The Android Maintenance Nightmare: Why the Google Play Store App Count Plummeted

A hobby Android developer with five years of experience maintaining MusicSync, a Google Play Music + Podcast replacement, shares the struggles of Android app maintenance and explains the 47% decline in Google Play Store apps. The article highlights the significant challenges compared to backend development, including Java/Kotlin compatibility issues, breaking changes from Google's frequent library updates (e.g., ExoPlayer, Google Auth), dropping support for older Android versions, forced upgrades across various components (Android Studio, Gradle, SDKs), unpredictable UI design guideline changes, and the deprecation or lack of maintenance for crucial third-party libraries like Picasso, Glide, OkHttp, and EventBus. The dual versioning scheme for Android versions and API levels adds further confusion. The conclusion emphasizes the higher maintenance cost of Android apps compared to server-side development.