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It's not good. This affects only apps that have been abandoned for various reasons, such as dead developers, now defunct companies, developers that lost interest etc. There are tons of still very useful apps and of course tens of games that I already lost access to when I bought my S23, and now this means even more apps and games (and this list will only get larger with every new update)
There is no reason to artificially break new apps. Could you imagine if Windows 11 could run only software made in the last 5 years? It would be a nightmare. After all, no new apps can be uploaded to Play store if they don't target a very recent version
You seem to be misinformed about what's actually happening here. If there is a super old app you need you can still install it via adb.
This has absolutely nothing to do with the play store and its requirements. This is about preventing malware (which is typically written to target super old API levels to exploit things that weren't patched yet) from being installed unknowingly by the user.
The design here is good. If you are tech savvy enough to use adb you can install anything you want. But this protects somebody that mistakenly thinks they are installing something safe from accidentally infecting their device.
This also means I cannot find any old app/game on play store. So even with adb (which I do not think is a good solution because it excludes 99,9% of the users, not only tech-savvy users want or need older apps) I can only install apps I know of and that I can find their apk on the internet. I cannot browse the play store for them. I cannot search for something I need, because I will never find them. And if it is a paid app/game? Well, tough luck, I have to go find a cracked apk in shady marketplaces.... So much so for security.
If they really do this for security, it could have been a switch in the developer settings or anything like that. Not a hard ban on older apps
Again, this has literally nothing to do with the play store. This is API 22 and below we are talking about here... you can't even find apps that target API levels below 30 on the play store today afaik lol.
Keep in mind this isn't the minimum supported version, it's the target/compile version which is typically pretty trivial to update. 99.9% of users in 2024 will never need to install an app that targets a version of Android released 10 years ago.
Of course you can find them! They are not deleted. You cannot upload a NEW app or an update to one not targeting API 31 or newer
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.melato.bus.android
Here is an extremely useful app for Athens' transportation system with no other similar, and I can't use it because "it is old". Last app update in 2014 with a target of 5.1 iirc
If we go to Games, we can find hundreds of great older games that we lost access to for no reason. And as I said before but you skipped it, we now lose access to ALL of our bought apps and games that stopped updating for whatever reason...
Again, you appear to be misinformed...
Source
This could be applied on so many new "features" google introduces in every version and would really help a lot.. But they have other motives.
most normal people have no idea how to activate the developer settings. And chances are, it's these people that are exploited the most by this type of malware
One example is JointPics, a really great app that doesn't seem to have any replacement. It's made for joining multiple pictures together, with all the proper scaling options, resolution limiting and output quality settings.
It still works just fine. It does have a border as it's not made for phones with aspect ratio wider than 16:9, but that doesn't limit its use.
Oh, and Android is also used on some embedded devices which may need to use outdated software. Thankfully it can still be installed via adb, so it shouldn't be a big deal. At least until Android drops 32 bit app support.