Google iOS app updates resume after a long pause

It is standard practice for developers to pause application updates during the December holidays and resume in early January. That was the case with Google this year, but the lack of new iOS releases strangely continued for almost the entire month, until application updates resumed yesterday and today.

The lack of updates comes in the context of speculation earlier this year that Google was not updating its iOS apps to avoid Apple’s app privacy label. As of December 8, developers are required to list their privacy practices and how they handle data directly on the App Store. However, that was not the case, as TechCrunch pointed out how updates for two Google apps (Slides and the Socratic homework assistant) were released about a week after that.

Google on two occasions – the most recent yesterday – reiterated that it would add privacy labels to all of its applications as new versions were released. In fact, the company is adding disclosures without app updates, with The Verge watching how the count reached 12 listings on Tuesday.

As Google’s iOS apps are updated with new features or to fix bugs, you’ll see updates on our list of app pages that include the new Privacy Details for the app. These labels represent the maximum categories of data that can be collected – that is, if you use all the features and services available in the application.

Google, January 12

However, leaving aside the Apple app privacy mandate, Google’s update cadence was strangely delayed in 2021. Earlier this month, a former Google employee said on Twitter like Google “tends to freeze the code from mid-December to the first full week of January (at least when I was there)”. This practice ensures that services remain stable and no updates are sent during the holiday period, when there may not be many engineers available to correct problems. Other iOS developers (large and small) have returned to normal cadence, while Android updates resumed in early January.

It took almost three weeks before the first updates were released. Yesterday, the Google Fiber client was the first application to have an update since mid-December. Play Filmes e TV was launched today, both seeing “bug fixes and performance improvements”. Google Translate is the most recent on Thursday, with a major release that allows users to “continuously translate someone who speaks a different language almost in real time”. First introduced on Android, the feature is ideal for translating lectures and speeches.

Apps like Google (Search) and YouTube, which previously had weekly updates, still need to be updated, along with Maps, Gmail and Photos.

Another example of Google iOS app updates that don’t happen in the normal way is Chrome. Chrome 88 for Mac / Windows / Linux and Android was released last Tuesday, but that version has not yet reached iOS. Typically, the Google browser for iPhone and iPad is updated simultaneously (at a six-week rate) with the other platforms. Previous delays lasted a day or two, while the only notable exception was due to COVID-19 postponing the launch schedule.

For end users, this break in updates is slowly coming to an end, although they haven’t missed out on key features due to the lack of new releases. However, as the year grows and feature announcements begin, it will be interesting to see when the updates return to normal.

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