The Play Store seems to be at the center of a series of “unthoughtful” changes lately, to put it mildly. Early last month, there was the issue of app permissions, the list of which was first removed from the Play Store after the introduction of data security, and then reinstated by popular acclaim. Now another change has appeared (in the app, not on the Play Store web) the reason for which we don’t understand is the removal of an app’s version number from the Info section. This is because you could previously see the app’s version number under the App’s About item, where it appeared as the first item in the list. Now, however, the version is no longer available and only lines of text appear.
The issue affects all apps, but the version number continues to appear for Wear OS, Android/Google TV apps, and on the Google Play website. What could be the reason for this choice? It doesn’t make sense to remove the version number in smartphone apps and not Wear OS or Android/Google TV ones, and it’s not very practical to have to find the version number of an app simply by “digging” into the settings of your smartphone. The novelty appeared for the first time yesterday , with the version number 31.6.13-21 of the Play Store, which also brought a new icon (on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the Play Store). There are two possibilities :
– Google will also remove the version number of other Stores soon, which would make us wonder again why
– Either it’s a bug and we should see this number reappear soon
