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Prisoners of Google Android development

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Re: Prisoners of Google Android development

#151

Post by zaat »

mvdtnz wrote: post #141
l72 wrote: post #51

I also got this email, but professionally and personally. Personally, I voluntarily built and run open source apps for 16 different cities for their transit system. This gave me two weeks to update 16 apps, for no benefit of anyone. My app is a PWA, and the Android version just uses cordova + a few plugins to add a few native options. Unfortunately, updating cordova to support the new target android api broke some of…

Your customers have been using websites for much longer than they have been using apps. I simply don't buy that they can't understand how to use a website. Stop underestimating your users.

It's amusing that you are certain that you know his customers better than he does. I believe that you are utterly wrong, and if not most than certainly many people who use public transport and smartphones have never or nearly never been using websites on their phones, many of them haven't been using websites on a computer two - this is very typical of the non-technical people, especially those who are members of the younger and the older generations.

Re: Prisoners of Google Android development

#152

Post by izacus »

withinboredom wrote: post #75
carstenhag wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have compassion with you, some of my private apps were also affected. But we were being told this deadline for many months now. It was clear that at some point they would show it more in your face. I also disliked the way it was formulated, also, even if everything was fine in production, it complained when testing versions didn't comply (doesn't make sense). Also, it was always only about pushing new updates (it's…

This email was the first I'd ever heard of it.

Play has raised it's tarter API requirements several years now and repeatedly warns a full year ahead of next change.

If you never heard of it you've been deliberately playing dumb.

Re: Prisoners of Google Android development

#153

Post by izacus »

es7 wrote: post #96
l72 wrote: post #51

I also got this email, but professionally and personally. Personally, I voluntarily built and run open source apps for 16 different cities for their transit system. This gave me two weeks to update 16 apps, for no benefit of anyone. My app is a PWA, and the Android version just uses cordova + a few plugins to add a few native options. Unfortunately, updating cordova to support the new target android api broke some of…

I love cordova for my personal apps, but once every year or two when I’m forced to update Android and iOS they become such a nightmare. I spend days or weeks getting unblocked because I don’t have unlimited time to maintain these apps alongside everything else in my life.

The amount of time you have won't change how many security issues you ship with your browser wrapper though.

Re: Prisoners of Google Android development

#154

Post by zaat »

l72 wrote: post #73
TexanFeller wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd prefer to get rid of the app and just have users go to the website and install the PWA, but the average user still doesn't know how to do this I think you misunderstood users, it's not just ignorance. I want apps to go back in the direction of real(not cordova) apps, not some low effort web thing. Basically zero web apps match the experience of a well crafted actual app.

I agree with you in many cases. At my professional company, we've made the decision to write native apps for Android, iOS, Windows, and the web, because we have pretty deep integration into each platform and want the best native experience for our users. But, for my personal apps (which is what I am talking about in this thread), I can't support that. Writing it once and maintaining it takes up enough of my free time…

The app my accountant provide me - a white-label finance app with the firm logo on it - used to be native. The developers had issues with updating the app to support a change in the camera API and I couldn't scan papers. They sent me get web app instead. Now whenever I use phone's native back button/gesture the app quits instead of going back within the app, there's a functional in-app back button, but my instincts will never disappear selectivity when I'm using their app. I have quit their app million times half-way of filling forms. Terrible UX.

Re: Prisoners of Google Android development

#155

Post by izacus »

lubesGordi wrote: post #113
gumby wrote: post #25

This is a no-win situation. MS expends an inordinate amount of effort on back compatibility, and much kudos to them. But it vastly increases their attack surface. Likewise many of the worst things about the unfairly maligned C++ come from a hardcore position on back compatibility: as much as possible, old code, and even old C code, should continue to compile and work as expected, even to the point of linking old bina…

The middle ground that I think helps everyone is, change your api and break compilation. Let devs fix the compile errors and use the api correctly, etc. But don't change the behavior of existing functions with the same signatures. As an api provider, do your best to make compilation mean something.

This is exactly how Android works. But because API changes bring privacy and security improvements, scummy software used old compilation targets to abuse backwards compatibility to avoid complying with privacy and security practices.

This is why Play slowly enforces apps to raise their compilation target and implement safer APIs. It's lagging for YEARS after API changes, so there's plenty of time to fix apps.

The OP just decided to be lazy and wait for last two weeks.

Re: Prisoners of Google Android development

#156

Post by izacus »

denton-scratch wrote: post #33

It was always obvious that Play Stores and their captive developer "communities" were a trap. Forced API upgrades are just one aspect of that. There are certainly tasks that are best done by a phone or mobile app; usually, these are things that involve moving around, such as navigation, or depend on phone sensors, such as working out which way is "up". But nearly everything else can be done by a website. I'd hate to…

Funny reading this on a site that regularly tears into Google for not adequately gatekeeping software on Android and advertises iPhones as better because they police more aggressively.

Re: Prisoners of Google Android development

#157

Post by mvdtnz »

zaat wrote: post #151
mvdtnz wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your customers have been using websites for much longer than they have been using apps. I simply don't buy that they can't understand how to use a website. Stop underestimating your users.

It's amusing that you are certain that you know his customers better than he does. I believe that you are utterly wrong, and if not most than certainly many people who use public transport and smartphones have never or nearly never been using websites on their phones, many of them haven't been using websites on a computer two - this is very typical of the non-technical people, especially those who are members of the…

I guess that's why no one uses The Internet or Web Browsers. Pack it in, fellas, the web is a passing fad.

Re: Prisoners of Google Android development

#158

Post by sofixa »

l72 wrote: post #72
lutarezj wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if it helps, but if I was in your situation I’d provide a few app updates with a screen to train users on how to install the PWA version and gracefully run away from these problems. Maybe also provide a some sort of a form to get some feedback over the difficulties encountered by users to get there. Good luck!

The problem is that many of my users are temporary. For example, I have an app for the public transit system for a resort town in Colorado. The town has a decent, albeit small bus system. They technically have an app from their vendor, although it is not very good and is difficult to find. If you search for "$town_name transit app", it won't show up anywhere, where as my app does. And I think my app is much more user…

> If you search for "$town_name transit app"

Do people really search for entirely temporary/short-term/single-use use apps, like for a resort town's transit or a restaurant? For me it's a last resort thing, if there's no website or it's unusable.

Re: Prisoners of Google Android development

#159

Post by gnum4n »

moron4hire wrote: post #149
Filligree wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Offline maps. Browsers tend to delete PWA data without asking the user first, which can be as threat to life and limb in this case.

You can save files and load them from disk. You'll just have to have the user pick the file.

Yeah, but if the phone/browser decides to delete some of the PWA's code to save space, you won't be able to use any maps at all until you connect back to the internet.

Before you say "just download the code to your phone as a file", I'm going to assert that's exactly what an app is ;)

Re: Prisoners of Google Android development

#160

Post by david_allison »

cogman10 wrote: post #145
david_allison wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And, let's be frank here, a 1, 20, 100mb APK isn't exactly a huge amount of data to host. It definitely can be with scale. Distributing a 33MB app: Google says they've served 70TB, and this would be 170TB without their optimizations

If you were paying google hosting fees, that'd be $700. I'm guessing the cost to them is far lower than that, though. ($0.01 per GiB) That also equates to over 5 million downloads. I'm guessing this app is likely pulling in a lot more than $700 for google. https://cloud.google.com/vpc/network-pricing

FOSS app. No IAPs/subscriptions. Google's taking the hit on this one

10MM+ downloads on the Play Store (Unsure if Google gives us actual figures on the dashboard)

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