Almost Every Android Phone Will Have Air Raid Alert? Google Working On Alerts Due To Russia-Ukraine War?

During the invasion of Ukraine, several big tech companies stepped up and applied varying degrees of pressure on Russia. 

For instance, Apple has entirely stopped selling its products in the region.

Similarly, Meta and TikTok prevent access to state-news broadcasters RT and Sputnik. 

Moving one step ahead, Google had suspended monetization on videos within Russia. 

Apart from this, Google has also been pushing users in Ukraine to install the Ukrainian Alarm app. 

Basically, Ukrainian Alarm app receive air raid alerts. 

According to the APK Teardown,  Google may be working on integrating those air raid alerts directly into Play Services.

Integrating Air Raid Alerts in Google Play Services

It seems that Google has added a number of strings that is related to air raids warnings within Google Play Services v22.06.15. 

Interestingly, the strings are present in the app in both Ukrainian and Russian locales.

This indicates that the vast majority of Android users should actually be able to receive alerts on their phones, even without the app as this functionality is a part of Google Play Services. 

It can be deduced because Play Services is baked into pretty much every Android smartphone.

This also saves users from needing to install an entirely separate app. 

So, this also may prove useful to those who may not use their phones as much, may not have seen the Ukrainian Alarm on the Google Play Store, or may not be tech-savvy.

When Will This Service Be Available For Users?

This finding doesn’t mean that Google will definitely roll it out for all users. 

Presently, it seems to be just being tested. 

This feature has the potential to save many lives if a user who did not use the Ukrainian Alarm app gets notified of an incoming air raid thanks to Play Services. 

An APK Teardown, sometimes, uncover unreleased features. 

It is noteworthy here that these unreleased features don’t always make it to people’s devices.

In response to the queries, Google has confirmed that “at the request, and with the help, of the government of Ukraine”, Android smartphone owners will be receiving Air Raid Alerts via Google Play Services. 

Coming to functionality, this system leverages Google’s latency alert mechanism which is actually built for earthquake alerts. 

So, this air raid system is supplemental to and shares the same triggers used for the country’s existing air raid alert systems.

Google further added that it will be rolled out to all Ukrainian Android smartphone owners “over the next few days”.