Google is doing something against misleading Play Store titles, names and icons
If you have been to Google's Play Store recently, the Android application repository for lots of devices, then you may have encountered a fair share of applications and games that tried to game the system.
Maybe, you have encountered one of the following while on the Store:
- Titles that use text to indicate ranking, e.g. #1 or Top used in the title.
- Titles that promote deals, e.g. "free" or "no ads".
- Titles that incentivize downloads and installs.
- Titles that use CAPS.
- Titles that use special character sequences not relevant to the app.
- Titles that use emoticons or emojis.
- Very long titles that are stuffed with keywords.
- Misleading or suggestive icons.
Google announced plans on its Android Developers Blog to do something about the listed title and screenshot / icon uses on its Play Store.
In short, Google decided to limit app titles to 30 characters, to prohibit keywords that "imply store performance, promotion in the icon, title and developer name, and to eliminate misleading graphical elements in the app icon, screenshots, and videos.
A number of examples have been published on the developer blog to better showcase issues that Google is trying to eliminate on its Play Store. Hand in hand with the new rules comes an update guideline for Store listing preview assets.
Google plans to start enforcing the new guidelines in the second half of 2021.
Developers whose applications and games don't meet the new guidelines won't have their titles removed from Google Play. Instead, their applications "may be ineligible for promotion and recommendation on major Google Play surfaces like Apps and Games home".
The sanctioning of apps that don't meet the new guidelines may impact the performance of apps and games on the store significantly. Google did not reveal if paid promotions, e.g. through Play Store advertisement, is impacted by the decision as well.
For users, it is making the Store cleaner by removing suggestive titles, developer names and icons from the Store and by reducing the visibility of apps and games that continue to use these.
Closing Words
Application titles, developer names, icons, screenshots and videos will be cleaner from the second half of 2021 on. Most publishers and developers will follow the new guidelines as not following them may have serious consequences for the application's performance on the Play Store.
Now You: Step in the right direction or not enough, what is your take on the announced guideline changes?
Thanks for the tip Martin.
It is for these kinds of posts that I follow GHacks.
What’s up with the generic comment, are you a bot?
2G?
Where on the planet is that still in use? I was forced to give up using my RAZRV3 years ago because 2G was phased out by AT&T.
Everywhere 3G has been turned off and you don’t have LTE coverage, and believe me there are many developed countries where this is the case and if it weren’t for 2G you wouldn’t even be able to make a phone call.
Maybe I missed it, but I don’t believe tha term “2G” is in the article. Perhaps you are referring to “AGM G2”??
@Martin
Your website has gone insane.
When I the post button I then saw my comment posted on a different article page. When I opened this article again, it is here.
@Tachy @Martin Brinkmann
” Your website has gone insane. ”
Same here. Has happened several times.
@Tachy,
@Martin P.,
For over two weeks now,
I’ve been seeing “Comments” posted by subscribers appearing in different, unrelated articles.
https://www.ghacks.net/windows-11-update-stuck-fixed-for-good/#comment-4572991
https://www.ghacks.net/windows-11-update-stuck-fixed-for-good/#comment-4572951
For the time being,
it would be better to specify the “article name and URL” at the beginning of the post.
@tachy a lot of non-phone devices with a sim in them rely on 2G, at least here in europe.
Usually things reporting usage or errors/alarms on something remote that does not get day to day inspection in person. They are out there in vast numbers doing important work. Reliable, good range. The low datarate is no problem at all in those cases.
3G is gone or on its last legs everywhere, but this stuff still has too much use to cancel.
Anyhow, interesting that they would put that in. I can see the point if you suspect a hostile 2G environment (amateur eavesdroppers with laptop, ranging up to professional grade MITM fake towers while “strangely” not getting the stronger crypto voip 4G because it is being jammed, and back down to something as old ‘stingray’ devices fallen into the wrong hands).
But does this also mean that they have handled and rolled out a fix for that nasty 4G ‘pwn by broadcast’ problem you reported earlier this year? I had 4G disabled due to that, on the off chance that some of the local criminals would buy some cheap chinese gear, download a working exploit and probe every phone in range all over town in the hope of getting into phones of the police.
>”While most may never be attacked in stingrays, it is still recommended to disable 2G cellular connections, especially since it does not have any downsides.”
The downside would be losing connectivity. I spend a lot of time way out in the countryside where there’s often no service or almost none. My network allows 2G, and I need it sometimes. I have an option on the phone to disable 2G, I may do that when I’m in the city and I have good 5G connectivity, but not out in the country.
I would imagine that the stingray exploits, like most of the bad things in this world, are probably things you will run into in the crowded big cities.
I stopped using it in a mobile (Wi-Fi line) environment, so I’m almost ignorant of the actual situation,
But the recent reality in Japan makes me realize that “the infrastructure of the web is nothing more than a papier-mâché fiction”.
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/17/google-chrome-to-enable-https-first-by-default-for-all-users/#comment-4572402
It is already beyond the scope of what an individual can do.
What we should be aware of is the reality that “governments and those in power want to control the world through the Web”, and efforts to counter (resist and prevent) such ambitions are necessary.
Why do you want people to disable the privacy features? Hmmmmm?
Now You: do you plan to keep the Ads privacy features enabled?
I’d like to tell you, but apparently if you make a post critical of Google, you get censored. * [Editor: removed, just try to bring your opinion across without attacking anyone]
@Martin
You website is still psychotic. Comments attach to random stories.
@Martin please do fix the comments, it’s completely insane commenting here! :[
@Martin
The comments are seriously messed up on gHacks now. These comments are mixed with the article at the below URL.
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/18/android-how-to-disable-2g-cellular-connections-to-improve-security/
And comments on other articles are from as far back as 2010.
What does this article has anything to do with all the comments on this article? LOL I think this Websuite is ran by ChatGPT. every article is messed up. Some older comments from 2015 shown up in recant articles, LOL
The picture captioned “Clearing the Android Auto’s cache might resolve the issue” is from Apple Carplay ;)
How about other things that matter:
Drop survival?
Screen toughness?
Degree of water and dust protection?