6 ms·

Impractical. You're a tech savvy individual. Regular folks will find it friction laden to install an app store via sideloading

blacksmith_tb 8y ago
True, though couldn't the manufacturer ship a phone with F-Droid installed?
- Avamander 8y ago
  The infrastructure and user experience is too bad to do that.
  - acct1771 8y ago
    Phone manufacturer support may change that.
  - bubblethink 8y ago
    I feel that fdroid ought to be split up into two different projects. Their client and all the user facing stuff is terrible. What they are good at is compiling good apks. That should be their primary focus. ie., Building high quality apks that are free and reproducible. Someone else should do the client
    - anoncake 8y ago
      When did you last try it? It's improved a lot recently. E.g. upgrading a lot of apps now requires only a single tap; you don't have to download/install/confirm install each one manually.
      - bubblethink 8y ago
        I use it regularly. It's a bit better, but I really would like to bypass the client altogether if possible. I don't want to sound too critical/ungrateful for something that is free in all senses of the word, but it does leave a lot to be desired. Main gripes: Their repo is either down or slow quite often. The client will just keep spinning until force closed. The new UI is worse (when is it not ? I can't remember a recent project whose new UI is better) Too many steps to do basic stuff. Entire blank page devoted to nearby (p2p) stuff, which I have no use for. Inconsistent links for issues, changelog etc., that can lead anywhere (either the upstream project, f-droid's version of the project, or some random website). Lot of other issues too that will get too long to get into here.
wmf 8y ago
The phone would still come with an app store; it just wouldn't be the Play Store. Amazon is probably calling all the phone vendors already. Carriers might also like to take back control of the store.
- writepub 8y ago
  Amazon/other store is not a compelling sales pitch to the end user. I myself wouldn't recommend the average user anything outside Google play, as it's light years ahead in selection, security, UX ...

blacksmith_tb 8y ago

True, though couldn't the manufacturer ship a phone with F-Droid installed?

Avamander 8y ago
The infrastructure and user experience is too bad to do that.
- acct1771 8y ago
  Phone manufacturer support may change that.
- bubblethink 8y ago
  I feel that fdroid ought to be split up into two different projects. Their client and all the user facing stuff is terrible. What they are good at is compiling good apks. That should be their primary focus. ie., Building high quality apks that are free and reproducible. Someone else should do the client
  - anoncake 8y ago
    When did you last try it? It's improved a lot recently. E.g. upgrading a lot of apps now requires only a single tap; you don't have to download/install/confirm install each one manually.
    - bubblethink 8y ago
      I use it regularly. It's a bit better, but I really would like to bypass the client altogether if possible. I don't want to sound too critical/ungrateful for something that is free in all senses of the word, but it does leave a lot to be desired. Main gripes: Their repo is either down or slow quite often. The client will just keep spinning until force closed. The new UI is worse (when is it not ? I can't remember a recent project whose new UI is better) Too many steps to do basic stuff. Entire blank page devoted to nearby (p2p) stuff, which I have no use for. Inconsistent links for issues, changelog etc., that can lead anywhere (either the upstream project, f-droid's version of the project, or some random website). Lot of other issues too that will get too long to get into here.

wmf 8y ago

The phone would still come with an app store; it just wouldn't be the Play Store. Amazon is probably calling all the phone vendors already. Carriers might also like to take back control of the store.

writepub 8y ago
Amazon/other store is not a compelling sales pitch to the end user. I myself wouldn't recommend the average user anything outside Google play, as it's light years ahead in selection, security, UX ...