This is the biggest change to Android’s fundamentals in years. Google is clamping down on sideloading — the feature that more than any other differentiates Android from iPhone. And now we have an early revelation as to what users can expect.
“Changes are coming to how Android users install apps outside the safety and protection of the Play Store,” Android Authority says. This follows Google confirming that app developers will need to be verified before their apps can be sideloaded.
Such was the backlash, with Android’s power-user community complaining that this made Android just like iPhone, that Google u-turned. At least to some extent. If you’re an experienced user, whatever that means in practice, your freedoms will remain.
This “advanced installation flow,” Android Authority says, “supports even unverified apps. And as we wait to see exactly how that’s going to work, we’re starting to spot some early pieces of it. At least, we’re definitely identifying text strings recently added to Google Play.” But what’s actually been seen will raise more questions than answers.
Primarily, this is a dialog box with “an option for moving forward with installation despite the lack of developer verification. Now, without being able to go through this new install workflow just yet, we may be getting ahead of ourselves, but at least based on these few strings, we have to say — this doesn’t feel particularly robust?”
That’s because there’s a warning, but it’s too easily ignored. It’s also broadly the same type of warning that Samsung, Pixel and other phone users already ignore.
This is early days still. “We’ve still got a long way to go before Google is expected to flip the switch on this new system,” Android Authority says, “so there is still more than ample time to dial-in the experience and make sure that users won’t be able to breeze through installation of possibly sketchy apps.”
The verification rollout, for which you can read sideloading restrictions, starts this year but really kicks into full effect next year. The issue for Google, Samsung and others, is that around one-third of all Android phones have now fallen off support. That makes sideloading even more dangerous and getting this change right even more critical.