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Developing for Android is like being a demonetized YouTuber

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Re: Developing for Android is like being a demonetized YouTuber

#81

Post by pcwalton »

jbk wrote: post #24

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…

> What I don't like though, is their abysmal NDK support (notably compared to iOS)

Yeah, this is my biggest gripe. The vast majority of popular apps in the Play Store are games, which all use the NDK. Yet Google refuses to give the NDK more resources.

Re: Developing for Android is like being a demonetized YouTuber

#82

Post by Arnt »

fencepost wrote: post #63

Didn't they do some of this kind of storage crap back on 4.x? And for that matter, isn't this pretty much exactly what Microsoft was doing with Windows Phone? My annoying use case for those was ebook readers - I have a pretty massive library of epubs (Thanks Baen Webscriptions!) and have tended to just dump a ton of them into a folder in storage on a device. I can then pull those up in CoolReader, Moon+ Reader (posit…

That you can still do. The future notion is that that storage directory is yours, and apps don't have total access ("write anywhere, read anything, delete whatever"). FBReader cannot dump some more ebooks in that directory.

FBReader has a directory of its own, and can provide other apps with access to ebooks or other files in that directory, mediated by its own code, access-controlled as it pleases.

It doesn't sound bad to my ears, except that the APIs involved need love and attention, and their documentation even more so.

(Edit: Not picking on FBReader, just using it as an example.)

Re: Developing for Android is like being a demonetized YouTuber

#83

Post by ocdtrekkie »

fencepost wrote: post #63

Didn't they do some of this kind of storage crap back on 4.x? And for that matter, isn't this pretty much exactly what Microsoft was doing with Windows Phone? My annoying use case for those was ebook readers - I have a pretty massive library of epubs (Thanks Baen Webscriptions!) and have tended to just dump a ton of them into a folder in storage on a device. I can then pull those up in CoolReader, Moon+ Reader (posit…

I do think sandboxing the file system makes sense. I recall on early Androids just seeing an arbitrary dumpster of files on the SD card for different apps and uses, and tons of apps had access to all of them. That's concerning.

But ideally, the user should be able to create an arbitrary storage location (say, a folder), and then permit specific apps to access it, without granting the app "file system access" as a whole.

Capability-based systems with a powerbox/picker UI are designed this way, so my guess is Fuchsia will work a bit more like this.

Re: Developing for Android is like being a demonetized YouTuber

#84

Post by vgoh1 »

The constant API changes has been a huge PITA for me both as a developer and as a user.

As a developer, I am forced to take time out of developing my new app to update my older apps. This year, I spent 3 months updating my 2 older apps to the newest API. My app/game that will be released soon is targeting an API that will be banned from further updates later this year. The problem is that the game framework that I use does not support the newer API yet, and development has slowed considerably on it, so I may be stuck with the (possibly monumental) task of updating the game framework myself.

My two older apps should be left alone. My users tend to stick with them because they want to use a familiar interface, and most other competitors change interfaces on a regular basis. But I have had to occasionally remove features because of API changes.

And that brings me to my gripes as an Android user - most of my favorite old apps from just a few years back with either no longer work, or have completely changed so that they aren't really the same app that I used to love.

I am really rooting for a Linux-based phone to eek out some type of commercial viability. I am willing to pay much more for a device with much lower specs and polish, so that I can have a device that respects me as a user.

Re: Developing for Android is like being a demonetized YouTuber

#85

Post by UnpossibleJim »

fjabre wrote: post #76
fencepost wrote: post #63

Didn't they do some of this kind of storage crap back on 4.x? And for that matter, isn't this pretty much exactly what Microsoft was doing with Windows Phone? My annoying use case for those was ebook readers - I have a pretty massive library of epubs (Thanks Baen Webscriptions!) and have tended to just dump a ton of them into a folder in storage on a device. I can then pull those up in CoolReader, Moon+ Reader (posit…

I think the point you make about walled gardens needs to be addressed more than it is. It seems to have become normalized across all platforms and that is disturbing. I fundamentally disagree with the premise of a walled garden when there are no other options to install on a device. The web is the only freedom devs have left and even that is starting to erode - article 13, neutrality etc.

To be honest, the last freedom of small portable devices are the Pi and the NVidia cards and a build your own solution. While I understand this isn't a true replacement for a mobile, as it doesn't have access to the web everywhere, I can't seem to think of an independent alternative that hasn't been hobbled quite a bit.... plus they're pretty fun to build. You can build pretty neat ones the size of a DS that do what you want, but again, it's not a true replacement for what you're looking for. It is a hacked solution in the truest sense. =[

Re: Developing for Android is like being a demonetized YouTuber

#86

Post by HillaryBriss »

a GPS nit: the Google Play Store's "timed publishing" feature lets you accumulate changes to your app's store page hours or days in advance of an update and then click a "Go Live" when you actually want to publish that update and make those changes publicly visible.

but apparently it's not quite atomic. the Timed Publishing documentation notes say: If you ... add release notes to your app’s “What’s new in this release?” section while you're in timed publishing mode, they'll be published immediately.

https://support.google.com/googleplay/android-developer/answ...

that's so confusing! if I want to update release notes about a new release I'm going to make live soon, why would I want them to be published immediately? huh?

Re: Developing for Android is like being a demonetized YouTuber

#87

Post by arebours »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #83
fencepost wrote: post #63

Didn't they do some of this kind of storage crap back on 4.x? And for that matter, isn't this pretty much exactly what Microsoft was doing with Windows Phone? My annoying use case for those was ebook readers - I have a pretty massive library of epubs (Thanks Baen Webscriptions!) and have tended to just dump a ton of them into a folder in storage on a device. I can then pull those up in CoolReader, Moon+ Reader (posit…

I do think sandboxing the file system makes sense. I recall on early Androids just seeing an arbitrary dumpster of files on the SD card for different apps and uses, and tons of apps had access to all of them. That's concerning. But ideally, the user should be able to create an arbitrary storage location (say, a folder), and then permit specific apps to access it, without granting the app "file system access" as a who…

Totally agree. It works pretty well on iOS with APFS so multiple file copies occupy the same storage space. Not sure about Android though.

Re: Developing for Android is like being a demonetized YouTuber

#88

Post by soylentcola »

RealityDisorder wrote: post #59
soylentcola wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's odd. I just checked this (running current version of Android Pie) and I could screenshot both my Bank of America app and my credit union. I wonder if this is something the apps themselves have to disable or something in certain versions of Android itself.

https://developer.android.com/reference/android/view/WindowM...

Thanks for the quick reference (I'm not an app developer but I am curious about how things work).

Re: Developing for Android is like being a demonetized YouTuber

#89

Post by yogthos »

Personally, I really hope that Librem 5 won't flop. While I don't see it going mainstream, at least it could provide a mobile platform for technically minded users.

I also think efforts like Fairphone are also promising. Android does provide a nice solid base to build on top of. What's missing is a community effort we see around Linux to build a completely open platform on top of what's already available.

Re: Developing for Android is like being a demonetized YouTuber

#90

Post by lagadu »

While I understand the complaint about google eliminating entire classes of apps, I have to say that I'm finding it extremely difficult to have any sympathy whatsoever for the OP: he's effectively complaining that software requires maintenance, which is something that has always been true and every single one of us learned about project lifecycle management in our engineering management or equivalent classes; as time goes on the effort towards maintaining any piece of software tends to overcome the effort of having it created in the first place.
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