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Even as a casual Android dev I've noticed it becoming more and more restrictive over the years, from restricting apps from reading storage, to restring apps fro
by ncann 5y ago
Even as a casual Android dev I've noticed it becoming more and more restrictive over the years, from restricting apps from reading storage, to restring apps from accessing clipboard, to restring apps from running in background, and a ton of other things all in the name of protecting customer. Every time I update to a new phone with a new Android version my hobby apps (which only I use, not published anywhere) are broken in some ways because of this. The end goal of Android seems to be a closed system like iOS and that makes me sad. You can make things harder or hard by default but at least give the power user some choices damn it.
- jabroni_salad 5y agoYou can still do things, its just that now the user has to approve it. Maybe a 'let every app have every permission by default' checkbox would make you happy but I'm not going to advocate for it. And you can still sideload an APK without even having to jailbreak the device.
- mattowen_uk 5y agoRe read the parent post. They write hobby apps that they clearly sideload themselves. They are also right, each iteration of the SDK takes away another feature of the device the app can access, regardless of whether you ask the user, in this instance the author of the app, for permission. The end state is for apps on Android to be either pointless fluff that basically do nothing useful, or mega apps written by big corps where the rules don't apply. Hobbiest coders are not wanted, or accommodated.
- ncann 5y agoExactly. To give an example, I have a dictionary app that I wrote to facilitate my French learning that runs in the background and automatically looks up word copied to the clipboard (e.g. from Play Books or Chrome) and brings up the definition. Starting with Android 10 or so they disabled clipboard listener for apps in the background so the whole functionality is toasted. There is no permission to enable this "clipboard listener in background"
- criddell 5y ago> at least give the power user some choices damn it At some point it just doesn't make economic sense to do that.
- stjohnswarts 5y agoThat's the way only bean counters should think, not developers, it should be a problem to solve since it helps keep us honest and not just a cog in the system.
- lallysingh 5y agoThat's how platforms evolve. First they work to attract developers, and later they work to reduce abuse.