December 16, 2024 — Update: Google reinstated PocketBible within a couple days of our re-complying with their re-request for information we had already provided.
December 9, 2024 — We were informed this morning by Google that they’ve removed PocketBible from the Play store, claiming we haven’t verified our identity. Never mind that we’ve had products in the Play Store for over a decade.
They’ve been asking us to jump through some verification hoops every couple of weeks for the last three or four months. Every time they ask, we jump through their hoop. Now they claim that there was no hoop and even if there were, we didn’t jump. So they’ve removed the app from the Play Store.
Fortunately, we keep our feathers numbered for just such an emergency. You can sideload PocketBible to your Android device without going through Google Play by following the instructions here.
In the meantime, we’ve submitted our verification information to Google yet again. Let’s see if it sticks this time.
Android? Is that thing still going?