“Sideloading Android apps becomes more difficult due to Play Store changes”

Sideloading Android apps will become more difficult in the future due to changes that Google has made to the Play Store. This allows developers to split their apps apart, which means that apps are no longer contained in a single installer file.

Apps continue to have a core apk, but that is not enough for a full app to function, reports Android Police. Developers will split functions into separately downloadable packages when offering apps in the Play Store. These packages differ per Android version, screen size, phone functions and language. Google calls it Dynamic Delivery.

As a result, there are so many different combinations of packages that sideloading will become much more difficult in the future, the site estimates. Android Police is the same owner as APKMirror, a well-known site to download apk files. Sideloading is done, among other things, to obtain updates of apps if they are not yet in the Play Store or to install apps that are not yet available in certain countries.

There is at least a temporary workaround. On devices with Android 4.4 or lower, the Play Store still compiles an ‘old-fashioned’ apk file, because those Android versions do not yet support the new ‘split-apk’ function. Apps must then have their apps focused on Android 4.4 or lower, something that happens with fewer and fewer apps.