Lemmy is a clean slate. Let’s leave the Android/iOS butthurt shit on Reddit for as long as we can.
Please, I’m iOS user but I enjoy reading advances of android because both systems push each other to be better. We don’t need toxic BS here too.
Exactly. I use both along with macOS, Windows, Linux. All have their pros and cons and all work well. Most of the rant comments are just BS.
I’ve had bot android and iOS over the years. Love them both for their own reasons. Currently rocking a pixel 7.
Interesting, so windows vs mac os didn’t cause a flame war but Android vs IOS does.
Possibly because the cost for entry to macOS is higher than with iOS. Most people are able to run a Windows computer at very little cost, and will never have any interaction with a Mac. Meanwhile, iPhones and Android phones are (broadly) on a par in terms of cost.
I will say though, speaking as someone who’s used Macs since 2007, as much as I’m no fan of how Windows works, I won’t give anyone shit for doing so. But I used to get quite a bit of vitriol for my choice of computer.
Meanwhile, iPhones and Android phones are (broadly) on a par in terms of cost. This is only true if talking about mid-high end phones (and probably only high-end), you can get really cheap Android phones, incredibly cheaper than Iphones.
Many people just have phones now.
It’s always interesting to see people turn something as universal as a phone into a competition.
If you’re willing to spend the money, you can make yourself look silly by spending thousands on either one.
Phones have become such a staple of modern existence, it’s about the same as wearing shoes.
Shit. I just realized they turn shoes into that, too
Sneakerheads are a whole different breed
I was gonna comment that this exact post was made a few days ago with the only difference being Mac vs Windows instead. Seems you’re already aware, and you’re just farming. Nice.
Because nobody has windows user as a core part of their identity.
the windows vs mac shit is also toxic nonsense and you know it.
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Can you install this IPA?
Apple: Noooo! You have to install apps from my App Store!
Unless of course, you pay $100 and call yourself a developer
I love it. I made an Android app in 2011 and I still sometimes load up the .apk for nostalgia.
It was the first app I ever made and although some functions no longer work (due to 3rd party SDKs and APIs that no longer exist), it’s mostly still pretty flawless.
According to my Google Play dashboard, there are even some people that still use it!
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Ha, I was not expecting anyone to be that interested in it! I’ve checked my Google Play console and it turns out I unpublished it a while ago to stop new downloads.
The app was called “Gaffer for Giffgaff”. For those of you who aren’t from the United Kingdom, “Giffgaff” is a mobile phone network over here.
Back when I made this app, the network had a real problem with onboarding. The APN settings weren’t included on new Android handsets by default as of yet (which they are today) and most new users would have to type them in manually. There were apps that input these settings before I started developing mine, but these were not very user friendly even by 2011 standards! In later revisions of the app, I even paid £100 to have a professional voice actor record some lines to guide users through the setup process which I uploaded here: https://m.soundcloud.com/bitbrit/gaffer-for-giffgaff-apn-setup (I don’t know why I thought uploading this to SoundCloud at the time was something to do. Guess I was just proud of it?)
As well as onboarding, the network had issues with reliability. My app included push notifications so that the user could connect to WiFi and quickly figure out if the Giffgaff network was down or if their phone was not working properly. At first I started sending these notifications myself but after my app gained some attention, the Giffgaff forum moderators began sending the notifications themselves (although I seem to remember that I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone about this at the time).
These days, features like push notifications aren’t considered to be that fancy. When I was making this app, though, it was a pretty big deal. I was sending notifications at scale and doing it on basically 0 budget, as an individual.
Anyway, enough background information. I’ve gone through the app and taken some screenshots. I’ve also included the .APK file however I would recommend that you don’t install this (I am, after all, just some guy on the internet and not a trustworthy source) - but it’s there in case you feel adventurous.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/14m-d-uADZZvFeEAkMNtYwvyfxoIeMDpq
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Android and iOS have different philosophies regarding updates.
Android phones often only receive OS updates for a short time and are then used for many years more.
iOS devices usually receive OS updates for a much longer time.
This means, Android app devs have to make their apps more compatible, because otherwise they will exclude most users.
iOS devs on the other hand often only support the newest version of iOS, so if your device doesn’t get new OS updates any more, you can toss it.
iOS devs on the other hand often only support the newest version of iOS, so if your device doesn’t get new OS updates any more, you can toss it.
