Last updated: February 14, 2023, 7:04 PM IST
Android phones will soon allow you to use third-party apps as they should be
Google has sidelined other app stores on Android phones for many years now, but that could soon change.
Android 14 is still a few months away, but the developer preview is already out, giving the enthusiasts a chance to dig deep and look for new features and other tools. Android 14 is likely to see some major changes, and one of them is support for third-party app stores.
That’s right, according to the details spotted by a well-known coder Mishal Rehman, the next Android version will finally make it easier for people to use third-party app stores on their Android smartphone. Google is adding a new API that will allow the developers of these app stores to push updates, allowing the apps to run securely and protecting them from potential vulnerabilities, he says in this after.
He claims that these updates can be installed in the background so you don’t have to stop using the phone or the apps to get the update. Android 14 also allows people to update these third-party apps from their respective app stores as long as they download the apps from the said platform. Google has been accused of marginalizing other app stores and prioritizing the Play Store for Android devices.
But with the changes reflected in the Android 14 Developer Preview, we hope Android finally becomes an open-source platform that allows people to install apps wherever they want.
The APIs are also a sign that Google is slowly but surely delivering on its promises made to various antitrust agencies over the past year. Google has recently been severely penalized in the EU region and India, and since then the search giant has made sure it will change its business practices in these markets.
We’re still not sure how Google plans to implement these changes and how many developers will actually sign up for this new Android mobile operating system. But this step, if it continues to the final version, will be an intriguing development in the evolution of Android. And those with an interest in trying different app stores can finally get apps from these sources, without Google interfering with your choices.
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