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Apk.sh is a Bash script that makes reverse engineering Android apps easier

github.com

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Re: Apk.sh is a Bash script that makes reverse engineering Android apps easier

#21

Post by nequo »

sodality2 wrote: post #19
freedomben wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is fascinating, I really want to understand. Was Android (even stock) insufficient for reading news sites and quick photos? Or is iOS much better for you at those tasks? If that's all you need, then I would consider both Android or iOS sufficient, but I don't quite get why you'd give up so many options and capabilities to switch, unless iOS is much better at reading news and taking photos. Maybe an analogy to he…

As someone who switched to iPhone in almost the same way as parent comment, it really does do those things far better. I frequently had to hard-reboot my android, install different versions of apps, etc because of something going wrong. Photos not saving was the last straw for me. It wasn't even because I was a particularly power user - I customized everything on it, but even after resetting it and wanting a clean sl…

When did you switch to the iPhone?

I had a bad experience with an Android tablet. Apps would crash regularly and the OS refused to update. (The system update crashed too.) I never touched an Android device again. But this was 10 years ago.

Re: Apk.sh is a Bash script that makes reverse engineering Android apps easier

#22

Post by freedomben »

sodality2 wrote: post #19
freedomben wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is fascinating, I really want to understand. Was Android (even stock) insufficient for reading news sites and quick photos? Or is iOS much better for you at those tasks? If that's all you need, then I would consider both Android or iOS sufficient, but I don't quite get why you'd give up so many options and capabilities to switch, unless iOS is much better at reading news and taking photos. Maybe an analogy to he…

As someone who switched to iPhone in almost the same way as parent comment, it really does do those things far better. I frequently had to hard-reboot my android, install different versions of apps, etc because of something going wrong. Photos not saving was the last straw for me. It wasn't even because I was a particularly power user - I customized everything on it, but even after resetting it and wanting a clean sl…

interesting, thanks. May I ask how long ago that was?

Re: Apk.sh is a Bash script that makes reverse engineering Android apps easier

#23

Post by sodality2 »

freedomben wrote: post #22
sodality2 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who switched to iPhone in almost the same way as parent comment, it really does do those things far better. I frequently had to hard-reboot my android, install different versions of apps, etc because of something going wrong. Photos not saving was the last straw for me. It wasn't even because I was a particularly power user - I customized everything on it, but even after resetting it and wanting a clean sl…

interesting, thanks. May I ask how long ago that was?

This past June, I switched to iPhone.

Re: Apk.sh is a Bash script that makes reverse engineering Android apps easier

#24

Post by sodality2 »

nequo wrote: post #21
sodality2 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who switched to iPhone in almost the same way as parent comment, it really does do those things far better. I frequently had to hard-reboot my android, install different versions of apps, etc because of something going wrong. Photos not saving was the last straw for me. It wasn't even because I was a particularly power user - I customized everything on it, but even after resetting it and wanting a clean sl…

When did you switch to the iPhone? I had a bad experience with an Android tablet. Apps would crash regularly and the OS refused to update. (The system update crashed too.) I never touched an Android device again. But this was 10 years ago.

I switched this June, the device was an LG G7 ThinQ

Re: Apk.sh is a Bash script that makes reverse engineering Android apps easier

#25

Post by freedomben »

sodality2 wrote: post #23
freedomben wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

interesting, thanks. May I ask how long ago that was?

This past June, I switched to iPhone.

thanks. I don't doubt you, but it's shocking to hear that a modern LG flagship struggles to take photos and read news (I'm assuming a web browser?). That would indeed be maddening. I've been using either Nexus, Pixel, or OnePlus for many years now so I'm not familiar with The LGs, Samsungs, Motos, etc, but I was under the impression that they were all pretty stable (though underpowered when you buy a cheap model).

Re: Apk.sh is a Bash script that makes reverse engineering Android apps easier

#26

Post by anfractuosity »

mmastrac wrote: post #4

If you haven't tried Jadx [1], give it a shot. It's by far the easiest way to reverse Android APKs. It doesn't do patching or reassembly, but I used it for reversing the Delong'hi APK for longshot [2][3] and the quality of output was fantastic. Note that scripts like this are extremely useful, but in the long term they're cobbling together a lot of tools and will become brittle or difficult to use across versions. I…

Jadx is really neat :), I've used it to work out how an android app turned on the wifi of a wildlife camera via bluetooth.

I was also trying to use it to see how an app sends images to an NFC e-ink pricetag, but that looks rather more tricky at the moment.

Re: Apk.sh is a Bash script that makes reverse engineering Android apps easier

#27

Post by simmonmt »

varenc wrote: post #20

I love seeing more excellent tooling made with bash/shell scripts. For situations like this one, where all the underlying heavy lifting is done with other CLI utilities, shellscript is the perfect fit.

IME that's true until around 250 lines or so (this one is 500+). Then you've passed the point where "rewrite it in something more scalable / testable / maintainable" can easily be done, and you start having endless iterations of "it needs to be rewritten but I just want this one feature added so we'll do the rewrite later." And heaven help you if the script changes owners, gets additional owners, or you have to pick it up again after ignoring it for a year.

That's not to say the above doesn't happen with other languages/systems. It most certainly does. It just seems to happen faster in shell (especially when people start getting adventuresome in their use of fancy shell features).

Re: Apk.sh is a Bash script that makes reverse engineering Android apps easier

#28

Post by freedomben »

nequo wrote: post #21
sodality2 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who switched to iPhone in almost the same way as parent comment, it really does do those things far better. I frequently had to hard-reboot my android, install different versions of apps, etc because of something going wrong. Photos not saving was the last straw for me. It wasn't even because I was a particularly power user - I customized everything on it, but even after resetting it and wanting a clean sl…

When did you switch to the iPhone? I had a bad experience with an Android tablet. Apps would crash regularly and the OS refused to update. (The system update crashed too.) I never touched an Android device again. But this was 10 years ago.

Android tablets were indeed largely trash 10 years ago, with a couple small exceptions that were super expensive (Samsung). I loved my Nexus 7, but alas it wasn't meant to be.

I love that there are so many super cheap android tablets, but I hate that there are so many super cheap android tablets.

Re: Apk.sh is a Bash script that makes reverse engineering Android apps easier

#30

Post by nortonham »

sodality2 wrote: post #19
freedomben wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is fascinating, I really want to understand. Was Android (even stock) insufficient for reading news sites and quick photos? Or is iOS much better for you at those tasks? If that's all you need, then I would consider both Android or iOS sufficient, but I don't quite get why you'd give up so many options and capabilities to switch, unless iOS is much better at reading news and taking photos. Maybe an analogy to he…

As someone who switched to iPhone in almost the same way as parent comment, it really does do those things far better. I frequently had to hard-reboot my android, install different versions of apps, etc because of something going wrong. Photos not saving was the last straw for me. It wasn't even because I was a particularly power user - I customized everything on it, but even after resetting it and wanting a clean sl…

interesting, those things (especially photos not saving) never happened to me on Samsung or google phones
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