Happy weekend!
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With the release of Android 14, which is slowly making its way to more devices, it seems like a good time for a community discussion on the direction of Android development.
Discussion Questions:
- What do you think about this latest release?
- Do you think things are going in the right direction?
- Is there anything you’d like to see prioritized in future releases?
- Which device are you on?
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Not really, IMO. As a user of Android since v1.5 Cupcake, it’s disappointing to see how locked down Android has become over the years. I still recall how I took a leap of faith when I ditched the then highly customisable and feature-full Windows Mobile, to the barebones Android - I believed in the opensource nature of Android, thinking how exciting it was to be on what could be a developer’s and power user’s dream mobile platform. Although the Android dev scene at the time was ascent, I could forsee an explosion of root utilities, mods and custom ROMs. And I was right - the early Android dev scene was so exciting. From cool and useful utility such as DriveDroid or Chainfire’s CF.Lumen, to innovative custom ROMs such as Paranoid Android with their per-app DPI, Halo, Pie controls etc, the early Android scene was full of activity and really exciting as a power user.
But even as Android got more and more locked down, I still enjoyed following many of it’s developments such as the projects Butter, Svelte, Volta, Treble and Mainline. However, I can’t recall anything major or exciting in recent years.
As someone else here mentioned, nowadays all the good stuff seems to be Pixel exclusives (like motion deblur, 7 years or software updates etc). Plus, Google keep pushing more and more stuff towards their proprietary Play Services stack, encouraging developers dependency on them - including anti-freedom features such as Play Integrity (SafetyNet). All of this makes it increasingly harder to break free from Google’s grasps, and as former fanboy of a company which once claimed to “not be evil”, it makes me sad that the ecosystem I once looked fondly towards, is now something that I’m looking to move away from.
Oh wow you made my revive those days when I was changing the ROM of my One Plus 3 every week because there was so many on development and adding new features. So many great memories having control of my device.
I do agree with some points. However, most of these changes are somehow related to security. As someone working in FinTech, play integrity and the likes are something you cant escape, as rooted devices,ROMs, emulators and such are 90% are ‘hackers’. Shame google didn’t think of a way to bake it into Andorid itself… Having it in their services is locking Android so much.To add, lately all the “new” features are something that Samsung already had for years. Like Knox work profile container added to Android. Samsung seems to be evolving Android more than Google which is just sad.
They’ll give the excuse of ‘security’ for any anti-consumer feature, but I’ll never accept exchanging control over my device for ‘security’.
Would you sacrifice NFC/Wallet features to have that freedom back? I personally would not.
I do see a genuine market for a phone you can root and apply custom ROMs etc on, but not do banking or public transport tickets or anything else that needs a layer of trust between the merchant and the phone user.
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Windows is both more open, and more secure, than android in every practical sense, while being closed source.
I’m a fervent believer in open-sourcs, but Google and their advertising funded business model has poisoned Android.
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Oh great I am a hacker now because I installed a modified ROM! I will go to my boss and ask for a promotion.
thing is though they are locking stupid stuff behind root. You still cannot change your default font on AOSP without rooting.
Huh? Good added partitioned work profiles in 2014…