First off, I don’t think every single one of Google’s decisions regarding Android is good. Hell I actually think they’ve blundered too many times to count when it comes to bringing new features to Android. That said, for Android to mature further, it really needs to go the “it just works” route that Apple’s been nailing.
Things like how you’re required to have a Google account to really use an Android phone at this point, and how features like Nearby Share rely on Google accounts garners a lot of hate from the FOSS/enthusiast crowd. And I get it. I really do. That said, I’ve worked in IT long enough to know that the enthusiasts will find ways around restrictions like this, or they’ll simply find another open source app that does the same thing. The average user on the other hand, almost certainly has a Google account, and for that person, this implementation makes sense. You log into one account and can see all your devices? That’s about as good as it gets.
Notice how it’s gotten progressively harder to install apps from external sources over each iteration of Android? Yeah that sucks, but for the average person, that’s stopping them from installing malware disguised as an app. They don’t care that there were obvious signs that the source can’t be trusted, the fact remains that they found a way to brick their Android phone, while that wouldn’t have happened on iOS.
Ever notice how people say Android’s just “too confusing”? That’s the crowd that Google is trying to win over. We already use Android, and probably will continue to because what other option is there? But emulating what iOS does well and bringing that to Android is going to bring in more people to the OS, and ultimately that’s not a bad thing.
features like Nearby Share rely on Google accounts garners a lot of hate from the FOSS/enthusiast crowd
I don’t think these are FOSS enthusiasts. They’re people that want free stuff without putting any effort into it. Big difference. The real FOSS enthusiasts would simply build their own competing implementation based on the open source version of Android AOSP. Amazon / Microsoft / Huawei have exactly this to varying degrees.
Agree. Foss enthusiasmus are buzy with the Foss stuff instead of hating some proprietary things (unless these things intentionally break their Foss stuff).
It was five years after her first Android phone that I noticed that when asked to install an app, my aunt proceeded to download an APK from a random website and installed that rather than using the Play Store. In fact, I think she didn’t even know the Play Store was a thing, and she was on her third android phone already.
She isn’t tech-savvy, she did that because that is how she did on Windows. After that, I just accepted that things need to change in a way that might annoy me.
Are you suggesting we get rid of Side loading?
Far from it, but there are things that appear obvious or properly explained, only that in reality, it is not.
Android 14 is making ADB necessary for really old apps(or ones that deliberately target old APIs to circumvent restrictions). That one is annoying, but makes sense.
That’s not to say I’m a fan of every decision, for instance I don’t like that Google removed the ability for apps to toggle WiFi and Bluetooth, that should be a permission. But it is really surprising how non tech-savvy folks can screw up basic stuff we think are well hidden.
I did not get you. What enthusiasts you are talking about, android enthusiasts? They are fine to have Google account and be able to utilize it to the full potential.
I would call myself android enthusiast. As in I compiled my on LineageOs and love tinkering around with custom Roms. I really dislike these proprietary blobs, like shar( and the app that manages screen on time, like why isn’t this included in ASOP) I say, I get the top funktions out of my phone by rooting it.
I see. You over-generilize your style to “enthusiast” term - most of android enthusiasts like android as it is - I mean they buy android phones and enjoy the platform (which includes many Google anchored features).
Why Google should spend efforts and add features needed explicitly for people which hate Google and which are doing whatever possible to avoid it?
Mostly FOSS enthusiasts who see any move by Google that makes Android more “closed source” as negative.
Foss enthusuasts like Foss software and use it.
Android is not really a Foss and never was. new features which reasonably rely on Google account change nothing. One can also complain that Google docs is coupled with Google - bad Google did not implement something which work offile without Google account, same for apps backup and sync etc.