And the newest versions of iOS only run smoothly on the newest iPhone hardware, so if you want your phone to keep running quickly and smoothly you have to keep updating to the newest hardware. Planned obsolescence in action.
Except the devs who made games for kids. Those guys still support iOS 10 because kids often receive hand-me-downs from their parents.
Android removed 32 bit support in the newest version. Maybe see what the compatibility is after that releases
For most apps, this doesn’t matter at all. The vast majority of Android apps are fully Java/Kotlin, which is architecture-agnostic.
It’s only when you need to use C libraries where architecture matters, and most things using C libraries are games, which already target 64-bit.
This man APKs.
Hopefully they it’s like Windows with 64bit and 32bit support
I mean Android de facto is the Windows of mobile phones
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Lots of games in Google Play Store are no longer possible to purchase because they are “incompatible with newer versions of Android”.
Yeah, that’s the Play Store though, not Android itself.
I made some Android apps back in the day, so I know what’s happening behind the scenes. Mostly it’s that Google updates requirements for the apps. Every once in a while, the requirements go up (e.g. “must be targeted for at least Android Version/API Level X”, or “Must follow design guideline Y”). The main point for this is that they don’t want abandoned apps cluttering the Play Store.
Old apps tend to not support newer features, e.g. the user being able to allow/deny single permissions. On older Android versions you could either allow all permissions or not use the app, while nowadays you can just pick and choose which permissions to allow.
If you install an older app, it won’t support this pick and chose system. Stuff like that.
But all that is just Google/Play Store. If you download the APK from somewhere else (e.g. F-Droid) you can totally run apps from 2010 on a modern phone.
That’s probably because the Play Store has policies on what apps need to do to keep being downloadable - if you acquire an APK, there’s a really good chance that it might still be installable.
Difference is you can find all the apks online. With iOS you cant
Not yet, but the EU is gonna force Apple to allow sideloading apps.
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Your only compatibility wall is the play store. If you’ve got the apk you’re installing 9/10 times. Apk repos are great.
reminds me of that time i installed a really old version of opera on my android tablet
This is funny considering Android 14 may be sunsetting support for 32-bit apps in favor of exclusive 64-bit apps, which will likely break a lot of backward compatability. Whoopsie doodles.
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Not true, the Pixel 7 has already removed 32-bit support. It’s a 64-bit exclusive OS and won’t let you sideload 32-bit apps.
That’s not exclusive to the OS. The Pixel 6 running Android 13 can install 32 bit apps, but the Pixel 7 running Android 13 cannot.
So there’s a possibility that Android 14 will still allow 32 bit apps on all other devices other than the Pixel 7. Pixel 7 and onwards might be where Google forces out 32 bit apps, which personally isn’t a huge deal, because every app I have is 64 bit.
Although Android is made by Google, it is after all cousin-brother of Linux with the same advantages
If it wasn’t for locked devices and proprietary drivers, it would be a nice experience, very close to linux.
If you have root access it isn’t a problem, then you can use alternatives, like GrapheneOS, Ubuntu Touch, CalyxOS or similar. The only problem is if you need an official app, since they are usually only available for Android or iOS. Then the only are Replicant or LinageOS, these are “degoogled” Android forks
Through Waydroid and others you can run many if not most Android apps on supported Linux kernels. PostmarketOS and the PinePhone can use this to make using them a lot easier. You can even add MicroG to the mix to get most Play Services dependencies to work.
You’ll probably have to fight apps for banking and apps that use DRM, though. However, things like messengers should work on most cases, if not with slightly higher battery drain because the Google unified push API is missing.
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And than there is netflix, which refuses to run on android phones with an unlocked bootloader, not even using a custom ROM, just an unlocked bootloader
Works on my phone.
You just need Universal SafetyNet Fix and all is fine.
What ever happened to initiatives such as project Treble? Do you guys think updates have gotten better on Android?
I remember when I used to be excited about Android OS updates and kept watching videos about new features (that I was not gonna get anytime soon because I was stuck in an old version of Android)… It’s been years since I’ve been excited about an Android update.
Little side note rant:
My biggest annoyance with Android is the share menu. I hate how it’s different for different apps (Firefox is vastly different from other apps for instance). I can notice at least 3 different sharing menus with the apps I frequently use. Makes it hard to build muscle memory… And I cannot pin the apps I actually use frequently for sharing stuff. Also the direct share thing never worked for me. I think it’s only for sharing via SMS or Email neither of which I use for sharing content, so it ended up being just a waste of space for me.Hope they fix the share menu one day… But then I’d have to wait to change my phone to get the updates.
