Quote:
Originally Posted by DNSB
I somehow find "a simple toggle" to be an inadequate description of:
Other than modifying the list bits since Mobileread did horrible things to the list when I copy/pasted, this is pretty much an exact quote from How to Activate Google Play Store on Viwoods Tablets on Viwoods web site from 2025-Jun-17. If this is what you call a simple toggle, I would hate to see your idea of what a complex install instruction would be. |
Yes. OTOH the Boyue Likebook Mars does have a simple toggle for "Google Framework" which enables Playstore. It's instructive as to the apps that won't load when it's off (Google's Playbooks is obvious, but there are other apps that must be spying or they would not need it). Most apps installed from Playstore work fine with GFW off, assuming they work at all. The issue is more complicated than Android 8 (an older phone with Android 8 has correct Chrome dependencies) which causes some apps using Chrome to render to fail, even though Chrome works. There are issues with eink. Sometimes fiddling with settings makes the app work.
Lichess, K9 mail, Firefox, Chrome work, but no solitaire version I've tried. Borroewbox used to wok, but stopped due to Chrome issues (though still works on a Android 8 phone). Libby and Google Playbooks worked last time I tried.
I think Android for an ereader is pointless. I saw no advantage on Android Sony T1 & T2 vs PRS-350 (not Android). Is Android on an ereader showing lack of company skills with proper Linux?
The whole point of Android is the Android GUI and Virtual Machine for Apps. The eink usually needs a custom launcher & GUI patches. There is no predicting which apps will run at all, or have mysterious bugs.
I think Android on eink is oversold. I don't have short battery life, screen glare, distractions (most notifications disabled) or any other difficulty on my NxtPaper phone and tablets (can't tell which is OLED or LCD) and in mono with correct brightness, just as good as Libra or Sage or PW3 or Oasis 2 with their front lights on. The eink is only better for reading novels because it works with ambient light (no front light) and more like size of a paperback I've choice of 5, 6, 6.8, 7 and 8 inch all in 4:3 format.
As soon as you want more than simply reading novels you're better with a decent (properly adjusted) matte screen tablet with a huge battery. Comics, PDFs, textbooks, proprietary Library apps, etc apart from regular App stuff. Far better for notetaking or annotation (I gave Elipsa & reMarkable away and now only read novels on the Sage).
The eink does one thing well: Reflowable monochrome novels in ambient light without footnotes or dropcaps. Even if you have full epub3 (unlikely on eink, and Heritic view incoming), the epub2 and epub3 specs both missed important stuff not in the 1999 original precursor. The Web people took over epub and seems clueless about books and periodicals, but obsessed with making it more like a paginated web browser and adding stuff better done in a PDF. I'd love a paginated browser for the Internet.
Amazon with over 90% of English Language ebooks has gone further away from epub with KFX, which is largely pointless for reflowable ebooks compared to AZW3/KF8 (the typography enhancements and other features of reflowable text of KFX could be done on existing AZW3/KF8 files. See also pointless Kobo kepub format instead of updating the epub renderer for better epub2 & epub3 support).