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Comment by lawgimenez | Hacker News Reader

I have been developing Android apps since Eclair, and I'm from a "developing" country. For me the deterioration of Android started after Jelly Bean. Jelly Bean for me is the best Android OS in history. So fast and fluid, it can run on the most low-end smartphones at that time. Developing for it was also very fun.

Then I remember KitKat OS came and it was all hell broke loose. Every OEM was just releasing different Android versions here and there every year. And Google did nothing. They just let every smartphone company do what they want

In my history of ~11 years of Android development, it's just hard to purchase a Google phone. I bought a Nexus tablet but I have to ask my sister in the US to ship it to me. The shipping fee is ridiculous high I remember. Then they introduced Pixel and Go editions but still I couldn't purchase officially from Google. I have to ask favor from someone in the US/EU to ship it to me.

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Personally I miss Kitkat 4.4. That sweet, sweet Mass Storage mode made file management oh so easy. No trying to copy things around only to have it bitch at you that the device is busy, or the crippled replacement MTP making Windows lose its shit at the idea you might want to copy a filetype that wasn't on its approved list. God we've regressed.

THIS!

MTP sucks hard and is slow and easy to overload with many files.

My 4.2 device was Umi X2 Chinese phone and I even hacked together couple Roms for such Meadiatek based devices back then. I remember my lightest ROM was like 250mb. With working PlayStore and all, but obviously only bare minimum included. Nowadays even the lightest custom Roms are 700mb+ . With Google apps and all easy 1.5GB and more.

Look at https://github.com/SelfAdjointOperator/better-adb-sync

forked from https://github.com/google/adb-sync

Uses a syntax like rsync via adb.

You're probably better off using adb. (Which does have its problems, like not handling copying directories well).

These days I just use a network file browser to copy files. Easier that way.

Ha! I love old school war stories like this.

The way they went with Java support and how the NDK still feels like a 20% project after all these years killed the motivation for doing side gigs in Android development.

Also Google IO is not fun any longer, knowing that I will only get to play with those features when my phone dies and is time for a replacement.

And even when buying one needs to take care, for example, plenty of Android 10 phones still on sale.

Back when I developed Android apps I never bothered to watch IO and barely kept up with the latest SDKs. There was no point because it takes years for new versions of Android to go live on enough devices to make the effort worthwhile. By the time half of users are on the latest version a whole new version has been released.

I mean just look at this: https://gs.statcounter.com/os-version-market-share/android . No recent version ever even hit 50%.

Maybe it would have been different if I was part of a large team with more time to spend on somewhat frivolous efforts.

AppCompat, AndroidX, and their other library projects have basically made SDK concerns something you rarely have to think about at this point. Usually the only thing you need to consider are security concerns that newer versions force on you, like updated, new or more finely grained permissions. Everything else pretty much just works. My current teams app supports all the way back to API 23, and has only needed to drop support for older versions a couple times for security reasons.

It all works so well with older versions now that on an evaluation from the mobile teams of the new UI frameworks Jetpack Compose and Swift UI, we decided fully in support of Jetpack Compose because it worked very well out of the box with older versions and was getting tons of updates.

We decided against Swift UI since it was tied to the iOS version, and although most people who can update their phone do, significant numbers of users it seems don't immediately buy new iPhones anymore when they don't get updates anymore. As much as the dev experience would have been improved using the latest Swift UI on latest, the lowest version we support is stuck with one of the terrible first iterations. For something like UI, it just wasn't worth losing so many users.

I'll admit it has been a long time -- androidx was only just showing up when I stopped developing for the platform.

> AppCompat, AndroidX, and their other library projects have basically made SDK concerns something you rarely have to think about at this point.

I kinda wish this meant they would spread out the releases a bit more, say 2-3 years apart. At least then they'd have even more motivation to ensure that the support libs et al offered compelling features that don't require manufacturers to stop being lazy.

I thought developers could bundle Swift with their app? So even if iOS has version X, you can bundle X+1 and it’ll work.

Apps targeting pre-2018 iOS versions bundle the mid-2018 version of swift runtime for compatibility reasons.

For example, when you run an app made in the iOS 15 era on an iOS 13 device, the app can’t use any runtime features that are not included with iOS 13. Given that swift is still rapidly evolving, that amounts to a lot of useful features. This year, iOS 16 apps get to use the cool new Regex features.

Marshmallow (23) is an odd version to support. Most legacy device apps go back to at least Lollipop (21). Compose UI and some other stuff requires API 21. Any reason for Marshmallow?

