The Google System Updates for April 2023 bring improvements to the Play Store, including making it easier to download apps over cellular data.
There’s so much more to an Android smartphone than just the base operating system, as anyone who’s used a phone without Google apps can tell you. The “smarts” that Google brings to mobile devices primarily come from two crucial apps – Google Play Services and the Play Store – and Android’s monthly “Play system updates.”
Each month, the company rounds up the patch notes for these three components and collectively refers to them as “Google System Updates.” Over the course of the month, as new updates are released, the company will fill in the notes with more details. We do our best to monitor the additions and explain the most important aspects, so be sure to check back throughout the month.
The easiest way to check whether you need to update Google Play Services on your phone is to follow a direct link to the app’s Play Store listing and update from there, if available. To update the Play Store, tap your avatar in the corner, then “Settings.” Under the “About” section, you’ll see an option to “Update Play Store.” Meanwhile, Google Play system updates can be found through the Settings app, under About phone > Android version > Google Play system update.
Updating Google Play Services
Despite the month of April being nearly over, Google has only just now shared the first details of this month’s updates. In fact, the company continued to update the March patch notes for weeks after that month had ended.
The first tidbits shared are all focused on the Google Play Store. For starters, if you attempt to install a new app while disconnected from Wi-Fi, depending on your Play Store settings, the download may not begin until you connect to Wi-Fi. In that instance, you can manually choose to begin the download via cellular data, using an option in the app. In the near future (sometime after the Play Store v35.0 update), the option to download over mobile data will also, conveniently, appear in the active download notification.
Meanwhile, another update to the Play Store (version 35.2) should offer “direct access” to Google’s “My Ad Center,” where you’re able to change your advertising privacy settings and/or adjust the kinds of ads that you see. The changelog doesn’t mention where this shortcut will appear, but the Google Account menu (opened by tapping your avatar in the top-right corner) is a likely bet.
Google Play System Updates for April 2023
Google Play Store
New Features to help you discover the Apps & Games you love.
Optimizations allowing faster and more reliable download and installation.
Continuous improvements to Play Protect to keep your device safe.
Various performance optimizations, bug fixes and improvements to security, stability and accessibility.
[Auto, PC, Phone] Users can allow apps and games to download over cellular data from the download notification while waiting for Wi-Fi.
[Phone] With this update, you will have direct access to My Ad Center.
A member of the Senate Intelligence Committee has called on both Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their respective app stores.
The demand follows growing concerns about the Chinese-owned app, with the video sharing app already banned from US federal government devices, along with those in more than half of US states …
Background
TikTok is no stranger to controversy. In fact, the app has come under fire on so many fronts, that it’s hard to succinctly summarize them – but here’s our best attempt …
Things date back to the previous presidency, with an executive order banning US companies from doing business with the company, then another requiring the app to be sold to a US company or be banned. The deadline for this quietly lapsed, and President Biden later rescinded the order.
But the app came under fresh scrutiny after overtaking Facebook to become the most-downloaded app back in 2020, with teenagers the main user-base. It wasn’t long before it was accused of having inadequate privacy protection for teenage users, and was forced to make changes.
Next up was failing to properly fact-check user-posted content. Ripping off kids, with in-app currency. Unauthorized use of personal data. Failing to prevent bullying. Trying to bypass App Tracking Transparency rules. Damaging the self-esteem of teenage girls. Taking users down dangerous rabbit holes. Showing irresponsible mental health advice videos. Facilitating drug deals. Enabling grooming by child abusers. Being used for spying by the Chinese government.
Did I forget anything? Oh yeah: encouraging dangerous stunts that kill children. I knew there was something else.
Remove TikTok from app stores, says senator
It is cybersecurity concerns that have received the most attention, though: fears about the personal data of US citizens ending up in the hands of the Chinese government. This has already led the app to be banned from federal government devices, with more than half of US states imposing equivalent rules for their devices.
But CNN reports that one senator wants to take things further.
A member of the Senate Intelligence Committee is calling on Apple and Google to remove TikTok from their app stores over concerns about national security, in the latest indication of mounting scrutiny on the short-form video app from members of Congress.
In a letter sent to the two tech giants on Thursday, Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet calls TikTok “an unacceptable threat to the national security of the United States.”
Beyond data leaks, Bennet also sees darker possibilities.
“We should accept the very real possibility that [China] could compel TikTok, via ByteDance, to use its influence to advance Chinese government interests,” Bennet wrote, “for example, by tweaking its algorithm to present Americans content to undermine U.S. democratic institutions or muffle criticisms” of China’s handling of Hong Kong, Taiwan or ethnic minorities.
It’s not the first time Apple and Google have been asked to remove TikTok from their app stores: the FCC commissioner made the same request last year.
Apple and Google alike didn’t respond to a request for comment, and nor are they likely to. Much as Bennet might like to hand off responsibility to the decision to the tech giants, this is properly a matter for the US government.
