Google Play is reintroducing the list of app permissions in response to user complaints, but another unusual Store adjustment removes version numbers from the App details area.
Update 8/4: As we suspected, it was only a bug, and version numbers for phone apps are once again available in the Play Store as of this morning.
Original 8/2: In the past, you could obtain the version number by visiting the “About this app” section of a listing and scrolling down to “App info,” where it was the first item on the list.
As of right now, Updated on is at the top and Version no longer shows up there (or in the phone area of Compatibility for your active devices). Only the phone version of the applications retain this information. Curiously, it still exists for Wear OS and Android TV apps.
Version is still available at Google Play. Apps that just mention Varies with device do not seem to be affected by (or connected to) this problem.
This seems more like a bug to us than a deliberate removal. Eliminating the version that is only for phones and leaving the versions for smartwatches and televisions in place makes no sense. Perhaps Google intended to remove just one of the two occurrences, but by mistake removed both.
Whatever the rationale, forcing users to see the OS-level App detail page or preventing them from seeing a version number prior to updating is not desirable (in cases of buggy releases).
With the most recent Google app beta, we first became aware of the removal yesterday. With Play Store version 31.6.13-21, which is also in charge of broadly disseminating the new Google Play icon, the version number is no longer present.
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