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Android's sideloading limits are its most anti-consumer move

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522 points josephcsible | 3 comments | 13 Oct 25 15:24 UTC | HN request time: 0.609s | source
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itg ◴[13 Oct 25 16:13 UTC] No.45570037[source]▶
Installing any app I want outside the Play Store was the primary reason I decided to go with Android, despite most of the people I know using iPhones. If I can't do this anymore, I may as well switch and be able to use iMessage and FaceTime with them.
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jamesnorden ◴[13 Oct 25 19:27 UTC] No.45572346[source]▶
>I may as well switch and be able to use iMessage and FaceTime with them

I, too, love vendor lockin.

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vivalahn ◴[13 Oct 25 19:28 UTC] No.45572360[source]▶
Another road that leads to BBM it seems.

It’s utterly bizarre how BBM could have been the iMessage and WhatsApp and who knows what else. But rich out-of-touch people thinking exclusivity is a perk in a commodities market just shows how business savvy and wealth are in reality disconnected from eachother.

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1. stackskipton ◴[13 Oct 25 20:01 UTC] No.45572711[source]▶
BBM could have been great lock in IF OS and Hardware experience was not so bad.

For vast majority, Android vs iPhone is not massively different so iMessage availability is a draw for some people.

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2. vivalahn ◴[13 Oct 25 20:06 UTC] No.45572766[source]▶
BBM itself should not have been a lock-in. It would have taken incredibly little effort to open it as a desktop messenger that can seamlessly interact with people who have BBM numbers for example.

I doubt they learned their lessons. Apple walked all over them in so many ways and, if memory serves me right, they even mocked Steve Jobs over the iPhone.

Edit: just so I’m clear I’m discussing it from the perspective of early to mid 2000s. iPhone hadn’t yet come out, but iPods were popular. Trillian and Pidgin were dominating the online landscape of software that could support multiple chat protocols - seamless ICQ, AIM, IRC, Yahoo, MSN Messenger, all in one program. If there was a time for RIM to corner the market here it was right then and there because BBM was the real deal, being available on phones and they could have signed agreements with others to bring it to, for example, Nokia and Motorola and whoever else.

But no. They’d rather be arrogant and stupid.

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3. vanviegen ◴[13 Oct 25 22:10 UTC] No.45573857[source]▶
> they even mocked Steve Jobs over the iPhone.

Isn't that just doing their jobs as executives for a competitor?

Though internally, one would hope they were sounding some alarm bells. Though at the time, it wasn't at all obvious that people could get used to doing relatively serious typing on a small (even tiny back then) virtual keyboard.