200m is incredibly short. I'd say the average in Bangalore is around 700metres. It varies from 500m in dense parts of the city to 1.5km in the not so dense parts.
Why not loop through different streaming services through the year? Have only a single subscription at a time. The friction to sign up for a streaming service is minimal compared to getting a new cable connection. Of course, this would require that one be willing to wait to watch the latest episode of a show.
The play services is a framework that many (and probably all "western") apps require because they use push notifications, maps, google ads and probably a lot of other google services. An android phone without those services installed isn't able to run said apps. And while it is possible to emulate the play services, I don't think this would work on a huge scale because they would still be accessing private google cloud apis and google could shut it down very fast. You have to remember, Apps don't send your notifications to your device directly, they send it to google, who then forwards your push notification to the device (if every app would regularly pull an notification server, your device would run out of battery way too fast).
The only reason google currently doesn't ban those emulations is that the % of users who use those is so low that it doesn't cause them any harm.
From a developer perspective, the Google Play Services are so damn convenient, and they work well.
When it comes to push notifications in particular, I don't know of an alternative which works quite as well as Firebase (if there is, please tell me!)
It seems like developing apps without the Google Play Services will take longer, and be more expensive. Maybe that's just psychological, but it's risky to decide not to use them, especially when you are time constained/on a budget, and you know how to use them etc.
There isn't. I have had to self host Gotify to send myself push notifications cos some proprietary apps do not have support to keep an always on connection to the server.
They already do this heavily in India. Mostly due to a lack of good road signage. Landmarks are what defined navigation. Where I live (Bangalore), we have junctions named after KFC and Sony, cos those stores have been there for so long.
OSM has better data in certain aspects. The big problem with OSM is not about the data, but that it isn't designed to be used as a map. When someone visits osm.org, it is very barebones and the search feature doesn't work very well to find places unless you know the syntax. The team working on OSM themselves say that OSM is not a map, but instead a database.
Anyway, Google would never have gotten the data that it has without the contributions of the people. And the dedicated mappers in my city have all turned to OSM now. Hence leading to better mapping in terms of road data, bicycle paths and other features that businesses do not care about mapping.
I agree with the search, but being a map is where OSM shines.
When I visit google maps a see a bunch of colorful boxes and notable locations, I have no idea why it chooses the notable locations it does but it appears to be either paid or some sort of SEO shenanigans, a local curry place is list but one of the biggest train stations in the country isn't (Southern Cross in Melbourne), recently they've also tried to cover the map with the "explore" panel.
When I look at the same area with OSM it shows the train station and shows me the street names with the street names all those colored boxes (buildings) are information, without them they're just noise.
And when you zoom into Google Maps, the colours for "built-up area" and "open space that isn't a park" get more and more similar until they're almost indistinguishable, so from certain point on all you're seeing is a bunch of streets against a featureless grey background, which I find rather irritating.
> dedicated mappers in my city have all turned to OSM now
That's very encouraging to hear! It motivates me to push more for using OSM in client projects, as it's the best alternative to Google Maps, especially if the latter starts showing ads.
But there are very good mobile apps that use OSM data. In my experience, OSM data can be excellent in some areas, and dismal in others. So, literally, YMMV. Fortunately, OSM data is excellent where I live, so I use that.
The irony is strong with this one considering a lot of Government apps do not work without Google Play Services. Including incredibly popular payment apps like BHIM which was developed by NPCI (National Payments Corporation of India). I know cos I have a phone without Play Services and using Government apps is out of question. Thankfully, there are web alternatives for all servuces
NPCI, contrary to what the name seems to imply, is not a government company or organization. It’s a consortium of government and private banks (including the likes of foreign banks like Citibank and HSBC). Its payment services are allowed by the RBI. Neither is the BHIM app a government app. It’s an NPCI app.
But is that due to NPCI or Google? I had read a while ago that Google was using Google Play Services as a way to enforce that certain things on the platform get done the way Google wants it to be (speaking loosely, do not have the link to what I read), although Android itself is open source (technically).
There was this other start up which planned to use AGV to tow the planes till the take off point. Would be much simpler than trying to modify the plane itself.
