Giga Pisar lands on Google Play: 'Shorten' mode and a Play Protect block

⚡ The gist in 5 seconds

• Giga Pisar for Android has arrived on Google Play — available in 178 countries right away, package ru.gigapisar.
• The new version brings a 'Shorten' mode and an open prompt editor for the Brain.
• A day before the release, Play Protect blocked the GitHub build over a single line in the manifest.

🔍 What happened

Giga Pisar — an open-source dictation app for Android — has made it to Google Play. The app is open to everyone in 178 countries. The GitHub build isn't going anywhere: it lives in parallel and updates itself. The team shared the story in their blog on Habr.

Now for the mechanics. Google requires new accounts to run a two-week closed test with 12 participants — the team recruited readers, who piled on bugs and filed reports. A day before publication came a surprise: the fresh GitHub build wouldn't install. Play Protect flagged it as malicious and blocked installation even via a cable from a PC. The culprit was a single line in the manifest: a permission for plain, unencrypted http. It was needed to connect to Ollama on a home server. The permission was removed, the home server tab was hidden — and the build installed without a hitch.

The headline feature of the new version is 'Shorten' mode. Previously, the Brain only polished dictation: it dropped filler words, repetitions, and added punctuation. Now it compresses a stream of consciousness into a short summary. The prompts are open: in the settings you can see exactly what gets sent to the neural network, and rewrite the instruction to suit yourself. Also added: sending via the upper volume button, a fix for the cursor in Samsung Notes, on-device removal of 'uh', 'um', and 'hmm' fillers, and a 'No period at the end' toggle. Dictations of up to 12 words are inserted instantly and never leave the device.

🧠 Our take

The Play Protect saga is the most valuable part of this release. Formally, everything is fair: unencrypted traffic has been treated as a marker of unsafe apps for years. In reality, the developer just wanted to connect a phone to a server in the next room, where a certificate doesn't and can't exist. Our verdict: the rule hits local use cases, not real threats.

For users, the win is simple — a store listing instead of an APK from GitHub. Updates arrive automatically, Play Protect stays quiet, and there's no need to install from 'unknown sources'. In our experience, this is exactly the step that decides whether an app reaches ordinary people or remains a toy for those who read the issue tracker.

The loser is the local Brain. The Ollama tab has been hidden, and when it will return is unclear. For an app built around privacy, that's an uncomfortable compromise: dictation already goes to a server, while the 'brain without the cloud' sits on the shelf. Judging by the article, the issue tracker is full of requests for an on-device neural network.

⚠️ What we don't know

Everything about the block comes from the app author's own account — there are no screenshots of the Play Protect verdict in the article. It's unclear what exact wording was used and how long the rebuild took. We also don't know which model the cloud Brain uses, how much dictation costs, or what happens to it on the server side. Verify it yourself: install from Play, check what's being sent in the settings, and read the license.