they will back a super narrow conception of “right to repair” that only hurts their competitors, but doesn’t inconvenience Google at all.

I found, ages ago, that I never used the google app for something I couldn’t do in my browser. Like, this was back in the days just after Google Now died—all the features that almost worked just got scrapped because they really didn’t work. It allowed me to keep up with one college sports team, but other than that, opening the app was just a slower version of opening up my firefox and searching there.

So that’s what I do now. I disabled the Google app, and I don’t miss it at all.

I disabled the google app years ago. I use my browser for search, and then when I get the results, the results actually show in my browser, and I don’t have to switch apps or anything to get to my browser.

Plus, I don’t have to look at the vestiges of all the features the app used to have, which now just feel like they’ve left the UI cluttered and pointless.

Plus, every time I open the app, I feel like I’m being spied on, because I am.

Plus, Google Assistant sucks ass. The voice commands are super unreliable, and as for search, I don’t want AI to guess what I’m trying to search for, deterministic imperative searches are actually better.

it’s still going to be a distraction, especially if it’s the rare type of meeting you actually need to listen to or engage with.

Android has an easy remote backup system built in. You can save a file to any location, including cloud locations, as long as the cloud service provider plugs into the API. Signal actively disables this feature because they would rather spite users than risk even the shadow of a chance that a user upload an encrytped backup to an internet service that could theoretically then be hacked and hypothetically maybe one day decrypted.

Matrix doesn’t have this issue, it just stores encrypted messages on servers.

in other words: the default messaging protocol is imessage, unless that’s impossible, in which case it falls back to sms.

Apple’s biggest crimes here are creating a proprietary platform with an exclusive protocol and making it the default messaging protocol on their devices. None of this is really new, though. All that shit is common. We need Signal or Matrix to improve in user-friendliness and even do some marketing to the point where they become viable solutions.

So… Updates to Google messages, updates to WearOS, an update to AndroidTV, a few updates to Google proprietary apps, and one or two updates to the actual Android operating system.

there’s an “RCS Test App” in AOSP that nobody has managed to transform into a practical piece of software…

You’re trying to “correct” the correct usage of vernacular English because you feel like reinventing the language to suit your personal idea of what it should be. English is bigger than you. The phrase “private messaging” has meaning, and it’s not up to you to decide what that meaning is.

nobody thinks discord is e2ee. “private messages” usually means the same thing as “direct messages” – messages between a defined set of people as opposed to an open group. You know and understand this term, you’re just being a dick because you think that’s an effective way to convince people to stop using proprietary software without basic features like e2ee. You’re wrong.

but they weren’t offering money for platform exclusivity, they were offering money for store exclusivity on the platform

Except Google is framing the Apple App store as an alternative to the Google Play store, which… doesn’t really make sense… Especially in this context, they weren’t offering money to release fortnite on the Play store over the App store, they were offering money to release on the play store instead of as a standalone or in a competing store.

it would be weird if you didn’t.

what horse shit. He knows nobody in Ashkelon is following Hamas, he just loves the way extremists (and scammers) go on IG and Twitter and every other platform spamming “Join my telegram channel, install the app now!”

I don’t understand how people can be okay with Telegram openly supporting the al-Qasam Brigades.

Fun fact, Element / Matrix have had this covered for ages.

alright, well that seems to be working for now, thanks.

now to figure out how tf RSAF works…

Something about Obtainium sketches me out, is it really safe?

I installed it and got a note that it’s not compatible with the latest version of android… is it?

or f-droid… I’d love something like this, but I ain’t compiling shit from source for android, not nearly worth the hassle