Google Play Store not showing all your ‘Recently updated’ Android apps
Google recently addressed an issue where version numbers disappeared from the Play Store, and a similar problem in that vein has now appeared involving the “Recently updated” list.Since yesterday (August 23), Google Play has not consistently shown all the Android apps that you have “Recently updated,” which is the default view/filter for the “Manage” tab in “Manage apps & device.” You might have one or two appear but the vast majority are missing. In the example below, Google Docs, Sheets, and Slide are missing, while Apple Music was also updated yesterday in addition to on Monday. There are countless other examples across a handful of devices we checked, though not all users say they are affected. The issue continues into today with Google Pay (Tez) showing up but not Google Maps or Twitter for me.
One way of seeing what apps are missing is by comparing that list to the “Recently scanned apps” row shown on the Play Protect page. We’re encountering this issue on both the latest stable release (31.9.1) of the Play Store and newer versions that are still rolling out.
The new Google Play Store logo goes live on Android [U]
Google last changed the Play icon in 2016 when Play Movies & TV, Music, and Newsstand were still vibrantly kicking. Over six years later, the Google Play Store is getting a new logo.
Update 7/27: The new logo is starting to appear on Android with version 31.6.13-21 of Google Play. It’s a pretty straightforward replacement with not a lot changing in terms of proportions or triangle size. There’s also a new outline-style status bar icon with bold lines.
That update is not yet widely rolled out, but it has already appeared on one of our devices.
Update 7/26: Following the official 10th anniversary announcement yesterday, the new logo is live on play.google.com , as well as the developer site. It’s meant to better reflect the “magic of Google and matches the branding shared by many of our helpful products — Search, Assistant, Photos, Gmail and more.”
blue (#4285F4), red (#EA4335), yellow (#FBBC04), and green (#34A853)
Of course, most users will encounter it when the Android app is updated and the homescreen icon changes.
Update 7/16: Additional proof that Google Play is getting a new logo comes from the US Patent and Trademark Office. We see the more rounded triangle with updated coloring in much higher-resolution, though it’s still somewhat blurry. The company officially describes it as such:
The mark consists of a triangle comprised of rounded corners, divided in four colored sections; the color blue appears at left; the color green appears at top; the color yellow appears at right; and the color red appears at bottom.
Original 7/6: Before the 2016 redesign, which also placed everything in triangles, the icon had more shadows.
This new Google Play logo is still a triangle, but notice how the corners are much more rounded compared to the current one. Meanwhile, the four colors in use are more closely aligned with that of the four Google colors, which is the clear trend and mandate of recent revamps. That said, we can’t help but note how muted and dark the icon is compared to other first-party services.
Blue and green are definitely less vibrant, while the internal partition has been tweaked so that the parts are more equal in size. Today, the blue triangle is oversized compared to the other three components.
Current vs. upcoming
Only a low-resolution version of this icon is available today. It can be found in both GPay and Google Pay – soon Wallet – when you make a Play Store transaction, like adding credit to your account, as the merchant icon. There’s no obvious indication when it was updated.
It’s not live anywhere in the Play Store app or play.google.com, which was just redesigned. That would have been an optimal time to unveil it.
At this point, it’s not clear when Google will introduce the new Play Store logo. Google Play did just remove the Movies & TV tab, while the likely exit of Play Books to make the Play Store entirely focused on Android apps makes eventual sense. Meanwhile, the fate of the “Play” in Play Games is slightly more solid given the big push into Android gaming on Windows. However, the future of the dedicated Android app is not as firm.
Google Sends a Grim Reminder that Developers are at their Mercy
ome of the most innovative applications on the Play Store are built on using APIs in ways that Google never intended. There are apps that can remap your volume keys to skip music tracks, record and play back touch inputs on webpages or games, and even provide alternative navigation keys so you can use your device’s entire screen. All of these examples that I’ve just mention rely on Android’s Accessibility APIs. But that may soon change, as the Google Play Store team is sending out emails to developers telling them that they can no longer implement Accessibility Services unless they follow Google’s guidelines.
What is an Accessibility Service?
To understand why this is significant, we first need to explain what Accessibility is in relation to Android. In general, accessibility refers to making an Android app more accessible to users with certain disabilities such as those who are visually impaired. While it’s in every developer’s best interests to make their apps more accessible to users with disabilities, there are a special class of applications that are designed to enhance the usability of all Android apps for users with disabilities. These are called Accessibility Services.
An Accessibility Service, commonly referred to as a11y, is an app that the system can feed certain information to depending on what events the Accessibility Service registers to listen for. An app that wishes to implement an Accessibility Service must add the android.permission.BIND_ACCESSIBILITY_SERVICE permission to the AndroidManifest file so only the system can bind to the app’s service.
For example, if an Accessibility Service is built to listen for TYPE_VIEW_CLICKED events, then that service will receive information from the system about any buttons that the user might press. An Accessibility Service can also react to and consume certain gestures and KeyEvents before other apps receive them. Finally, an Accessibility Service can also inject certain KeyEvents such as the back, split-screen, or recent apps button.
