For new apps starting August 2021, AAB will replace the APK as the standard publishing format. Now, Google has announced that Google Play will start requiring new apps to be published with the Android App Bundle starting August 2021. The search giant had talked about AAB in 2018 for the first time in 2018. The massive Android ecosystem is backed by APK files but Google wants to kill it and replace it with something called Android App Bundles (AAB). In fact, you could also download apps in APK format from websites and run them on any Android smartphone. It has been a key file format for all Android apps that are present on Google Play store or on other third party app stores. APK files or Android PacKage file format has been there since 2008, when Android operating system came into existence.