Our app heavily uses BLE and we integrate with a number of different partners. I don't remember which libraries required it, but a few of them required us to move up to 23.

I see, that explains it.

And compare to this

https://gs.statcounter.com/ios-version-market-share/

I have worked on multiple apps from global top 500, we had a little bit of NDK for videos and WebRTC.

But that code was written in the times when there was no widely used non-NDK APIs for media. Right now landscape is very different: NDK is very niche, and if you’re seeing it everywhere, then either you’re in the gamedev / IoT / etc, or doing something in a very strange way.

What exactly do you use NDK extensively for?

Gamedev precisely.

I agree. The only memorable Google IO was the introduction of Google Glass skydiving event. That was so cool.

I completely agree with android getting worse every major update.

I have an old-ish phone, but recently needed to update from android 9 to android 10. And have been plagued with issues ever since - volume is somehow lowered on bluetooth devices, and the battery doesn't last as long, and occasionally there are crashes that force phone to restart.

The Bluetooth audio issue is annoying. There seems to be some disagreement between the headset chipset and the phone about what the default volume level should be.

You can turn off a setting called something like 'unified volume control', to go back to the old way of having separate (and redundant) volume control on both headset and source device.

If you're referring to 'disable absolute volume control', I tried it, and doesn't seem to help much if anything at all.

This option should allow you to adjust the volume on your peripheral AND your device, instead of only adjusting it on the device which may max out via software.

This is something I set religiously on all the Android devices I use for audio-only media.

Interesting you had that experience, since KitKat had Project Svelte which was a big effort to cut memory usage. This made an enormous difference for low end phones.

My experience with KitKat is not that good. Yes memory usage improved but the introduction of broken APIs started here. I remember MediaPlayer API was just so broken in this build. It was breaking so much randomly in HTC and Sony that we have to search frantically for those phones. Plus our apps also run on TV by plugging an Android USB. It worked pretty well on JB and then broke suddenly after KitKat. I remember vividly since I have to code for 23 hours straight just to beat that deadline.

“As of October 2020, 1.47% of Android devices run KitKat. As of August 2022, it is the oldest Android version still supported by Google Play Services and is currently the minimum version to develop apps for the Google Play Store.”

I remember KitKat being great because it was the version that introduced Chrome based WebView, which made a huge difference for compatibility if you needed it. However the WebView component only got auto-updating in Android 5.0, so security double sucks.

And KitKat was the version that there was an explosion of devices for - impressive that 4.4.4 is still supported nearly a decade later (albeit without OS security patches!) It was released when iOS7 was released with the iPhone 5.

The thing you have to remember about those usage figures is that they don’t really include the large numbers of low-end devices that are often running quite old versions of Android.

The sort of person who uses SHAREit and other platforms to minimise their data usage, often has to delete one app and install another to switch between them (due to lack of space), and certainly can’t afford a new phone every few years, is not included in these statistics.

> They just let every smartphone company do what they want

I understand your point. It is like (me) linux user asking for a simple desktop - minimal GUI. Nothing flashy like winXP.

The world on the other hand (incl. many developers) want tons of features - bling etc. This is rampant in developing world (especially phones non-motorola phones).

BTW, you could have bought moto G, E editions in India. These are so close to stock pixel experience.

> er vividly since I have to code for 23 hours straight just to beat that deadline.

Lets be honest. That indicates app ecosystem matured. It is as big as OS. People that we ask to build apps charge tons of money.

> TV by plugging an Android USB.

For you it is a feature. For others it may be a security issue.

They should repeat that. Android 12 has been super slow for me. It feels really bloated.

> And Google did nothing. They just let every smartphone company do what they want

What would you have expected them to do? Vendors are free by licensing to fork AOSP and do what they will with it. Ain't nothing Google can say to change that; any more than they can say what people can do with forks of Chromium.

You’re missing a few key points here:

- Google most certainly can restrict how its products are used, in fact they do. Licensing comes with rules.

- Huawei is “free” to use AOSP, but can’t use Google’s APIs. See how far they got with that. No App Store and no Google APIs means a lot of apps won’t work. So you really need Google’s version unless you’re in China.

>Huawei is “free” to use AOSP, but can’t use Google’s APIs. See how far they got with that. No App Store and no Google APIs means a lot of apps won’t work. So you really need Google’s version unless you’re in China.

