Google’s Latest Move Will Help You Avoid Apps That Drain Your Phone’s Battery

Google has come up with a new way to help Android users stay away from apps that will drain their phone’s battery and penalise developers that do so. A new warning in the Play Store identifies apps that will likely consume more battery than usual and informs users immediately, giving them a choice of whether they want to go ahead with such apps.

This label started rolling out as part of the update released on March 1. According to Google, the new metric will help “developers build more power-efficient apps,” with the label acting as a caution for users who, the company believes, will be prompted to think twice before downloading apps with the tendency for “excessive battery drain.”

“Apps that consistently exceed the 'Excessive Partial Wake Lock' threshold in Android vitals may see tangible impacts on their store presence, including warnings on their store listing and exclusion from discovery surfaces such as recommendations,” said Google in a blog post.

In other words, Google is warning developers whose apps exceed the new power consumption threshold for Android through a ticker to users and downranking of these apps from prominent spots, such as recommendations, in the Play Store.

The post also talks about exemptions for apps that show non-compliance to partial wake lock usage but can still offer “clear user benefit.” One example is an app playing audio for the user, so “there’s a clear benefit to keeping the device awake, and there’s no way to play the audio without keeping the device awake.” Such instances will not be counted as a violation of the partial wake lock guideline.

The new “treatment” will roll out gradually to only impacted apps “over the following weeks.”

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