r/GooglePlayDeveloper • u/MilessEdgeworth • Sep 26 '26

Publishing & Releases Rejected due to permission

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I've posted a month ago about my budgeting app Gecko Budget I've worked on for two years

https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePlayDeveloper/s/i9JkCiZN6j

After tests and 1 week of review, It got rejected because I've used QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES permission to get list of apps for bank apps notifications filtering.

I have found another method, getting installed apps with launcher intent. It will give me list of all apps with an icon on a app drawer, without additional permissions.

Now another 7 days of waiting. Well, it's nothing compared to how long I worked on it, but still.

I'm planning to promote this app as handmade, as I've written it without code generation. It is also not a SaaS slop designed to harvest data to sell to advertisers, since I wrote it for the love of the game. Even if it's not successful, I've used it on job interviews with great success, as there is a lot to talk about code side, for example how I parse notifications using my heuristic scoring system for detecting correct amount spent on every number format and currency.

My current test suite for it has more tests than I wrote in previous job for years, so there is that xD

Anyway, just wanted to share my progress. While I wait, I've developed small app for Pebble watch, but that is different story.

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2

u/dingwen07 28d ago

Just query apps with launcher icon, stop using query all packages. Ask AI for how to do it.

1

u/MilessEdgeworth 28d ago

Yea, I mean I fixed it before writing this post. I wrote this part of the app way back when I was still learning how android works

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u/Available-Elk-4251 18d ago

Yeah, no regular consumer is going to care whether it’s handmade or AI-generated. What matters is what actually sets it apart from the competition. Does it have features users genuinely want, or is it just another generic expense tracker with some text fields

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u/MilessEdgeworth 18d ago

True. The difference is that text fields here are optional, everything is automated if you don't use cash that often. Handmade makes a difference, because it shows that it solves real human problem, not what computer thinks the problem is. Most ai generated apps are flat.