I don't think that's the main reason why Huawei cannot make phones. Sure in International markets it's an issue. But Oppo, Vivo, Xiaomi and other phones sold in China also don't have Google Play and Play Services.

I covered that in the text you quoted:

> unless you’re in China.

You sell in China, you don’t need Google’s approval. Outside it you most certainly do.

> No App Store and no Google APIs

No Play Store; alternative app stores exist. This can work; consider Amazon's Android devices which only support Amazon as their store.

Amazon devices are sold because they’re cheap ebook readers.

Huawei has only been blocked from dealing with the US, but as a result it’s been killed around the world after being one of the leading low-cost brands. Why? No Google.

Take out the Play Store and Play APIs and now you’re just a random Chinese Android manufacturer.

Most Amazon tablets I see aren't being used as cheap ebook readers but are being used by kids because their parents don't want to risk them damaging an expensive tablet.

I would not, they are electronic junk. Even many low tier Chinese brands are higher quality with less bloatware included.

they could've made the android naming and trademark licensing be the gateway - you have to maintain a certain level of quality, or not add crapware, etc. If a manufacturer forks, and don't get the naming rights, they cannot use the logos, name or branding.

Google already did this a long time ago (https://developer.android.com/distribute/marketing-tools/bra...):

> The "Android" name, the Android logo, the "Google Play" brand, and other Google trademarks, are property of Google LLC and not part of the assets available through the Android Open Source Project.

But guess what? This didn't (and still doesn't) influence the device vendors one bit. Instead, the device vendors worked around this constraint in the most blunt way possible: by stripping the word "Android" out of the OS in every place it appears, replacing it with some other term. That's half of what these Android-forked OSes (e.g. Xiaomi's MIUI) are about in the first place — giving the OS its own branding distinct from "Android."

Not the device vendors. Some device vendors did that. Some other device vendors would have preferred to use the Android branding and comply with Google's restrictions than to alienate the existing userbase. Can you really imagine Samsung selling SamsungOS phones? Once Android was established it was well within Google's possibilities to impose restrictions, but they instead chose to let the manufacturers do whatever they pleased.

At this point people who are in the Samsung ecosystem like the Samsung UI. The Galaxy brand is arguably just as valuable as the Android brand, if you want to be real about it. Samsung absolutely would have sold their own SamsungOS-branded phones.

The first truly successful Android devices were the Motorola Droid and the original Samsung Galaxy. Even back then, in the Android 2.X days, they were making modifications to the style of Android, similar to the way Samsung and HTC and others had similarly customized Windows Mobile in the pre-iPhone smartphone era.

Android managed to get a stronghold thanks to Google’s aggressive investment and the fact that they didn’t charge OEMs a royalty to use it (which Microsoft did and Symbian did. Also, neither Symbian nor Windows Mobile were at all competitive to iOS and Android was after Google pivoted post-iPhone launch) and the fact that they let carriers and OEMs do whatever they wanted to the interface and add whatever bloatware they wanted.

It wasn’t until well past the success of the Galaxy line that Google started to try to rein in the diversions and UX forks. And Samsung, which has a UX that at this point many of its customers prefer, has received a light touch from a lot of these attempts because they are consistently one of the largest Android OEMs.

Android largely has a userbase because Google let the OEMs do whatever they wanted, similar to what Symbian and Windows Mobile had allowed before.

> The Galaxy brand is arguably just as valuable as the Android brand, if you want to be real about it.

Wintel duopoly all over again. I wrote/maintain two Android apps. 20 years ago, I wrote/maintained some Windows desktop apps. It’s amazing to me how it’s all different, but yet feels so much the same.

Android is parallel to Windows, except on mobile and arguably worse because of the hardware disparities and non standard cryptic driver implementations.

How many people knew or cared that Verizon “Droids” were Android phones back in the day?

When are we talking about?

About a decade ago. But most of the 40% of people who use Android in the US aren’t looking for “Android phones” they are looking for cheap phones.

The average selling price of an Android phone in the US is less than $300. The average Android buyer in the US is getting a less than optimal experience and don’t seem to care. They would buy any phone that could make phone calls, surf the web and watch YouTube and get on Facebook.

It's amazing to me that $300 is the threshold of 'cheap' phones. Apple really has pushed up the baseline price for flagship devices.

It's a portable mini computer with different radios, nice screens, audio/video, cameras etc etc etc. How much cheaper to you think a proper smartphone could be?

Did they get so much more capable since 2015?

As of right this second, a 2015 iPhone 6S can still run the latest released version of iOS.

