[jarm0]

Yes, that's definitely one side of the problem and I'm not chasing too much backwards-compatibility. My biggest concern in this particular situation is that there is no way (with Android, at least) to pull-back/cancel/rollback release and everything is blocked behind Google's review process. Why isn't it just possible to "yank" problematic release and continue showing previous release as the latest version. That would solve most of the issues within context of this problem.

[imchillyb]

Rollbacks allow malicious actors to /simply-easily/ circumvent device security and user preference. To allow rollbacks is to /significantly/ increase the attack surface of a device.

[jarm0]

What do you mean by that? Are you effectively trying to say that allowing upgrades does not have any risk of attack surface? I'm pretty sure that updating things have also a pretty high risk on introducing new previously non-existing security issues into your code-base/product.

[rany_]

Not necessarily, Google has access to the developer's private key they use for signing their APKs so they could just make a fake release that has a bigger version number than the current version whenever a rollback is needed. No change is needed on Android itself, it's a Google Play issue.