The Google Play app review process now regularly takes longer than a week

MAYBE operating systems shouldn't have gatekeepers which can deny access to billions of customers for any and no reason at all. Apple and Google are WELL past due for regulation in this space. The fact that we cannot download and install software from the internet onto our phones JUST like we can do with our computers is a symbol of our inept and ineffective politicians.

And before someone says "well akshully you can technically do it on Android," Google has been working tirelessly to make it as onerous as possible for both developers and customers. For example, users need to separately authorise each app (browser, files manager, alternative store, etc) to install an APK from outside the Play Store. Google also does background scans using "Play Protect" which will periodically delete apps Google doesn't approve of. This happened to me with SmartTubeNext. I have a dozen other ways Google ensures users are discouraged from stepping outside the Play Store.

You would think that with the AGI that these companies are hyping the review happens in minutes. Weird.

AnkiDroid (~17 years old) submitted our latest alpha on Sept 03, 2026, 4:40 am. Still pending review.

Some reviews are clearly automated, some get a light human review, and some involve a human really looking hard. New apps seem to get a more rigorous human review for their first 2-4 submissions. Or at least humans looking over automated test screenshots etc. One reviewer apparently only looked at screenshots because they missed something that would be blindingly obvious on the prior screen if they did it themselves.

The explosion in LLM app development has clearly created a bottleneck at the human review steps. Not only delays but much more “dumb” rejections from likely over-stressed humans.

We push updates for our app pretty frequently and they've been passing review in an average time of 1 hour (around 7 updates in the last 60 days). Hope it stays that way.

Yeap latest CoMaps update took ~16 days to review (the longest wait for us so far) and two support tickets (submitted first after ~9 days and got "we have expedited it", 5 days later still in review, so submitted one more ticket).

Before that we had a hotfix update (a very small change) and still it took longer than a week and a support ticket (after which it had been approved in a day)...

The Google Play review process has been slower and more painful than the App Store review process for 5+ years at this point. At least you get to communicate with real people at Apple; it’s all bot-driven with Google.

Apple's App Review has also been slipping over the past few months. I have multiple apps that have taken days, up to a week to be approved.

What's most galling is that if you use CapacitorJS or similar you can ship app updates instantly to your users but if you write native first-class OS citizen apps you are penalized.

There is nothing quite so annoying as having a fix for a bug people are running into and have zero control over when it will get out to them.

I think inconsistency is really annoying. Hard to rely on it. Most of our reviews clear with a couple hours, but sometimes it gets stuck for days.

Our app includes Android Auto, which I think is what causes it for us. Submitted 4 Sept, still in review.

Was only 48-72 hours until this year, where it randomly jumped to 2 weeks or longer like it still is.

It's really frustrating, and makes it very difficult to develop with, let alone reliably release features across platforms.

F-Droid's great but their build queue has had multi week waits too, difference is you can see exactly where your build is stuck instead of guessing.

I've noticed this

Google Play is regularly slower now than App Store Connect, which never used to be the case

Not sure how it works behind the scene, but our app (present on the store since 2018) is taking a couple hours at best with Google, and usually less than 24h with Apple.

Very much likely an automated triage based on code change or complexity.

Longer than an average App Store review (which is heavily criticized for being too long)? Hilarious

The google review process is the best advertising for f-droid there could ever be.

A public FTP server is next app store.

Huh.

On the flip side, googles release infra provides much more functionality for apps that already has scale. I wish apple were more production oriented too.

This isn't my experience. My updates usually get accepted within hours. Apple takes days usually.

yeah my 'promptly AI' alarm clock almost always spends 7 days, as soon as the binary changes, even descriptions changes take several days

For all the complaining about Apple's store, the Play Store has always been worse imo. You can't even release an app without first doing a beta test with at least a dozen people.

Now, let's compare with "google friendly" apps: https://www.apkmirror.com/uploads/?appcategory=youtube :)

Sounds like a clear "find another store" message to me.

I just updated 2 dormant apps for the first time in 10 years; It took 2 days, and the apps were approved on a sunday.

Same happened for CoMaps (which unfortunately does not have 12+ years of presence going for it)

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Why can't you wait for a week? That doesn't sound like a long time.

For new accounts yes, for older accounts it's much faster in my experience.

Apple has it's own issues, they often just answer with a random question so they can kick the review down the line. "Are you sure this is your pricing?" "Can you confifrm you have not selected that country" and then you have to wait another 2 days.