• mst ( mst@lemmy.ml ) 
    13·
    3 years ago

    I love it. I made an Android app in 2011 and I still sometimes load up the .apk for nostalgia.

    It was the first app I ever made and although some functions no longer work (due to 3rd party SDKs and APIs that no longer exist), it’s mostly still pretty flawless.

    According to my Google Play dashboard, there are even some people that still use it!

      • mst ( mst@lemmy.ml ) 
        8·
        3 years ago

        Ha, I was not expecting anyone to be that interested in it! I’ve checked my Google Play console and it turns out I unpublished it a while ago to stop new downloads.

        The app was called “Gaffer for Giffgaff”. For those of you who aren’t from the United Kingdom, “Giffgaff” is a mobile phone network over here.

        Back when I made this app, the network had a real problem with onboarding. The APN settings weren’t included on new Android handsets by default as of yet (which they are today) and most new users would have to type them in manually. There were apps that input these settings before I started developing mine, but these were not very user friendly even by 2011 standards! In later revisions of the app, I even paid £100 to have a professional voice actor record some lines to guide users through the setup process which I uploaded here: https://m.soundcloud.com/bitbrit/gaffer-for-giffgaff-apn-setup (I don’t know why I thought uploading this to SoundCloud at the time was something to do. Guess I was just proud of it?)

        As well as onboarding, the network had issues with reliability. My app included push notifications so that the user could connect to WiFi and quickly figure out if the Giffgaff network was down or if their phone was not working properly. At first I started sending these notifications myself but after my app gained some attention, the Giffgaff forum moderators began sending the notifications themselves (although I seem to remember that I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone about this at the time).

        These days, features like push notifications aren’t considered to be that fancy. When I was making this app, though, it was a pretty big deal. I was sending notifications at scale and doing it on basically 0 budget, as an individual.

        Anyway, enough background information. I’ve gone through the app and taken some screenshots. I’ve also included the .APK file however I would recommend that you don’t install this (I am, after all, just some guy on the internet and not a trustworthy source) - but it’s there in case you feel adventurous.

        https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/14m-d-uADZZvFeEAkMNtYwvyfxoIeMDpq

        • AllIntoYouthCulture ( AllIntoYouthCulture@lemmy.ml ) 
          2·
          3 years ago

          Very cool! As the guy who got Xiaomi’s working in the USA due to outdated abd locked APN settings, I know that pain. I am glad that my bug fix was implemented.

          And I compeletely understand uploading to soundcloud it was something you were proud of😁

          And not to worry, I have a burner phone for running random stuff on

  • Square Singer ( squaresinger@feddit.de ) 
    13·
    3 years ago

    Android and iOS have different philosophies regarding updates.

    Android phones often only receive OS updates for a short time and are then used for many years more.

    iOS devices usually receive OS updates for a much longer time.

    This means, Android app devs have to make their apps more compatible, because otherwise they will exclude most users.

    iOS devs on the other hand often only support the newest version of iOS, so if your device doesn’t get new OS updates any more, you can toss it.

    • stabby_cicada ( stabby_cicada@slrpnk.net ) 
      5·
      3 years ago

      iOS devs on the other hand often only support the newest version of iOS, so if your device doesn’t get new OS updates any more, you can toss it.

      And the newest versions of iOS only run smoothly on the newest iPhone hardware, so if you want your phone to keep running quickly and smoothly you have to keep updating to the newest hardware. Planned obsolescence in action.

    • Square Singer ( squaresinger@feddit.de ) 
      9·
      3 years ago

      Yeah, that’s the Play Store though, not Android itself.

      I made some Android apps back in the day, so I know what’s happening behind the scenes. Mostly it’s that Google updates requirements for the apps. Every once in a while, the requirements go up (e.g. “must be targeted for at least Android Version/API Level X”, or “Must follow design guideline Y”). The main point for this is that they don’t want abandoned apps cluttering the Play Store.

      Old apps tend to not support newer features, e.g. the user being able to allow/deny single permissions. On older Android versions you could either allow all permissions or not use the app, while nowadays you can just pick and choose which permissions to allow.

      If you install an older app, it won’t support this pick and chose system. Stuff like that.

