The state of Playstore : technology

[–] Matriks404@lemmy.world 13 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

I like how like 10 years ago everyone went crazy about the apps. It seemed like you could have an app for everything, and everyone was enthusiastic about it. Nowadays I only open Play Store when I am in the need of specific utility, or to buy some classic RPG/other game ported to Android.

Most of the stuff in the store is just unusable shit.

And we need a store with actual quality apps (with no micro transactions, and being reviewed by people who care about usability), because certainly Google Play is not a good source for them.

[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

And we need a store with actual quality apps (with no micro transactions, and being reviewed by people who care about usability), because certainly Google Play is not a good source for them.

Fdroid apps CAN have microtransactions I believe, and they're not curated either, but overall, the quality is much better than Play Store and most apps are free and open source.

Alternatively, for games in particular, Apple Arcade is great, but it's a subscription (cheap if combined with Music, TV and iCloud storage, otherwise several euros per month). The games aren't allowed to have MTX or ads if they want to be on Arcade. But of course that requires moving to iOS (where the app store is much better than Play Store, BUT you don't get alternatives like Fdroid on Android.)

[–] KpntAutismus@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

I use a huge amount of open source f-droid apps, like my keyboard, my mail app, the one i'm typing on right now, SD maid 2, (Revanced). in my opinion these apps are just better. not only because i can trust them, also because they simply do what i downloaded them for, in the most efficient way possible.

[–] nottheengineer@feddit.de 8 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Enshittification spares no one.

[–] JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 2 points 11 months ago (2 children)

Happens when you don't have competition. (Except to steam seemingly)

[–] niels@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago (2 children)

The difference is that Valve is privately owned. They don't have to please a board of shareholders who want to see the platform milked for the slightest increase in profit margins.

[–] dismalnow@kbin.social 1 points 11 months ago

Bingo. Enshittification is mostly confined to companies that have gone public or whose sole aspiration is to do so quickly.

It shifts responsibility from satisfying customers/users to satisfying shareholders (who are never satisfied).

You can build the perfect product and ride a gravy train as a private company in relative perpetuity. As a corporation, you're just going to strive for perpetually increasing profits on a quarterly basis with no real care or focus past that

[–] ArchmageAzor@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

We need more companies like that, then.

[–] TwilightVulpine@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

For that you need passionate people who are wealthy and not primarily driven to acquire more wealth. That seems to be very rare in large scale businesses.

[–] Dasnap@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

(Except to steam seemingly)

For now. I'm curious what'll happen when Gabe eventually retires.

We also can't ignore the fact that the Steam Marketplace is a hellhole and the origin of a lot of today's microtransaction hell.

If you buy all your games on one platform then you're thoroughly fucked if it turns heel.

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[–] A2PKXG@feddit.de 5 points 11 months ago

Since mobile gaming has died for me anyway, i have no reason to browse the store. For what I use it for, it's fine. It has the apps i need and updates them.

[–] hardypart@feddit.de 4 points 11 months ago

This is the exact same thing I thought a couple of days ago. What the fuck is wrong with the product managers of the Playstore?

[–] Alivrah@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

A single row of ads would be ok, but having this many plus an ad showing up first, where the search results should be... Oof

[–] Sheltac@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

No it wouldn’t. Phones aren’t cheap.

[–] sunglocto@lemmy.zip 1 points 11 months ago

They shouldn't rely on ads to make money back on a phone IMHO.

[–] ohlaph@lemmy.world 4 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

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[–] woodenskewer@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

You've done quite a bit of typing on your touchscreen there. You would enjoy this BT keyboard sold by asabravatechioxnchientopia. Don't forget AAA batteries.

[–] d3Xt3r@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The Play Store peaked back when it was still called Android Market (which I still reckon is a better name). DAE remember this ?

[–] nix@merv.news 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Play store sounds like a game marketplace. Also Play has nothing to do with anything in googles brand so its really confusing why its still called that.

[–] chiliedogg@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

They tried having a Play ecosystem with Google Play Video, Music, Games, etc. Music was actually pretty good, so of course Google killed it in favor of YouTube Music, which is terrible and plays YouTube video versions of songs instead of actual album stuff.