Thus, Accessibility Services can be extremely powerful and useful. Several of the most popular, innovative applications on the Google Play Store rely on a11y to perform their duties. Here are just some of the few examples I came up with off the top of my head:
AutoInput– intercept KeyEvents and perform tap/swipe gestures
Button Mapper– intercept KeyEvents and remap them to other KeyEvents
Greenify– automatically hibernate apps by force closing them before the screen turns off
Inputting+– detect when the keyboard app is open to show the floating action button
LastPass – scan pages for username/password entries (necessary before Android Oreo)
Tasker – detect when apps are open so you can perform any user-defined action
Type Machine – record all text input so you will never lose any text entry
AutoInput
Greenify
Inputting+
LastPass
Swiftly Switch
Tasker
None of these applications use a11y in the way Google intended, which is to help users with disabilities. I would wager that the vast majority of applications that implement an Accessibility Service do so for functions outside of Google’s purview. But that’s the beauty of Android and APIs like Accessibility—Google usually doesn’t restrict what developers can and cannot do. That lax approach with the use of Accessibility Services appears to be changing, however, as the Google Play Store team has been sending emails to developers warning them of upcoming changes to their policy regarding a11y.
What exactly is Google doing?
The company is informing developers that if their application uses an Accessibility Service for any reason other than assisting users with disabilities, then they must remove the use of this permission within 30 days or their application will be removed from the Play Store. Failure to abide by this requirement can result in an infraction against a developer’s Play Store account, which can eventually lead to account termination.
For the few apps that do use a11y to aid users with disabilities, Google states that these developers need to simply add a prominent, user-facing disclosure of the reason behind why their app needs the permission. However, as I mentioned before Accessibility Services are used far more often in apps that would end up violating this new policy.
Full email sent to developers
Why is Google removing Accessibility Services from the Play Store?
While the use of Accessibility Services are known to cause quite a bit of lag, the real reason why Google is starting to crack down on these apps is likely related to the growing issue of exploits that take advantage of a11y. Although the apps that I mentioned above use a11y for beneficial purposes, they can easily be exploited by malicious developers for nefarious purposes. For instance, an Accessibility Service can be used to implement a keylogger, ransomware attack, or phishing exploit.
Google’s efforts in protecting users from malicious Accessibility Services have mostly revolved around disclosure. Currently, enabling an Accessibility Service that registers for certain events such as TYPE_VIEW_TEXT_CHANGED will result in a warning dialog that the app may steal your passwords. You might think that such a message would be effective in preventing users from irresponsibly granting apps a11y. However, there have been plenty of documented cases of apps tricking users into granting a11y. Some attacks go even further, such as the Cloak and Dagger exploit and Toast Message Overlay attacks which socially engineer the user into granting a11y by misrepresenting what it is they are interacting with on the screen.
Attacks such as these are effective on the vast majority of Android devices. Google has made major strides in preventing overlay or toast message attacks (as can be seen in AOSP if you search for a11y), but things have gotten to the point where Google decided they are better off restricting the use of Accessibility Services entirely. It makes sense, but it really sucks because this move will kill the functionality of a lot of innovative apps.
What can developers do?
Unfortunately, there isn’t much developers can do in response to these changes. Developers can either comply with Google’s demands by removing their Accessibility Service or face the threat of their app being removed and their account possibly being terminated. Simply adding a disclosure for why their app uses a11y would only work if their app was legitimately aimed at assisting users with disabilities, which doesn’t describe most apps currently using a11y.
Refactoring apps to no longer use an Accessibility Service is possible for some, but not all, of the apps we’ve mentioned. Password managers such as LastPass can migrate to the Autofill Framework, but only if the user is running Android 8.0 Oreo and above. If an app uses a11y to monitor when other apps are open, that app can instead be written with a polling service using the UsageStats API. Apps like Tasker can survive such a change. Others like Button Mapper and AutoInput are out of luck—without root, there’s no good way to intercept KeyEvents.
While we recognize the danger in allowing a malicious app access to the Accessibility APIs, it’s a shame to see some really useful apps be neutered by Google. We hope that the policy Google laid out is reversed, or they simply claim that it was misinterpreted. As it stands, the wording in the email is pretty clear—comply with our guidelines or get out of the Play Store. It’s a grim reminder that Google has all the power of what apps belong in the Play Store, and they can pull the rug out from under you at any time.
Update 1: Confusing Developer Documentation
Google’s developer documents for building an Accessibility Service appear to contradict this new focus by the Google Play Store team. The page has the following wording at the time of this writing:
An accessibility service is an application that provides user interface enhancements to assist users with disabilities, or who may temporarily be unable to fully interact with a device. For example, users who are driving, taking care of a young child or attending a very loud party might need additional or alternative interface feedback.
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