I mostly use apps installed from F-Droid, so I’m not sure how I’ll use the phone, except that it’s sometimes required as a contact method.
I mostly use apps installed from F-Droid, so I’m not sure how I’ll use the phone, except that it’s sometimes required as a contact method.
install them with adb. its a crucial feature for developers, so they won’t easily get rid of it.
LADB can have a phone connect to itself over ADB and install apks which are stored on the phone. Maybe F-Droid can utilize this as an installation medium.
How do you get updates when installing via adb?
Install them via adb, probably
Is this manageable for the non-dev by chance? I can get by on a tutorial or too but if enough things break I’m feeling a dumbphone alt may be the only viable path
There is also Shizuku that might be utilized in der Future to install apps (Im just speculating here)
Depends on your comfort with CLI tools. Here’s the process (assumes Windows):
set PATH=%PATH%;C:\your\path\here\<- Temporary, just for the current sessionsetx /M path "%path%;C:\your\path\here\"<- PermanentOn your device, go to
Settings -> Aboutand look forBuild Numberit can sometimes be buried inSoftware InformationTap
Build Numberrepeatedly until a message appearsYou are now a developerYou should now have a new
Developer optionsmenu item somewhere in your settings. Sometimes it’s top level, sometimes it’s buried underAdditional SettingsorAdvanced Settingsor the likeMake sure
USB Debuggingis turned onConnect the device over USB
Back on WIndows type:
adb devicesadb devicesagain. You should see your device listedadb install C:/path/to/app.apk<- ifadb devicesonly returns one deviceadb -s <device_id> install C:/path/to/app.apk<- specific deviceYou can install updates the same way, just download the updated APK and add the
-rflagadb install -r C:/path/to/app.apkMore useful adb commands
So no
Most of that stuff is automatable - except the bit about activating Developer mode and USB Debugging on the device (steps 3 to 6) which only needs to be done once per device - so I expect we will soon see several nice GUI tools that automate the rest and eventually we might even just see stuff that talks directly to the phone over USB via libusb and using the same protocol as ADB, so installing the Android Platform Tools won’t at all be needed.
But yeah, at this point it requires people to at the very least be familiar with using the command line.
That’s why I posted it. So people can decide for themselves. Doesn’t seem that bad to me, but then I’m a dev, so it’s really hard to judge what a non dev would be comfortable with
No it’s not. Not because of that it’s too difficult but it’s too much work on a weekly basis just to update your stuff.
I have no rooted phone because I have grapheneos but it should be possible to do it directly on your rooted phone with shizuku et al which wouldn’t be that bad.
How’s graphene been serving you? I’ve wanted to take the plunge for a while now and this no side loading bs has me looking into it again
Gos is good. It is a solid os. I like it a lot. I have a lot of freedom that I don’t have on other phones. But it is also just android. other brands like samsung added a lot of goodies to their os. It is a phone, it works, it’s alright. It took me a while to understand that graphene’s exploit protection slows down apps. I disable that for all important apps like osmand where speed is crucial. Osmand is still slower than on an iphone 6. Do I have to use it security wise? No, but I like supporting it. Will my next phone have gos as well? Yes. It has no annoyance on it. There is no unwanted app or anything. That’s amazing.
Yes it is.
It will probably be something similar to ios altstore. You would have an app which has a list of your non-playstore apps and repo for their releases and would notify you for upgrades that you would manually have to install (for example I suppose obtainium will implement adb), the setup will be annoying but far far less cumbersome than apple where you have to reboot your device multiple times self sign ipas and refresh once a week otherwise the apps don’t load at all. This iOS experience is awful but still doable and non-dev. Android will have a better experience for sure.
Not really.
I’ve not been following things super closely, but the idea would be that each user would get their own developer key and then locally compile and deploy whatever apps they want as though it were a project they themselves were working on. The first bit is not too dissimilar from how a lot of people with XBOXes made dev accounts to install emulators. But the latter is going to get real messy and REAL compromised REAL fast as people just use third party tools and binaries that will inevitably be compromised.
It really depends on what your use case is. If you actually just talk to people on phones? Uhm… I am not even sure where you would find a dumb phone at this point, but that will probably work for voice calls and SMS using just your carrier and MAYBE wifi. But anything that involves apps, which is a shockingly large part of the world, will be a mess. Some you can (and should) do workarounds (banking apps, for example) but others you are kind of up a creek since your options are to use a modern phone or not be able to (for example) see your kid’s daycare schedule.
where do you get that stuff with a dev key?
sideloading is completely fine, only requirements are the tools on the pc and a cable.
I’ve seen differing reports on that one. One Q&A with a google rep that made it sound like android studio (? The IDE/toolkit) could still do whatever without a key but with a lot of vague reference to other modes and programs.
Which, to me, reeks of “Sooner than later, all devs will need a key”. Because if it were really that clean cut, they would be screaming it from the mountain top.