The number of Android applications on Google Play is likely to drop after Google updated its Minimum Functionality policy to block apps that “only have limited functionality and content.”

Unlike the experience in Apple’s App Store, Android users must wade knee-deep through useless apps to find anything worthwhile. The new policy should remedy this … assuming Google enforces it.

Google Play gets a real Minimum Functionality policy for Android apps

There are just under 4 million applications on Google Play, while Apple says there are nearly 2 million available to iPhone users. While that might sound like a significant advantage for Android users, it’s not a fair comparison, because Google’s total is inflated by rubbish apps that Apple blocked from the App Store.

But that should change now that Android apps that “lack engaging content” do not qualify for Google Play, Google said in a recent policy update. Examples of newly disqualified types of applications include ones that consist of a single ebook or offer just one wallpaper. Google’s policy change also rules out “apps that are designed to do nothing or have no function.”

For comparison, Apple’s long-standing Minimum Functionality policy for iPhone applications says, “If your app is not particularly useful, unique, or ‘app-like,’ it doesn’t belong on the App Store.” Software must provide “lasting entertainment value or adequate utility,” Apple says. The policy specifically blocks apps that offer a single song, movie or ebook.

Google’s rules already nixed obviously broken applications, just as Apple’s do.

A purge is coming?

Google says it will boot applications that don’t meet the new Minimum Functionality policy out of Google Play on August 31, 2024. Of course, that depends on Google actually carrying through on its threat.

Google will need to judge if millions of apps offer “engaging content.” And every one that gets kicked out lowers the total number of Android applications, reducing an apparent advantage that the platform currently has over iPhone.

The company is likely under pressure from companies that make high-quality applications to clear out the chaff from Google Play. iPhone users spend more than twice as much on software as Android users do. Surely, one of the reasons is that Google Play has a reputation as a source for useless drek. But that might change at the end of August.