Preparing for scoped storage (Android Dev Summit '19)

Disclaimer: I'm not really an Android developer. I was considering implementing a service I'm working on for Android and after many hours of research determined it's not a suitable operating system for my purposes. Personally I no longer consider Android a viable computing platform. As a developer you simply don't have the tools available to give your users control over their data and experience. With the changes to storage security the last couple years, they've essentially dumbed it down to the level of a web browser, and in the process pretty much deprecated running native (C, C++, Rust, Golang, etc) applications. I'm not opposed to improving security, but when you can't even run software like syncthing or a file explorer without getting special Play store approval, something is wrong. I've been meaning to write a blog post summarizing what I learned. This official video is actually a pretty good summary of some the changes made and what the goal is: [VIDEO]

syncthing is an incredible piece of software. It should be noted that: * "Security" changes in recent versions of Android seem designed to kill use cases like syncthing. See links below. * There is no iOS version, as near as I can tell because iOS is already where Android is headed. The crux of the problem is syncthing is a single golang binary, but the only way to manage filesystem permissions on iOS (and now Android) is through tightly controlled OS dialogs, and there is no way to do this from golang. There aren't even NDK APIs for it. The closest thing Android is providing to an escape hatch is "all files access" [5], for which your app has to go through an approval process in order to be put on the play store. If you watch [2], GOOG makes it very clear that they want to minimize the number of apps that obtain this permission. It's unclear to me whether apps installed through FDroid or side-loaded will be able to use that permission at all, or if the APKs must be signed. I'm all for improved security, but never at the cost of controlling what I am ABLE to do with my computer. It's sad that our operating systems are turning into gatekeepers between developers/users and the hardware they "own". [0]: [LINK] [1]: [LINK] [2]: [VIDEO] [3]: [LINK] [4]: [LINK] [5]: [LINK]

This is a bit surprising in 2024 (well almost 2025). Android has a really nice API for reducing the need for this permission, and most of it has been around sicnce android 10. [VIDEO] Maybe the author is not aware of these? How about opening an issue?

I'm guessing it was back ported to Android 4.4, so it probably hasn't been available quite that long. (Update: Nevermind, looks like it was in the initial 4.4 release: [LINK] ) But they've definitely been warning about the pending API change since at least 2019: [VIDEO] The devs in the comments of that video do have some valid complaints about the added complexity of not being able to use the standard Java filesystem APIs anymore with the new permissions model, but still, it has been 6 years.