If you haven’t seen this yet, Google is planning to require mandatory developer identity verification for all Android apps, including apps distributed outside the Play Store, taking effect September 2026. This affects every independent and open source Android developer directly.
This is not just about the Play Store. After September 2026, on any certified Android device, applications from unverified developers will be blocked by default. The only proposed bypass, the “advanced flow”, exists only as a blog post and has not appeared in any beta, dev preview, or canary release. No one outside Google has seen it.
The community has been fighting back at keepandroidopen.org:
- Read the full breakdown of what this means
- Sign the open letter (organisations only)
- Contact your national regulators — contacts listed by country on the site
- Add the countdown banner to your project
September 2026 is closer than it looks. The time to push back is now.
It’s actually a shame, because Windows Phone was actually good. It featured a much more user/task-centric UI, letting users think about what they want to do, rather than which app they need to use to do it. Of course, this was bad for apps’ ability to gain and reinforce brand recognition. So of course they didn’t want to support it.
Honestly this, I thought the windows phone was really good. That said I’ll never forgive Microsoft for buying nokia and effectively killing Meego (yes I know sailfish is a thing but it’s pretty stunted growth wise)