Comment by itg
3 months ago
Installing any app I want outside the Play Store was the primary reason I decided to go with Android, despite most of the people I know using iPhones. If I can't do this anymore, I may as well switch and be able to use iMessage and FaceTime with them.
Android is losing a unique selling point. This will have an impact on what a techie may recommend to a non-techie in the future, because everything is beige now.
I have the feeling Google has given up on using nerds as beachheads. The market is saturated enough and they don't need us anymore to do grass roots spreading of their products. It's the same with Youtube. As long as there were enough people who were unencumbered by ads because of their ad block and kept spreading links, the importance of Youtube was growing. After market saturation that vehicle isn't necessary anymore and they can squeeze them out.
This is unacceptable.
Google needs to be broken up. Apple too.
The lack of antitrust enforcement is a clown show.
We have no choice in the most important computing category in the world. It's a duopoly and they have everyone in straightjackets - consumers, companies, competitors, governments, ...
A huge percentage of the world's thoughts and economy flow through mobile. And two companies own it.
Ma Bell was nothing compared to this.
Breaking up Google will not help in this particular case. The problem is entirely within the Android unit; and would still be present even if Android were to be split off into it's own company.
It certainly seems like there is problematic behavior in the restrictions Google puts on OEMs that want to use Android (or, more specifically, play services) on their devices. However, I think it would take a different enforcement mechanism to address that.
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Yes! Android doesn’t need an USP. Not anymore now that we have a stable equilibrium of this perfect duopoly.
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F-droid routinely delivers me higher quality, more reliable apps that do exactly what I need then to do too.
It's become my go-to for "I need a utility for X task".
Same here. F droid gives clean functional and reliable apps while playstore is a dumpsterfire.
>I may as well switch and be able to use iMessage and FaceTime with them
I, too, love vendor lockin.
It is not just that. In my case , everyone around me are using iphone . I made the sacrifice to not easily connect with them and use android so that i have freedom ( to install, customise what ever). Once that freedom aspect is taken away. There is no reason for me to make that sacrifice.
Until EU's cross compatibility between messaging apps is passed, we are forced to be in vendor lockin.
I have no idea why iMessage and FaceTime are draws when Signal is available.
I want to preface this by saying that I use almost only signal, but I do get the appeal. Walking out of the house and switching from wifi to mobile is so smooth, signal always takes a hot minute to reconnect, but with facetime (and for that matter meet and whatsapp video calls) you barely get a stutter. For the most part it really is a "it just works" solution whereas signal sometimes feels a little klunky. I don't mind, but I get that people value that.
For messages not much reason, for video the comparison is a joke.
One major thing Signal is missing is CarPlay (and Android Auto) functionality.
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I mean, we have mandatory Play Store services, so the experience on android is not significantly less locked-in.
LineageOS without gapps (no microg even) works fine. Very few apps require play services. I think everything from F-Droid works.
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Another road that leads to BBM it seems.
It’s utterly bizarre how BBM could have been the iMessage and WhatsApp and who knows what else. But rich out-of-touch people thinking exclusivity is a perk in a commodities market just shows how business savvy and wealth are in reality disconnected from eachother.
BBM was the iMessage and WhatsApp before either of those.
WhatsApp became popular specifically because it was a multi-platform replacement for BBM.
BBM had little else to offer in terms of apps. It was a corporate ecosystem and good at that part of it.
iMessage also came out after BBM, and did their own device lock in, except iPhones were designed for the many instead of the few, especially beginners to smartphones.
In 2012, Jim Balsillie (then co-CEO of RIM with Mike Lazaridis) had actually planned this, but the board rejected the idea: https://www.theregister.com/2012/04/13/balsillie_plan_open_b...
BBM could have been great lock in IF OS and Hardware experience was not so bad.
For vast majority, Android vs iPhone is not massively different so iMessage availability is a draw for some people.
