Comment on Google Keeps Making Smartphones Worse
usernameunnecessary@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
Unfortunately the Android experience is getting more and more bloated and users’ freedom to tinker with their phones or sideload apps is getting more and more difficult. The Play Store is riddled with more ads than useful content. Just try searching for something, and oftentimes more than half of your screen is ads.
I’ve been with Android since the start and I hate what Google is reducing it to. It pains me that the only viable alternative is Apple and I feel trapped.
Play Store is truly vile to use. It just feels gross and scammy and like a mine field of low quality slop and scam apps.
iOS isn’t great either but it at least feels a whole lot better. The iOS store needs the ability to report fraid which it doesn’t sort until you install an app.
We’re all trapped. If you’re not using either Android or iOS, you’re pretty much screwed.
Technically, you can use one of the alternate phones, but the software support still leaves a lot to be desired. You can get most basic things working, but when it comes to crucial deal breaker apps like anything involving payments or banks, it gets a lot trickier. The world has become increasingly dependent on mobile phones, and if your phone can’t handle for train tickets, mail deliveries, restaurant reservations or pay your bills, it suddenly becomes very difficult to live in the 2020s.
More and more hardware is also depends on specific iOS or Android apps, and those apps may also require GAPPS or an OEM vanilla Android. At some point, it just isn’t worth the hassle, and it becomes easier to pick either one of the toxic platforms everyone else is already using.
Long term you should look out for Waydroid compatible devices. Basically linux devices (smartphones, tablets, pcs) that run android containers very close to hardware so you can run your important android apps while not having to rely on the mess that android is for everything. There is a GApps version too if you need google shitware for some reason. Ubuntu Touch (smartphone os) is one of the most prominent to implement it. Personally i hope to eventually just get rid of my phone and only have a laptop with a sim-card and waydroid.
Support devices like the Liberux Nexx or the pinephone, especially if you are a developer!
Funny enough, having Microsoft making the Windows Phone again would make a 3rd player, and maybe some competition in the market.
I don’t know many companies that have the resources to fight in this arena right now…
Rivalarrival@lemmy.today 1 day ago
F-Droid is a decent replacement for the play store. Lots of FOSS and less-enshittified apps available.
Ulrich@feddit.org 4 hours ago
Unfortunately many of the apps needed just to exist as a member of society are only available in the Play Store.
chaosCruiser@futurology.today 22 hours ago
Tried to rely fully on F-droid several years ago. That experiment went just fine until I needed up update the apps. Turns out, there wasn’t a simple one button solution to that. I had to manually update each and every app one by one. Is it any better these days?
TonyOstrich@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
Unattended updates for everyone, 1.19 is here f-droid.org/2024/02/01/twif.html
chaosCruiser@futurology.today 22 hours ago
That happened in 2024? About time! Sounds like F-droid is actually becoming viable.
Routhinator@startrek.website 21 hours ago
Try the Droidify app. I find it better than the main FDroid app.