Google's awful developer support takes down two more apps on the Play Store with over a million installs each

LeafSnap and Simple Keyboard get hit by Google's poorly aimed banhammer

Google's Play Store is where almost every Android customer gets their apps from, and while it's a simple and easy process for consumers, developers don't have it quite so good. Google has a habit of dropping the ball, taking apps down for unjustified and seemingly often automated reasons. In today's episode, two more apps have been hit by the Play Store banhammer for the wrong reasons.

Simple Keyboard

Open-source app Simple Keyboard is the latest high-profile app to fall victim to Google's antics. The app and the developer's entire account were taken off the Play Store on January 28, 2022, seemingly without any reason given. The developer tells us he hasn't received any emails prior to termination and doesn’t have a way to understand what exactly he supposedly did wrong. However, three years ago, the app was hit with some update rejections based on an app icon that was too similar to the Google Keyboard (it has since been changed).

Simple Keyboard is an open-source Android keyboard app based on the same open-source AOSP Latin keyboard for Android that Gboard uses, but without all the bells and whistles that many people may not need, such as emoji, GIFs, spell checking, and swipe typing. There are numerous other apps out there that are based on the same source code. The developer suspects that could be why his app was taken down — if, for example, it had been marked as a duplicate of some other application — but that's just a theory. The only communication the developer received from Google was an email stating that his account was terminated, with no explanation or justification offered:

From our perspective, it seems unacceptable for Google to terminate an account without notice of violations or a means to appeal the decision. We’ve asked the developer for more information — if, for example, an email got lost in spam or in another account. But if Google is to blame and there was no communication, that would make the situation much worse, giving the developer no chance to know what he did wrong (if he even did anything wrong) or what he can do to mitigate or appeal the ban.

At the time of the app's takedown, it had been published to the Play Store for eight years, with over 1.2 million installs and 104K active users, making it one of the highest-profile Google Play Store developer snafus of all time. Luckily, the open-source app is also available on F-Droid, but the platform's reach is much smaller than the Play Store’s.

LeafSnap

Plant identifying and watering scheduling app LeafSnap was taken off the Play Store and the Apple App Store on September 3, 2021. Another party erroneously claimed that LeafSnap was infringing on its copyright via a DMCA takedown note, though it quickly became clear that this other party targeted the wrong app, with it working together with LeafSnap to clear up the error and the confusion.

The LeafSnap developers told us that Apple managed to react quickly and reinstated the app swiftly, but even though the Play Store team received the same details as Apple in roughly the same timeframe, the app has yet to be reinstated these five months later. Even a DMCA counter-notice from LeafSnap against the other party didn’t help speed up the process, with Google saying that it would need to be checked by its legal department, which has apparently consumed even more time.

Now, we have to give it to Google that it was at least responsive and quick to communicate with LeafSnap, with the Play Store support representatives constantly in contact with the app's developers. In the last few days, LeafSnap has confirmed to us that its app has been reinstated, but — here's the kicker — Google needs seven days to review any new submissions, and this apparently counts as one. That means that after a months-long wait, the company still hasn't been able to publish its app to the Play Store again, and all without any wrongdoing whatsoever on its part — that's the Google Play Store developer support experience.

The developers behind the app tell us that it had over 3 million downloads, a 4.9 star rating, and was a top 50 education app in the US. (A recent internet archive backup claims slightly smaller numbers, but it's still over a million and 4.8 stars.) Apart from the lost revenue for that period, we're also told their Admob account for monetization has been limited, demonstrating clear losses as a result of Google's failure to reinstate the app in a timely manner.

These are just the latest and highest-profile removals from the last few months. There are likely many more affecting developers who aren’t as vocal about their problems and many might not have the means to fight a protracted battle with Google due to a smaller community of supporters or the lack of a corporation with a legal department standing behind them.

To just give you a few highlights from the last two years:

Given that Google is earning literally billions of dollars thanks to its 15-to-30% cut on all app and in-app purchases on the Play Store, the state of its developer support is nothing short of terrible, and the indignities that independent developers are forced to endure in the face of the company's automated systems are unacceptable. Right now, small teams are basically on their own when their apps are removed from the Play Store, with help from real humans at Google often out of reach, even though the company recently created a helpline to solve problems. With how granular the act of moderation has to be, it's terribly unfortunate Google doesn't care more about the plight of its developers. Thankfully, if the Open App Markets Act passes into law, Google will be forced to allow alternative app stores the same deep level of integration the Play Store enjoys on Android, allowing others to compete — and maybe treat developers better.

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