FR: Dialog that uses Remote Config to enforce minimum app version

[samtstern]

It's pretty common for apps to enforce that users upgrade after a certain amount of time. For example Snapchat does this when they change something about their internal API.

Remote Config is actually great for this. You can set a minimum_app_version variable and then have the app check it against the installed version. If installed < min we should show a dialog that says "You're using an out of date version of this app, please update to continue" with a button to Intent out to the Play Store.

Apps could throw this in their first Activity before a certain critical point and therefore be able to do things like backend DB migrations in a safer way.

[samtstern]

cc @morganchen12 thinking out loud here

[morganchen12]

This makes a lot of sense, but I haven't heard of any apps that do this on iOS. I'm okay with implementing it if the demand is greater on Android.

[thatfiredev]

Two years have passed since this issue was first created and we now have:

• Play Store in-app updates - for apps distributed through the PlayStore.
• Firebase App Distribution in-app alerts - for apps distributed through App Distribution.

I think we can still consider this as a valid issue because it would be useful for stores other than Play and FAD (e.g. Amazon Store, Samsung Store, etc) but I think the demand is lower now.