Homestead
Welcome to my Lab / devblog
[~/homestead/]
name: homesteadhacker (John Brantly)
role: IT Consultant | Business Analyst | Product Engineer
exp:  Computing since 1984.
spec: Hardware, software, the stubborn stuff in between!
[~/homestead/]
authorship
100% HUMAN
All original, all me. Unless you count spell-checker.
AI ASSISTED
My ideas, my words. AI helped me refine.
AI SLOP
Never. Not here.
← back to all posts

No Thanks, Google: Why JotBunker is only in Apple's App Store

· AI ASSISTED · jotbunker, privacy, development, antitrust, android

In addition to releasing commercial software under my LLC (and client’s business entities as the developer role), I’m also a solo developer. I built JotBunker as John Brantly (the individual solo developer) because I wanted a privacy-first note tool for my own daily use. I think it fills a niche gap in the world of notes tools, so I decided to share it with the world for free. It’s GPL’d on GitHub.

You can get the computer app from jotbunker.com or github easily. But I also wanted people to be able to get the iOS and Android phone apps from the app stores with zero friction. Apple makes this easy for solo developers, JotBunker will be in the app store very soon. As for the Play store, Google now makes it very hard on solo devs, with an arbitrary rule requiring at least 12 strangers to perform free closed beta testing for the developer for 14 continuous days before the app can go into the store.

What this means if you want JotBunker on Android

If you want to check out JotBunker on Android, you can sign up for the closed beta program here: https://jotbunker.com/beta/android/.

Until there is enough demand, JotBunker will not be on the Google Play store. When we get enough interest to fulfill Google’s closed beta requirements, Jot Bunker is ready to go. In the meantime, I will also be exploring F-droid as well as GitHub Releases + Obtainium.

To make things worse, the install path on stock Android is going to get even harder starting September 2026, when Google’s “developer verification” decree starts enforcing.

What’s actually happening

In August 2025, Google announced that starting September 2026, every app installed on a “certified” Android device (which is roughly every mainstream Android phone outside China) has to come from a developer who has registered their real-world identity with Google. Not just Play Store apps. All apps. The APK on your friend’s web page. The hobbyist build for your church. The privacy tool from a solo developer who wants to share the thing they made for free. All of it.

If you don’t register, your app gets silently blocked on every certified Android device worldwide.

Google’s framing is “security.” The actual effect is a centralized identity gate on what software is allowed to exist on the phone you bought and own. F-Droid (the open-source app repository that’s been the soul of independent Android distribution for 15 years) has stated plainly that under these rules, the project as it currently operates ends. F-Droid signs apps from thousands of independent developers, many of them anonymous or pseudonymous by design. That model is structurally incompatible with Google’s “every signing key tied to a verified real human Google has ID’d” requirement.

The F-Droid team has been ringing the bell loudly, alongside the EFF, the Free Software Foundation, the Tor Project, and 50+ other organizations. The campaign is at keepandroidopen.org. I’m signing the open letter. As me. John Brantly, individual developer.

Why this hurts indie devs specifically

Software companies (including my own) will absorb the paperwork, the D-U-N-S number, the legal review. They have a compliance department. They already have a Google relationship.

The policy is precisely calibrated to grind down the individual. The hobbyist. The passion-project person. The “I built this for myself and shared it with a few friends” maintainer. That’s most of F-Droid’s catalog. That’s a huge chunk of what makes Android meaningfully different from iOS in the first place.

And the 12-tester rule for new Play Store accounts is the same energy. Recruit 12 humans into a closed test for 14+ days before you can publish anything. For a privacy app whose entire pitch is “no accounts, no central anything, no friction” — wrangling 12 strangers into a beta for the privilege of being allowed onto Google’s platform is the kind of bureaucratic farce that tells you everything about who Play is now actually built for. (Hint: not the kid in ninth grade with a Commodore 64 and an idea.)

And while we’re at it — Apple is no saint

I’m not letting Apple completely off the hook either. The DOJ filed a monopolization case against Apple in March 2024. Judge Neals denied Apple’s motion to dismiss in June 2025 and rejected every aspect of Apple’s argument. The case is deep in discovery now, with Apple fighting tooth and nail in foreign courts to delay it. Realistic timeline to any actual change to iOS distribution? Half a decade, minimum. Probably more.

The cosmic joke is that Apple is being slowly forced toward openness by antitrust pressure, while Google is voluntarily walking toward Apple’s walled-garden model. By 2027, the open-vs-closed distinction between iOS and Android may functionally collapse. Both will be locked-down platforms with a corporate identity gatekeeper sitting between you and the software you want to run on the device you own. The only true escape valves might be alternative ROMs on Android (GrapheneOS, LineageOS, /e/OS, CalyxOS) and the EU/Japan markets on iOS.

How to fight back

If any of this matters to you, here’s where to plug in. Sign the open letter at keepandroidopen.org. Individual developers and users both. This is the coalition with EFF, FSF, Tor, F-Droid, and 50+ others.

Peace.