Godot android export shows "app not installed"

How are you installing the app and does the method of install show any errors or anything? Does Android give any errors?

Maybe try temporarily disabling Google Play Protect temporarily to install the app? (Source: StackOverflow)

Did you change the export settings at all? If I remember correct, I've got that error before (apk not installed) when I forgot to change the package name (like com.yourdomain.gamename or whatever).

Also, you know you can test/debug on Android by clicking the Android icon near the play button in Godot? Make sure the game runs like this before exporting an apk.

I don't know about that phone. But I have probably 6 or 7 Android devices I've tested with, and I never had to install any special drivers. I just enabled developer mode on the phone, then connected via USB and set it to file transfer and Godot found it automatically.

I agree that you need to be able to test on your own phone or it's not worth using the engine. But I'm not sure Unity would be any better. Both probably rely on some of the same Android APIs, so I'm not certain Unity would work if the problem is with the drivers on your PC. But do feel free to test for yourself.

I've worked in Unity a bit, it's a nice engine but the mobile compile time is very slow. I think it is actually compiling the project from scratch, while I believe Godot has pre-compiled executables for the export templates with just limited customization. Unless I missed something, but it was very slow to test on mobile, Godot is only a few seconds.

My guess, based on the error and everything, is that something in the export Android settings is causing the issue. I looked at what the parse error message refers to, and while it can be a wide variety of things, it is most likely something in the APK isn't configured correctly. I would suggest double checking the export settings and making sure all the fields are correctly inputted. Godot does have working Android exports, as evident by the many Android games made with Godot, so it's just a matter of figuring out why your project is not exporting correctly.

As far as Unity goes, it may be easier to export for Android since Unity is a little better at getting everything needed to build the APK setup for you when you download the Android export option, or at least it was last I knew. That said, it exposes pretty much all of the same settings in the editor as Godot does. As cybereality mentioned though, compile times may take longer with Unity. The last time I did Android development, it took a couple minutes to compile a build in Unity. I think the newer versions have an Android emulator/simulator built in now, so that might speed development up a bit. Unity is a decent game engine, I've used it before I started using Godot and I still keep up with what is going on there and occasionally use it.

That said, I wouldn't necessarily panic when things like this come up, as exporting quirks occur in both Godot and Unity. Often, the quirks can be fixed or a work around found, it just takes some debugging and trial-and-error.