this post was submitted on 21 Oct 2023
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Android

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154
Discussion: Is Android going in the right direction? (lemdro.id)
submitted 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
67 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 
Happy weekend!

You might have noticed that [email protected] has reached 15K subscribers, with over 400 active visitors per week!

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?

P.S. Subscribe to [email protected] if you haven't already. It's the best place to ask questions, seek advice, or to help steer others in the right direction for all things related to Android.

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[–] [email protected] 81 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

Is Android going in the right direction?

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 nascent, 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 and killed my favorite apps, mods and ROMs, 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.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago

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.