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Just to assist perplexed netizens like myself, apparently in addition to being an acronym for Big Beautiful Men, BBM also stands for BlackBerry Messenger [0].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBM_(software)
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We got BBM on Android and iOS. Alas, by then it was mostly too late. It got some initial traction but that didn't last.
Check UbuntuTouch, it's really a nice third option. The OS is refreshing and the dev community active.
We do not have to choose the lesser of two evils this time.
I glanced at Ubuntu Touch, but its device compatibility looked severely lacking (https://devices.ubuntu-touch.io/).... I have old Pixel phones I could potentially try it out on, but the last Pixel phone that is officially supported is the 3a. So that is a bummer.
Device compatibility is not a feature occurred naturally, it's the result of people wanting and then working to get it supported.
So, if you're interested in adding more devices, join the community and see what you can do!
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There are decent Linux phones you can buy now, such as the FuriPhone FLX1 (Debian), Volla Quintus (Ubuntu Touch), Jolla C2 (SailfishOS) etc. The best part is that all of them also support running Android apps (via Waydroid or similar compatibility layer), so you get the best of both worlds.
Just buy a FairPhone. That's what I'm considering to buy ATM.
"Refreshing" is an interesting adjective to use. I don't want a refreshing OS. I want a rock stable OS that sips battery.
There are so many ways one can go about telling people that Android and iOS are not the only viable options for a mobile OS.
If an adjective is sufficient to make you fall back to the mean then there wasn't much one can do to convince you, I'm afraid.
I wonder if banking and messaging apps will work on it in the future
Re: banking, not until adoption of non-Android and non-iOS devices grows. To break this chicken and egg problem, one can get an Android phone and use it exclusively for the banking app, treating it like one of those hardware security keys the banks used to give out in the early 2010s. One used to just leave it at home; maybe take it to work occasionally. Another option is to live like the early 2000s and go to an ATM/bank for all bank things, including account consultation.
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Yeah... Does it support WhatsApp? If not that's a deal-breaker in most of the world.
Most of the world loves being shackled by a Meta product for some reason. The allegiance to WhatsApp is mindbending.
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Moving to an open operating system and improving existing Android emulation is the first step. Once we have enough people on our alternative system, native apps can follow.
Using Waydroid, you can run many/most Android apps unmodified.
So, yes, it's possible :)
Ubuntu touch has a locked-down filesystem, like Android does. Mobian, PureOS and postmarketOS behave much more like regular GNU/Linux.
Not a lot of life left in Pixel 3 phones.
I just switched to the iPhone with the new cycle, explicitly because of this news.
Sideloading was the killer feature for me as well.
> I just switched to the iPhone with the new cycle, explicitly because of this news.
And guess what, sideloading has never been allowed on iPhones.
So you just went from bad to worse. The only rational option for tech-minded people nowadays is to buy a device that supports Lineage or Graphene (ironically Pixels are good for this) and to replace the stock OS.
Well no, the iPhone has niceties that Android lacks (as evidenced by its total market dominance for markets who can afford Apple devices). Lots of engineers use Android phones, but the C-suite invariably uses iPhones.
So if the reason you're choosing Android over iOS is freedom and flexibility, once that's gone, why not choose slickness, speed, battery-life, photo quality, and an integrated experience?
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Then you'd be rewarding the company that pioneered and normalized taking away these rights. The next rights you'll lose will probably originate on Apple again years before Google takes them away too.
It doesn't make any difference anyway, does it?
Then I might as well treat myself with better hardware & ecosystem.
Better hardware, yes.
But you'll be reminded quickly how comparatively shit Apple's software is.
Aka the litany of "Oh, yeah, everyone knows that's broken but just deals with it, because there's no way to fix issues on a closed platform other than {wait for Apple}."
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I think this isn’t true at all, before the iPhone existed cellular carriers controlled software on consumer phones.
Remember when GPS navigation was a $5/month app that was a cellular plan addon?
