It’s not about the store, it’s about the notification.
As mentioned in the Time article:
the app is not available on Android because it “requires a device ID in order to send push notifications, which requires a user account and a password.”
How do you suppose APNS knows which device to deliver the notification to?
Something that… links it to the device? Like, a unique ID that Apple can identify?
It sounds like he thinks HE has to store this information, which is simply incorrect. It will obviously be stored by Google in Firebase, and by Apple wherever that gets stored, but HE does not have to store it.
I write apps for a living. I have users subscribe and unsubscribe to channels, and at no point is there a user account with password involved in either iOS or Android. If you want the memory of which channels they have subscribed to to persist across uninstall/reinstalls or different devices, then yes, but for an app like this you don’t need to persist those settings.
At any point the government could subpoena who’s received pushes (or at least, who’s registered to) from both Google and Apple.
I’m not the developer, but I do also write app backends for a living so I know there is some nuance that you’re skipping over in your response. But if you have a way to do this completely anonymous on android I’d suggest offering help to the developer who made this.
Something that… links it to the device? Like, a unique ID that Apple can identify?
APNS tokens are linked to the app install and renew on a certain timeline. Already making them not exactly the same as a device identifier.
i don’t think this other commenter was calling you out. i think they were just bringing up a point of discussion that’s relevant to the point you brought up
https://www.iceblock.app/
Is this only on Apple? Kind of lame.
It is only for iOS. I haven’t found a similar app for Android.
Quote from some other place people were discussing it. Unfortunately no source on it.
There are other stores besides the playstore…
It’s not about the store, it’s about the notification.
As mentioned in the Time article:
You don’t need a user account or password to receive a push notification.
You just need to have the app installed. The app can be configured by the developer to receive push notifications.
And the developer needs a device ID for that. Which is their objection: https://www.iceblock.app/android
How do you suppose APNS knows which device to deliver the notification to?
Something that… links it to the device? Like, a unique ID that Apple can identify?
It sounds like he thinks HE has to store this information, which is simply incorrect. It will obviously be stored by Google in Firebase, and by Apple wherever that gets stored, but HE does not have to store it.
I write apps for a living. I have users subscribe and unsubscribe to channels, and at no point is there a user account with password involved in either iOS or Android. If you want the memory of which channels they have subscribed to to persist across uninstall/reinstalls or different devices, then yes, but for an app like this you don’t need to persist those settings.
At any point the government could subpoena who’s received pushes (or at least, who’s registered to) from both Google and Apple.
I’m not the developer, but I do also write app backends for a living so I know there is some nuance that you’re skipping over in your response. But if you have a way to do this completely anonymous on android I’d suggest offering help to the developer who made this.
APNS tokens are linked to the app install and renew on a certain timeline. Already making them not exactly the same as a device identifier.
Thanks, but I’m not the developer of the app so that’s not really relevant for me.
i don’t think this other commenter was calling you out. i think they were just bringing up a point of discussion that’s relevant to the point you brought up
fdroid?
There is side loading, they can just release it on GitHub.
That’s not how push notifications on android work.
That doesn’t have anything to do with how you install the app.