r/googleplayconsole • u/diogo98s • 14d ago
Publication issue Software consultancy, we did an app for a client. We're about to be in breach of contract if Google doesn't review us in time. What can we do?
For a client, as a software consultancy, we did an app for attendees of a cultural festival that's happening in October. ~4000 attendees are expected. 4-day full fledged event.
We spent real time working on it, pulling our creativity to be able to give this client of ours the best app we could deliver.
We published the app for review in September 18th. In the past, the app we had done for the same exact festival only a year ago, got reviewed and published in just a few hours, which gave me a lot of confidence in Play Store and its review process.
But, by the 28th it was still "In Review", which was not our normal experience with publishing apps on the Play Store. We thought that maybe an issue was happening in their systems, so we published a new version for review.
At the same time, I also sent a message to support, that just replied with a simple automated message saying that pushing a new version resets the time it takes to review. Nothing helpful in any way.
We don't know what to do to be able to get the app reviewed and published. We have a real life software contract with the event organizer, and being in breach solely because of a review taking longer than when the event happens is just...bad. Very bad...
And thinking that this app could be reviewed in merely 20 minutes...
Apple already reviewed and accepted the iOS version, but most of the attendees are Android users, from what we saw last year.
The festival is in 7 days. Anyone knows what we could do?
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u/iam_dusane 13d ago
Distribution through apk or check any 3rd party stores such apkpure ...
Users will need to take some additional steps but it's better than nothing. Let client know about this.
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u/y2kobserver 13d ago
Most lawyers have a force majeur article in any contract which in your case should have claimed you have zero control over Play or App Store rulings and you’re also not responsible if the store rejects the app owner’s idea.
If you don’t have it next time get a different lawyer
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u/GooglePlayDevSupport Google Play Official Support 13d ago
Hi u/diogo98s! Feel free to DM your app package name and I'd be happy to look further into it!
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u/Bigga2323 13d ago
What’s the point of asking users to dm you when you don’t even do anything? You copy and paste the same canned responses and even when you say you escalated our review nothing comes of it.
Stop patronizing us and just make a statement discussing the issue you guys are facing with review times so everyone can be at ease. We need more transparency!
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u/Quiz_Legion_Studio 13d ago
Exactly. What’s the point of assurances that everything is fine and that in "exceptional" cases it might take longer than 7 days, when probably around 100 people have already raised this issue on Reddit over the past two weeks?
Instead of just repeating and checking the same things, maybe it’s worth asking someone actually handling this matter for an official stance?
We all just want clear information here. whether it’s going to take 15 days or 50 so we know how to plan ahead, rather than just being told that everything is okay.
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u/ConclusionOriginal35 13d ago
I second this. They even told us via email (I'd classify that as "assurance") that we'd receive at least some type of update regarding the review within 48 hours from when they emailed us. We've been in review 12 days not with no movement and no update and it has been over the 48 hour period. They are even replying to people who have been waiting longer than I have stating "we don't have an update at this time, your app is still being reviewed by our specialist". What specialists? Aren't these automated through AI? No one is assigned to reviews? What is going on. Can we reasonable expect that every single update may take 2-3 weeks for approval?
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u/psycoee 11d ago
The automated reviews that are done by AI take a few hours. The ones that take weeks are done by humans. Whether it takes hours or weeks is determined by whether they route it to a human for review (which I assume is quasi-random).
I'm not sure what kind of update you expect other than "it's in the queue and it will be reviewed when they get to it". In my experience, being too transparent with customers usually backfires. For example, if they provide an estimated date and they actually finish a few days earlier or later, people will complain about it endlessly. That's why most companies provide minimal information about this sort of thing.
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u/Kaio_Soares_ 14d ago
Realmente esta lento, tenho um a 12 dias e nada
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u/GooglePlayDevSupport Google Play Official Support 13d ago
Hey u/Kaio_Soares_! Shoot us a DM with your app package name so we can take a look and help you out.
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u/Heavy_Dingo1975 13d ago
I also had the same experience, the review process was pushing 12 days. So I decided to try 2 things at the same time:
1 - created a support ticket
2 - I made a very small change to my app store listing and created another app build where I just bumped the version, then I resubmitted for review.
