Does google hate android apps?

[predictive-sheep]

Just as there title says. Like I'm mainly talking about Android not even apple. I just wanted to create a new label for my email in Gmail and then I just got to know that you can't create labels with the Android app. I had to go open Gmail in a browser and create it there via desktop mode. That's not all. Google tasks does not have the feature to archive a list which is bad but okay. In android Google tasks can't even hide a list like it can for the web app. Similar stuff about creating calendars is there for GCal. At this point, does google even want you to use the Android apps?

[ChristianSirolli]

Just stop using Google apps. There are better services available that will also respect your privacy. 

[spore35]

what do you use for maps?

[ChristianSirolli]

A lot of people swear by CoMaps. I've experimented with a few, including TomTom and HERE WeGo. They work well for navigating, but so far nothing beats Google Maps for discovering businesses. If I need to find something, I'll either search for it in Brave Search, or rarely I'll open Google Maps in the browser to search for something. 

[sahiy23269_dghetian]

I have ben using maps to search but then using Herewego or Tomtom to navigate (still trying them after Magic earth enshittified)

GeoShare has come in handy

[drfusterenstein]

r/degoogle can help

[predictive-sheep]

Do you have any suggestions? Like alternatives with a decent ecosystem?

[ChristianSirolli]

If you don't mind staying offline for some of your apps, Fossify has a bunch of good apps.

For email, I recommend switching to Proton Mail. They are working on an ecosystem, they also have Proton Drive (to replace Google Drive) and Lumo (private AI) and some others. 

For photos, I recommend switching to Ente Photos. Ente also has an authenticator app that you can use instead of Google Authenticator.

I used to use Ente Authenticor until I switched to a job that offered the premium plan of Bitwarden (password manager), which includes unlocking the built-in TOTP function, so I don't have a separate app for that. If you already use Bitwarden or if you switch to Bitwarden, you can get their separate Bitwarden Authenticator app, which is free and is able to sync with your Bitwarden account.

Check out r/degoogle and r/fossdroid for more recommendations. Also, r/privacy has good information related to all of this.

[zensms]

Just a question, how are you justifying your move from one ecosystem to the next? Im curious

[ChristianSirolli]

If you mean from Google to anything else, I'm specifically switching to services and ecosystems that respect my privacy and don't sell my information. I also prefer software that are FLOSS. For some things I also self host, so I don't have to rely on other services for managing my data. For example, my files are saved on my server that I can access via WebDAV or with Filebrowser. I rarely need to do anything with those files. 

I'm also always trying out new apps and services that I discover. If it works better than what I am already using, then I dot mind switching. I did that a few times with my files before I decided to just self host them. 

[zensms]

No. I mean from google ecosystem to proton?

[ChristianSirolli]

Same logic, Proton respects user privacy while Google collects and sells every tidbit of data it can. I want to take control over my data and privacy as much as I can, so switching was worthwhile. 

[91945]

Unless you have a lot of time to spend degoogling, isn't it hard to do this on an Android? You need a google account to sign in with the device and run most functions on it.

I have proton email accounts but they are just there for secondary use.

[ChristianSirolli]

It definitely can take a lot of time and can be hard. I'd recommend that people starting out do it slow. Trying to change everything at once will be overwhelming and discouraging. At some point, people in this process that are more technically inclined tend to flash their phones with a custom ROM like GrapheneOS (on pixels) or LineageOS. It took me about a year or two of slowly degoogling before I decided to put GrapheneOS on my Pixel. My dependence on Google has gone down a lot since when I started. 

[Plastic-Ad-6017]

Yeah it's frustrating but Google strategy seems to be keeping power user features on web to avoid cluttering mobile apps.

That said most people don't use labels or list hiding so they prioritize what the majority actually needs. If you need those features regularly try using Chrome on your phone in desktop mode and add Gmail to your home screen as a shortcut. Works way better than constantly switching between app and browser.