[HN Gopher] Google is killing the .apk format and it's a bad thing
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       Google is killing the .apk format and it's a bad thing
        
       Author : boba7
       Score  : 40 points
       Date   : 2021-07-02 17:37 UTC (5 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.osnews.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.osnews.com)
        
       | ptrwis wrote:
       | I thought that maybe at least PWA apps could be bundled this way,
       | but I can't find anything about it
        
       | andrewmcwatters wrote:
       | It's settled then. It's time for more phone Linux distros.
        
       | hypertele-Xii wrote:
       | I guess this is the last Google phone I ever buy then. I don't
       | even sideload many apps, I just think it's immoral. To be fair to
       | Google, it did erase "don't be evil" from its motto.
        
         | pyentropy wrote:
         | The article doesn't say that sideloading will stop working,
         | it's just that Play Store will completely switch to the format.
         | This has to do more with the exponentially growing storage req
         | of apps more than anything. Average user is gonna benefit a
         | lot, especially since Bundles have a 150MB upper limit.
         | 
         | Android cannot afford being a walled garden like Apple and I
         | don't see them limiting installations. As long as they get
         | users into putting data into Google services, they'll let both
         | OEMs and users customize anything in the platform.
        
       | fuckgoogle1111 wrote:
       | fuck google
        
       | slownews45 wrote:
       | Going to have some meaningful size savings -> play store CDN
       | traffic has got to be pretty incredible.
       | 
       | I don't think devs were really creating enough APK's on the
       | various device dimensions to do this efficiently themselves.
       | 
       | They make it sound like you can't distribute your code using
       | other platforms but you can (so far) based on what I've seen
       | (using .apk)
       | 
       | But smaller app sizes (and the other benefits) are not anti-
       | consumer features.
        
       | aliasEli wrote:
       | It's forcing developers into the Google Play store.
       | 
       | More details in [0].
       | 
       | [0] https://www.slashgear.com/android-app-bundles-are-
       | replacing-...
        
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       (page generated 2021-07-02 23:02 UTC)