Indian Dev Ditches SMS Parsing for Voice AI After Google and Apple Blocked Distribution

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A developer building Spendlee, a personal expense tracker for Indian UPI users, initially designed the app to automatically read bank SMS receipts using Android's RECEIVE_SMS and READ_SMS permissions. Google Play Protect flagged the app as potential malware during sideloading, and the Play Store required a strict permissions review that posed significant risk for a side project. Apple's iOS platform presented an absolute barrier, as no third-party app is permitted to read SMS content at the OS level, ruling out any future iPhone port. The developer pivoted to a voice and text input model, where spoken or typed expense entries are parsed by a large language model via a Supabase Edge Function, keeping the API key off the device entirely. The new approach requires no sensitive permissions, avoids Play Protect flags, and is architecturally compatible with both Android and iOS.

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