Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

androidauthority.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

161–170 of 762 posts

Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#161

Post by necovek »

pjmlp wrote: post #99
necovek wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Are you sure it is your whole country or it's you?

I mostly buy my phones outright too, but I am under no impression that everybody else does it as well.

Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#162

Post by tschumacher »

jhanschoo wrote: post #67

As 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…

I know in some people's eyes saying this will make me a Google shill but this reminds me of the manifest v3 thing. What makes it to the top of HN is mostly clickbait a las "Google is cracking down on ad blockers" or in this case "Google is preventing side loading". These articles don't link to primary sources (Google) and they (intentionally?) miss all nuance.

Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#163

Post by pbalau »

rvba wrote: post #145
AlotOfReading wrote: post #12

Google'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…

People who are reaponsible for Android all use Google phones. They dont care about android. They dont use it. They dont understand their use cases. If you are hired by a manufacturer of say cola, you cannot drink the competition cola. Those in google laugh when asked to show their phones - and then show iphones. In any other business they would be terminated.

I think an edit is in order, as your post, in the current form, doesn't make any sense.

Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#164

Post by thrance »

xandrius wrote: post #121

I take the opportunity to let people know that there are alternatives to Google/Apple duopoly on mobile. Link: https://www.ubuntu-touch.io/ Sure, GrapheneOS is often suggested but Ubuntu Touch is a really interesting alternative, their own store and ecosystem. The community is amazing and welcoming. If there are Android apps which you can't do without, they can be emulated and used anyway. Imagine switching to Linux…

Thank you for the much needed hopeful note. Maybe I'll try doing exactly that, sounds like a fun hobby. My biggest worry about Linux on mobile is that banking apps will stubbornly refuse to offer support to these platforms, basically forever.

Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#165

Post by leminimal »

xandrius wrote: post #121

I take the opportunity to let people know that there are alternatives to Google/Apple duopoly on mobile. Link: https://www.ubuntu-touch.io/ Sure, GrapheneOS is often suggested but Ubuntu Touch is a really interesting alternative, their own store and ecosystem. The community is amazing and welcoming. If there are Android apps which you can't do without, they can be emulated and used anyway. Imagine switching to Linux…

Ubuntu Touch so far has the best hardware compatibility for things like camera and battery life. But it also insists on doing a lot of its own thing like using Mir instead of X and click packages. Running programs inside Libertine often crashes for me and is cumbersome. It makes developing for it harder. clickable needs Docker installed just so you can build and run your own apps on the device! Instead of letting you launch things quickly from terminal.

It make some things that should be easy on Linux harder. I.e., there's no Firefox + mobile tweaks like other linux mobile OSes, in part because it wants you to use Morphic.

But other linux mobile OSes dropped support for Halium/libhybris and even the very few that still have it don't seem to match Ubuntu Touch's level of hardware support.

Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#166

Post by trinix912 »

ffsm8 wrote: post #137
trinix912 wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it really Google's Android? I have the feeling it's mostly Chinese manufacturers with their own Android versions sans the Google services.

Android is still developed by google, yes. The chinese are mostly adding skins on top, not developing the core of the operating system. There is however a chinese fork of android (state sponsored), but it has not gotten wide market adoption in china either to my knowledge, but i dont live in china so i'm open to be corrected. Finally, even if that OS has gotten widely adopted in china - it IS a fork. the changes are…

I'm talking about the Google services which is where Google profits. Chinese phones ship without them. When I said "Google's Android", I meant Android+Google Services. The people buying cheap Android phones are most likely not buying Pixels. Even Samsungs aren't exactly cheap anymore. I'm not talking about Android forks. I'm talking about customized Android without Google services.

The biggest Android market (internationally) are Chinese phones. If Google suddenly decided Play Store should be the only way to install apps, that doesn't affect Huawei and Xiaomi phones at all, they don't ship with Play Store and Play Services in the first place.

Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#167

Post by necovek »

Culonavirus wrote: post #159
necovek wrote: post #36

I would like to see a high friction flow for installing all the crap from the Play Store to "protect and educate users". "Are you sure you want to install this app? It's only got a score of 2.8 and only 7 reviews, and will ask for all of these permissions?"

Even if it has 4.8 and 7000 reviews it's often fake 4.8 because the reviews are botted / paid / dark patterned (e.g. when you pop up star rating on your users and beg them "rate the app plz" and when the users tap anything but 5 stars you say "k, ty" and keep those "bad" reviews for yourself)

That was just an example to communicate my idea: a better way to validate authenticity of the app could and should be used.

But to your point specifically, Play store and App Store have APIs to rate from within the app: when the pop up shows, app author does not have an option to avoid getting a 1-star rating (they are also time-restricted, eg. at most once every 180 days for Apple IIRC).

What devs do though, is to preempt it with "Are you enjoying our app?", and only giving you a formal rating pop-up if you answer "Yes".

Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#168

Post by microtonal »

rich_sasha wrote: post #34
MrDresden wrote: post #24

When this whole thing got announced, I purchased a new Pixel 9 and flashed it with GrapheneOS. I am hoping that in about 6-8 years (when I realistically need to update) the landscape might be a bit better. Or who knows, maybe I'll just continue using GrapheneOS. So far I have not had a single issues with it. Apps the rely on attestation do not work, but honestly it's only two applications out of hundreds so I can liv…

I think the EU should pile in as well. It's basically an oven-ready independent mobile OS.

The EU should pile money into /e/OS. It's maintained by an EU company (Murena) and has European hardware options - Fairphone (NL), SHIFTphone (Germany), and Volla (Germany). Yes, I know some of them use US Qualcomm chips, but you have to start somewhere.

Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#169

Post by HWR_14 »

StopDisinfo910 wrote: post #103
AlotOfReading wrote: post #12

Google'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 has had better mobile hardware for years. Well no, Chinese phones are above Apple material-wise (better battery, better cameras, better cooling) and on par SoC-wise since last year. That's what makes Google's strategy so baffling. > Apple has better app selection (for most people). It's entirely the same. I have gone back and forth regularly for the past 10 years. Android is completely on par app-wise. Apple…

> they pay to put Gemini on iOS. Google has a real competitive advantage with IA and they just gave it to Apple.

What Google loses by pushing iOS AI customers to ChatGPT outweighs what they gain by trying to convince people to switch phones for access to Gemini.

Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#170

Post by lucideer »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #12

Google'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'm similarly baffled for the reasons you state but your breakdown of the market differentiations is a little hyperbolic.

> Apple has had better mobile hardware for years

Apple has never had better hardware (on mobile). Apple has had better software support & integration for their hardware that has lead to e.g. strong camera quality advantages (iOS camera app has been able to use the hardware better to produce photos people want despite some Android OEMs having objectively better camera modules since those OEMs have to work through a lot of Google contracts & software extraction).

The hardware has never been better - their holistic ecosystem has just made integrations with it smoother.

> Apple has better app selection (for most people)

This has been true but it's always been marginal, & the "for most people" qualifier has contracted significantly in recent years. Both Google's & Apple's 1P offerings have declined in quality & popularity, but Google have increased lock-in & reliance on theirs in ways Apple can't, while the 3P offerings on Android have improved significantly relative to iOS. Gone are the days of companies releasing exclusively on iOS, or the Android version being an afterthought with missing features - if anything it's swung in the other direction.

To be clear, I think your points still stand: Google's recent strategy doesn't make sense for Google. I just don't think it's as glaringly clear cut as you make out.

One aspect that's worth keeping in mind is the non-US market. Apple has a 58% market share in the US but it's 28% worldwide. Outside of the US market the impact of that "every Android user lost to the increasing iOS market share" is significantly diluted (tbh I'm not sure it's even increasing outside of the US at all) & emerging markets are growth areas.

Post reply on HN