As an iPhone guy, I always thought, what apps am I missing? It was mostly emulators. Then Apple allowed them, and I ask the question again.
Oh yeah, we have Delta, why doesn’t Android have anything like that? So, in a nutshell, I can uninstall Delta right now. App gone, games gone, saves gone, it’s all gone. No longer have any trace of it on my iPhone. Go to the App Store and download it. Empty library. Got to start over, right? Wrong. Go into Settings, connect Google Drive. It’s now downloading my games, my saves, my settings. Everything back where I was. Would be so cool if it were on all the platforms, so a game started on one could be picked up and played on another. Not necessarily Android <==> iOS, but more like phone <==> computer/tablet.
Yeah, so anyway, what can’t I get in the Play Store or the App Store that I actually want?
I get it’s a slippery slope and future implications. I get that. I’m just not seeing the issue now.
Also, it seems like Google has taken away all the things that would convince you not to get an iPhone. They took your headphone jack (though an Android was the first to do so). They took your microSD card slot. The tech always sucked, no one tried to make it better; past 16 or maybe 32GB the write speeds were too low to be usable. Now they’re coming for your sideloading? Honestly what is the argument for staying?
what can’t I get in the Play Store or the App Store that I actually want?
For me, it’s an independence from Google thing and a privacy thing. I am logged in to the Play Store on my phone, but I try to get whatever I can from F-Droid. On other devices like my TV, tablet and e-reader, I’m not even logged in and use F-Droid and the Aurora Store instead. Not having to rely on Google is great.
Honestly what is the argument for staying?
There are still Android phones with headphone jacks
what can’t I get in the Play Store or the App Store that I actually want?
On the Android world, there are various Firefox forks with privacy enhancements. Such an example is IronFox. These apps are not listed on Play Store, and are, instead, distributed through F-Droid.
Besides this, there is a big difference between the policies of Play Store and F-Droid. Play Store takes your compiled blob, runs some security tests, signs it and publishes it. F-Droid, on the other hand, requires that all the source code is public and compiles the app.
This allows the users to be sure that the apps cannot be tampered by their developers. While, on Play Store, devs can easily submit applications that aren’t built based on the published source code.
Yeah, so anyway, what can’t I get in the Play Store or the App Store that I actually want?
When I upgraded my Samsung to a OnePlus13, Samsung’s app that manages the tag device flat out had an error message telling me that it could only work on Samsung phones. 5 minutes later I found an open source app allowed me to use the Galaxy tag that I paid for on my new phone. Samsung has some of the best engineers in the world so they were 100% lying or intentionally trying to brick my tag device to either force me to buy their overpriced phones…
And that is just one example. I use tons of open source apps. For almost any useful app you can think of, there is a free open source version. Premium-YouTube? Newpipe is ad-free with all the premium features for free.
what can’t I get in the Play store that I actually want
Well, for starters, versions of apps without Google play store tracking. Or without GMS/Firebase so the apps aren’t constantly being awakened whenever someone else decides.
Or old apps that Google has decided you don’t need anymore because they “won’t run” on current versions of Android, yet work fine.
Or, any app category that Google doesn’t permit you to publish to play, like my system wide ad blockers.
Or apps that aren’t malware, since Play store is the single greatest source of malware.
I ended up with an iPhone due to their music making ecosystem being quite robust with several third party plugins available and an audio engine that Android is still dreaming of and have not missed anything from Android. Now there really doesn’t seem to be much of a difference other than feeling way more secure on my iPhone. I love that they vet app developers so hard so I don’t end up with some horrid app on my phone
As an iPhone guy, I always thought, what apps am I missing? It was mostly emulators. Then Apple allowed them, and I ask the question again.
Oh yeah, we have Delta, why doesn’t Android have anything like that? So, in a nutshell, I can uninstall Delta right now. App gone, games gone, saves gone, it’s all gone. No longer have any trace of it on my iPhone. Go to the App Store and download it. Empty library. Got to start over, right? Wrong. Go into Settings, connect Google Drive. It’s now downloading my games, my saves, my settings. Everything back where I was. Would be so cool if it were on all the platforms, so a game started on one could be picked up and played on another. Not necessarily Android <==> iOS, but more like phone <==> computer/tablet.
Yeah, so anyway, what can’t I get in the Play Store or the App Store that I actually want?
I get it’s a slippery slope and future implications. I get that. I’m just not seeing the issue now.
Also, it seems like Google has taken away all the things that would convince you not to get an iPhone. They took your headphone jack (though an Android was the first to do so). They took your microSD card slot. The tech always sucked, no one tried to make it better; past 16 or maybe 32GB the write speeds were too low to be usable. Now they’re coming for your sideloading? Honestly what is the argument for staying?
For me, it’s an independence from Google thing and a privacy thing. I am logged in to the Play Store on my phone, but I try to get whatever I can from F-Droid. On other devices like my TV, tablet and e-reader, I’m not even logged in and use F-Droid and the Aurora Store instead. Not having to rely on Google is great.
There are still Android phones with headphone jacks
Uh.
For stuff like banking apps. It’s not perfect, I know
Get Hermit and use the bank website
Not a bad suggestion, but I’m not sure that’d work. Online payments are tightly integrated with the banks apps here. I can try it though
What about aurora?
On the Android world, there are various Firefox forks with privacy enhancements. Such an example is IronFox. These apps are not listed on Play Store, and are, instead, distributed through F-Droid.
Besides this, there is a big difference between the policies of Play Store and F-Droid. Play Store takes your compiled blob, runs some security tests, signs it and publishes it. F-Droid, on the other hand, requires that all the source code is public and compiles the app.
This allows the users to be sure that the apps cannot be tampered by their developers. While, on Play Store, devs can easily submit applications that aren’t built based on the published source code.
NewPipe
I have a feeling newpipe is one of those apps that you won’t be able to side load…
When I upgraded my Samsung to a OnePlus13, Samsung’s app that manages the tag device flat out had an error message telling me that it could only work on Samsung phones. 5 minutes later I found an open source app allowed me to use the Galaxy tag that I paid for on my new phone. Samsung has some of the best engineers in the world so they were 100% lying or intentionally trying to brick my tag device to either force me to buy their overpriced phones…
And that is just one example. I use tons of open source apps. For almost any useful app you can think of, there is a free open source version. Premium-YouTube? Newpipe is ad-free with all the premium features for free.
Well, for starters, versions of apps without Google play store tracking. Or without GMS/Firebase so the apps aren’t constantly being awakened whenever someone else decides.
Or old apps that Google has decided you don’t need anymore because they “won’t run” on current versions of Android, yet work fine.
Or, any app category that Google doesn’t permit you to publish to play, like my system wide ad blockers.
Or apps that aren’t malware, since Play store is the single greatest source of malware.
I ended up with an iPhone due to their music making ecosystem being quite robust with several third party plugins available and an audio engine that Android is still dreaming of and have not missed anything from Android. Now there really doesn’t seem to be much of a difference other than feeling way more secure on my iPhone. I love that they vet app developers so hard so I don’t end up with some horrid app on my phone