zlacker

>>openge+(OP)
From the (current) final comment at https://github.com/syncthing/syncthing-android/issues/2064

> Nothing came of the discussions with google. Demands by Google for changes to get the permission granted were vague, which makes it both arduous to figure out how to address them and very unclear if whatever I do will actually lead to success. Then more unrelated work to stay on play came up (dev. verification, target API level), which among other influences finally made me realize I don't have the motivation or time anymore to play this game.

>>jasonj+25
I don't think Google was ever buy a "I don't want to use file APIs because writing the code would be hard." excuse for a security issue. I don't know what kind of exact "discussions" were possible here for "give me access to all user data, photos and everything because I don't think I want to use SAF APIs". It's like that dude in your company that will have a meltdown in PRs over his better way instead of fixing the comments and having code submitted.

Apple won't let you write into random directories past their APIs either, just because it would be too hard to use ObjC/Swift.

>>izacus+vb
On that note. what is with this modern trend of trying to pretend the filesystem does not exist.

why does google(or apple) need "special interfaces" to access the filesystem in a specific way, why don't they just use the existing file api and improve the file access permission system.

I think the unix single tree filesystem was one of their great innovations and see this multi tree api fragmentation bullshit as a sort of backwards regression.

>>somat+GD
For the overwhelming majority of users, the file system is a confusing implementation detail that often breaks something when they're forced or tricked into directly interacting with it.

>>crooke+BT
My experience is the opposite.

Try asking an elderly user of an Android phone where the attachments from gmail they have tried to save are stored in.

I think they'd cope a lot better with a standard folder/file hierarchy as opposed to saving into a folder/file hierarchy but never at any point telling the user where in the hierarchy they saved to!

And every app saves to a different location. I've been using computers my entire life and I generally have to resort to a file manager to find what I'm looking for.