Google has announced it will be blocking installation of Google apps on devices not certified by the company. This would mean only the devices that have been developed in collaboration with Google will benefit from the official Android apps while everything else will remain off bounds of Play Store.
For Google, all of this is of a lot of importance given that the licensing revenue from apps happens to be a major source of revenue for the company. That apart, this will also allow Google to exercise greater control over the devices that run the Android OS.
The same in turn will ensure users have a standard Android experience.
The above however should mean nothing of import for the average users in the street, unless of course he or she is using a device that runs the countless Android iterations that has mushroomed over the years. Famous among those is the Amazon Fire tablet that runs Fire OS, which in turn happens to have been a heavily customized version of the standard Android OS.
That apart, there are numerous smartphone makers mostly based in China that ship devices running versions of the Android OS. However, those devices got away so far as they still allowed side loading of the official Android apps.
That is set to change from henceforward as such devices won’t have access to the official Play Store apps from now onwards.
Google said any device running an Android version that has been compiled after March 16, 2018, will not be considered compatible with the official Google apps. However, such a step is also likely to curb the very fun factor associated with the Android platform, that of customizing it to one’s specific requirements.
Fortunately, Google also has a solution to that as well. For the Mountain View company has stated they would allow users of uncertified devices to register the same using the Android ID. But then, there is a limit to that as well as a user is only allowed to register up to 100 devices. That again shouldn’t be an issue unless the user thrives on flashing ROMs.
