It has been several months now and days and days of work that we have been trying to get Google to approve that our users can access their Google Drive again through iA Writer for Android. (They suddenly cut it off). Last week we supposedly passed the last test.

This week they come back and want us to downgrade the scope to read only. Read only? It's literally a writing app!

I think we're not dealing with humans but with an AI that just keeps wasting our time. I'm flipping-tables annoyed.

So we tell them that our users (not us) need read write access to Google Drive so they can write their texts, and they want us to go through a scanning process that takes at least 6 weeks. One of the suggested vendors for the CASA scan is KPMG.

It probably costs more than what we make with an app that has more pirate users than regular ones.

Guys, we want our users to be able to access their Google drive so they can write and stop 1-staring us for something we didn't do.

Close to giving up.

They want us to do this CASA certification with KPMG or similar every year. In the mean time we're getting hammered with bad reviews as users think it's our fault.

Instead of fixing their crappy core frameworks (often people can't pay for apps they want, or they pay and Play Store forgets) Google keeps us busy updating this, complying that. I just sent them a stack of paper last week.

Both Apple and Google are squeezing devs with the same percentages. But at least Apple's stuff works.

Close to 50,000 users are using this app every day. A lot of people love it. But the way Google turned this into a distopian bureaucratic time waster, the way Android is fragmented in versions, flavors and a junkyard of devices, the overall economy of Google Play (no one really expects to pay for apps, except games), the ease of pirating, the 1,000 hacks (delete and reinstall to restart the trial infinitely) to use apps for free, the hostile atmosphere... it's just a ball and chain.
I don't know what we're going to do but I'm not going through a six week process every year paying KPMG a multiple of our revenue so we don't get hammered by users that can't use Google Drive. Not being able to use Google Drive on an Android device is not really reasonable either. Killing an App that a football Stadium full of people use and love is not an option either. I need to figure out what to do, but I won't comply with this ridiculous request.
I am also really tired of hearing that honest people want to buy our app and then we need to tell them that there is a known general is Writer independent issue with the Onyx Boox and now the Pixel 4 or whatever that sometimes doesn't allow payments or forgets receipts. I am tired of buying those specific Android devices to reproduce a bug that is then are still not reproducible. This is not working. It's been seven years we tried to make this work... We need to change gears.
You know how many Android devices there are? Should we buy each and every device and install 25 versions and 100 flavors of Android to catch every bug, to make a couple of bucks? It's not like I don't understand frustrated customers, but it's not viable to buy device after device to catch bugs.
At this point even the names of all these stupid devices trigger me. I don't want to buy another device, not another latest Poco X6 Pro and not another Pixel7, and not another iPhone 16 Pro Max with AI. I want to flip a couple of tables with all the latest XP PRO MAX BS ULTRA.
That escalated slowly. So, finally, we're freezing our Android app: https://ia.net/topics/our-android-app-is-frozen-in-carbonite
Our Android App is Frozen in Carbonite

After seven years of trying, we need to change course on our adventure in the Android galaxy.

iA

As expected, the *experts* on Hacker News: "I haven't read the article, but..." And of course: "It's good that Google takes security seriously. I don't want a random app to get access to my Google drive."

It's not us... We couldn't care less about someone else's Google Drive. We never wanted access to any of your stuff.

It's our users that want access to their Google Drive and cause havoc because they can't, and if we downgrade to a tedious standard picker they'd start throwing stones.

Notable: the post has 260 upvotes, tons of comments, posted 6 hours ago, by a 14 year old very active profile... and it doesn't show on the top page.

Arithmetically, it should easily be the top comment. As far as I can see, It gets completely ghosted, not just on the top page. I wonder why.

Here is the link in case you want to get an idea what the Hacker News experts have to say: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41664281

Our Android app is frozen in carbonite | Hacker News

I answered, even though I know that the answer will be ghosted as well. Likely, I'm not active enough. Don't ask me what you need to do so Hacker news doesn't think you're a hacker.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41664281#41667196

Our Android app is frozen in carbonite | Hacker News

☺️

"The definition of a well informed, happy, modern man: He reads a couple of lines and goes, 'Yep, I know how this article ends. I'm right, he's wrong.' Then he watches the first half of a game, switches off the TV, pumps his fist, and says, 'My team WINS again.' Writes the match report, gets in the shower, soaps himself up, and walks out, unrinsed, fully lathered, super clean."

I just had to. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41664281#41671976

Our Android app is frozen in carbonite | Hacker News

@reichenstein I don’t think you can „win” such an „argument” now matter how right you are.
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@reichenstein this was a great article (late to the party as usual). As a tiny developer, I've had my fill with #Google and their silly policies.

It seems like they're content with claiming a marketshare crown when there's very little merit to it. I'd love to develop more for the Samsung market, but I don't think the Play Store even allows for hardware filtering to try to prevent some of the annoying "it should be free" "reviews."