this post was submitted on 21 Nov 2024
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This does not affect people without Google Play Services so why complain? We need fewer reasons for people to buy Apple products so that devs are more inclined to build good native Android apps.
This is why I see it as a mild positive for us. For normal users, it's another step away from privacy and security towards convenience that they will accept. Yes, some will see this on-by-default feature and think "no privacy is possible anymore" but that's best solved by GrapheneOS etc. becoming more visible.
Honestly, I don't have any issues with app selection on Android, my main issue is w/ app selection without Google Play Services running. I've moved to accessing most services (e.g. banking) on my phone's web browser, which works surprisingly well.
If you have a recent phone, websites and PWAs are about as fast as native apps. I'm using a 2014 flagship Sony Xperia Z that came out with Android 4.4 and can barely run Android 13 — it will overheat and sytem UI (thankfully not apps) will restart if rendering stuff for too long. (The difference is staggering: basic old apps like Phyphox and static websites run indefinitely. Modern apps or JS-enabled pages like Voyager or 480p30 video for 10 minutes. Post-modern bloated crap or 720p30 video, 4 minutes. Imgur, new Reddit and 1080p video turn the phone into a hand warmer immediately and the framerate goes from 15 to <1 in 10 seconds, followed by a slew of ANRs and the battery percentage going down every 20^th^ frame rendered. Should I have applied more heatsink compound after replacing the battery? Yes but I'd argue no app with a simple purpose and basic GUI should require 5 W to the CPU while running at half rate.)
A lot of pages aren't designed for PWAs or mobile use whatsoever. For example, my 401k provider actually hides the login form when viewing from a mobile browser, so I have to switch it to desktop mode to get into it. They have an app, and it probably works w/o Google Play Services (haven't tried, but there are no notifications), but the mobile app is pretty limited. Likewise for my HSA app, the website is more helpful than the mobile app is.
On my old phone, the web browser runs regular pages poorly, much less video, and it's not even that slow of a phone (Android 11, 8 cores, 4GB RAM). So I totally understand older phones having issues. My current phone is a Pixel 8, so it's plenty fast.