You say Amazon has one for a while… They’re deactivating their apk store like this week, I think.
All the apks I got through amazons store gave a shitty check in them that sees if the Amazon apk store is still installed and active. If it isn’t, the apk won’t work, so I’m in the middle of waiting to see if the ones I still have installed on my phone are going to keep working or not.
*Edit. Just double checked. Amazon apk store shuts down August 20th.
Exactly. All these devices can just be bricked the moment some corporation decides they’re not worth supporting anymore. Never buy a device that is so heavily dependent on running on another company’s services.
That’s fair, but to me, the cost of a new device isn’t how much I pay for it - it’s the time I invest in using it and maintaining it, as well as how much I rely on it. The biggest reason that I think open hardware and software is important is not just the cost, but the reliability - the fact that it will still be working tomorrow. That is worth a lot more than money to me!
Well I would agree with that except for one thing, the Amazon tablets are still the only product on the market that actually has usable parental controls.
I’m not saying I’ll ever trust Amazon, or ever have. But the fact is they had the only usable product on the market, if I had other options I’d use them.
And before anyone says “what happened to just teaching your kids good behavioral expectations?” Let me just say that this isn’t always possible. Some kids have developmental challenges or behavioral disorders that make this an impractical expectation. Sometimes you just need parental controls.
You say Amazon has one for a while… They’re deactivating their apk store like this week, I think.
All the apks I got through amazons store gave a shitty check in them that sees if the Amazon apk store is still installed and active. If it isn’t, the apk won’t work, so I’m in the middle of waiting to see if the ones I still have installed on my phone are going to keep working or not.
*Edit. Just double checked. Amazon apk store shuts down August 20th.
Huh… This sounds like a huge pain in my ass. What happens to Kindle fire tablets, that you know heavily rely on that functionality?
I can guess what happens to any of us that use that store on other devices (I think it’s safe to say we’re fucked).
I basically only ever used it because it gave away free apps, but man, the DRM put into those apps was so aggressive and annoying.
Exactly. All these devices can just be bricked the moment some corporation decides they’re not worth supporting anymore. Never buy a device that is so heavily dependent on running on another company’s services.
It was only £15 though, all apps I installed on it beyond the default ones are through f-droid.
That’s fair, but to me, the cost of a new device isn’t how much I pay for it - it’s the time I invest in using it and maintaining it, as well as how much I rely on it. The biggest reason that I think open hardware and software is important is not just the cost, but the reliability - the fact that it will still be working tomorrow. That is worth a lot more than money to me!
Well I would agree with that except for one thing, the Amazon tablets are still the only product on the market that actually has usable parental controls.
I’m not saying I’ll ever trust Amazon, or ever have. But the fact is they had the only usable product on the market, if I had other options I’d use them.
And before anyone says “what happened to just teaching your kids good behavioral expectations?” Let me just say that this isn’t always possible. Some kids have developmental challenges or behavioral disorders that make this an impractical expectation. Sometimes you just need parental controls.
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