I have a ton of old handhelds, ranging from WinCE devices from yesteryear to relatively new devices like the Nokia E7 released in 2011. One thing I've noticed, is that more and more handhelds (or phones) rely on secondary servers to retrieve various data. For example, my E7. Weather? It needs to connect to Nokia servers that are no longer available. Even the built in email client has to go through Nokia servers during set-up which are no longer available. This means, my Nokia E7's functions no longer work as they should despite being an otherwise pristine example.
Unlike older devices which relied on various external sources. For example, WinCE and weather applications, or email apps. Sure, this meant tinkering around with your IMAP / POP folders, but at least they could still work even if Microsoft shut down. Think about all the Android or iPhones out there that will be useless once Google and Apple kick the dust. I have a Blackberry 10 OS device which will cease to function December of 2019. (How unusable we're all waiting to see.)
That's what I mean with "disconnected devices". Twenty something old PDA's have more functionality than some newer devices just because they haven't been crippled with the need to connect to various device centric servers to do something as simple as set up an email account.
Just kinda annoyed I guess. I took out my old Nokia E7 today because I miss the old hardware keyboard and got a painful reminder it's a crippled device thanks to Nokia feeling the need to baby sit users.
And you've just exemplified why we're breeding a oligipoly of too big to fail US corporations. As much as it pains me to agree with the EU, their enquiries into anti-trust are worthwhile. The free market needs to step up and highlight these problems, otherwise if and when the end comes, it'll be apocalyptic and the only competition left standing will be the Chinese government controlled spyware that is becoming more and more common place in our lives at an ever increasing rate.
The only alternative to Google Play is the various apk distribution sites that aren't official...
And yeah, they probably modify the apks. At least some of the sites do.
The best way to combat these is probably develop your own web application and make a client that connects to it, or just make your own apk to your liking.
The solution to defeating locking-in is the adoption of standards and continuing to push best practice concepts like data portability and right to be forgotten. If Google, Amazon, Microsoft canhave the data dumped into literally anyone elses service and are forced to forget their exploited, caged ad-consuming battery hens.
