Even after Google puts this crap in place, you can still uplodad your own apps to your own Android devices, using ADB. Doing the same for iOS, using Xcode, costs you USD 100 or more (depending on country) per year.
I'm in no way defending Google here, just pointing out you're going from bad to worse and think it's a good thing.
While not equivalent to a true iOS app, PWA is a decent option that allows you to circumvent the app store restrictions. If you are trying to build apps primarily for yourself, it's a decent option.
Doesn’t that require you to host it and have it available on the open web, though? Is there a host that allows you to, for free, not only HTML/CSS/JS but also access to arbitrary tools and bespoke scripts on the backend?
As a lark, I built a set of personal productivity apps that are delivered as standalone local webpages. Works surprisingly well on Android, haven't tested on iOS.
Sorry, even as a developer, "but, you can use ADB" is a big big copout.
What's the next step when ADB requires some hoops to enable? Will we say that but the eMMC has an unencrypted EXT4 partition, we can just desolder and write into it?
As a dev, i'd say having to use adb is a minor inconvenience.
Still unacceptable, a better option would be to use something like lineage or some other aosp distro without the google services (hoping that nothing makes you dependent on them).
This still doesn't address the vast majority of people though (and that's what I'm concerned about the most).
What we need now is:
- short term, work on pushing apps not to depend on the google services so phones preinstalled with something like /e/ become a viable option for most people. Push our public services to stop mandating Google and Apple OSes for random stuff.
- longer term, work on making alternatives to Android and iOS viable options for most people (stability, usability and availability of services people use). The best candidate for that today is Linux mobile.
Breaking network effect around proprietary services is one of the strategies towards this.
Another one is reducing our reliance on computers (of any shape) altogether, maybe.
Isn't keeping ADB enabled (most people who do this don't enable it and then promptly disable it) a huge security problem? ADB enabled means an adversary can completely own your device and "back it up" by simply plugging it in.
This is much worse than nagging about "untrusted sources".
>ADB enabled means an adversary can completely own your device and "back it up" by simply plugging it in.
each adb host has to be individually white-listed by an unlocked device. also the current behavior is that it auto forgets any white listed host that hasn't connected within 7 days.
Technically not but the devil is in the details. Having to reinstall the app every 7 days and a limit of one app doesn’t even pass the bare minimum.
Jolla has a prelaunch campaign, decent phones for 200€. I might just as well grab one. Sick of having a phone which is more expensive than my laptop but I can barely use.
My personal perspective: 2 out of 3 MacBook Pro, I worked with, had expanding batteries after about 5 years. Replacement was a big hassle and the new no-name batteries are nowhere near as good as the original ones.
I sure wish it was as easy as a battery replacement on a Framework laptop (with an original part).
I know the Neo has easier battery replacement (not glued in), but still it has an iFixit rating of 6/10 whereas the Framework 12 has a 10/10.
> We have people who can still do maths well after the introduction of the calculator.
I assume by "do maths" you mean doing simple calculations, like adding a bunch of small numbers, in one's head. That's because in many situations it's more convenient to do so, than using a calculator. So the skill is preserved / practiced, because a calculator is too cumbersome to use. The skills of most people settle at the equilibrium where it takes the same effort to take out the calculator and focus on typing, as it would to strain the brain doing it without a calculator.
> We have people who can still spell after the introduction of spell check.
When using spell check to fix your document, you automatically learn to spell. Your skills improve by using the tool. A better analogy to AI would be an email client with a "Fix all and send"-button, where you never look at the output of the spell checker.
I would also argue, that most school system forbid the usage of a calculator the first couple of years (at least that's how it was Germany a few decades ago). The same with writing per hand. You can spell check by looking the word up and then manually correcting it.
Both require manual "labor" which leads to learning.
And calculators took decades to become widespread. So we could learn of their side effects before they became mainstream.
Also to note. Calculators merely solve intermediary steps. LLMs are increasingly designed to do a one shot full blown work. Longer context, deep thinking, agentic loops.
> > We have people who can still spell after the introduction of spell check.
> When using spell check to fix your document, you automatically learn to spell. Your skills improve by using the tool. A better analogy to AI would be an email client with a "Fix all and send"-button, where you never look at the output of the spell checker.
I was in highschool right as spellcheckers were becoming common, and the general consensus among us as students was that they made us worse for exactly that reason: We could just click the spellcheck button and "accept all", so most of us stopped learning the right way to spell words we had trouble with.
No. These tools are very good at creating illusion of learning, without any learning. When you watch them do stuff, you think, yeah I got this.
Once they are gone, you realize all your supposed skill is gone too. Getting a skill requires deliberate practice. You can use AI for that, but just using AI is not that.
There's an old Latin proverb "Scribere bis legere", which translates to "writing is reading twice".
In practice, what this means is that you can read some subject many times, but you would still struggle to reproduce the content by yourself. That is why, when learning, it is not sufficient to just read the material several times.
My observation is that there's a certain group of programmers who "don't get graphical CAD" (their words) and prefer code based CAD. Now with LLMs, many of them like to spin up their own solution of "text to CAD", "image to CAD" or just another "code based CAD" and then do a "Show HN", praising it as the bee's knees.
When I look at their examples, the objects are usually non-functional, lacking precision and control, and could much more easily be done in a graphical CAD application.
I think some people just don't want to learn graphical CAD and hence are unable to see where their own solution is lacking important features.
It doesn't feel like more ideas are explored, it feels like more variants of the same old things are produced. Ideas have always been hard and AI doesn't help with that.
It feels like people are more willing to give their agent a prompt than search the web for existing solutions.
I've noticed a crazy amount of clearly AI coded projects that do a small subset of an already existing and very trusted open source project. Comments usually point this out, and the OP never responds. I'm not sure what the end goal is, but the whole thing feels like a waste of time for everybody involved.
MacBooks are not easy at all. I did it twice and it's an annoying, dangerous mess (danger of tearing the battery open). Apple won't even bother with it. If you want an "official job", they will just replace the whole top shell including the keyboard, because they can't be bothered to remove the glue. And of course it's expensive because of that.
8 minutes to complete, using only a screw driver and credit card, once every three or four years, is definitely "annoying". But, I'd still say it's also "pretty easy" (I never said "easy"). My reference frame may be different than yours.
Have you actually done it? Mine were 15" MacBooks, not 13" like in the video – maybe that makes a difference. It took me about 20 minutes. In the video the outer two battery packs just pop up without much resistance – that is not how it was in my case. It needed lots of acetone and patience and it was a messy process. I also had to apply quite a lot of force and was worried I might tear a battery pack open in the process (they were already swollen and looked like they might explode any moment).
The noname replacement batteries also have nowhere near the same capacity that the Apple batteries had originally.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fm567YGy5c
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