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

Post by sangnoir » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 6:58 PM UTC

acdha wrote: post #45

Andrex wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh man, you should have seen the mobile sphere before Android...

Before iOS, to be fair. Touchscreens got the attention but the use of the iPod’s popularity to negotiate a non-terrible cellular market was equally transformative. The carriers used to charge something on the order of $50k each to be listed in their app stores and their percentage of revenue was high and negotiated based on your perceived ability to pay: we had several clients bail on J2ME projects because they were…

Post by Nextgrid » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 7:05 PM UTC

TheCapeGreek wrote: post #73

tsimionescu wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention, given their cookie policy, they claim that they are "very privacy conscious" is dubious at best (no button to directly reject all non-necessary cookies, navigation to a different page to configure cookie preferences, claiming that analytics cookies are required). I'm going to go ahead and say that probably they are misrepresenting what is happening.

To give the benefit of the doubt, knowing nothing else about this company: This is clearly a South African based company. GDPR and cookie may be important compliance but it's not top of the totem pole - the local South African equivalent law (POPI) is more about data processing than cookies. Plenty of sites have not updated their cookie UX for the newer regulations. I've even noticed some sites serve different forms…

Post by sangnoir » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 7:08 PM UTC

acdha wrote: post #84

sangnoir wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Before iOS, to be fair. iOS didn't move the needle on open source, open bootloaders or anything gp mentioned. All iOS did was shift the balance of power from telecom companies to Apple. Android was far more open than all that came before it: the source code was available,it used open source & contributed back, and brought a very "PC" mindset[1] to an industry that had always considered handsets to be appliances (sa…

Going back to the original comment, iOS improved the situation from the carrier having veto power over the entire experience to just the phone vendor and the App Store is more open than some of the earlier ones were (standard terms). It also doesn’t have the ad / activity data issues. Android can be more open but let’s not pretend that a lot of devices have locked bootloaders, too, and has never lived up to that “PC”…

Post by akira2501 » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 7:10 PM UTC

Andrex wrote: post #29

squarefoot wrote: post #9

The mobile ecosystem has been built with the sole intent of milking users through targeted advertising, media consumption and unnecessary services subscription, so I find normal that corporations behind the OSes fight hard to maintain the platform as closed as possible (proprietary or seemingly open OSes, closed drivers, locked bootloaders etc). Their deepest fear is seeing their ecosystem conquered by Open Source, o…

Oh man, you should have seen the mobile sphere before Android...

Post by Nextgrid » Thu, Oct 20, 2022, 7:13 PM UTC

cmsj wrote: post #31

AlexandrB wrote: post #16

With the exception of Signal, I never give apps access to my contacts. If you think that's paranoid, remember how apps like LinkedIn used this kind of information in the past[1]. Thankfully on iOS apps almost always work without contact access (is this mandated by App Store rules?). It's not clear from the article if the app just asks for access to contacts or requires it, but if you can't make your Voip app work wit…

Absolutely the same here. WhatsApp is a nightmare to use without contacts, but I don't care, they are not having my contacts.