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Why I'm Ditching Android

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Re: Why I'm Ditching Android

#231

Post by dorfsmay »

bootlooped wrote: post #165
dorfsmay wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hate how Google Contacts and Calendar are so much superior to any other offer. I can easily find alternative to everything google except for those two. Especially true with Contacts I feel like I'm doxing everybody I add to it. I have tried many alternative, but nothing even remotely measure to it.

I personally find Gmail and Drive to also be superior offerings. The only problem I have with either is privacy. Gmail's integration with Drive and Calendar are really nice. It's a very mature web email app besides all that. It's not hard to find other email solutions, but in my experience they lack the polish and integration that makes Gmail so valuable. I have been looking for a good zero-knowledge cloud storage so…

Lots alternative for mail, even self-hosted can be pretty polished.

Google drive doesn't work on Linux so it's a non-starter for me. Have you looked at PCloud and Dropbox?

Re: Why I'm Ditching Android

#232

Post by pjmlp »

bfdm wrote: post #158
reaperducer wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that I have no choice but to buy expensive Apple devices to develop for their platform is irritating. I've never understood this line of thinking. Maybe it's because I've been selling programs commercially since the 1980's. Back then, if you wanted to develop a program for a Commodore 64, you bought a Commodore 64. If you wanted to port it to a TRS-80, you bought a TRS-80. If you needed an Atari version, you…

But you don't have to buy an iPhone, or any iOS-based device to build an app for them. You have to by a Mac desktop/laptop which runs osx/macos. So it really is on a different platform already, but one within the walls of the brand.

8 bit development was exactly like that.

Sure most bought C64, Spectrum and so forth.

However if you actually wanted to be productive, you would be buying a bigger computer running CP/M, VMS or UNIX variant, cross compile Assembly code and use a transfer cable.

Re: Why I'm Ditching Android

#233

Post by pjmlp »

com2kid wrote: post #204
ummonk wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Is there a practical way to do windows development on Linux?

Xamarin, QT, Electron, a few variants of React Native. For games, pick you favorite cross plat engine. Follow the steps at https://sites.google.com/site/easylinuxtipsproject/oldgrub for a free Windows VM development license. For Apple, it is an entire hardware platform.

Partially, those frameworks don't expose OS specific features.

Re: Why I'm Ditching Android

#234

Post by pjmlp »

imandride wrote: post #157
reaperducer wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that I have no choice but to buy expensive Apple devices to develop for their platform is irritating. I've never understood this line of thinking. Maybe it's because I've been selling programs commercially since the 1980's. Back then, if you wanted to develop a program for a Commodore 64, you bought a Commodore 64. If you wanted to port it to a TRS-80, you bought a TRS-80. If you needed an Atari version, you…

You have a very 80s way of thinking good sir. There is no longer a need to have these limitations in place anymore.

Yeah like paying for our tools like other professionals do. /s

Re: Why I'm Ditching Android

#235

Post by pjmlp »

testrun wrote: post #201
reaperducer wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact that I have no choice but to buy expensive Apple devices to develop for their platform is irritating. I've never understood this line of thinking. Maybe it's because I've been selling programs commercially since the 1980's. Back then, if you wanted to develop a program for a Commodore 64, you bought a Commodore 64. If you wanted to port it to a TRS-80, you bought a TRS-80. If you needed an Atari version, you…

It is not 1980 anymore. We moved on. And that is one of the reasons that the ibm pc was so successful. One platform to develop for, as opposed to TRS, Commodore 64/128/Amiga, Acorn etc.

The IBM PC was successful because IBM did a couple of mistakes, which have been fixed in the world of laptops, 2-1 convertibles, mobile, tablets without expansion slots, with UEFI and blocked boot loaders.

