Re: What can't you do on Android WITHOUT a Google Account set up in the OS?

Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> wrote:

Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

Frank Slootweg <this@ddress.is.invalid> wrote:

Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:

To use a Fitbit, you need a Google account (unless you have a
legacy Fitbit account from years ago).  To use the Fitbit app you
need to sign in with the Google account, which installs the Google
account centrally on the phone, which means that account infests
the rest of the OS and gets used for other stuff (eg Play
Services/Store).

 
  Are you sure about that? Can't you just use a Google account to login
into the *app*, instead of into the *system*/OS? Many apps have such
functionality, i.e. an app-specific login, so I wouldn't know why the
Fitbit app would be any different.

 
It shows under Settings -> Accounts, and the Play Store uses it without
asking.  There's no way to sign out of it apart from deleting it from the
phone.  If I do that the Fitbit app stops working and wants a sign in again.

 
  So you already had a Google account on the phone and used that for the
Fitbit app, so you can no longer remove the account from the phone
(Settings) and use the Fitbit app with the *same* Google account.
 
  But the scenario I was talking about was: Phone *without* a Google
account (after all, that's the subject of this thread). User wants to
use Fitbit app. Fitbit app wants a Google account. My suggestion:
Create/have a Google account, do *not* use it for the *phone* (i.e. it's
not in Settings) and just use it to login into the *Fitbit app*. I see
no reason why that shouldn't work.

No, I had no Google account anywhere on the phone.  The Fitbit account
wanted me to 'Sign in with Google'.  This also *signed in the whole phone
with Google* (ie Play Store, everything).  If I removed that account from
the phone in Settings -> Accounts, the Fitbit app wasn't signed in and
wanted to 'Sign in with Google'.  Around the circle we go.

The only way to avoid this is to create a separate user profile and install
the Fitbit app into it (as the only app besides the system apps).  That
signs that whole profile into Google, but doesn't affect the apps installed
in other profiles.  When are done with the Fitbit app, stop that profile and
go back to your other profile that has no Google account in it.  This only
works if your phone OEM has enabled user profiles.

Theo