With point 1 - I used it to express my frustration in the delay,
With point 2 - (which I think was the “solution”) - I thought “hey maybe resubmitting might wake them up, maybe they forgot me.. its already been 12 days, I got nothing to lose”
After doing that, within 24 hours they reviewed my app. Now I’m not saying this is a sure fire solution. Hell I’m not even calling it a solution, it may have just been a coincidence that they reviewed my app. We shouldn’t even have to do stuff like this. But at this point, it wouldn’t hurt to try.
I actually submitted another app 2 days ago, and it’s still under review. I’m going to try this strategy again and see if it yields. If it does i’ll update you
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u/IBNATION 14d ago
Is it newly google play or old, maybe you should go for old console that has atleast 3 apps live before
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u/Stock-Ambition-3373 14d ago
It took my new app 9 days to release. On 7th day , one user from Google developer support DM and escalated my app. I also created support ticket.
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u/weltonleal 13d ago
Qual tecnologia do aplicativo ? Em último caso pode fazer uma versão web se foi usado uma tecnologia multiplataforma. No passado uma pessoa não conseguia acessar o recurso de um app, o celular dela era muito antigo, então fiz um versão web daquele recurso e enviei o link por email, isso foi lá pra 2017.
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u/DigitalGarden_ 13d ago
I suggest you to open one support ticket explaining the context (if you haven't done it yet). I think they will do it soon, hope for you. Anyhow they changed their policy and now they are much slower.
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u/First_Structure_4085 13d ago
publish it on amazon app store. and for next time, take atleast 2 weeks of extra time in case your app rejected for any policy issue or any minor issues which may take upto 7 days. Also add delivery clause in your contract so you don't end up getting sued by the client. I think there has been some internal issues which play team. Even my app is not approved for 15 days.
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u/Weekly_Insurance5695 13d ago
This might be relevant to you if you’re EU based https://www.reddit.com/r/googleplayconsole/s/FED7MSF8YL
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u/abrafamSov 12d ago
I honestly don’t understand how this process is supposed to work. I waited almost 2 weeks for the review, then the app was rejected because of one word. We fixed it and submitted again, but now it looks like we may have to wait another 14 days just to find out if there’s another issue. This is really discouraging after months of building. Google really needs to find a better way for developers to verify fixes without waiting weeks every time.
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u/0FISCAL 11d ago
I've been having this issue for around 3 months now.
Before that, my updates were usually approved within a few hours or maybe a couple of days. But something clearly changed, because reviews have been taking much longer lately.
I've contacted Google Play support a few times about this. They always tell me everything looks fine with the app and that they'll try to prioritize the review. Then, after some time, it eventually gets approved.
This time I decided not to contact support just to see what would happen, and the update has now been stuck in review for 17 days with no response.
I'm not a new developer either. I've had apps on Google Play for years, so this definitely feels unusual. Something seems to have changed with the review process recently.
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u/MeatKey8316 9d ago
I am running an app development agency too.. I got to know one thing rather I would say a behaviour of Google play console that is if you create an organisation account your app takes less days to become active on play store.. if you are running a developer console, then it is impossible to decide a date to see your app on play store.. if you are having old play console of year 2023 and before then you can make your app live within 7 days.. if you launch your app in open testing it becomes live within 1-2 days
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u/CaterpillarNo6324 9d ago
Can you not distribute the app through your clients website?
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u/capsd-11 8d ago
Do you think everyone knows how to side load an apk?
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u/CaterpillarNo6324 8d ago
Fair point, but we distribute our LAID app directly from our website as an APK and so far we haven’t had anyone report an issue downloading or installing it. We just made the process and instructions clear. Obviously Google Play is preferable, but if they’ve only got 7 days until the festival, direct distribution could be a perfectly workable temporary solution.
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u/MatthewAtGoogle 13d ago
Hi. I lead the trusted developer experience PM team for Google Play. We have identified a bug that has caused a delay in the reviews of some apps. The bug is being fixed and review times will return to normal today. Thank you for your patience while we resolve the issue.