirement off?

A: Power users can install unverified apps via Android Debug Bridge (ADB).

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Sounds like I was right that it will be possible to bypass it through installing via ADB. So I guess we'll likely be somewhat safe, for now.

I received an invite to the early access to the Android developer console and it's about as bad as you would expect. Longer post about it on Mastodon from earlier today:

Posted by ROllerozxa

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I received an invite to the early access to the Android developer console in my inbox yesterday, the one related to Google's new push to make developers verify Android apps that are distributed outside Play.

Google had talked previously about providing a specific verification tier for students and hobbyists, but with limitation on how many app installs it could have. Well that sounds nice of them, right?

But the question I had on my mind back when I read that was: How many devices would that mean? Ten thousand, a thousand, a hundred?

Turns out it means just twenty. fucking. devices.

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Thankfully Google has somewhat backpedalled recently on their original plan and will be introducing some kind of advanced install flow for advanced users besides installing via USB debugging. Whatever that is awaits to see, I guess.

Posted by ROllerozxa

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Thankfully Google has somewhat backpedalled recently on their original plan and will be introducing some kind of advanced install flow for advanced users besides installing via USB debugging. Whatever that is awaits to see, I guess.

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Well so about that... Google just unveiled the new advanced install flow which will be how you will install Principia from now on:

Great, huh?

Been followiing this Google thing loosely on YouTube Shorts and the news page on my phone. I think what Google (and quite frankly all big tech companies) is doing is bullshit. Roller, I'm down to support ya with whatever you need :)

Thank you! I'm gonna be honest, I feel a bit disillusioned about the current state of technology and where it appears to be heading, but it feels better when I know I'm not alone in all this.