Android
AETHYX MEDIAE & Android stuff
Dear readers and customers,
bit by bit, our Android apps vanish from the official Google Play store.
It all started September 2023 when our only Android videogame, Zombie Resistor: Apocalypse, was found “not compliant with Google Play Policies” and thus removed. Google mentioned we missed a “Data safety form” – to be honest we had no f***ing clue what the problem really was here.
As our Android web browser, YAABy, was removed in March for the same reason, and Gizmeo Gadget News was forced to leave beginning of April 2024 too, we started digging. And fell into a rabbit hole we think was layed out entirely by the mega-corp Google itself.
We started a test, created an additional a “Google Play store privacy” document from scratch and updated the Gizmeo app first – and were rejected again. Furthermore, we are not allowed to use the “News” section for our app (but Gizmeo does exactly that: it’s weblog about electronic gadgets!) – a section we used since 2014(!) and never had to change. Double rejection – f*** yeah! We then contacted Google Play Store support, explained to them that this is nonsense and didn’t get a reply we could use for good (we can share the documents publicly in case some entity is interested). As our test for one app was not successful, we refused updating the other apps and currently think about releasing all of our Android apps with source codes on our GitLab.
You can vote for this action via our company LinkedIn page currently: https://linkedin.com/company/aethyx.
This is it! That’s summed up how Google Play died for us for distribution.
We had one helluva ride the last ten years. Thanks for all your support and your downloads! We hope you liked it!
Let’s see it from the bright side: the same thing must have happened to the Opera app store. In the later case, we didn’t even receive one Email, we just coincidentally some day couldn’t reach the app page anymore. Sh*t happens!
Yeah, being indie is in fact hard. For the moment, only Amazon is an app store where you can still download our Android apps if you like: https://www.amazon.com/s?i=mobile-apps&rh=p_4%3AAETHYX+MEDIAE+%28Sascha+Schroeder%29&ref=mas_dl. To this day, we don’t understand why on Amazon things work whereas with Google they don’t. We got the problem: we missed a form. But we created one, where rejected and then rejected again for another reason. This is bullshit, sorry folks.
Think twice where you release your apps,
stay positive out there,
the aethyx staff
Dear readers and customers,
copying and distributing Android apps which don’t belong to you and weren’t developed by you is no minor offence.
Not only do you undermine endless hours of development efforts by the original developers, you also try to mock original creations as well as users who might use your copied app.
As such, we were happy that Google was fast in helping us taking two impudent apps down from their popular Google Play Store: “Zombie Hunter Apocalypse Zone” by “lucsian” as well as “Zombie Uprise · TPS in Frontier Apocalypse Defense” by “Beasty App Media L.L.C”. Both were audacious copies of our indie IP “Zombie Resistor: Apocalypse” which was developed inhouse by us and is available since January 2020 (we published the news here). Both were also released months after our publishing.
Our DMCA complaints were sent yesterday, we just got a standard reply by Google that they’ll look into it.
As of today, as we checked recently, thanks to the hard working girls and guys there, the links as well as the corresponding apps are offline. Bigups and thanks a lot from AETHYX MEDIAE!
FYI, if you should encounter the exact same problems, give it a try yourself: https://support.google.com/legal/troubleshooter/1114905?hl=en. Just choose Google Play – Apps here if you see illegal copies of your Android applications in the Google Play Store somewhere.
We’ll take down further clones of our apps as soon as we’ll encounter those. We’re into Android app development since 2013 and we never had to do this. How the times have changed…
Take care and never give up,
your aethyx staff
Dear readers and customers,
by the 2nd of November Google will disallow all Android app update uploads which provide no support until at least API 29/version 10.
To avoid this, we already updated some of our apps on the 21st of April but fell short for others. This was due to a transition from our development environment to the official Android Studio. We still don’t have an easy time migrating our apps, be assured. Problem here doesn’t seem to be code but the UI, especially the downwards compatibility.
So, long story short we will provide updates for YAABy and Kryptowiki over the weekend. By Monday the 2nd there will be no Android 10 missing anymore from our side. We guarantee.
Android development still is a lot of fun for us despite the quirks, so we’re not planning to fall short of more updates and new features for years to come. Plus, by planning one or two more aquisitions in the future, we surely will have something in our sleeve to surprise our users and enhance our portfolio too.
In the meantime don’t hesitate to contact us if you’re in need of an own app: visit our Android product overview page for more detailed information.
Stay healthy and happy social distancing,
the aethyx staff
Dear readers and customers,
we constantly and passionately try hard to expand our indie universe to all those Android devices out there.
As such, we want to finally introduce you to our first new indie game IP: “Zombie Resistor: Apocalypse”!
The current Play Store entry for our first video game, “Zombie Resistor: Apocalypse”
It’s as real as it gets and the title suggests: a 3rd person shooter letting you conquer Zombie realms within different levels and offering a bunch of nice weapons on your lonesome run(s) to choose from.
Running on the popular Unity engine as our premise was to release a game 100% in 3D for mobile devices. You may (or may not, to some reviewers, ehemm) also cheer our optimised touch screen controls which was a helluva work to realise.
Enjoy and shoot your way free in a world devastated by a deadly plague*! And best: downloading and playing is 100% free!
It’s incredible how long we’ve been on Droid territory, by the way: we released our first apps in May 2013, when there weren’t even 1,000,000 apps available. In the meantime the number pretty much tripled to almost 3,000,000! A double-edged sword: good for us as developers as the platform itself is a true success. But hard to conquer if you release new stuff or want to stay on devices.
No matter how we regard it, the advantages of developing for the platform still outperforms the disadvantages. It’s a lot of fun to code for those devices, too! So be aware that we might post more apps in the future, albeit we certainly won’t do any more Zombie games. 😉
Thanks for reading and happy gaming,
the aethyx staff
*As our initial release for the game was 31st of January 2020 already, similarities to current or future world events are pure coincidence, of course. One thing we never lacked: vision.
Dear readers & customers,
Happy 2020, folks!
It’s a fresh new year and as such we want you to stay fit and healthy for what lies ahead!
You know what people say about health and fruits: “An apple a day keeps the doctor away!”
What better way to start a news post for us as remembering and using exactly this analogy, right?
What’s more, right now we’re in the middle of working on our brand new health app for the Android operating system. The very first one, to be exact.
We don’t want to relieve too much but expect a release around June/July this year. This will be also the first app where we’ll offer the possibility to buy additional services in-app. We hope to make money of it (we’re indie but still a company…) as well as target an ever growing audience from the health sector. Our prognosis shows a tremendous market which will not only grow superb for the next decade, it’s exactly our thing and something we l-o-v-e to offer here officially at AETHYX MEDIAE.
Regarding our web projects we don’t think there’ll be too much development as we think these are already mature and working as intended. But also here: never say never!
For those who are joining us a bit late (AETHYX MEDIAE is becoming 10 this year, ehemm), find a neat overview about what we did and currently do here:
Thanks for being with us!
Drop us a line anytime: info@aethyx.eu.
We <3 you and best wishes,
the aethyx staff