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illogical-robot / apkmirror-public

APKMirror.com bugs
http://www.apkmirror.com
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Request: offer full APKMirror app #97

Open AndroidDeveloperLB opened 5 years ago

AndroidDeveloperLB commented 5 years ago

This way we could have a dedicated place to reach from our phones. It could have various features that you can think of, that can't be used on the website. Examples:

  1. Notify you when one of your installed apps has a possible update, and suggest to download and install it.
  2. Notify us of apps that we requested to be notified when they become available.
  3. If we are interested in some app's category (or we have multiple apps in the category), and there is a new app published in the same category, it could notify about it.
  4. The app could offer to use alternatives to apps we have.
  5. Allow us to find for each of our currently installed apps, which has an update, and also be able to go back to an older version.
  6. If the app identifies the user has a newer version from the Play Store than what's on its servers, it could request the user to upload it, and offer to upload it automatically if needed. Then, if the server identifies that it's installed on multiple devices, it could offer it to other users. Of course, it has to be signed correctly. Users who contribute might enjoy some ads-free sessions, as a reward. Maybe a month per each good upload.

I'm sure there could be more features that you can think of.

This could be a better way to use the service than a website and a better experience.

As for money, you could have a banner, and if we want to remove it, we could watch a video ad which will hide the banners for a month, or we could pay a small subscription fee that will remove all ads. Maybe offer some more features that automate things for us. Maybe some root-only features

archon810 commented 5 years ago

Dupe of: https://github.com/android-police/apkmirror-public/issues/21 https://github.com/android-police/apkmirror-public/issues/23

We may consider an app in the future, because we are going to need to release an installer for dynamic app bundles, but at the moment there are no plans to make it into a full-fledged app yet.

AndroidDeveloperLB commented 5 years ago

I see. What is this "ML manager" app though? It says on its description " Upload your latest APKs to APKMirror." .

Is it your app? Is this the source of the APK files on the website? I was always wondering how you guys get the APK files...

archon810 commented 5 years ago

It's a 3rd-party app, not ours: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.javiersantos.mlmanager https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/javier-santos-v/ml-manager-apk-extractor/

AndroidDeveloperLB commented 5 years ago

I see, but how come it has this feature of uploading APK, if it's not allowed to have any API with the website?

archon810 commented 5 years ago

It uploads using the web form.

AndroidDeveloperLB commented 5 years ago

So it assumes the URL structure, which might change...

NatoBoram commented 4 years ago

It also crashes right now when trying to upload an app. It would be important for you to have an app that simplifies the process of uploading apps that you can control.

archon810 commented 4 years ago

We have already reached out to the developer of ML Manager about to crash, he is away right now but he will be back soon and will fix the issue.

archon810 commented 4 years ago

https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/javier-santos-v/ml-manager-apk-extractor/ml-manager-apk-extractor-3-3-2-release/ has the fix.

archon810 commented 4 years ago

We have released the initial APKMirror Installer app to help installation of split APKs as well as surface APK installation failure reasons - a highly requested feature.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.apkmirror.helper.prod

https://www.apkmirror.com/apk/apkmirror/apkmirror-installer-official/

You can read more about the announcement here: https://twitter.com/ArtemR/status/1241436033801048064.

While this isn't the full app this ticket is requesting, it's the first necessary step toward one.

AndroidDeveloperLB commented 4 years ago

@archon810 That's really not what I suggested. What about update notifications?

What was made is an installer, where we already have apps for that, such as SAI. Not only that, but it requires a new, closed sourced APKM file format that only this app can handle and a PC can't look at.

Would you make a PC app for this? Would you make this app be a downloader of files from the website? One that will get you only what you need for the device? After getting the APKM files, with all the ads, now we get a non-efficient installer that requires a wait or even more ads... If I want to use file manager to open those APKM files using this app, now it can't even show icon of the APKM file, because it's not an open standard.

Really disappointing. All this time and we got something we already have, and in the most closed and monopolistic way possible. Reminds me of the days of Microsoft with Office etc... . Office is still popular, but there are open sourced solutions and even online solutions.

archon810 commented 4 years ago

It's not what you suggested, which is why this ticket is not closed yet.

AndroidDeveloperLB commented 4 years ago

I don't get the point of the new app then. You spent time and money on making something that already exists (SAI and maybe others). You could have used it instead. Now I got another installer app in addition to what we have on the OS and in addition to SAI. And I can't do anything with it on the PC.

calvinnor commented 4 years ago

Is this still up for grabs? I could contribute some time if we're thinking of building a full-fledged app for Android.

NatoBoram commented 4 years ago

Oh, wow. I thought I was being kind by uploading app bundles, but now that they've created their own separate standard to distribute .apks into .apkm so they could force their subscription-based adware app, I'm not sure if I want to continue contributing.

AndroidDeveloperLB commented 4 years ago

@NatoBoram Correct. BTW, .apks is also not an official standard, but at least it's common and open sourced enough so that others could handle (it's just a zip file of all of the APK files inside).

RokeJulianLockhart commented 2 years ago

This might be sensible, if the expected payout is enough, because, as I have discussed at https://github.com/illogical-robot/apkmirror-public/issues/232#issuecomment-1230970695, if you merely duplicate the code of a package-manager such as F-Droid (as so many others have) to reduce the burden of development of the package-manager to basically nill, and subsequently merely add a proprietary component to it to add a special subscription-locked repository, this would not be difficult to implement, and would require little developmental cost.

Additionally, it would simultaneously create a useful package-manager for APKMirror and its users, and contribute development to a common codebase, which is always assistive.