As Android developer verification gets ready to go, a new reason to be worried

Same.

Combined with bad security practice from OEMs, preinstalled bloatware, app fragmentation (I love having Samsung "Phone" app and stock phone app at the same time) and customer service (try replacing your phone battery and compare the experience of ubreakifix and Apple store), I don't see a reason to go Android.

(P.S. people who cannot afford the latest iPhone can always purchase a two year old used/"refurbished" phone. It's a solid choice and many people do that. The fact that you can now add Apple Care to 4 year old device makes this more viable.)

Yup, same here. I've even talked family members into joining me. If this goes through and locks me out of installing things that aren't officially signed, I'll be done with Android.

At least, the standard version. If Samsung or someone keeps it open, I'd probably move to that.

Yeah, this is exactly my reasoning too. And with Google making it harder for OSes like GrapheneOS to run on Pixel devices, my next device will have to be an Apple one. There's nothing left in the Android ecosystem for me.

I could never give Apple another dime, they're the ones responsible for enabling and normalizing this.

And if Android's removal of rights lags 5-10 years behind Apple again in the future, that's a win.

Our legal system is such a joke.

The government isn't worried about control, but economics.

Google verifying developer identities but not controlling distribution, satisfies all relevant economic considerations. If it was about not letting Google control Android, they certainly wouldn't be letting Google decide the development roadmap. (The $25 fee doesn't count - the government has no problem charging multiples of that for anyone who drives a car or wants an ID card.)

As for Apple, they still have their antitrust lawsuit ongoing. Apple v Epic was only the first fire.

> Presumably this one can be triggered on an already installed app - a key question being how that triggering occurs. i.e. will the Play Store act to push out details of developers that are now blocked so devices can act on it?

Your "presumably" is doing a _lot_ of work; these strings are from the PackageInstaller, and go along with all of the other reasons you can't install an APK.

Historically, apps that were pulled from the Play Store and developer accounts revoked due to malware do _not_ affect apps on the end-user device, and there's no current sign of this changing with this specific project. Google have generally achieved this goal using Play Protect, the separate app/service which _can_ download revocation lists and signal end-users to delete malicious apps, and there's no indication this will change.

It's extending beyond mobile too, which is terrifying.

Anonymity is under attack in general

> I think this is going to single-handedly destroy the OSS ecosystem that Android enjoys.

This was always the plan. Co-opt FLOSS with services running on FLOSS platforms that are not, themselves, FLOSS. Make it insanely unattractive to run actual FLOSS services on the otherwise FLOSS platform. At that point, it might as well be what Apple does.

There's a reason why rms was insistent upon GPL, but he never did have a real answer to that sort of corporate behavior.

It would be righteous for it to destroy all of Android, not just its ecosystem.

The obvious alternative is Linux phones. Granted, the tech sets us back by maybe two decades, but at least we're almost at the stage where we can rapidfire develop our own apps or open source apps using LLM assistance.

> It's not their device to decide what code can run on it.

They apparently feel very differently.

We got rid of the license on the OS; but they found other ways to put a license on the phone.

Clippy would never take away things you own. https://youtu.be/2_Dtmpe9qaQ

Avoid using your phone, don't install apps, don't rely on it for anything, and stick it in a drawer most of the time. Phones have ALWAYS been a bad bet for privacy, and we've been losing this cat and mouse game for years. I agree that what's happening lately seems like a real watershed moment, but the writing has been on the wall for a long time.

This is orthogonal to GrapheneOS; GrapheneOS's utility is being eroded by Device Attestation, but this change is irrelevant as GrapheneOS will already fail strict attestation.

If ever there was a time for Linux phones to gain renewed development interest, it's now.

Maybe I missed it, but assuming GrapheneOS doesn't adhere to this verification, or provides some OS-level way to disable it, what makes Graphene worse after this change?

Buy a Linux phone or contribute to development of the Linux phone ecosystem, and accept that while it may lag behind in features, it makes up for that in freedom and privacy. Potentially keep a cheap Apple/Android around for stuff like banking software that only works on them.

>Online is now the real world.

Without most of the benefits of the real world, mind you.