On 2021-07-01 4:01 p.m., paul wrote:
> Eli the Bearded wrote on 01.07.2021 19:16
>> The "MARKET" doesn't understand the difference. Developers and a small
>> percent of power users do, and likely a smaller percent of both care.
>
> The "MARKET" is whomever it is that provides the functionality.
>
> For example, Google YouTube is, to me, an obnoxious assault by ads.
> Luckily, "the MARKET" provided NewPipe, which eliminates those ads.

You mean, you were given a way to cheat to get something for free to
which you were not entitles.

<snip>

paul wrote on 02.07.2021 01:01
> So maybe we need a separate thread on what's the status of AV1 anyway.

Subject: What's the status of AV1 decoding hardware in phones anyway
Date: Fri, 2 Jul 2021 01:09:52 +0200
Message-ID: <sblhvm$hq2$1@gioia.aioe.org>
Newsgroups: comp.mobile.android

What's the status of AV1 decoding hardware in phones anyway?
--
Android users employ logic while Apple users only seem to rely on emotion.

On 6/30/2021 6:19 PM, VanguardLH wrote:

<snip>

> Whew! I thought for a moment that Google was going to fuck over their
> customers with a new end-device package format that would render all old
> smartphones (which don't get Android updates after a phone gets
> discontinued, which about a year) unusable with a new package format at
> the end device.
>
> AAB, introduced back in May 2018, is a publishing format (app author to
> Play Store), so this has been coming for 3 years, and the hammer comes
> down in August. APK remains the delivery format to the end devices.

As long as other app stores can still distribute apps as APKs that's
fine. But it sounds like users won't necessarily be able to export AAB
format apps from their device. This capability can be useful at times.
But it's not clear from those articles whether or not that capability
will go away.

On 03/07/2021 03:28, sms wrote:
> As long as other app stores can still distribute apps as APKs that's
> fine. But it sounds like users won't necessarily be able to export AAB
> format apps from their device. This capability can be useful at times.
> But it's not clear from those articles whether or not that capability
> will go away.

It seems probably likely that an AAB downloaded off Google Play will never
be able to be exported by the user to a machine portable APK anymore.
--
Regards,
Martin Brown

On 7/2/2021 12:26 PM, Martin Brown wrote:
> On 03/07/2021 03:28, sms wrote:
>> As long as other app stores can still distribute apps as APKs that's
>> fine. But it sounds like users won't necessarily be able to export AAB
>> format apps from their device. This capability can be useful at times.
>> But it's not clear from those articles whether or not that capability
>> will go away.
>
> It seems probably likely that an AAB downloaded off Google Play will never
> be able to be exported by the user to a machine portable APK anymore.

That's too bad, it was useful to be able to backup all your apps, but it
was especially useful to be able to export apps that were no longer
available on the Play Store, and install them onto new devices; this was
not needed often, but it was occasionally useful.

sms wrote:

> it was especially useful to be able to export apps that were no longer
> available on the Play Store, and install them onto new devices; this was
> not needed often, but it was occasionally useful.

Will the feature to "beam" an app from one phone to another go away? It
was only recently added ...

Andy Burns wrote on 02.07.2021 22:00
> Will the feature to "beam" an app from one phone to another go away? It
> was only recently added ...

I can't see how it could work given AABs are crippled (much like Apple IPAs
are crippled) by removing _all_ the portability that was built into the app.
https://gizmodo.com/people-who-hate-walled-gardens-aren-t-going-to-like-whe-1847221570

−− As the name suggests, these "Split APKs" aren't entire apps. They're
parts of an app, each targeting a specific area of change, that combine to
form the final app. With App Bundles, if you have a high-resolution, ARMv8
device with a locale set to English with App Bundles, the Play Store will
spit out a set of Split APKs that supports only that device type. If your
friend has a low-resolution ARM v7 phone set for English and Hindi, they'll
get another set of APK that supports exactly that. Google Play can generate
bespoke APKs for every user, giving them only the code they need and nothing
more.

paul wrote:

> these "Split APKs" aren't entire apps. They're
> parts of an app, each targeting a specific area of change, that combine to
> form the final app. With App Bundles, if you have a high-resolution, ARMv8
> device with a locale set to English with App Bundles, the Play Store will
> spit out a set of Split APKs that supports only that device type.

But that's not a new concept, for years I've noticed on sites like
apkmirror, there are numerous variations of some apps e.g. by cpu
architecture and device dpi.