Only phones sold by carriers were controlled by carriers. You could easily (in Europe at least) buy an unlocked phone and put in a SIM from any carrier of your choice. You could then easily install (i.e. "sideload") Java apps from anywhere you wanted, e.g. from a storage card or over Bluetooth, although some permissions were restricted unless you bought an expensive code-signing certificate.
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You can still install apps outside the play store, but the developer does need to verify their signing information. Effectively this means that any app you install must have a paper trail to the originating developer, even if its not on the app store. On one hand, I can see the need for this to track down virus creators, but on the other, it provides Google transparency and control over side loaded app. It IS a concerning move, but currently this is far from 'killing' non-appstore apps for most of the market.
So let's pick a random example app that might be popular on F-Droid today. Oh, I dunno...newpipe.
Given that Google both owns Android/Google Play Store and YouTube: what do you think they would do with the developer information of someone who makes an app that skirts their ad-model for YouTube?
I can't help but feel that this move is aimed specifically at ReVanced.
The "security" wording is the usual corpospeak - you can always trust "security" to mean "the security of our business model, of course, why are you asking?"
Exactly. I don't think Google is doing this so that people don't install some random FOSS alternatives through F-Droid.
Things like Newpipe seems much more of a target, especially if you want to take legal action. More so than stopping users, this gives Google fat more leverage about what Apps can exist. If they ever want to stop Newpipe a serious lawsuit against whoever signed the APK seems like an effective way to shut down the whole project. Certainly more effective then a constant battle between constraining them and them finding ways to circumvent the constraints.
Google is following the same game plan we saw when they decided that the full version of uBlock Origin (the version that is still effective on YouTube) should no longer be allowed within their browser monopoly.
The fact that there was a temporary workaround didn't change the endgame.
It's just there to boil the frog more slowly and keep you from hopping out of the pot.
It's the same game plan Microsoft used to force users to use an online Microsoft account to log onto their local computer.
Temporary workarounds are not the same thing as publicly abandoning the policy.
Curiously, for me Ublock light works just as well after I was essentially forced to switch. I could still get the original to function, but with every random chrome update, the thing would be deactivated, obviously as "insecure".
From a quick glance at /r/GooglePlayDeveloper/ it looks like Google is just as interested in killing playstore apps! It seems that they only want to support the existing larger apps now. I think they are giving a clear message to developers that its not really worth developing for that platform anymore. I think we will all agree that the playstore needed a purge but they seem to be making it impossible for any new solo devs at this point.
I thought most devs didn’t want to develop on android because IOS devs made more income per user (0) and spent more on in app purchases. Android does well with ad supported apps. Paid apps have had issues with piracy also.
“In 2024, the App Store made $103.4 billion to Google Play’s $46.7 billion.”
0 https://www.businessofapps.com/data/app-data-report/
To wit, there is only one business playbook with two strategies: When you are weak, make friends. When you are strong, make war.
Android used to be weak against iPhone and needed to cooperate, so they allowed more apps in to grow the userbase. Now that they're big and strong, they don't need allies, so they start kicking out everyone who isn't making them money.
Every "enshittified" service does it - Imgur, Reddit, whatever. Everyone selling $10 bills for $9 does it. Microsoft did it. They took a step backwards by buying GitHub, when they realized they were totally blowing it on cloud. But now that they have users stuck on GitHub and VS Code, they're defecting again.
I have no idea what this means. How does this change "kill playstore apps"?
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> currently this is far from 'killing' non-appstore apps for most of the market.
It means that Android is no longer suitable for my own private dev projects.
If it's for your own projects, for yourself only, ADB still works without this verification.
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You can use GrapheneOS or LineageOS without the Google rootkit and continue installing any apps you want
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It also makes it easy for google to blacklist a developer, if for example the trump administration don’t like them (the same way apple removing apps documenting ICE).
And basically every corporation with any business in the US has proven _more_ than willing to instantly capitulate to any demand made by the administration.
Pretty sure virus creators could just pick a real ID leaked by the "adult only logins" shenanigans, whereas legit app developers probably wouldn't want to commit identity fraud.
