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

Google is forcing us to make our open source VoIP app worse

voys.co.za

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 296 posts

Re: Google is forcing us to make our open source VoIP app worse

#251

Post by ericlnu »

jonas21 wrote: post #59
asdff wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time, why not just release at least one phone that is developer friendly? People can handle it. All these issues are present on computers that are able to run unsigned code, have sensitive personal info stored on them, etc. Yet the sky is not falling with all this going on with everyone's computer on earth, like how people fear the sky will fall if we opened up the mobile phone.

On most (if not all) Android phones, you can tap the version 8 times to put it into developer mode and then install whatever you want.

All

Re: Google is forcing us to make our open source VoIP app worse

#252

Post by ericlnu »

jtvjan wrote: post #47
asdff wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the same time, why not just release at least one phone that is developer friendly? People can handle it. All these issues are present on computers that are able to run unsigned code, have sensitive personal info stored on them, etc. Yet the sky is not falling with all this going on with everyone's computer on earth, like how people fear the sky will fall if we opened up the mobile phone.

It's easy to install unsigned apps on Android, but not being on the Play Store severely limits your reach, since many people only check there for apps instead of searching on the open web.

FDroid

Re: Google is forcing us to make our open source VoIP app worse

#253

Post by datavirtue »

secretsatan wrote: post #71
fsflover wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>why not just release at least one phone that is developer friendly? Google and Apple want to control their users, they don't want to give you an open phone. Instead have a look at Librem 5 and Pinephone, which run GNU/Linux.

In a way, but not for your reasons, they want to create mass market devices that if you give one to your grandma, little nephew can twist their arm for the root password to install this totally harmless fun app Apple realised that far more than google imho

So include a button that rolls back the OS to yesterday? You are inventing a dire issue that does not exist or has a clear, proven solution.

Re: Google is forcing us to make our open source VoIP app worse

#254

Post by datavirtue »

seanhunter wrote: post #215
r2sk5t wrote: post #167

We had this issue and went back and forth with Google for weeks with no progress. It was infuriating, since the peeps on the other end just cut and pasted responses. Then, we hashed the Contacts before uploading them and our app was immediately approved. Subsequently, they decided to ding us on this permission "QUERY_ALL_PACKAGES", which we needed for inviting people you know to our app. Since we were so beaten down,…

From a user perspective it’s good to hear about apps being forced to remove the “invite everyone you know” feature. It’s time for that obnoxious user-hostile growth hack to stop.

Too late. Probably the single biggest user exploit responsible for Facebook's popularity.

Re: Google is forcing us to make our open source VoIP app worse

#255

Post by kk6mrp »

ericlnu wrote: post #251
jonas21 wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On most (if not all) Android phones, you can tap the version 8 times to put it into developer mode and then install whatever you want.

All

Not all, some have this option locked out.

Re: Google is forcing us to make our open source VoIP app worse

#256

Post by aasasd »

saagarjha wrote: post #222
dougk16 wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google does some pretty surprising levels of static analysis of compiled source, particularly surrounding their API usage. There's a few examples I've run into but the first that pops to mind is when they started requiring a yes/no confirmation dialog before allowing a user to access a non-https resource through the WebView. There was no way a human was running into that on the particular app I was working on. We're…

Google generally would have an incentive to not be up in a negative light on Hacker News if they could avoid it, no?

I'm not sure what kind of importance you ascribe to HN, but from here outside of SF I feel like Google doesn't give a remotest shit about this gathering, and generally has the feelings sensitivity of a triceratops. Moreover, they're actively undermining power-user workflows on Android—so the attitude can in fact be measured as negative, if only by passing chance.

Re: Google is forcing us to make our open source VoIP app worse

#257

Post by jdmg94 »

esprehn wrote: post #173
sgc wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They won't let you call anything but their crappy camera app by intent already, for supposed privacy reasons. As you intimate, what is the point of allowing mobile apps, if they can't access any of the features of the device? Because that is where they are heading, fast. A few crappy google apps that require 24/7 spying to work, and then they "protect you" from everyone else. Sounds like an old school mafia street ra…

That sounds like iOS? Only Apple apps have access to all the system level capabilities and you can't replace any of the system apps, not even the browser.

no forum about Android is complete without somebody blaming Apple

Re: Google is forcing us to make our open source VoIP app worse

#258

Post by ziddoap »

GordonS wrote: post #249
ziddoap wrote: post #7

I'm not familiar with mobile app review process, would any change in code require a re-review/re-submit? If Google approved it as-is, could the developers add a few lines as an "update" and skip over the full review process? Seems like the ruling is being made on what can be done with the current permissions, rather than what is being done. If that's the case, I sympathize with the devs but I think I support the posi…

> Seems like the ruling is being made on what can be done with the current permissions, rather than what is being done. If that's the case, I sympathize with the devs but I think I support the position Google is taking there. Not sure if I'm missing something here, but the "access contacts" permission exists for a reason, and plenty of apps use it - how can it be justified that Google will arbitrarily ban this app, b…

I'm not arguing that it's justified here but not elsewhere. Selective enforcement of rules is one of my biggest gripes with companies.

I'm also not arguing that applications shouldn't be able to use contact permissions, obviously some applications will need it. But I do think that if you need X permission, you should be evaluated against everything that the permission grants and not just "we promise not to use Y part of X permission".

Re: Google is forcing us to make our open source VoIP app worse

#259

Post by pydry »

saagarjha wrote: post #221
pydry wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could just make the contacts API use an inbuilt contact picker than just supplies to the app the contact the user selects each time they make a call. I assume they want google apps to have access to the whole phonebook without looking too suss though.

This doesn’t work when you get an incoming call, and it’s annoying for outgoing ones too.

It absolutely could. You could have a permission to do a lookup on the contacts list. These lookups could then be logged and tracked.

Re: Google is forcing us to make our open source VoIP app worse

#260

Post by TheRealDunkirk »

datavirtue wrote: post #254
seanhunter wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From a user perspective it’s good to hear about apps being forced to remove the “invite everyone you know” feature. It’s time for that obnoxious user-hostile growth hack to stop.

Too late. Probably the single biggest user exploit responsible for Facebook's popularity.

Twitter and TikTok are still pestering me. It's not too late to ban it outright.
Post reply on HN