Google will no longer display the app version number in the Play Store

Google recently removed from the Play Store and then re-added the section with permissions required when installing apps, on the grounds that removing this information creates confusion for users and may pose a security risk. This, after taking this decision in response to a similar measure announced by Apple.

But since the season of left-right-right isn’t ending on any particular day, Google is continuing with hiding the version numbers of apps in the Play Store catalog, making it even harder for users to install the latest version available, or at least check if they have that version already installed on their phone. Until now, you could find out the version of the listed app by going to About this app – App Info.

The problem would be that the app version may differ from region to region, for example if users in one region need to get a certain feature unavailable in other parts of the world. Continued long enough, this “discrimination” can look pretty bad for the developers of the app in question, implying that users in certain regions of the world are simply being discriminated against. And for Google, it wouldn’t look too good if the version number of the Android app listed for the Android/Google TV platform lagged far behind that for the smartphone

For now, the app version number is preferentially hidden, depending on the type of device used, with the problem not yet apparent for120 smartphone users.

The change has been in effect since version 31.6.13-21 of the Play Store app distributed as an automatic update to all Android users