I mostly use apps installed from F-Droid, so I’m not sure how I’ll use the phone, except that it’s sometimes required as a contact method.
I mostly use apps installed from F-Droid, so I’m not sure how I’ll use the phone, except that it’s sometimes required as a contact method.
Depends on your comfort with CLI tools. Here’s the process (assumes Windows):
set PATH=%PATH%;C:\your\path\here\
<- Temporary, just for the current sessionsetx /M path "%path%;C:\your\path\here\"
<- PermanentOn your device, go to
Settings -> About
and look forBuild Number
it can sometimes be buried inSoftware Information
Tap
Build Number
repeatedly until a message appearsYou are now a developer
You should now have a new
Developer options
menu item somewhere in your settings. Sometimes it’s top level, sometimes it’s buried underAdditional Settings
orAdvanced Settings
or the likeMake sure
USB Debugging
is turned onConnect the device over USB
Back on WIndows type:
adb devices
adb devices
again. You should see your device listedadb install C:/path/to/app.apk
<- ifadb devices
only returns one deviceadb -s <device_id> install C:/path/to/app.apk
<- specific deviceYou can install updates the same way, just download the updated APK and add the
-r
flagadb install -r C:/path/to/app.apk
More useful adb commands
So no
Most of that stuff is automatable - except the bit about activating Developer mode and USB Debugging on the device (steps 3 to 6) which only needs to be done once per device - so I expect we will soon see several nice GUI tools that automate the rest and eventually we might even just see stuff that talks directly to the phone over USB via libusb and using the same protocol as ADB, so installing the Android Platform Tools won’t at all be needed.
But yeah, at this point it requires people to at the very least be familiar with using the command line.
That’s why I posted it. So people can decide for themselves. Doesn’t seem that bad to me, but then I’m a dev, so it’s really hard to judge what a non dev would be comfortable with