Last night Organic Maps was removed from the Play Store without any warnings or additional details due to “not meeting the requirements for the Family Program”. Compared to Google Maps and other maps apps rated for 3+ age, there are no ads or in-app purchases in Organic Maps. We have asked for an appeal.
As a temporary workaround for the Google Play issue, you can install the new upcoming Google Play update from this link: https://cdn.organicmaps.app/apk/OrganicMaps-24081605-GooglePlay.apk
The Announcement on various Networks:
Fosstodon Post
Twitter Post
Telegram Post
If you don’t know what Organic Maps is, it is an alternative to OsmAnd and google maps, more info on the official site (link) and GitHub.
Maybe an error? Honestly this is a weird one. I hope we will learn more in the coming hours.
You can still get it on the other channels, like F-Droid or Obtainium. Still, we all know that not being on the Play Store is an heavy sentence for any Android app.
EDITs
- Added F-Droid link.
- Fixed Typo in the obtainium link.
All my homies search for apps first in F-Droid and only use google play if there is no other option.
Can you help a sister out and help me to start using fdroid? Do I just google it? Can I download the fdroid store from Google play store?
You can’t download it from the Google Play store. You’ll have to download the .APK (application package, the installation file format for all Apps) from this url, there should be a tutorial to guide you further:
https://f-droid.org/
https://f-droid.org/en/
there are other apps than can access F-droid and everyone will soon start replying saying why they think their choice is the only reasonable one and everything else is the worst thing ever, but the official one under that link should be enough to get you started.
The official store is fine, but I personally stopped using it after it constantly made problems and wasn’t working properly.
When was that?
The official F-Droid app had an issue with not deleting downloads on systems that didn’t run it correctly in the background. That has been fixed some months ago.
I don’t know how long it has been, but it has been some months.
For me it got fixed in 1.20.0 from May 8, 2024.
I would recommend Droidify, which uses the fdroid store with a nicer UI.
And that’s wonderful!
But normies, sadly, do not