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

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

#431

Post by password1 »

onli wrote: post #56
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 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…

There's a saying in mobile development that in most companies the Android version of the app is a second class citizen. It usually brings substantially less money and so less money are invested in it. As a result the Android team is often understaffed and the app is almost always behind in feature development, less polished and with overall worse UX and more bugs compared to the iOS app.

Also iOS still has a community of iOS only indie devs that publish polished apps for iOS, it's very common to find very popular iOS app with very curated UX that are exclusive to that platform and have a good fanbase.

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

#432

Post by manuelabeledo »

gruez wrote: post #372
manuelabeledo wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The iOS YouTube app is not worse than the one in Android. Texting in iOS is arguably better or, at the very least, there is one more app to choose (Messages). And I’m curious to know what makes Antenna Pod so much better than the thousands of other podcast apps out there. Social media apps have historically been worse in Android, because of lax app and privacy controls. > What else is there, where is the advantage? P…

>at the very least, there is one more app to choose (Messages). How's that different than Google Messages being exclusive to Android?

RCS is not exclusive to Android, the point is moot.

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

#433

Post by burnerthrow008 »

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…

> And Google's strategy is to continue removing differentiating features from Android that also help them mitigate the threat of antitrust

Sigh. When will HN learn that the vast majority of customers dont see those as differentiating features.

One of the key things separating humans from other animals is being able to put yourself in another’s shoes.

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

#434

Post by manuelabeledo »

mexicocitinluez wrote: post #367
manuelabeledo wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google core business is ads. It is not the same.

The difference between Apple vs Google is that with Apple you ARE the ad. They don't need advertising when they know people will adopt them and then be forced into their ecosystem.

I’m not sure what you are trying to say here. Even if that was true, my point was that an ad driven business like Google, would be incentivized to monetize all the aspects of my life they could have access to. If that’s not what Apple is doing, compared to Google, then that’s a win I guess?

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

#435

Post by SoftTalker »

swiftcoder wrote: post #326
hulitu wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Almost all of the prosumer apps on iOS offer a consistently better experience So for people who don't want to use computers. I cannot work with a tablet or phone. I need a computer.

I mean, as someone who is mainly a programmer, same. But high-end cameras, big touchscreens, and an excellent pencil input is sort of the optimal device for a whole bunch of creative tasks

Are the cameras "high-end"? Good for a phone, certainly. But compared to a real camera with a much bigger lens and sensor?

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

#436

Post by mminer237 »

PlatoIsADisease wrote: post #292
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. No Aux port, no usb. Slow phone with slow animations. But maybe this is fixed, its been 10 years. >Apple has higher consumer trust. lmao, this is just a user error problem. None have trust. If they trust, yikes. Thats a negative that Apple can brainwash people. >Apple has better app selection (for most people). Solid no here. Being able to install stuff from fdroid is…

Most Android devices also don't have aux ports. iPhones have USB now too.

Losing the ability to easily sideload apps is what we're talking about.

How do iPhones have worse security than Android???

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

#437

Post by fHr »

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. Classic Apple glazer take. This is why I still made another 100% with Apple stock over past 5 years because stupid people got gaslight into buying their overpriced stuff that is marginally better if at all.

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

#438

Post by Batman8675309 »

tazjin wrote: post #347
onli wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Graphene OS spends its social capital on hallucinating attacks from other projects and bullying other projects by sending their followers against them, based on those hallucinated attacks. It also has a completely intransparent project structure based around a supposedly retired mean developer, who then just did not (and still does almost all commits). That's not a project where the EU can invest money in, and the co…

These weird anti-Graphene posts confuse me. I use GrapheneOS, fwiw, and I believe some things the project does (like its attacks on F-Droid) are misguided for orthogonal reasons. However, it all makes sense from the perspective of Graphene not attempting to be a general purpose OS like Lineage, but explicitly a security focused OS. Security is often in conflict with what the average consumer wants, and they can go us…

Most if not all of their attacks are inexcusable. Calling a competing OS, CalyxOS, nazi sympathizers is unacceptable and when I first read that I started seeing the red flags.

Nothing is open about GrapheneOS aside from the source code. We officially know nothing about the leadership, their current plans, what their finances look like or even who this new mysterious OEM is.

It's weird.

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

#439

Post by fsflover »

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…

> alternatives to Google/Apple duopoly on mobile. Link: https://www.ubuntu-touch.io/

This is far from the only alternative. There are also Mobian, PureOS, postmarketOS and more. Unlike Ubuntu Touch, they allow you to run ordinary Linux desktop apps. Also there is hardware not tied to an ancient Android kernel, designed to run desktop GNU/Linux: Pinephone and Librem 5. The latter is my daily driver.

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

#440

Post by manuelabeledo »

hulitu wrote: post #301
clickety_clack wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched from Android to iPhone last year, and this just isn’t true. There’s so many tiny issues with android apps that just don’t exist on iPhone, because the android apps have to work on all these different devices. You don’t even have to look for the kinds of apps you’re talking about because things like Safari and Apple Podcasts work really well. I know people have a lot of complaints, but things on the iPhone…

> but things on the iPhone really do “just work”. For values of “just work” close to 0. Make a picture, connect with a Windows PC, iOS needs a password, then the picture is not visible to the PC, disconnect, go with Apple photos to look at the picture, repeat connecting, with password, now it is visible. Try to set up a hotspot, there is no button to turn the hotspot on/off. So yes, it “just works"

> Try to set up a hotspot, there is no button to turn the hotspot on/off.

I’m confused, which button? Do Android phones come with a physical button to enable hotspot?

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