Why don't more developers provide an android apk directly?

[18358414]

I have an android device that I have basically said "this never connects to google", and I've installed everything by APK thus far.  I ran into some issues when I came across Floatplane and a few other packages which just don't seem to provide a direct APK download through official sources.  Xournal++ offers the APK directly on their gitlab site for example (as do most of the other open source goodies I wanted to install). 

 

With floatplane specifically, I feel like this is an oversight because some of its users (myself included) want to use it to get away from Google... and yet to install it you need a Google account because you can't access the play store without an account. 

 

So is there some restriction in the developer agreement that stops people from just providing the APK directly?  What about people who use amazon tablets and need an apk to install their applications?

 

And yes, I'm aware of APK mirrors.  I'd rather install something provided by the developers because there's at least some trust there. 

 

edit: I'm talking more about established projects, not small-timers who make one app for android and that's it (Xournal++ is the smallest dev group I've installed from).

 

edit2: I don't have time for this; I've asked that this post be deleted as I've no intention to respond to any of you.

[LAwLz]

2 hours ago, Yuri Fury said:

So is there some restriction in the developer agreement that stops people from just providing the APK directly?  What about people who use amazon tablets and need an apk to install their applications?

Nope, no restriction. 

Developers just don't do it because it's a very small minority of users who want it, and those who do will mostly use apkmirror anyway. 

It adds extra work for the developers and they don't really gain anything. 

[18358414]

3 hours ago, LAwLz said:

It adds extra work for the developers

Technically, yes, but it's literally clicking "build APK" from a drop-down menu in android studio.  Even if you prefer to use something like Gradle, building an apk is basically a one-liner.

 

Yeah, it's probably low-volume; but for some apps, they already have binaries for Windows, MacOS, and Linux (in addition to a code stream for mobile android and ios).  It seems like building to apk is a small step.  The gain would be that the people using your application aren't required to sign up for a google account, though maybe that's why it's mostly the open-source people providing the apk directly. 

 

Thinking about it though, I realized prior to you posting that the most likely reason is the analytics; if everyone downloads the apk then you can't be #1 in the 'app store'.

[Vishera]

Just download the APKs you need from APKPure:

https://apkpure.com/floatplane/com.floatplane.floatplane

[Arika]

37 minutes ago, Yuri Fury said:

Technically, yes, but it's literally clicking "build APK" from a drop-down menu in android studio.  Even if you prefer to use something like Gradle, building an apk is basically a one-liner.

So now they have the APK......where do they host it? where do they direct people to go download it?

[TetraSky]

6 minutes ago, Arika S said:

So now they have the APK......where do they host it? where do they direct people to go download it?

This.

Not every app dev have their own website and they can't just host it on Fdroid since that's for open source APKs.

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

46 minutes ago, Yuri Fury said:

Technically, yes, but it's literally clicking "build APK" from a drop-down menu in android studio.  Even if you prefer to use something like Gradle, building an apk is basically a one-liner.

 

Yeah, it's probably low-volume; but for some apps, they already have binaries for Windows, MacOS, and Linux (in addition to a code stream for mobile android and ios).  It seems like building to apk is a small step.  The gain would be that the people using your application aren't required to sign up for a google account, though maybe that's why it's mostly the open-source people providing the apk directly. 

 

Thinking about it though, I realized prior to you posting that the most likely reason is the analytics; if everyone downloads the apk then you can't be #1 in the 'app store'.

But where would the developer be hosting these APKs? That also costs money so it's not as simple as just creating the APK file in Android Studio. You could just host it off a public OneDrive folder... but wouldn't that look even more sketchy? Plus potentially running into breaching terms of use since that would now be commercial use. Most small time developers I can tell don't have their own websites either so that's out of the question. 

[18358414]

43 minutes ago, Arika S said:

where do they host it

 

36 minutes ago, TetraSky said:

Not every app dev have their own website

 

36 minutes ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

But where would the developer be hosting these APKs

Sorry, forgot to spell it out.