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[–] Mikina@programming.dev 3 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I've lost all of my faith in mobile gaming ecosystem ever since I saw that talk of the two guys that created a bot for generating and uploading as many slot machine games to the playstore as possible, just generic pull a lever, see an ad and that's it, based on a random keyword like "owl slot machine" or "bathtub sloth machine" with pictures pulled from google images, that let the bot run for a few months and then found out that they made literally thousands of dollars of ad money.

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[–] boonhet@lemm.ee 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

On the App Store, if I search for "Two Dots", the first 2/3 of my screen is filled with "Two Dots" and when I scroll down, I get related apps. And when I scroll down FURTHER, I see ads for other apps.

Android the open-source OS is cool and all. As soon as you involve Google in your Android experience, you're better off getting an iPhone instead. They at least have the common courtesy of giving you a reach-around while they... y'know.

[–] shrugal@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago (4 children)

Just leaving this here: Aurora Store

[–] XEAL@lemm.ee 1 points 11 months ago (5 children)

Aside of the lack of ads, I now depend on Aurora Store for batch app updates because the cocksuckers at Google Play have allowed devs to force app version updates even when you have disabled automatic updates for that specific app.

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[–] majestictechie@lemmy.fosshost.com 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Ok this is actually pretty cool. So I gave this a try and what I found in the first few mins of using it:

you can login anonymously or with your own Google account (anonymous logs you into one of their shared Gmail accounts which personally I don't like the idea of)
it manages all existing apps too, so you can use it as a drop in replacement for the play store.
Updates aren't as well, there doesn't appear to be a background update option as android requires you to confirm if you wish to install the update for each app.

Overall solid app. I don't spend a lot of time in the PlayStore so the ads themselves don't bother me. The moment though I begin getting pop up ads / notifications I'll be jumping to this full time though

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[+] donut4ever@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] Streetdog@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

Linux is great! It's such a zen environment.

Apple's App Store has some ads. In my experience the first search result is always an ad, and every now and then the Today list features an ad. Not sure how much the normal data/results are skewed. It's a store so you have to expect some kinda marketing tricks to sell you more. They tend to feature popular stuff.

It's nowhere near as abhorrent as the post here.

I haven't run into TikTok unless it has been featured or if it is the top result in the popular (free) apps chart. I wouldn't dare searching for it 😆

[–] rageagainstmachines@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

Wait, what? A shitty Google product? Plagued by ads and spyware? No way!

As others have pointed out here, use Aurora Store or F-Droid.

[–] Rawsark@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 11 months ago

We've all seen how movies depicted the future. Full of advertisement, even in kids show like Walle

[–] puddlexplorer@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Thanks to Lemmy, my phone went full FOSS. Always go full FOSS.

[–] Xylight@lemmy.xylight.dev 1 points 11 months ago (2 children)

It's great that you can't unlock the bootloader to install graphene on carrier bought devices 👍

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[–] Tag365@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

What was Heartless Ansem's famous quote again? Oh yeah. "And now darkness within darkness awaits you." But ads instead of darkness.

[–] zozosticot@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Btw, i use Fdroid

[–] miss_brainfart@lemmy.ml 1 points 11 months ago

Becoming independent from the Play Store is probably the best thing I managed to do on my phone.

Though I use the Neo Store as my Fdroid client, since the official one seems to have some funky problems

[–] krzschlss@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Google is just a colorful façade. The insides of this bloated monstrosity is filled with ads and sellable user data. It needs to be put out of its misery.

[–] StarLuigi@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It is an advertisement company after all :/

[–] krzschlss@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Yes, but the product they sell is You. They're more like a pimp version of ad companies. But not the racist Hollywood type, you know: funny dressed black guy with a cylinder hat and a cane. No, this one wears wife beaters, takes showers once or twice a month and takes advantage of you every day, and still sells you to the lowest bidder...

[+] zucky@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

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[–] sagrotan@lemmy.world 1 points 11 months ago

One word: F-Droid! I'm literally only searching there for Apps first, often I find it. Send them some love, if you can afford it! Wouldn't know how to watch YouTube anymore without New Pipe and stuff, listening to music via ViMusic, all ad-free. https://f-droid.org/en/

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