      But all that is just Google/Play Store. If you download the APK from somewhere else (e.g. F-Droid) you can totally run apps from 2010 on a modern phone.

    • GissaMittJobb ( GissaMittJobb@lemmy.ml ) 
      7·
      3 years ago

      That’s probably because the Play Store has policies on what apps need to do to keep being downloadable - if you acquire an APK, there’s a really good chance that it might still be installable.

  • Hot Saucerman ( dingus@lemmy.ml ) Banned
    9·
    3 years ago

    This is funny considering Android 14 may be sunsetting support for 32-bit apps in favor of exclusive 64-bit apps, which will likely break a lot of backward compatability. Whoopsie doodles.

  • pvq ( pvq@kbin.social ) 
    7·
    3 years ago

    What ever happened to initiatives such as project Treble? Do you guys think updates have gotten better on Android?

    I remember when I used to be excited about Android OS updates and kept watching videos about new features (that I was not gonna get anytime soon because I was stuck in an old version of Android)… It’s been years since I’ve been excited about an Android update.

    Little side note rant:
    My biggest annoyance with Android is the share menu. I hate how it’s different for different apps (Firefox is vastly different from other apps for instance). I can notice at least 3 different sharing menus with the apps I frequently use. Makes it hard to build muscle memory… And I cannot pin the apps I actually use frequently for sharing stuff. Also the direct share thing never worked for me. I think it’s only for sharing via SMS or Email neither of which I use for sharing content, so it ended up being just a waste of space for me.

    Hope they fix the share menu one day… But then I’d have to wait to change my phone to get the updates.

    • Square Singer ( squaresinger@feddit.de ) 
      8·
      3 years ago

      Oh, Project Treble is in full swing, which is one of the main reasons you now frequently see Android phones with 3+ years of software support, often even with multiple Android OS version updates.

      Project Mainline is the other thing that caused OS updates to be rather lame. Since increasingly many former Android components are now just apps updated over the Play Store, there are less features in each Android update. For example, back in the day, even the Android browser was part of the OS and would only be updated when the OS was updated.

      Now Google is even throwing apps like the dialer and the messages SMS app out of AOSP.

      With so little of what used to be Android remaining inside Android and these outsourced components following a different release schedule, Android OS updates are mostly limited to UI refreshes or under-the-hood improvements.

      But while this makes OS updates less exciting, it also means that you get improvements faster (because components don’t have to wait for the next OS update) and longer (because you get component updates when your device manufacturer dropped support for your phone).

      Regarding the share menu:

      There is actually only one OS share menu, but different apps sometimes implement their own share menus, which is dumb, but not really Android’s fault. But yeah, the product managers at Firefox for Android are peculiar, to say the least.

        • potpie ( potpie@beehaw.org ) 
          1·
          3 years ago

          I’ve tried both and others and honestly I feel like as they “learn” they just get worse. It’s not quite as bad as it used to be, though. They also seem to base their autocorrect predictions on typing rather than swyping errors; sometimes I have no idea how they generated the list of alternatives, and the most obvious one that’s only off by one letter adjacent on the keyboard to another… isn’t even an option. Wtf.

  • vis5 ( vis5@kbin.social ) 
    4·
    3 years ago

    Backwards compatibility is a double-edged sword. It’s cool that you can run an apk from 10 years ago but there should be a point where you say that’s enough and drop support from them. Looking at Windows.

  • catshit_dogfart ( catshit_dogfart@lemmy.ml ) 
    4·
    3 years ago

    I used an apple phone for the first time at work, they gave us apple phones.

    I was blown away when I realized you can’t just dump any old file on it, because I’m used to plugging in my android phone and throwing on some files like it’s any other removable storage. Not so with apple phones, incredibly limited.

    See, I used to flash firmware for copy machines from my phone. Like if I went out to a site and didn’t prepare firmware before going I could just download it on my phone and flash from that.

     

    The apple phone couldn’t do a bunch of stuff that I always thought was standard smartphone things. Also couldn’t display cell and wifi reception in decibels, and I used to do informal site surveys with my phone. Nope, apple can’t do that either, “bars” aren’t a good metric to wrote down.

    That thing was about damn useless except to be used as a phone and an mp3 player.