3 ms·

So that more apps can snoop on your email? Why would you want to use more than one email-app for the same accounts? (I get that you might want to use the gmail

by tjoff 4y ago

So that more apps can snoop on your email? Why would you want to use more than one email-app for the same accounts? (I get that you might want to use the gmail app for a gmail account, but then using the same account in K9 doesn't make much sense to me)

kroltan 4y ago
As far as I understand, there is still exclusive access to 1 app at a time, it's just that the accounts and sending/receiving is handled by the OS, and apps call into the OS to do operations, rather than maintaining their own credential stores and talking POP/IMAP/whatever directly to servers.
- tjoff 4y ago
  Not being forced to enter your credentials in android itself is a feature. Back in early android-days many email-apps actually added an android account for IMAP/POP accounts. Which felt quite awkward. And I suspect that it was trivial for any app to list your accounts and get all of your registered email-addresses.
  - Groxx 4y ago
    Yeah, android's "accounts" thing really has not worked out in practice. It always felt half-complete and strange, and it's still a very rough experience. In principle it... might make sense? A system-provided-and-presumably-more-secure login method isn't inherently a bad idea. But without a deeper commitment from them / a better way to actually trust it / more consistent updates from OEMs (lol, yeah right), apps really have ended up generally better and more trustworthy.
Groxx 4y ago
Content providers can require app signatures, approval, whatever they want. So... no? Unless you build something that allows everyone to read your email. But don't build that if you don't want that. As far as "why": why not? Some apps do some things better than others. You can already do this with IMAP, it'd just be deduplicating the download cost / connections / etc, which is generally a good thing for mobile use.

3 ms·

So that more apps can snoop on your email? Why would you want to use more than one email-app for the same accounts? (I get that you might want to use the gmail

by tjoff 4y ago

kroltan 4y ago
As far as I understand, there is still exclusive access to 1 app at a time, it's just that the accounts and sending/receiving is handled by the OS, and apps call into the OS to do operations, rather than maintaining their own credential stores and talking POP/IMAP/whatever directly to servers.
- tjoff 4y ago
  Not being forced to enter your credentials in android itself is a feature. Back in early android-days many email-apps actually added an android account for IMAP/POP accounts. Which felt quite awkward. And I suspect that it was trivial for any app to list your accounts and get all of your registered email-addresses.
  - Groxx 4y ago
    Yeah, android's "accounts" thing really has not worked out in practice. It always felt half-complete and strange, and it's still a very rough experience. In principle it... might make sense? A system-provided-and-presumably-more-secure login method isn't inherently a bad idea. But without a deeper commitment from them / a better way to actually trust it / more consistent updates from OEMs (lol, yeah right), apps really have ended up generally better and more trustworthy.
Groxx 4y ago
Content providers can require app signatures, approval, whatever they want. So... no? Unless you build something that allows everyone to read your email. But don't build that if you don't want that. As far as "why": why not? Some apps do some things better than others. You can already do this with IMAP, it'd just be deduplicating the download cost / connections / etc, which is generally a good thing for mobile use.