App updates have become boring. In the past, new releases would almost always bring new features to your favorite Android phone, but these days, they mostly offer bug fixes and changes in the background only. Bigger features are instead released in server-side rollouts and as part of a/b tests. A lot of people still appreciate knowing what an app update brings, if developers care to fill in helpful details. Those days might be counted, as Google was spotted removing changelogs from the Play Store on the web altogether.

Android Police founder Artem Russakovskii spotted the lack of changelogs on all apps he checked on the Play Store on the web, and there wasn’t any trace left of them. For example, the Google app only offers the “About this app” section of old and a note when it was last updated, but without any further changelog details. In contrast to that, the Google app still shows the good old (albeit generic) changelog on the Play Store for phones.

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This isn’t an isolated incident, either. From what we can gather, changelogs are gone for everyone using the Play Store on the web, while they remain available on phones. Given that changelogs often aren’t filled out with helpful information anymore, this might not be a big loss, but it’s a bummer for those developers who still fill out the section with helpful information for the few people that care.

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This isn’t Google’s first assault on changelogs. Back in March 2022, the company temporarily removed the “last updated” section from app listings along with the “What’s new” section. After backlash and media coverage, Google was forced to backtrack on this decision.

Removing the last updated information makes it particularly hard to gauge whether an app is still under active development or not, so the one positive thing about this year's change is that this detail is now more prominent. It remains to be seen whether Google will stick to its guns this time or if this was an accidental rollout affecting many people.

We’ve reached out to Google for clarification and are awaiting a response.