Does anyone know what changed in iOS 16.5 that made Google stop requiring the app? To me it seems to correlate with Private Access Tokens, aka remote attestation by Apple. https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2022/10077/
Possibly. And possibly the fact that breaking experience for iOS users would result in a massive backlash, while the volume of non-iOS/non-Android users is negligible in comparison. Some of them will convert to mainstream OSes, the rest will succumb.