Sorry Google Play, but you suck!

- Clivejo

This morning I woke up to the news, that instead of getting a new version of KDE Connect app, it had been removed from the Play store! The following is a tweet from the lead KDE Connect developer.

KDE Connect has been removed from @GooglePlay for violating their new policy on apps that access SMS [1]. The policy has an explicit exception for companion apps (like KDE Connect), but it was removed anyway and *there's no way to talk to Google*. 1/N

[1] https://t.co/WDXEqTUhHl
— Albert Vaca Cintora (@albertvaka) March 19, 2019

Unfortunately, this means that the SMS functionally has had to be stripped out, all because Google Play don’t understand that this is core functionality for many users (me included). Their decision to suddenly revoke the exception is, in my opinion, very unfair and not very “open” of them. At least tell us why KDE Connect suddenly violates their policy.