Google Play Console really misses me

Back in 2017-2018, I got interested in Android app development. I read a couple tutorials, created a Google Play developer account, and published a few apps that I made while learning from the internet.

Soon after, I got busy with school work, and then work work, and I totally forgot that I even had a Google Play developer account.

I logged in to the Google Play Console today, and found that most of my apps could not be updated. Most of those apps were blocked from being updated because Google published some new policies in the years since I looked at the console, and I had to accept some new conditions or answer some new questions about my apps. In some cases, I had to point to a privacy policy URL.

Those changes are mostly approved now. For one of the apps, I need to push an update by adding a contact details page inside the app. For another app, I just need to bump up the minimum Android API version, recompile and push an update.

Overall, it’s not a very difficult process. But it showed me that there is still some ongoing maintenance cost to having your apps on the Google Play Store.