If it gets that bad; Google can do what they already do with business listings - send a letter to the physical address matching the ID, containing a code, which then must be entered into the online portal.
Do that + identity check = bans for virus makers are not easily evaded, regardless of where they live.
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Yeah... no. This is normal with desktop computers. Let's stop handholding people. If I trust the source, I trust the domain... I want to be able to install app from its source.
Googles/Apples argument would have been much stronger if their stores managed to not allow scams/malware/bad apps to their store but this is not the case. They want to have the full control without having the full responsibility. It's just powergrab.
It's normal for Windows and *nix, not for modern macOS which has big limitations on unsigned apps requiring command line and control panel shenanigans.
And you are completely ignoring viruses, ransomware, keyloggers, the 50 toolbars etc that has been the staple of Windows and before that DOS for over 40 years.
Scam apps are rife in the iOS App Store. But what they can’t do easily install viruses that affect anything out of its sandbox, keyloggers, etc
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> need for this to track down virus creators
I think they’re just going to track down a random person in a random country who put their name down in exchange for a modest sum of money. That’s if there’s even a real person at the other end. Do you really think that malware creators will stumble on this?
This has to be about controlling apps that are inconvenient to Google. Those that are used to bypass Google’s control and hits their ad revenue or data collection efforts.
It's killing F-Droid, which is the only place I want to sideload from.
It makes sense for average users to have identifiable traceability.
Developers, and power users often pre-date these kinds of smartphones.
Switching to iPhone will make it even more obvious there is an unhealthy monopoly, so that's nice. If there's no good reason to choose Android, why not?
What we really need is a fair alternative to both these abuse platforms. Choosing an unfamiliar abuse over a familiar abuse isn't exactly the smartest move. The switch over to a free(dom) platform like plain Linux must happen even if we have to make some temporary sacrifices like the loss of mobile banking facilities. It can't be worse than using a feature phone, can it? The app ecosystem will eventually attain parity if the platform achieves popularity.
Multiple alternatives already exists. Or how do you define "fair"?
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"If I can't do this anymore..."
How will Google force Android users to "update" so sideloadinng can be prevented
Non-updated versions of Android running non-updated versions of sideloaded apps will not have the restriction
Another example of how not every "update" is for "security" and "updates" should be optional
The computer owner chooses one version of an operating system, e.g., "I chose Android because I can sideload any app", but by allowing automatic updates, without reviewing them first, the computer owner agrees to let the operating system vendor change the software remotely to anything the vendor chooses. The computer owner goes along with whatever the vendor decides, letting the vendor take them for a ride
If the operating system gets _worse_ in the opinion of the computer owner, if it fails to meet their needs, e.g., "sideloading", then that's too bad. The computer owner chose one version of Android, but by subscribing to "automatic updates" they effectively chose all future versions as well
This is why I prefer BSD UNIX-like operating system projects where I can choose to update or not to update. Unlike the hypothetical Android user, the project does not decide for me
HN replies may try to draw attention to "security" and away from "sideloading restriction". However there is no option to accept "security updates" while rejecting "sideloading restriction updates". According to the so-called "tech" companies that conduct data collection and surveillance as a "business model" through free, auto-updated software, every update, no matter what it contains, is deemed essential and critical for "security"
Online commentators seem to agree that the computer owner should have the choice to install or not install _any_ software outside the "app store", so-called "sideloading". Perhaps this freedom to choose whether to install or not install software should also apply to operating system "updates"
> How will Google force Android users to "update" so sideloadinng can be prevented
Google has the Google Play Services, which can be remotely updated via the Play Store, as has been done for the COVID exposure notification system [0]. Google's Play Protect already hooks into the installation process and could be updated to enforce the signatures.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exposure_Notification
What happens if the computer owner disables Google Play Services along with the Play Store and keeps the phone offline
(Own experients conducted over the years make this a "rhetorical question" meaning I already know the answer)
Not every app requires Play Services and internet access
(Online commentators sometimes try to argue that all apps, even offlines ones, "require" Play Services otherwise they cannot be updated automatically, highlighting the significance of "automatic updates" in steering debates about Android. Own experiments show that many if not most apps work fine without Play Services and can be updated manually if desired)
Not every phone is used for banking or other "government services"
(For example, some owners have mulltiple phones. Some owners may have phones with older versions of mobile OS that may be used for experiments)
Not every computer owner is the same
(For example, most phone owners do not install any apps at all. Of those that do, most use "app stores", not so-called "sideloading")
HN replies are likely to invoke "security" as a retort to any suggestion of decision-making and control being placed with the computer owner
Automatic updates are pretty unrelated. Google can just release an updated version of google play services or a device verification API and everyone's banking/government ID apps will stop working until you manually update anyway. They have a pretty big stick to whack you over the head with if you don't update to the new version "for security"
I might as well get a landline/dumbphone and a small linux tablet.
