Re: A good thing or a bad thing

On 4/11/25 6:01 PM, Marion wrote:

On Fri, 11 Apr 2025 19:49:38 -0000 (UTC), AJL wrote :
>
>

How is it a "bit of a pita" when every APK you installed is always
automatically saved to your Windows PC (as Android is mounted as a drive)?
<https://i.postimg.cc/hjkVFyqJ/scrcpy07.jpg> Android mnt as drive letter

 I think you misunderstood me. Let me give an example. I'm now posting using
 an Amazon Fire HD10 tablet. It came with the Amazon Appstore. I have since
 installed Google stuff on it and thus it also has the Play Store. Both
 stores came set to automatically update apps.

>
Oh. I'm sorry. You're right. I don't use a newsreader so I don't know whom
I'm speaking with (unless I specifically look at the attribute line). >
I thought you were the guy who was trying to claim that Android APKs are
done similarly to iOS IPAs, which put me in a bad mood responding to him.
>
I apologize for being a dolt. >

So when I install an old preferred apk version of a still available (in the
 stores) app on this tablet it wouldn't stay old long because one of the
 stores would automatically update it to the current version.

>
Yup. I agree. Your observation of what happens is likely what happens to
most people, and, in fact, my wife drives me nuts because I put the last
known good version of PulseSMS on her phone and she lets it update!
>
Obviously I don't even have the Google Play Store app on my phone, so any
update that it might do, it can't do - simply because it doesn't exist. :)
>
But I do have the FOSS Google Play Store apps, which will update by default
(so obviously I turn that off for the reasons you so helpfully explained).
>

So I've turned off auto-updating in both stores. The PITA is that I now have
 to periodically check both stores and manually update the other apps that
 do need updates...

>
Yes. I agree. Although there _is_ a solution which most people don't know.
That solution is NOT intuitive. It's completely unintuitive in fact.
>
Actually, what I'm going to tell you only one in a million people (my
estimate) have any inkling of - and I only know it because I'm not the kind
of guy that assumes things so I only know it because I *tested* it out.
>
On Android, the Google Play Store app has a checkbox to "update apps" but
in reality, it updates almost nothing. Yup. Almost nothing. <https://i.postimg.cc/HsXKj7WK/updateallapps01.jpg>
<https://i.postimg.cc/4djB69pr/updateallapps02.jpg>
<https://i.postimg.cc/02xKj04h/updateallapps03.jpg>
<https://i.postimg.cc/3xxyCJYB/updateallapps04.jpg>
>
The funny thing is it does that update of almost nothing without you even
being logged into a Google Account on your phone. Ask me how I know that.
>
There are threads on this where I tested the Google App Store update
against "real" updaters, and the difference was completely shocking.
The real updaters go onto the Google Play Store repository and for every
app that has an update, they give you a GUI that you can update it. If you want to update it.
You don't have to.

 

But what's SHOCKING different is the Google Play Store update mechanism is
shocking deficient. It's so bad I'd assess it at almost totally worthless.

I'm satisfied with how the Play Store updates this Amazon tablet considering
 that Google is a trespasser. When I check every few days (because
 auto-update is off) there usually are apps wanting update so it's working,
 perhaps not to your standards, but good enough for me (YMMV). And some apps
 wanting update in the Play Store were originally installed from the Amazon
 Appstore. Apparently Amazon uses older app versions that Google wants to
 update which I suppose is logical since the Fire OS is based on an earlier
 Android version.

Even the Apple Play Store update mechanism is better than that of Google.
In summary, and this is *important* because everyone "assumes"
(incorrectly) that the Google Play Store "update" mechanism will update all
your apps that have available updates in the Google Play repo.
It does not.
It's not even close.
You can see that easily by running two steps that I've run so I know this.
1. Update using the Google Play Store update mechanism, and then,
2. Run a real updater.
You'll be shocked at the differences (hundreds of updates are missing!).
Not to give you too much information, but there are updaters and there are
updaters, where some updaters actually look at other repositories, while
other updaters only look at the Google Play Store repository.

Thanks for the info but I think I'd be pushing things trying to mod this
 tablet any more. It works as well as some much higher priced Android
 tablets I've had in the past. And it's light and very comfortable to hold.
 Amazon still updates the tablet OS from time to time and I do worry that
 one day it will kick Google out...  8-O
BTW, For anyone reading this and thinking of trying the same Amazon/Google
 mod there is another benefit. Amazon Fire tablets come with ads on the
 lockscreen. For $30US Amazon will remove the ads. But with this Google mod
 the lockscreen ads go away, no 30 bucks needed. Take that Amazon...

Here are some from my notes... if you're interested in checking them out.
1. Obtainium <https://github.com/ImranR98/Obtainium>
  GitHub, GitLab, SourceForge, F-Droid, IzzyOnDroid,   APKPure, Aptoide, Uptodown, APKMirror (Track-Only), etc.
2. APK Updater <https://github.com/rumboalla/apkupdater>
  GitHub, GitLab, F-Droid, APKPure, Aptoide, APKMirror, IzzyOnDroid, etc.
3. App Updater <com.update.software.updateallapps> (has ads)
  Google Play Store repository