1 hour ago, Yuri Fury said:

they already have binaries for Windows, MacOS, and Linux

If you're already hosting binaries for 3 operating systems it's chump change to host an apk.  If you're hosting 3 operating systems, plus a .deb, plus a .rpm, plus a tar.gz, then how much weight is an apk?  For that matter some don't even do that, xournal++ hosts theirs on f-droid. 

 

Regardless, I wasn't talking about "small time app developers", though I realize I didn't explicitly state that in my original post, so I've inserted an edit.

[Arika]

8 hours ago, Yuri Fury said:

edit2: I don't have time for this; I've asked that this post be deleted as I've no intention to respond to any of you.

wooooooooooooooooooooooow

[Spotty]

> Moved to Programs, Apps, and Websites

 

9 hours ago, 18358414 said:

With floatplane specifically, I feel like this is an oversight because some of its users (myself included) want to use it to get away from Google... and yet to install it you need a Google account because you can't access the play store without an account. 

With regards to floatplane you can access floatplane directly through a web browser. You can use Floatplane without an app. https://www.floatplane.com/

Since you asked about Floatplane specifically you can always send feedback to the floatplane team through their support form and request they make .apk packages available.

https://www.floatplane.com/support#support-help

Select "Feature Request" for the support topic.

 

9 hours ago, 18358414 said:

edit2: I don't have time for this; I've asked that this post be deleted as I've no intention to respond to any of you.

If you just don't want to participate in the discussion then don't, but that shouldn't mean others shouldn't be able to participate in the discussion. You're currently following the thread which will give you a notification every time a new comment is posted in the thread. You can unfollow the thread by clicking the Following button and selecting Unfollow.

 

[LogicalDrm]

With Floatplane, this has been discussed on WAN Show. The reason given, is that dev team wants the experience to be same for all. If they would allow easy APK, that would, in theory, mean that they would be required to keep those APKs up to date. Otherwise they would get tons of support requests for broken and missing features from tons of different, not-supported versions.

 

So there won't be official upload anytime soon, based on those discussions. If you go DIY route, any bugs and missing features that are because of older version are on you first, and after updating to same version on Google Play, only then in sights of support to help on solving.

[Biohazard777]

On 3/27/2022 at 12:34 AM, 18358414 said:

Technically, yes, but it's literally clicking "build APK" from a drop-down menu in android studio. Even if you prefer to use something like Gradle, building an apk is basically a one-liner.

And what about ABI?

Or are you talking about "fat APK" cause if that is what you meant you are doing it wrong and should be using app bundle instead :p. Installing from aab is something the user can do, but the user then needs a 3rd party app to do the install. One more hurdle, for both devs and users.

 

On 3/27/2022 at 12:34 AM, 18358414 said:

I realized prior to you posting that the most likely reason is the analytics; if everyone downloads the apk then you can't be #1 in the 'app store'.

How about crashes and ANRs? Sure Floatplane could opt to use their own solution or some 3rd party tools for that, but that is additional work. Not all telemetry is bad ;).

 

[Phantom2022]

On 3/26/2022 at 9:46 PM, 18358414 said:

I have an android device that I have basically said "this never connects to google", and I've installed everything by APK thus far.  I ran into some issues when I came across Floatplane and a few other packages which just don't seem to provide a direct APK download through official sources.  Xournal++ offers the APK directly on their gitlab site for example (as do most of the other open source goodies I wanted to install). 

 

With floatplane specifically, I feel like this is an oversight because some of its users (myself included) want to use it to get away from Google... and yet to install it you need a Google account because you can't access the play store without an account. 

 

So is there some restriction in the developer agreement that stops people from just providing the APK directly?  What about people who use amazon tablets and need an apk to install their applications?

 

And yes, I'm aware of APK mirrors.  I'd rather install something provided by the developers because there's at least some trust there. 

 

edit: I'm talking more about established projects, not small-timers who make one app for android and that's it (Xournal++ is the smallest dev group I've installed from).

 

edit2: I don't have time for this; I've asked that this post be deleted as I've no intention to respond to any of you.

Because of Google restrictions:

Direct APK of:

Telegram: No copyright restrictions.

Libre Torrent: no background downloading restrictions.

And other forbidden apps outside of the Play Store like YouTube and other media downloaders.