Re: Why I'm Ditching Android

#236

Post by snaky »

fractalf wrote: post #160

The worlds really could use a "free" mobile OS. I was sad that Firefox OS never saw daylight. Im on android and dislike google very much, though not as much as I disslike Apple. Purism is making a Libre 5 mobile, I hope something like that could really break through. Imagine a desktop/server world without linux. Thats would be awefull. Yet thats where we are with mobiles today

The only realistically feasible free mobile OS is Android actually. AOSP to be exact, with no Google Play Services.

Re: Why I'm Ditching Android

#237

Post by snaky »

muro wrote: post #36
pseudoandy wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not have any extra bloatware from any manufacturer, due to the fact that I run a Xiaomi Mi A1 as my daily driver, but I still would appreciate the choice to be able to manually install only the apps that I would use, e.g. Firefox instead of Chrome. I do have 64Gb of internal storage, but I obsess about every lost megabyte due to something I don't use( even when disabled or not used, Chrome still runs functions o…

Chrome is the webview for all apps, might be tricky to remove.

You can install Bromite (un-googled Chromium) WebView from f-droid repository https://www.bromite.org/fdroid

Re: Why I'm Ditching Android

#238

Post by manquer »

creatornator wrote: post #219
SamWhited wrote: post #12

I've been coming around to this way of thinking more and more lately. Apple has a clear business model that involves selling high-end phones and other hardware and taking a percentage of app sales, not selling me to advertisers. I've found at least 5 different privacy settings buried in various places around the Android menus in a confusing way (instead of just having a single switch in the privacy settings menu), an…

Actually Android is open source: The full name, AOSP, stands for "Android Open Source Project", and you can download the source here: https://source.android.com/setup/build/requirements Anyone is free to modify, build, and distribute their own versions of Android. How else would OEMs ship their own skins? This also means you can audit Android source for vulnerabilities, backdoors, etc.

Very Disingenuous , AOSP standalone is rarely sold over the counter in a consumer droid phone, you could run it if you are interested, projects use it as a base but AOSP standalone is not the version most consumers run.

Every major version ports more functionality from AOSP over to GSF - which is closed source.

I cannot audit GSF and I cannot check for backdoors,, GSF phones home as it legitimate functionality, it is next to possible to verify back-doors don't exist. Location APIs could just be for your location, or google/ three letter agencies could be tracking you .

All the major OEMs include AOSP + GSF and then their custom layers. The only popular OEM using without GSF I know is Amazon with the kindle platform. To get Google certified OEM / use droid trademarks / use GSF you need to jump through hoops and give Google all kinds of access, not remotely same as open source.

Re: Why I'm Ditching Android

#239

Post by paulie_a »

bootlooped wrote: post #131
paulie_a wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apps developers seem to think their notifications are more important than they really are. Yet somehow the time sensitive notifications don't show up. but it's awesome I was notified and interrupted throughout the day about a new ___. I personally have cancelled paid services and uninstalled apps because of that abuse. And yet useful apps have issues with notifications even without battery saving measures. It's not j…

It's been possible to turn off notifications on an app-by-app basis for at least 2 years. The settings are pretty granular in the newer versions of Android, you can set it so that an app does not interrupt you in any way, and you'll only see the notification once you unlock your phone. However, if a single app is mixing in, say, 5 frivolous notifications with 2 critical ones, I don't think there is any OS-level way t…

The problem is that some notifications for a particular app are useful. It just seems like the creators of the app feel all of their many notifications are equally important. It's granular to the level of "all or nothing" in most cases.

Re: Why I'm Ditching Android

#240

Post by sgc »

Arnt wrote: post #42
sgc wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Although probably not push itself as a mechanism, this interfering trend is so bad that for a time I could not find a timer or alarm that would actually ring at the right time. I have one now, but there should have been zero instances of failure to notify for a timer .

On the other hand, there should also be zero instances of battery-burning apps, and zero instances of unkillable apps. IMO the blame belongs mostly to the thingies that kills apps so hard that Android blacklists them, and won't start them again until the user explicitly does it. That Android has that blacklist is understandable; that "battery savers" get innocent apps added is IMNSHO offensively shoddy.

I had no idea they did that. Does Greenify work that way?
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