Maybe it’s because I’m European but I’ve never understood what iMessage even is or what it offers above either sms or WhatsApp/signal. And I’ve used an iPhone for the past 15 years.
For me, mainly: no international cost, no metered cost (other than data), no extra app like WhatsApp to install (but other party needs iOS).
Edit: that said, nowadays, maybe because I'm back in the EU, I use WhatsApp way more often than iMessage.
It is easier, however, to install WhatsApp then to switch from Android to iOS.
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Refuse to participate in either walled garden.
There are no good reasons left to use either platform - you're basically paying an arm and a leg to rent a device whose primary purpose is to usurp your attention and plunder your wallet at every possible opportunity.
Use and encourage your circle to use Signal, so you're not limited to any given platform, or the political or ideological whims of the gardenmeisters.
Google has gone full enshittified with this move, might as well move as far and as fast away from all the shit if you're technically capable, introduce whatever pressure you can to signal that there's a desperate need in the smartphone market for something clean and honest.
“There are no good reasons” really? One of my favorite things about iOS/ipados is the incredible selection of music creation apps. My iPad is loaded with synths, sequencers, and effects. AUM in particular is an amazing program for live performances mixing both software and hardware using a touch interface.
Many, but not all, of the programs I use on iPad are also available on Mac and Windows at much higher prices. That alone is reason enough to use a iPad. Most of these apps can be run on the least expensive iPad and/or older ones.
Like it or not, computing appliances have led to really good software markets. The “clean and honest” software markets are either much more expensive or don’t exist at all. The optimist in me is hoping that Android losing some freedom might lead to higher quality software and some actual competition to Apple.
Probably the only real benefit now is Firefox/alt browsers
Firefox with UBO is still a huge win. But Orion browser is making progress. At this point I just don’t see a reason to go android anymore. If I have to be part of a walled garden I may as well choose the nicer one.
For me the main reason to stick to FOSS Android ROMs (over a Linux phone) is that you retain compatibility with thousands of very good FOSS and non-FOSS apps. There is Waydroid, and it works very well, but if you are primarily running Android apps, an Android device makes more sense.
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You could also use a thirdparty ROM.
How long until AOSP deviates so much from features in 3rd party ROMs that it becomes infeasible to for amateur developers to maintain them?
AOSP is used in many contexts like embedded devices where somehow enshackling it would screw up Google's self-interest in other market areas (like ensuring there is a wider population of Android developers).
But regardless, thirdparty ROMs will continue to exist regardless of how much effort it takes because the demand exists and will not merely dissipate.
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And in the EU you can install apps outside of the AppStore on your iPhone!
But not outside of Apple's control, they have a very similar mechanism to this verification process with 3rd party app stores.
Thats a recent addition; hope consumer protection laws around the world become better.
It's ironic that they pull this bullshit while at the same time putting out their "Vanilla Pro" ad mocking Apple's ecosystem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnWykPvftfg
Same, I'm tempted to call android just a shittier iPhone now
What part of cheaper, better, and open source is shittier exactly?
