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

Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

androidauthority.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 762 posts

Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#81

Post by allreduce »

PunchTornado wrote: post #57

I agree with high friction sideloading. it is the best of both worlds. no friction sideloading is too easily exploited by scammers. having a member of my family exposed to this kind of thing in the past taught me some things.

Honestly, no. Not for everyone.

As someone from Germany, I don't want Google to nanny family members computing devices. They don't want it either. It is completely absurd for an ad company in a surveillance state an ocean away to play IT services for everyone. This has already gone to far.

Rather, there should be tools for value-aligned IT services and technically minded family members to help.

Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#82

Post by pmontra »

londons_explore wrote: post #26
thaumasiotes wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> [Google's] strategy is growing markets, especially in india, and africa, and of course China. Really? China? Where Google services are banned and Android phones come with local OS versions that cut them out? "High-friction sideloading" won't affect anyone in China. It won't be part of their experience at all.

I think OP is suggesting that the ability to sideload is what is preventing their phones being distributed in China. If you can present a "locked down" phone to regulators, you might be more likely to get permission to sell large volumes of them - like iPhones in China.

But there still won't be Google Services so what extra money is Google to make there? The markup on hardware. But they have to compete with local manufacturers with the very same OS. At least Apple is the only manufacturer selling phones with iOS.

Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#83

Post by clhodapp »

B1FIDO wrote: post #71
reddalo wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree with the word "sideloading" though. It's just _installing_.

"Installing" has the connotation of doing it directly from the Play Store. This is also known as "Downloading" (because the data is on a server, in the cloud, and you're fetching it "downstream" to a local device.) "Sideloading" doesn't refer to the installation process, but to the file transfer process. You're sideloading when you transfer, e.g. APKs from your notebook to your Android. Or, from a USB stick into your…

The point is that before walled-garden app stores, that was how pretty much every normal person installed software on their PC's. Using the term "sideloading" for that is a clever invention to try and retroactively rebrand what is actually super-normal as something scary.

Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#85

Post by zjaffee »

onli wrote: post #56
AlotOfReading wrote: post #12

Google's long term strategy with Android is baffling to me. Apple has had better mobile hardware for years. Apple has higher consumer trust. Apple has better app selection (for most people). Apple has been increasingly implementing the core features that differentiate Android devices, like USB-C and RCS. Every Android user lost to the increasing iOS market share is another customer Google has to pay exorbitant fees t…

I don't see any iOS advantage with the apps anymore. That was maybe true in the very beginning, during the gold rush time of the app store. But not since then. In which category are there better iOS apps? Browsers? No, strictly worse. Youtube app? No, worse. Texting? Worse or equal (Whatsapp). Podcast client? I assume worse, since there is no Antenna Pod. Social media apps? The iOS variants of those apps are afaik in…

The iOS version of most social media apps is better. IOS simply has better API integration to it's hardware, where with android, many OEMs (hell this was even the case to a certain extent with older pixel phones), do a number of things that make the hardware not as easily accessible as quickly from the OS API for said feature.

This is especially relevant for the camera, but also various other sensors and hardware modules that exist inside these phones.

That said, in recent years there are just a number of other areas that android is much better at such as deeper AI integration, which goes back to even prior to the current LLM craze.

Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#86

Post by necovek »

londons_explore wrote: post #30
silisili wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a feeling, despite Google's communications, this is all an attempt to thwart the numerous ad-free YouTube apps. Another reason it should have been broken apart years ago. It's laughable that the biggest ad company in the world owns the largest video site in the world, largest browser in the world, largest search engine in the world, and largest mobile OS in the world.

If google push too hard, someone will make a "youtube mirror" - ie. a complete copy of youtube at a different domain. The actual data could be hosted p2p across all the users devices, and any missing data retrieved one-time-only from real youtube servers.

I guess you never received a copyright infringement notice from your ISP for seeding a torrent.

Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#88

Post by bloqs »

onli wrote: post #56
AlotOfReading wrote: post #12

Google's long term strategy with Android is baffling to me. Apple has had better mobile hardware for years. Apple has higher consumer trust. Apple has better app selection (for most people). Apple has been increasingly implementing the core features that differentiate Android devices, like USB-C and RCS. Every Android user lost to the increasing iOS market share is another customer Google has to pay exorbitant fees t…

I don't see any iOS advantage with the apps anymore. That was maybe true in the very beginning, during the gold rush time of the app store. But not since then. In which category are there better iOS apps? Browsers? No, strictly worse. Youtube app? No, worse. Texting? Worse or equal (Whatsapp). Podcast client? I assume worse, since there is no Antenna Pod. Social media apps? The iOS variants of those apps are afaik in…

sorry this is not correct. (do you consistently use both?) iOS apps are consistently better, because people prefer using swift

Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#89

Post by xg15 »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #12

Google's long term strategy with Android is baffling to me. Apple has had better mobile hardware for years. Apple has higher consumer trust. Apple has better app selection (for most people). Apple has been increasingly implementing the core features that differentiate Android devices, like USB-C and RCS. Every Android user lost to the increasing iOS market share is another customer Google has to pay exorbitant fees t…

> Surely the marginal revenue from the inconsequential number of sideloading users isn't attractive enough to justify that kind of strategic blunder.

If the rumors are true that the whole anti-sideloading thing is mostly because some governments complained, it might not have to do with a business strategy at all.

Re: Google confirms 'high-friction' sideloading flow is coming to Android

#90

Post by stavros »

shreddit wrote: post #64
BatteryMountain wrote: post #59

If the make sideloading high-friction, either via account-bound or apk upload or permissions from MNO/ISP, I will leave android. I have a bunch of my own apps that only I use, not released to the public, if I cannot use them, I have zero reason to stay on android. I think one of the reasons they want to lockdown the system is to prevent guys like me from locking THEM out of my home/ecosystems, as and example, I build…

Yeah, as an iOS dev, the grass is not greener on this side of the fence…

It's not, but at least it will be equally ungreen.
Post reply on HN