They actually already have this, except not with naming and trademarks but holding back access to the closed-source first-party Google apps (which I believe includes Chrome, as the AOSP browser was deprecated), most notably Google Play (the Store and Services, which are required to get and then use many apps... hell: even Signal, of all things, requires Google Play Services still afaik). To get access to these apps requires passing a complicated compliance process which includes a comprehensive test suite that limits the kinds of changes you can make to your fork of Android.

https://www.android.com/gms/

Signal doesn't require Play Services but if it's included in the base image you need to have it installed even if it's disabled for Signal to work.

Basically this:

                 __________________
                | GMS Preinstalled |
     Current    |---------+--------|
    GMS Status  |   Yes   |   No   |
   _____________|_________|________|
  | Installed   |    OK   |   OK   |
  |-------------|---------+--------|
  | Disabled    |    OK   |   OK   |
  |-------------|---------+--------|
  | Uninstalled | NOT OK  |   OK   |
  +-------------+---------+--------+

Why is that the case?

I don't know exactly but it seems to interpret GMS being part of the ROM but not installed as it being mid-upgrade IIRC.

Most apps do not require Google Play Services.

Many of them will show "X requires Google Play Services" warnings and then... continue working fine anyway. It's always the same wording, so I assume it's just a thing that the app-side libraries do when it tries to talk to the service and it isn't there.

I think it's more likely to just crash because most software author simply don't care class not found exceptions (If you already being hosted on Google play, why would you?)

That's what I'm saying. I have seen many instances of that warning dialog. I have not seen a single application actually crash because of it.

Maybe regulate the apps pre-installed and each of the OEM's Android flavor? You have tried Sony Xperia before right? Their UI hardly resembles any Android. Samsung flavor was worse back then too.

They did that, and I'm not sure they could have gone much further in the way of restricting OEMs, considering they were told to knock that shit off by the EU [0]. Few people that I recall so much as batted an eye - even XDA in the earlier days was stuffed full of people wondering how long until Google came down harder on OEMs for better update support, and many people were in favour of Google using Google Play Services as a stick.

[0] https://www.cnbc.com/2018/10/16/google-will-stop-bundling-it...

I live in EU and pixel phones are not officially available to me. Even in countries where they are there is no sufficient stock for a long time after they are released. At this point mainstream Android devices are either Samsung or Chinese brands.

EU here as well. You can buy them from a zillion resellers, or directly from Google.

They are not being sold directly from Google in all EU countries.

No, but resellers (Fnac, Media Markt, etc), Amazon, and eBay should cover all the edge cases.

> Every OEM was just releasing different Android versions here and there every year. And Google did nothing. They just let every smartphone company do what they want

It's open source, what do you propose they do about that? Close source the OS?

> For me the deterioration of Android started after Jelly Bean. Jelly Bean for me is the best Android OS in history.

This is definitely where I lost you. That's a 10 year old OS, basically an OS that represents the the infancy of consumer smartphones. Anyone who actually goes back and uses an OS that old will quickly discover just how little "vital" functionality it has.

One that's particularly funny to me: Android added native printer support in 8.0. That's something we've had on desktop computers for decades!

We didn't even have fully fledged notification controls and do not disturb before Android 5, something that's considered a basic necessity now. Couldn't search the system settings. The list goes on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_version_history

> They just let every smartphone company do what they want

You might be romanticizing the situation. Before Jelly Bean, it was still completely a Wild West. If anything, custom skins from manufacturers were even worse back then.

I have used Jelly Bean both on S3 and Nexus 4. What I found is that Jelly Bean gets really slow after a while and you need to factory reset every couple of months. Newer versions of Android don't have this issue.

A factory reset unapplies all updates. But for instance, Chrome will auto-update even without you being logged into a Google account.

Factory reset on android can only reset the apps to the version of the app that came with the OS release. It doesn't revert any OS updates. Also all apps are updated by Google Play as long as you're logged in and haven't disabled auto-update.

Android 5 did revert my Chrome.

Sites worked faster for a while on my very old device.

I still reget updating to KitKat my Nexus 7 (2013)

sometimes I fantasize about forking jelly bean.

> They just let every smartphone company do what they want

Android is an open source project.

AOSP, Android Open Source Project

But it isn't what regular people mean when you talk about Android. In the say way you could say that MacOS would be Open source if they had almost the same name with Darwin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system)

Google is able to assert a high degree of control given they can chose or not chose to let a phone manufacturer have access to Google apps.

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