1. Not cheaper.
2. I think it's better, I like the UX but that's subjective.
3. Not open source. AOSP is open source. Android is not open source.
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> What part of cheaper
The iPhone 17 is the same price as the Pixel 10
> better
But the iPhone 17 has better hardware features, like UWB, better cameras, and a _far_ faster CPU.
> open source
Only if you install Graphene, and then never install anything that requires Google Play Services, which is basically every commercial app.
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Over the last years Android has gotten increasingly worse, which is something you just have to expect from a Google product.
It is still unbelievable to me that Google is shipping a product which takes 10 seconds to show anything when I search through my phones settings. What are they doing?
>open source
Sure. If you buy the right phone you get some open source components. Of course half the Android companies are trying to funnel you into their proprietary ecosystem as well. The rest just wants you to use Google's proprietary ecosystem.
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Cheaper for sure, better maybe but open source certainly not, AOSP doesn't run on a single device on earth, not even the emulators.
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> Installing any app I want outside the Play Store was the primary reason I decided to go with Android
You still can do that with PWAs in Android. Let's see for how long.
Do you have a single friend who isn't a programmer who has installed a PWA in the last two years?
Game streaming services like GeForce Now, Xbox Live, Amazon Luna use PWAs for iOS/iPad support, used by a lot of ordinary users. They're not in AppStore because of incompatibility with Apple rules.
I use 3CX VOIP app as a PWA daily, I'm just an IT worker.
> PWAs
And I wonder when can we stop lying to ourselves pretending "web"-apps are real (native) apps?
Why?
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There is a big difference between Websites and Applications. Websites are a smaller subset of capabilities.
You can still side-load signed apps. It's a similar limitation to macOS which won't let you run apps that Apple hasn't signed without command line or control panel shenanigans. Compared to iOS, Android still has the advantage of installing your own full browser (like Firefox) with full-fat ad blocking (uBlock Origin, not Lite). iOS is Safari-only right now though, in theory, some alternative engines may be available in Europe later.
If they need to be signed by Google, that's not side loading by definition; it's using an alternate Google channel.
What your describing isn't "side-loading". Doing that means the apps go through Google's chain of control. Please don't let them redefine the word.
With macOS you run "sudo spctl --master disable", and then you can run whatever you want without sending PII to Apple. Is that the case with the new Android stuff?
MacOS can run unsigned apps with GateKeeper active, no need to disable it. Attempt to run the app, then go into security settings, scroll down and click on "Open anyway". And before Sequoia a right click -> Open was sufficient.
On M1+ devices it might also need "ad-hoc signing" if the developer hasn't done it (not required for Intel binaries). This is not a true signing, it just inserts a cryptographic checksum into the binary, no actual signing is involved.
No, the closest would be rooting your phone but then you can't use banking apps properly (there are loopholes to spoof integrity but they are slowly coming to an end as verification runs on TEE)
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We don't know yet. At the moment side-loading still works without restrictions.
You can install full uBlock Origin in the Orion browser, on iOS. It also has decent built-in ad blocking (though uBlock Origin is still better).
I had been thinking for a long time to switch to Android (GrapheneOS, probably) when my current iPhone 13 dies, but this whole thing with "sideloading" on Android is making me reconsider. If I can't have the freedom I want either way, might as well get longer support, polished animation and better default privacy (though I still need to opt-out of a bunch of stuff).
Well GrapheneOS is not Google-certified, so it is not impacted by this :-).
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How did Orion sidestep the safari WebKit requirements?
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> It's a similar limitation to macOS which won't let you run apps that Apple hasn't signed without command line or control panel shenanigans
Can you do something similar to load unsigned apps on Android?
Agreed. While I do not like this move, ti is weird to me how far people are going in their criticism.
The perfect should not be the enemy of the good.
"The perfect should not be the enemy of the good" is the wrong analogy here. It's more like "death by a thousand cuts". Limitations on free computer usage are like a ratcheting mechanism: they mostly go in one direction.
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