Live data from Hacker News

Answering questions about Android developer verification

android-developers.googleblog.com

121–128 of 128 posts

Re: Answering questions about Android developer verification

#121
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And nothing of value was lost. BYOD means Corporate can push whatever spyware they want onto your personal phone. I tell any employer I work for, if you really need me to be reachable by phone via an app, you can supply me a work phone. Otherwise I'll do without. I keep a bright-line distinction between personal devices and work devices, and never mix the two. My boss knows this explicitly.

That's great for you, but not everyone has the ability to do that. Android has a massive markershare. What are the odds that all of them can force their employer to get them a new phone? Maybe that's something employers shouldn't do, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a reality and google is overstepping with this change.

Please. This is an event up there with Sony taking Other OS away: tinkering nerds and pirates most affected, the vast majority of consumers won't even notice. I don't think it reaches that level of impact. And I think most Android devs working professionally already have developer accounts, or their employers have one, and are already verified.

That's what this really is about. If you want to distribute Android apps, be a professional or at least act like one. Take accountability for what you produce, under your real government name.

Re: Answering questions about Android developer verification

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There sadly isn't a single viable option for a Linux mobile phone out there. - Purism runs ancient hardware, charges way too much and has questionable business ethics. - Pine64 has equally bad hardware but reasonable prices. I don't like the Hong-Kong connection though. Not sure how the security patching environment is in practice. The only option on the table as I see it is buying from the devil and installing Graph…

https://postmarketos.org/

The latest phone from https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices was released in 2021.

Re: Answering questions about Android developer verification

#124

Yep, it's as bad as everyone expected it to be. "We aren't taking away sideloading, we're just going to fully control it now! No Google-unapproved code on user devices! For security reasons!" Chrome isn't enough. We need Android to get clawed away from Google too.

they should lose YouTube as well. They’ve used it as an anti-competitive weapon in the past.

In a healthy market, Chrome, Android, and YouTube would and should be their on entities.

Re: Answering questions about Android developer verification

#125
post #23

So this is saying you have to have an Android developer account and sign the app with your identity… so a one-time $25 cost and that’s it? You can still distribute and sideload apps as long as you sign them. Microsoft does this for Windows apps if you don’t want scary warnings popping up everywhere. Apple doesn’t even let you sideload at all for iOS and for macOS they do the forced trash malware thing unless you run…

No. That other people are doing bad things doesn't make it okay. It's like going to have to ask the government who I can buy stuff from. I am free to give my money to whoever and whenever I want in exchange for what I want to put in my house. None of your damn business. And none of google or the house makers business either

Re: Answering questions about Android developer verification

#126
post #19

The year of the Linux Phone is coming!

There sadly isn't a single viable option for a Linux mobile phone out there. - Purism runs ancient hardware, charges way too much and has questionable business ethics. - Pine64 has equally bad hardware but reasonable prices. I don't like the Hong-Kong connection though. Not sure how the security patching environment is in practice. The only option on the table as I see it is buying from the devil and installing Graph…

> Purism runs ancient hardware

https://puri.sm/posts/the-danger-of-focusing-on-specs/

> charges way too much

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21656355

> questionable business ethics

They retrospectively changed their return policy in order to not get bankrupt. AFAIK everything is find now. I'm a happy owner of Librem 5 btw.

Re: Answering questions about Android developer verification

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://postmarketos.org/

The latest phone from https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Devices was released in 2021.

It won't be bleeding edge but the same reason people buy laptops with Core2.

Re: Answering questions about Android developer verification

#128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you see the direction they're heading? They're now making it so maybe .5% of android users know how to sideload. They're clearly chipping away at it, even though they might not be making all the changes at once.

What fraction of users do you think have a legitimate need to sideload apps on Android? I would imagine it's much less than 0.5%. Developers and technically-minded power users must be a tiny minority amongst Android users given that it has an install base in the billions.

I mean, piracy is a common thing on Android devices, at least here in Latin/South America.
Post reply on HN