When I switched to iOS, the biggest pain point for me was Apples stranglehold on background processes meant file syncing didn’t work very well. Now it looks like Android has completely killed it?
It seems that Google just gave them back the permission, 2 days after they publicly complained about it and after 6 months of ignoring it. What scumbags.
Great, thanks, otherwise would not have clicked:
Hacker News commenters were really skeptical the new call/feature was insufficient. Anyone know whether these APIs would’ve been OK after all?
Storage Access Framework (SAF) or MediaStore API
Google works on making Android shit for the past few years. For example idiotic green dot showing me “something is using gps”. Why don’t I have a choice to remove it? Or not allowing apps to get a process list? It will end up dumb as iOS to within couple years.
To be fair, not allowing the user to remove an indicator that something could be tracking them is probably not the worst idea. Otherwise it’d be too easy for someone to install an app like that and hide it.
It’s been in the corner of my amoled screen practically nonstop for 3 years now. I’m really surprised that i don’t have burn-in in that corner.
Hmm, Apple intelligently hides the dots, I’d be annoyed too
Oh look, Android users suffering the same bullying behavior they accuse Apple of inflicting on its users!
Except, Android users can still install apps outside the Play Store.
I was talking about this with one of my friends a couple weeks ago and bitching about how I can’t find a phone to replace mine that wouldn’t be a massive downgrade in terms of what I can do with it. He was joking and said “Maybe you should just get an Iphone” and I was like… at this point maybe I should what difference would it make?
Android gets all the cool hardware but the software and play store is dogshit. Apple has a better store and good software but not INTERESTING hardware. It’s stale and dead.
Yea, they’re racing to the bottom or whatever’s beneath the bottom. Nothing innovative for the customer. Just controlling them to harvest their data.
Apple’s iOS 18 was wildly buggy for months after release. (macOS latest a tad buggy too, really stupid bugs.) “software quality crisis” someone penned
Hardware is phenomenal (if “uninteresting“)
Yeah, that’s not right, in either case.
Kind of?
Google is definitely eager to be as shitty as apple, but android users still have a way easier time avoiding corporate abuse than apple users.
I use FreeFileSync and it syncs whatever files I point at it, not just videos and music. I installed it from the Play store.
Yeah this is Google cockblocking
The more tech-savvy of you are certainly able to use the alternative app store, such as F-Droid. But for our user base of roughly one million users on the app store, this will hardly be an option.
They have the merit to link to F-droid, but damn they are not selling it well…
I don’t even know if they get any remuneration from Google anyway?
By the way fuck GoogleGreat news. Maybe someone else will think about the rejection of Google.
So, all the family phones that are using this feature for handset backups. They’re just gonna stop backing up?
Thanks, Google. Thanks for protecting me from free software that scans files on my own phone and transmits it across my own network to my own server. Such a privacy nightmare. /s
Guessing they want you to use Google One, eh.
I’m assuming that Nextcloud handles all it’s moneymaking outside of the app (indeed it appears to be free if you host the server yourself).
If Google were making 30% on a ton of in-app purchases, they’d let it harvest your fucking organs.
I never use a Play Store version of anything I can find on F-droid or other repos I trust. Then I try it using Aurora Store. Only as a last-resort I try Google. Play Store is only for things I cannot obtian or replace another way.
Learned the hard way that android auto compatibility (on GrapheneOS) works only with the playstore Version of an app because andoid auto checks the install source. Thats the same gatekeeping at play…
Thanks I hate it.
You can fake the install source
Can’t fake googles key signature
Link to how to?
Obtainium has a toggle to set the install source to Google Play. It uses shizuku
Obtainium has to be the best software never ever
AA is also EXTREMELY vpn-unfriendly. It fails to work period of I’ve got a wireguard VPN without app restrictions, even if there are only a handful of routes using the tunnel. Then, if I restrict the VPN to just certain apps, it’ll still give me the big ol’ middle finger running those apps via AA, which means I can’t stream from my home media host over VPN while using AA because Papa Google apps no.
Really? I’m set up for always on wireguard when not on my home network. And android auto works fine. And yeah, I’m doing full tunnel.
What apps are you using? It refuses to connect to my phone period of on globally, and won’t work with stuff like FinAmp if used app-specific
It seems likely you are using it tethered, vs wireless.
Only map apps, though? I know it Android Auto works fine with sideloaded music player.
Some other sideloaded apps work but everything with a map seems to be blocked. I had EV charging apps not show in Android auto.
Yeap, same. I have given up on Android Auto because of that. I am not going to let Google hold my phone hostage so they can force me to pay ransom (with my data.)
Unhappy with the recently uploaded file feature load function occasion app…? Would you like… BETTER recently uploaded file feature load function occasion app…?!
oh so thats why it stopped working.
I had no idea this was going on. Is it because I’m running Lineage?
F-droid bitches
does that issue not exist in the f-droid version? if so, i’m glad there’s a workaround when i try graphene😅
The issue does not exist with the version installed from F-Droid. I think the Play Store version is a different build with the feature disabled as a condition of hosting it on the Play Sore.
The Android app itself still works with the permission, and we released new versions on the external F-Droid store. So the limit is a “purely” Google Play Store-related problem.
This is my question. I didn’t read into it much, but isn’t the problem a permissions level thing in android, or is this specific to the play store?
I check for all apps on f-droid first, play store second.
So, I totally remember this pop-up and luckily until now it has not directly impacted me. I auto-backup my photos/videos off my phone and do move non photos/videos on/off nextcloud on occasion but haven’t noticed I could no longer upload regular files.
Luckily…
I self-host Nextcloud I already use F-Droid
So, it wasn’t much work to uninstall the play version and instlall the f-droid version. I should probably go through all my apps and see what’s available on f-droid and swap. But 1) that’s a lot of work and 2) there are some features that break when you do that. I know some mapping software won’t work on Android Auto if not from the play store.
How can I tell if I’m using the play store or f droid version? I can’t remember what I did.
Nevermind, if I go to app info, it says at the very bottom.
Also the app is up to date and I have no problems mentioned here.
Ya it seems google fixed it today. I’m guessing that is why nextcloud went public so google would magically fix it .
