Some of the most innovative applications on the Play Store are built on using APIs in ways that Google never intended. There are apps that can remap your volume keys to skip music tracks, record and play back touch inputs on webpages or games, and even provide alternative navigation keys so you can use your device’s entire screen. All of these examples that I’ve just mention rely on Android’s Accessibility APIs. But that may soon change, as the Google Play Store team is sending out emails to developers telling them that they can no longer implement Accessibility Services unless they follow Google’s guidelines . What is an Accessibility Service? To understand why this is significant, we first need to explain what Accessibility is in relation to Android. In general, accessibility refers to making an Android app more accessible to users with certain disabilities such as those who are visually impaired. While it’s in every developer’s best interests to make their apps more ...