The year of linux desktop unironically may be close. What is the situation with mobile?
There are community projects, but no Valve in sight.
Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android
191–200 of 762 posts
Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honestly, you’re so wrong about the app situation that it’s almost staggering. iOS apps tend to be more stable, better polished, have better integration with system features (like the Dynamic Island), and even often have more features. This isn’t even an unfounded opinion, it’s a material problem for Google and led them to vastly investing in automated testing and quality efforts App addressable user base is another…
FWIW, starting a sentence with "Honestly ..." always makes me think the rest of what this person has to say is dishonest. Your BIO on HN is: > I HAVEN'T SHOWERED AT ALL! THAT'S WHY I REEK! WORKING IN FINTECH! AIN'T SHAVED IN WEEKS! POUR CRUMBS FROM MY KEYBOARD! THAT'S WHAT I EAT! WROTE A CURRENCY LIBRARY! 3RD TIME THIS WEEK! LURKING HN! I PREFER /b/! IN MOM'S BASEMENT! I'M THIRTY THREE! IT'S 3'O'CLOCK AM! THAT'S WHEN…
Ngl I think that bio is hilarious.
Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android
#193In the technofeudal new world order, your smartphone is not just a device, it is your gov issued digital ID/wallet The Apple/Google OS duopoly exists by design, they view bootloader unlocking and sideloading as threats because they break that control They want to be able to define and/or revoke your existence in the system No escape, because no alternative
Exactly. For most people not having a bank app, probably no digital payments due to that, and no government-issued digital ID is too much friction to even consider any alternative.
Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android
#194Earlier quoted context omitted.
NewPipe (FOSS available on F-Droid) is nice alternative to ads-infested YouTube. I disabled YouTube and YouTube Music apps on my mobile, and I use NewPipe instead. You can even download YT videos or audio from YT videos using it.
So entitled. How do you expect Google to pay it's content creators that you watch if they didn't have ads?
They are the ecosystem shapers, let them figure it out.
Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android
#195Google'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 only implemented USB-C due to pressure from the EU. One area Android has a clear advantage is Android TV devices verified by Google, because there is a much wider array of streaming apps of all kinds available. However google doesn’t seem to focus on this very much, and if you look for forum recommendations for google android streaming devices it’s very often the NVIDIA shield pro from 2019. Hopefully that devi…
Apple was among the first to implement USB-C in early 2015. A whole year before Samsung and the likes.
Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android
#196Earlier quoted context omitted.
That is my own opinion as an Android developer and ex custom ROM maintainer, I've not read that blog post. Instead of ad-hominem, can you explain what do you really disagree on?
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You're infantilising the users. It's untrusted by Google, but it's trusted by myself. I actually trust the Termux and Kodi devs way more than Google, yet they Google has been blocking their updates.
Note that the term sideloading is exclusively used by mobile OSes. On Windows MacOS and Linux you can install anything.
Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android
#197Google'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…
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Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android
#198Earlier quoted context omitted.
> they think the audience is now fully captive. the audience is captive. Do you have a choice to move from android, if you didnt want to have an apple device? Do you want to use a different search engine other than google? Is there another email provider than gmail (for the non-technical person - i know you can run your own). Is there another browser other than chrome (and dont say firefox or edge - because both don'…
>Do you want to use a different search engine other than google? Yes, type yahoo.com into your browser, or install an app. Non-technical people love installing apps on their phones. >Is there another email provider than gmail (for the non-technical person - i know you can run your own). Yes, there are hundreds of good e-mail providers to use instead of Gmail. Easy for the non-technical person to use.
No, that is not how you change search engines.
In Chrome on Android (and yeah, on desktop too) you just go into "Settings" and change your default search engine. I can choose between Google, Yahoo!, Bing, Yandex, or DuckDuckGo.
There are also custom searches through Wikipedia and other resources. You can use little shortcuts to get to almost any custom search you set up in advance.
This has been configurable by the user for a long, long, long time. This is not a surprise or a concession. This is built-in stuff by Google for Chrome. (Edge too, of course.)
Changing your browser, you can do, but it won't be comfortable. I have Edge installed on my Android, but it is not possible to run natively on Chromebook and the Android emulation is bad. I will not set Edge to my Default Browser because it messes things up. It is not a great experience to change your Default Browser on Android. I just go with Chrome and use Edge for specific tasks and topics.
You can set up all kinds of email services in the Gmail app, or you can install a native app. I use Outlook in both of those ways, and it's fine.
Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
For every person getting ransomed by a sideloaded app there are ten people getting ransomed by apps they installed from the Play Store.
And two wrongs don't make a right
If we ban sideloaded apps under this reasoning, we have to ban the Play Store as well, ten times more urgently.
Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android
#200Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why the surprise, they do the same with search, they do the same with their Google workspace (the degree to which they are pushing AI is really hurting the product). Google stopped being aware of their customer's needs a really long time ago, they are so arrogant they think the audience is now fully captive.
> they think the audience is now fully captive. the audience is captive. Do you have a choice to move from android, if you didnt want to have an apple device? Do you want to use a different search engine other than google? Is there another email provider than gmail (for the non-technical person - i know you can run your own). Is there another browser other than chrome (and dont say firefox or edge - because both don'…
Why are saying that Firefox or even Chrome reskin can't compete with Chrome? I haven't been using Chrome for maybe 10 years or more, so I'm genuinely interested. Even if you hate Firefox, something like Brave is felt the same way but without google's garbage. I heard there are new guys in town like Helium and other Chromium based browser which choose to remove telemetry, support manifest v2, adblocks and so on.
The browsing experience without constant upselling some trash and proper adblockers are magnitudes better.