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The Amazon Appstore for Android devices will be discontinued on August 20, 2025

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Re: The Amazon Appstore for Android devices will be discontinued on August 20, 2025

#141

Post by CivBase »

reaperducer wrote: post #44
CivBase wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't follow this logic. Amazon did something bad on their app store so now walled gardens are good?

I don't follow this logic. Amazon did something bad on their app store so now walled gardens are good? No, the logic is that several large companies (Amazon, Apple, Microsoft) have done bad things on their app store, so no stores can be trusted. But for me, I trust a big name store more than I trust an small unknown store.

I'm not sure what "small unknown" stores you might be referring to. Surely Amazon qualifies as a "big name" store same as Apple or Google, right? Clearly this event shows a big name is not an indication of consumer protection.

Re: The Amazon Appstore for Android devices will be discontinued on August 20, 2025

#142

Post by Uvix »

10729287 wrote: post #39
reaperducer wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Totally agree, but unfortunately people (forgive and) forget and that's why those companies keep on doing this. I myself forgot Microsoft once (cough) sold e-books.

Did Microsoft ever sell directly? They had Microsoft Reader but I thought all the stores were third-party.

However, Amazon did at one point in time sell ebooks in multiple formats pre-Kindle, one of which was Microsoft Reader. (I assume the others were PDF and Mobipocket.) So they have form for closing up shop and killing access to purchases like this.

Re: The Amazon Appstore for Android devices will be discontinued on August 20, 2025

#143

Post by 93po »

accelbred wrote: post #97
specialp wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everyone at Amazon (The only company I have seen using it) hated using Chime, and it wasn't at all on the level of competitors. So I think it was just an unsuccessful product.

On the other hand, at Amazon, people I know like Chime. Sad its going away.

i had to use it when amazon was a client of my employer and it was hot garbage in my opinion

Re: The Amazon Appstore for Android devices will be discontinued on August 20, 2025

#144

Post by CivBase »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #111
akho wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are. Anything that is a file in an open format will outlive me (given minimal care in terms of backups). My family photos, my markdown notes, non-DRM music and ebooks, proper applications. I’d say it’s all digital things, except for a small enshittified sliver. Renting, however, does not work that way. Any DRM-protected download is a rental. Sadly, for some reason, vendors are allowed to describe it as a purcha…

> My family photos, my markdown notes, non-DRM music and ebooks, proper applications. There's no guarantee you'll be able to easily use an ebook in today's formats 50 years from now. Same for applications. You're really that confident in 50 years you'll be able to easily run x86 applications written for Windows or Mac?

Do you have any examples of digital media/apps in open formats which are no longer accessible?

Re: The Amazon Appstore for Android devices will be discontinued on August 20, 2025

#145

Post by fencepost »

syntheticnature wrote: post #85
c0wb0yc0d3r wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is different though, isn’t it? Amazon still exists. The whole platform is shutting down. Individual devs aren’t taking down their apps.

I had a Google Play app whose dev died. It was just a simple local app -- no network server usage. When I last upgraded my phone (due to imminent failure of the previous one) it refused to copy the app over -- and the app was no longer in the Play store.

I still have the APK for one called "Backitude" and have kept migrating it for years since the disappearance of the developer.

It's nothing special, just a location tracker that logs to a file every so often based on time and/or distance moved (could also ping a URL with encoded location info instead). Basically the underlying data for location history without relying on Google. Its notable feature years ago was that it would do location 'steals' - instead of just triggering a then-expensive location check, it would grab the most current available location info as triggered by some other application and only force an update if that information was too old.

Re: The Amazon Appstore for Android devices will be discontinued on August 20, 2025

#146

Post by fencepost »

Arnt wrote: post #93
echoangle wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if it's "most" but there are (still) a lot of apps with one-time purchase. You never saw that in an Appstore?

I bought quite a few around 2012, sure, but it tapered off. I don't think I've bought any apps as one-time purchases in the past five years, it's all yearly subscriptions now. All the ones I see on my main phone screen right now are subscription-based or free. What are some well-known apps sold as one-time purchases now?

Looking in the Play Store at "Top Paid" seems like a bunch of one-time purchases listed. I think a lot of it may be a difference between Android and iOS - Apple software seems to have a lot more subscriptions, but that's just an anecdata 'feel'.

Re: The Amazon Appstore for Android devices will be discontinued on August 20, 2025

#147

Post by mixmastamyk »

rerdavies wrote: post #132
eschulz wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, don't have high expectations for things you pay for but don't own. It's a sad truth, but I've accepted it (I also bought some dvds in 2024 which is something I never thought I'd do again).

Not sure about DVDs, but CDs weren't designed to last longer than 10 years. Most of my CD collection has physically rotted. Because I was using Windows Media Player and iTunes, I ripped most of collection in M4A format, which, at the time, was better than MP3. A couple of years ago, I decided that I wanted to re-rip my CD collection (some 200 odd CDs) in FLAC format instead of m4a format (don't ask). And some signifi…

My 80s CDs are fine. Just played my first CD, Bryan Adams and it sounds like the day I bought it. Maybe your environment or drive are factors?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reckless_(Bryan_Adams_album)

Re: The Amazon Appstore for Android devices will be discontinued on August 20, 2025

#148

Post by beretguy »

SapporoChris wrote: post #5

"What happens to my apps after the discontinuation of the Amazon Appstore on Android?" "Starting August 20, 2025, any apps downloaded from the Amazon Appstore will not be guaranteed to operate on Android devices. Amazon Appstore will continue to be available elsewhere, including on Fire TV and Fire Tablet devices. " --------- So for people that purchased apps through Amazon Appstore, what are their options for apps t…

Sucks when you spend money on things and then they are taken away from you, isn't it.

Computer games have a similar problem. There is an EU petition specifically for computer games to stop such practice:

https://eci.ec.europa.eu/045/public/#/screen/home

We need a petition like this for all software.

Re: The Amazon Appstore for Android devices will be discontinued on August 20, 2025

#149

Post by BuckRogers »

Not a problem for me, I only took the free apps from Amazon's store. If the same app was available on Play, I bought it there. It never made sense to me to pay for an app that was not on the native appstore and while I do have a Fire tablet and multiple FireTV Cubes, I was always more vested into the non-Amazon side of Android for phones.
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