Android updates have become both less exciting and less meaningful because so many of the core apps are updated through the Play Store, and features just come out when they are ready. If Google held off updating their apps for a year everytime, each update would feel like a much bigger deal
But holding them makes zero sense, like, why wait for an improvement if you can ship it already?
Oh, Project Treble is in full swing, which is one of the main reasons you now frequently see Android phones with 3+ years of software support, often even with multiple Android OS version updates.
Project Mainline is the other thing that caused OS updates to be rather lame. Since increasingly many former Android components are now just apps updated over the Play Store, there are less features in each Android update. For example, back in the day, even the Android browser was part of the OS and would only be updated when the OS was updated.
Now Google is even throwing apps like the dialer and the messages SMS app out of AOSP.
With so little of what used to be Android remaining inside Android and these outsourced components following a different release schedule, Android OS updates are mostly limited to UI refreshes or under-the-hood improvements.
But while this makes OS updates less exciting, it also means that you get improvements faster (because components don’t have to wait for the next OS update) and longer (because you get component updates when your device manufacturer dropped support for your phone).
Regarding the share menu:
There is actually only one OS share menu, but different apps sometimes implement their own share menus, which is dumb, but not really Android’s fault. But yeah, the product managers at Firefox for Android are peculiar, to say the least.
Material You is pretty cool and I’m glad to finally be able to use it. That, and gesture controls, were the last things I’ve been excited for with Android releases.
To be honest, the whole OS feature releases were stupid to begin with. Half of Apple’s special new features would’ve come through the Play Store on Android as a normal app update, but Apple makes it seem like those are important OS features instead. Why would you ever need to download an OS update to “swipe to reply” or “filter messages”?
Apple’s absurd design decisions makes it seem like you need OS updates for some basic app improvements. Some things new iOS releases bring can’t come through a normal app update (things affecting the lock screen or the system UI for example) but half the features advertised are in messenger apps, dialer apps, calendar apps, assistant apps, and all other kinds of apps that don’t need to be baked into the system image.
Google added its own shitty Airdrop alternative to billions of phones running five different Android versions, all in the background. No need to download Android 14 to get Nearby Sharing, your phone just downloaded it last night. Need an AI acceleration framework? The beta is already on your phone. System integration with a new smart home standard? All just a simple update away.
I like how minor Android updates are, because Android gets festures much faster. There’s a weekly or a monthly update cycle where in iOS you’ll need to wait until the next WWDC. Safari is especially bad, you can’t just install a new version of the browser, you have to wait for the entire OS to be updated alongside it.
Treble and its descendents are in full swing. Porting custom ROMs to devices has become a lot easier, though you’ll still need to fight the manufacturer to let you install the damn thing. You can download a basic precompiled image and run it on any phone with a supported chip in it. Some hardware will be buggy and less power efficient because of missing drivers, but the OS will boot without needing any modifications.
Things like vendor libraries and the standard Android core components are spread across different partitions, and they can all be updated separately. Some OS components, like the Bluetooth stack, can even be updated independently through the Play Store (and presumably other installers as well if your OS has the necessary updater baked in) without needing a manufacturer update.
Every app implementing their own stupid special share menu is infuriating. It’s really simple to call the standard share API, but Mozilla has to be special just in case you want to send the link to your laptop (which they could easily do through the OS share menu if they cared).
Pinning apps is actually possible using the standard share menu. You can hold a share option to pin it (since Android 10 I believe? Could’ve been 9). Of course this won’t work if apps decide to know better than your OS and implement their own special share menu, but for most apps pinning will work.
I’ve been using Swype since it came out even though they completely stopped updating it
I assume you know Gboard copied the swype functionality?
It’s not as good. Swype was magic. Gboard is crqp. It always thinks I mean “amd” instead of “and” among a multitude of other sins.
Gboard swipe used to be good. Then it just kept getting worse.
And SwiftKey
I have an app that was made like 11 years ago that hasn’t been updated once that I still use daily lol. It’s a time clock with postal time on it. We go by clicks instead of minutes on a 24 hour clock. So 7:49 pm would be 19:82, hundredths. It’s a pain to convert sometimes. We use scanners to clock in/out and move functions and the scanners are in minutes… it’s fuxking dumb but…
The app still works like a charm :D lololol
I kinda like that system!
