What kills me about Android is that F-Droid can't auto-update the apps without rooting the phone and doing some trickery. I appreciate the security measures, but having no official way to appoint another trusted app store is nonsense.
That's fantastic news, though I don't know what percentage of apps on fdroid will be covered? One of the requirements is:
> the app that’s being installed targets API level 29 (Android 10) or higher. (Google notes that the target API level requirement will advance in future Android versions ...
> Because going into F-Droid and clicking "update" is too hard?
Yes. The average user doesn't even understand what updates are for and the extra inconvenience for everyone else is just an anti-competitive practice masquerading as a security feature.
That's what's happening _now_. This situation with third party stores not being able to auto-updates has been an issue for years. It is great that it's changing now, but it doesn't invalidate the fact that this was a persistent problem.
Not sure if you're aware, the current way is to tap Update, which downloads the APKs for each installed app. Then, for each app, you need to tap Install, wait 0.1-2s, then tap Install again, then wait until the update is done. I currently have around 20 installed from the store.
This all is to show that Google is low-key hostile to apps installed from sources other than the Play store. Which was the point of the parent comments.
> Show me someone who is aware of FDroid who doesn't have the technical know how to update apps after sideloading FDroid itself...
My mother, for one. I use F-Droid to let her auto-update NewPipe, since she uses that to download and listen to music in ways that the official application will never let her. Needless to say, NewPipe is not about to be made available on Google Play due to a conflict of interests.
