from Hacker News

Google Play Console Is Horrible

by markatkinson on 8/29/23, 1:36 PM with 2 comments

It's been a while since I've had to upload a new app to the Play Store and the console has somehow got worst.

1. The documentation is not aligned with the experience on the Google Play Console.

2. When my app was rejected for a reason that was invalid (blatantly false rejection), and I tried to challenge it I was presented with the following OPTION (singular) in their support dialog: https://ibb.co/ckWDCFr

Why bother asking the question...

3. When I followed the instructions in the email "Contact the policy team" with their requested information, the (policy team) person responded with "Sorry we can't assist you at this time, please contact the "policy team"." Wait what...

4. There has been no communication for the last 5 business days.

For all the shit Apple gets, the developer experience of submitting apps (apart from the longer review turn around time) has felt infinitely better.

  • by knfn on 8/30/23, 1:43 PM

    Yeah, man, welcome to the world of Android development. Got my app taken down last week because the Google verifier bot couldn't figure out my UI, I fixed the instructions and resubmitted, and the app is still down, and now they're saying that API changes that I fixed are not being recognized, and I might get terminated again tomorrow. Life of a Google developer!

  • by markatkinson on 8/29/23, 2:18 PM

    The saga continues. A email address is supplied by the Google Support dialog, play-care-priority@google.com, and after mailing the address for assistance I received an automated email saying it doesn't exist, or "Address not found".