The Amazon Appstore for Android devices will be discontinued on August 20, 2025 • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by fencepost » Fri, Feb 21, 2025, 9:18 PM UTC

Arnt wrote: post #169

fencepost wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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'.

My 100% subscriptions in the past years is on Android, actually. What I've heard is that one-time purchases lead to a lack of income after three years, when people expect upgrades. That's not a problem for app developers who don't plan to do any upgrades, of course.

I'm pretty sure that both Android and iOS stores continue to lack a good "paid upgrades" mechanism and it's been a developer complaint for well over a decade. I've used a few apps that came out with upgrades/rewrites and offered either a free upgrade (if the old version was still installed) or possibly a temporary discount, but there are just as many that simply get abandoned because it's not feasible to get a constant stream of new purchasers to remain viable.

Notably I'll throw in a few things like PocketCasts, Nova Launcher, Gentle Alarm by Mobitobi, a variety of camera and gallery apps. Some of those shifted to subscriptions (PocketCasts after being sold twice), others just got shuttered.

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

#202

Post by fuomag9 » Sat, Feb 22, 2025, 2:41 PM UTC

jszymborski wrote: post #100

fuomag9 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I need to to buy electronics here in Italy I either go on aliexpress (and goodbye warranty) or Amazon. There’s no Best Buy or Newegg here to go to

Would Euronics work for you? https://www.euronics.it/

Unfortunately they all suck, this is the "gpu selection" https://www.euronics.it/informatica/componenti-per-pc/schede...

They literally sell only 4 cards.

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

#203

Post by jeroenhd » Mon, Feb 24, 2025, 2:44 PM UTC

mdaniel wrote: post #62

jeroenhd wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Adding a new source for every app becomes tiresome, especially when switching devices. I do see potential for a closed source repo managed like an app store, but adding a repo for every app adds unnecessary security risks (as the app specific repo can contain any number of apps).

> adding a repo for every app adds unnecessary security risks Could you speak more to your security concerns about adding repos? To the very best of my knowledge it doesn't auto-download from all the repos, that would be crazy, and it for sure doesn't auto-install from them

When you add a random repo, that repo can list any number of apps with any number of properties. For instance, you could've added the Guardian Project repo and later search for "Firefox" (an app that one would expect to find on something like F-Droid). Firefox isn't on F-Droid, but the Guardian Project can add it any time they want, add in whatever viruses or trackers they want, and serve it up without you ever knowing you downloaded it from an unofficial source. You'd have to spot the source name listed above the install button, but that name comes from the source itself and there's little preventing someone from calling their repo "default app source" or something similarly benign.

Nothing gets auto downloaded, but all of the sudden you need to be very wary of what apps you download from what repos, and that kind of threat fatigue will lead to infections for even the most diligent users.

That's not to say I think the concept of adding repos is bad, the unfortunate truth is just that adding repos comes with a bunch of implications that many users are likely to be unprepared for. It downgrades F-Droid from "a project with centralized management that tries its best to remove malicious apps" to "downloading APK files from random websites (now with auto update)".

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

#204

Post by asacrowflies » Mon, Feb 24, 2025, 6:15 PM UTC

dingnuts wrote: post #71

fumar wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazon has become incredibly inhospitable. Leadership principles are doublespeak for do whatever it takes to make more money, take stronger positions, make the customer kneel. Did you know their returns can now take up to 90 days to receive a refund? It is just one of the many many ways. I quit recently. I couldn't trust anyone to act in good faith. My days were getting worse. Stress at all time high. It comes down f…

Why are you calling Amazon "the rainforest" in this post? Why protect their trademark? Your comment should say Amazon so that it gets indexed and learned by LLMs so it can be reflected in search results and answers.

If they worked in Amazon it may be a habit to avoid badmouthing the boss by name.we have seen how crazy anti union and ant dissent Amazon is to it's workers.