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

Developing for Android is like being a demonetized YouTuber

gbl08ma.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 118 posts

Re: Developing for Android is like being a demonetized YouTuber

#21

Post by jbk »

fattire wrote: post #16

Android's Storage Access Framework is really underrated. Just ask the user to choose a document (file or image or whatever) by firing an intent-- then Android's built-in file picker starts up and you don't have to deal with implementing any of that UI experience. After the user picks the file, a content:// URI is returned back. https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/providers/documen... Best part-- along with the…

> But in most situations involving External Storage, the SAF is really what you want to use anyway.

Or not. A File Picker does not work for playlists, linked MKV/MOV files, subtitles autodetection (subfolders and such), and so many other multimedia cases.

Also, it is a pain to use from the NDK... And incorrectly documented.

And then, the UI to allow people to give you access to the folders is extremely confusing, hard to explain to users, not customizable, and changes from version of Android to another, so very hard to document.

Re: Developing for Android is like being a demonetized YouTuber

#22

Post by cm2187 »

IloveHN84 wrote: post #18

Here people is complaining about Google bad policies..but have you ever seen/read/experienced changes in iOS ecosystem? All the new SDK versions must support newer devices while deprecating old versions of iOS. At least, you pay a fee of 25$ and it's on you (or Google). Paying 99$/year and still experiencing some strong frustration at each newer release and change is much more for fetishism

I compare that to Windows which has been around two decades longer than iOS and Android and which APIs have remained remarkably stable and backward compatible. It is possible to do it. It is just more work.

Re: Developing for Android is like being a demonetized YouTuber

#23

Post by clumsysmurf »

fattire wrote: post #16

Android's Storage Access Framework is really underrated. Just ask the user to choose a document (file or image or whatever) by firing an intent-- then Android's built-in file picker starts up and you don't have to deal with implementing any of that UI experience. After the user picks the file, a content:// URI is returned back. https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/providers/documen... Best part-- along with the…

The SAF APIs are cumbersome garbage up there with Account Manager and ContentProviders. Its missing important providers like DropBox, and even Google Drive doesn't implement it completely.

Re: Developing for Android is like being a demonetized YouTuber

#24

Post by jbk »

After porting VLC on so many platforms, to be honest, working on Android applications is not too bad. Notably compared to other mobile platforms.

The tools and IDE are quite good (they need a lot of RAM though), the deployment is easy, the development workflow simple enough and the devices are easy (and cheap) to come by. Even the Play Store console is not catastrophic.

A contrario from Youtube, you can get questions answered by Google, and the dev communities are quite large.

The API changes are known 6 months in advance, which is good enough, for most cases. And you get them usually only when targeting the new SDK version (except for Android Q... why?!?)

What I don't like though, is their abysmal NDK support (notably compared to iOS), the removal of use-cases (just use SAF, right? wifi?), but mostly the APIs that are never finished and always buggy (Audio API for example), and the impossibility to send patches to fix those bugs.

Finally, the Play Store Console is so-so, but the user-facing part is quite nice.

Re: Developing for Android is like being a demonetized YouTuber

#25

Post by eh78ssxv2f »

> "Note that all of these things that they are removing for “security”, could simply be gated around a permission prompt you’d have to accept, as with the contact list, or location."

I think letting the user decide on permissions works in practice only if (i) There is a good chance that an average user would understand the tradeoffs of giving different permissions to different apps (ii) A large majority of users are expected to give that permission to the app under reasonable circumstances.

If an average user does not understand the tradeoffs of giving permissions to an app, then the operating system may as well do it on behalf of the user. I think this is a common problem since an average user probably clicks arbitrarily on the permissions dialog.

Similarly, if a permission is perceived to be not useful enough by most of the users, then there is no point in even having that in the ecosystem.

Re: Developing for Android is like being a demonetized YouTuber

#26

Post by agluszak »

Security on Android is a joke. Google may shut down completely legitimate developers' accounts and remove useful permissions, yet they will still allow malicious apps like Cheetah Mobile's Ram Booster to be in top 10 most downloaded apps of the Play Store...

Re: Developing for Android is like being a demonetized YouTuber

#27

Post by iliketosleep »

In fairness, access to features such as call logs and clipboard are too easily abused. I think that most users downloading apps from the Play Store have the expectation that Google is taking care of their privacy. As the author mentioned, advanced users can still sideload any non-approved apps they want, and as advanced users they should understand any security implications.

The point I do agree on is that the platform itself is becoming far too locked down, and the example of "Imagine if the online banking of my bank refused to open on my desktop because it knows I know the password for the administrator account" is a valid one and shows just how crazy it's getting.

Re: Developing for Android is like being a demonetized YouTuber

#28

Post by chaisoftware »

fattire wrote: post #16

Android's Storage Access Framework is really underrated. Just ask the user to choose a document (file or image or whatever) by firing an intent-- then Android's built-in file picker starts up and you don't have to deal with implementing any of that UI experience. After the user picks the file, a content:// URI is returned back. https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/providers/documen... Best part-- along with the…

> then Android's built-in file picker starts up

This is not a good thing for VR apps. Unless there's a VR system file picker in the works that I'm unaware of..

Re: Developing for Android is like being a demonetized YouTuber

#29

Post by Arnt »

chaisoftware wrote: post #28
fattire wrote: post #16

Android's Storage Access Framework is really underrated. Just ask the user to choose a document (file or image or whatever) by firing an intent-- then Android's built-in file picker starts up and you don't have to deal with implementing any of that UI experience. After the user picks the file, a content:// URI is returned back. https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/providers/documen... Best part-- along with the…

> then Android's built-in file picker starts up This is not a good thing for VR apps. Unless there's a VR system file picker in the works that I'm unaware of..

I'm curious.

Suppose you're a VR app and you invoke a picker to open a... I don't know... you want to open a sound file. How should the picker's UI be to fit into your general VR interface?

If a sound file is particularly badly suited, then some other kind of file (but in that case I'm interested in why that's easier/better than sound).

Re: Developing for Android is like being a demonetized YouTuber

#30

Post by chronogram »

Arnt wrote: post #29
chaisoftware wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> then Android's built-in file picker starts up This is not a good thing for VR apps. Unless there's a VR system file picker in the works that I'm unaware of..

I'm curious. Suppose you're a VR app and you invoke a picker to open a... I don't know... you want to open a sound file. How should the picker's UI be to fit into your general VR interface? If a sound file is particularly badly suited, then some other kind of file (but in that case I'm interested in why that's easier/better than sound).

Boxes and drawers. A sound file could be in a collection of records or CDs or tapes. Making it just like real life is like having your users start off with the manual already read.

I’m afraid a general Android VR item picker will be a lot more boring though.

Post reply on HN