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Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android
91–100 of 762 posts
Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android
#92As TFA does not mention it, and I don't see any top-level comments discussing it, this is a continued rollout of a "feature" first piloted in Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand. See: https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/08/elevating-... https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/11/android-de... https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/google-android-dev... Of course, HN reaction has always bee…
Yeah for every HN user complaining about it there are hundreds of people sideloading apps (not realizing what they're doing - under promise of loans or other advantages) and then getting their phone ransomed
Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android
#93Google's long term strategy with Android is baffling to me. Apple has had better mobile hardware for years. Apple has higher consumer trust. Apple has better app selection (for most people). Apple has been increasingly implementing the core features that differentiate Android devices, like USB-C and RCS. Every Android user lost to the increasing iOS market share is another customer Google has to pay exorbitant fees t…
Except only a few countries in the world have wages where their citizens can afford Apple. While I can afford Apple, out of principle I am not buying anything above 300 euros, that requires me to also buy another computer for hobby coding, and a dev license. All my use of Apple hardware is via projects where pool devices are assigned to the delivery team.
Mobile providers usually offer loans ("service contracts") where people get phones outside their financial standing (I regularly see high end iPhones and foldable phones of €1-2k run by people in a country where average monthly salary is less than €1k): if a highly visible device like your phone can be had for 10% of your monthly salary, people will, unfortunately, opt for it.
I tend to not use Apple not due to cost (I honestly believe it's OK to pay a premium for quality; I might disagree they offer it today though, as I do use a couple of their devices at work), but because of how closed their ecosystem is (and yes, all my personal devices are running some sort of Linux, and Android phones are rooted and with bootloader unlocked).
Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android
#94Google's long term strategy with Android is baffling to me. Apple has had better mobile hardware for years. Apple has higher consumer trust. Apple has better app selection (for most people). Apple has been increasingly implementing the core features that differentiate Android devices, like USB-C and RCS. Every Android user lost to the increasing iOS market share is another customer Google has to pay exorbitant fees t…
Apple makes a lot more money. Google wants to do what Apple does, to make more money like Apple.
Google might also get paid to enable surveillance.
Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't see any iOS advantage with the apps anymore. That was maybe true in the very beginning, during the gold rush time of the app store. But not since then. In which category are there better iOS apps? Browsers? No, strictly worse. Youtube app? No, worse. Texting? Worse or equal (Whatsapp). Podcast client? I assume worse, since there is no Antenna Pod. Social media apps? The iOS variants of those apps are afaik in…
The iOS version of most social media apps is better. IOS simply has better API integration to it's hardware, where with android, many OEMs (hell this was even the case to a certain extent with older pixel phones), do a number of things that make the hardware not as easily accessible as quickly from the OS API for said feature. This is especially relevant for the camera, but also various other sensors and hardware mod…
What are those things?
Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android
#96[dead]
Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android
#97Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Installing" has the connotation of doing it directly from the Play Store. This is also known as "Downloading" (because the data is on a server, in the cloud, and you're fetching it "downstream" to a local device.) "Sideloading" doesn't refer to the installation process, but to the file transfer process. You're sideloading when you transfer, e.g. APKs from your notebook to your Android. Or, from a USB stick into your…
The point is that before walled-garden app stores, that was how pretty much every normal person installed software on their PC's. Using the term "sideloading" for that is a clever invention to try and retroactively rebrand what is actually super-normal as something scary.
It is not really though.
"Sideloading" refers to data transfer between two local, peer devices. Really, that is it. It is not "something scary" or something forbidden. It is not even really installing. It's data transfer.
So "before walled-gardens" people would install software in many many ways. I originally typed it in from scratch, or from a magazine. I loaded it from tape. Or diskette. That's not really "sideloading" if you think about it, because it's just "loading" from peripheral storage.
Later, when people dialed up on a PC, they could "download" software and then install it or do whatever with other data or media. They could also upload it. They could transfer it among devices locally. This was not, at the time, called "sideloading" but just transfer, or "null modem", or "sneakernet", or "a station wagon full of backup tapes".
If we're going to use "sideloading" in the strictest sense, then we cannot actually refer to the process of downloading APK files separately and then installing them, because that's literally downloading. But that is the colloquial meaning now.
Hey, if you want to coin a new term or neologism for it, by all means do so. But it seems absurd to downplay "sideloading" as having "scary" or "negative" connotations, when it really doesn't. You've got to look past the hype and F.U.D.
Remember, there was a time when people considered FTP and torrenting to be dangerous or subversive. Perhaps they still do.
Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android
#98Google's long term strategy with Android is baffling to me. Apple has had better mobile hardware for years. Apple has higher consumer trust. Apple has better app selection (for most people). Apple has been increasingly implementing the core features that differentiate Android devices, like USB-C and RCS. Every Android user lost to the increasing iOS market share is another customer Google has to pay exorbitant fees t…
What confuses me is that easy "sideloading" has been the main thing that kept down the proliferation of degoogled custom ROMs.
Secure boot prohibits custom ROMs on most android devices
Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
Except only a few countries in the world have wages where their citizens can afford Apple. While I can afford Apple, out of principle I am not buying anything above 300 euros, that requires me to also buy another computer for hobby coding, and a dev license. All my use of Apple hardware is via projects where pool devices are assigned to the delivery team.
Mobile providers usually offer loans ("service contracts") where people get phones outside their financial standing (I regularly see high end iPhones and foldable phones of €1-2k run by people in a country where average monthly salary is less than €1k): if a highly visible device like your phone can be had for 10% of your monthly salary, people will, unfortunately, opt for it. I tend to not use Apple not due to cost…
Many countries prefer the freedom of pre-pay/post-pay than being bound by contracts though.
Not everyone has the US culture of running their life on credit.
Because when life changes, it isn't only their phone they lose.
The only single time I had a contract, because it was the only way to get a Nokia N70, I learnt never to do another one ever again.
Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android
#100Google's long term strategy with Android is baffling to me. Apple has had better mobile hardware for years. Apple has higher consumer trust. Apple has better app selection (for most people). Apple has been increasingly implementing the core features that differentiate Android devices, like USB-C and RCS. Every Android user lost to the increasing iOS market share is another customer Google has to pay exorbitant fees t…
I don't see any iOS advantage with the apps anymore. That was maybe true in the very beginning, during the gold rush time of the app store. But not since then. In which category are there better iOS apps? Browsers? No, strictly worse. Youtube app? No, worse. Texting? Worse or equal (Whatsapp). Podcast client? I assume worse, since there is no Antenna Pod. Social media apps? The iOS variants of those apps are afaik in…
> In which category are there better iOS apps?
Almost all of the prosumer apps on iOS offer a consistently better experience. This is maybe less relevant on phones than on tablets, but music production, video editing, digital painting and drafting, etc...