July 12th, 2024

Hey Google, what happened to all the fun?

An Android app, "Is It Tuesday?" created in 2010, faces removal from Google Play Store due to lacking purpose under new policies. Author explores challenges for developers and values software freedom. Consideration for alternative platforms like Fdroid.

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Hey Google, what happened to all the fun?

The article discusses the journey of an Android app called "Is It Tuesday?" created by the author back in 2010 as a fun and pointless application. Despite being on the Google Play Store for 14 years, the app faced removal due to Google's new "Minimum Functionality policy," which deemed it lacking in purpose. The author's appeal to keep the app was denied, highlighting the challenges developers face with platform control. The incident raises questions about the value of simple, entertaining apps in a tech environment focused on functionality and data collection. The author reflects on the importance of maintaining software freedom outside the control of large tech companies. While the app will be removed from the Play Store, the author considers alternative platforms like Fdroid for its future availability, emphasizing the enduring humor and nostalgia associated with such whimsical creations.

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By @neilv - 6 months
One way to avoid this is to embrace open standards.

If you're going to put your stuff into one of the proprietary phone/tablet app stores today, it is important to make sure you can look yourself in the mirror and say, "I know this is probably a bad way for society, but I think I can get more money this way, at least in the short term." So at least you know what you're doing.

The longer that people sell out, the harder it will be for society to dig itself out.

By @SoftTalker - 6 months
Any company that gets big enough to start having policies for everything is automatically no longer fun. The people who get hired to make policies are not fun people.
By @uejfiweun - 6 months
Google is a conventional company. They may not have intended to become one, but now they are among the most conventional of all companies - layoffs, cost cutting, offshoring, killing products left and right, I could go on. It's a goddamn shame.
By @woah - 6 months
Google deleted a guys app that he wrote 14 years ago that tells you if it's Tuesday
By @buffington - 6 months
I would have fought the "has no function" angle instead of suggesting it was "just for fun."

In actual fact, it does have function. I have personally asked "is it Tuesday?" more than zero times in my life. This app functions perfectly in helping answer that question.

Seems no different than a weather app in terms of its function - it communicates real time information about the day.

By @zkirill - 6 months
I hope that this is having an opposite effect where people are starting to step outside of the walled gardens to look for "the good stuff". Google pulled this shit with us too a few years ago by attempting to force us to share our signing keys. We ignored them and told our users to download the APK from our website instead which they happily did. Then, Google bumped the minimum API version and new versions of Android refused to launch apps that were not updated. Our users found workarounds before we did, by using some kind of obscure adb command. The new API bump introduced some needless asinine changes that seemed to exist just to please some PM at Google. Enough is enough.
By @6510 - 6 months
The solution is to create a separate section called "the magic forest" and put all the silly things there so that it doesn't clutter up the video games, corporate garbage and the other 5 apps everyone uses.
By @neilv - 6 months
> You should ensure your app provides a stable, engaging, responsive user experience.

What does this mean?

By @janalsncm - 6 months
Just another example of huge companies ruining platforms that used to be nice. Maybe I can make a suggestion: the open web has always been there.

If you make apps for Google, they get to ruin your day at any point in the future. If you put up a website, you own it. You control it. It will work as long as the code still runs, and you never need to update a “manifest number” or whatever.

If you want it to be an icon, create a bookmark and drag it onto your phone’s Home Screen. In fact I do this anyways with some websites that do have apps because the website works and that’s good enough.

The same goes for Twitter vs the Fediverse. Do you know what already is a network of media servers that connect over a common protocol? The internet. Create a blog. It works forever.

By @throwaway2046 - 6 months
Consider publishing on F-Droid; the platform is open and decentralized, plus it's already gaining some traction outside tech-centric communities.
By @frays - 6 months
Great and fun read, thanks.
By @joezydeco - 6 months
Should have added adversiting. Then Google would allow it.

But, yeah, I miss the old Google too.