![]() She will occasionally dabble in Samsung's latest features in One UI. You'll find her writing about the newest free-to-play game to hit Android or compiling explainer guides on popular social networking apps like Twitch and Discord. ![]() Outside of work, Manuel enjoys a good film or TV show, loves to travel, and you will find him roaming one of Berlin's many museums, cafés, cinemas, and restaurants occasionally.įaith writes guides, how-tos, and roundups on the latest Android games and apps for Android Police. This helps him gain perspective on the mobile industry at large and gives him multiple points of reference in his coverage. Since then, he has mostly been faithful to the Google phone lineup, though these days, he is also carrying an iPhone in addition to his Pixel phone. After his HTC One S refused to connect to mobile internet despite three warranty repairs, he quickly switched to a Nexus 4, which he considers his true first Android phone. Manuel's first steps into the Android world were plagued by issues. He isn't shy to dig into technical backgrounds and the nitty-gritty developer details, either. Manuel studied Media and Culture studies in Düsseldorf, finishing his university career with a master's thesis titled "The Aesthetics of Tech YouTube Channels: Production of Proximity and Authenticity." His background gives him a unique perspective on the ever-evolving world of technology and its implications on society. He has been covering tech news and reviewing devices since joining Android Police as a news writer in 2019. Manuel Vonau is Android Police's Google Editor, with expertise in Android, Chrome, and other Google products - the very core of Android Police’s content. And don't forget that one of the primary reasons we came to Android is the freedom of choice with apps and games - sideloading apps is one of Android's many perks! Independent app stores have plenty to offer some include a better, more user-friendly UI with actual fleshed-out categories, while others flaunt more developer-friendly practices by being open-sourced, giving more unrestricted access to apps. Just because Google reigns supreme as the most popular (app) storefront doesn't mean we are obligated to use it. Obtainium (GitHub) Finding the best Google Play Store alternativesĪs Google keeps monopolizing digital distribution services, it starts pushing more developers who want to publish apps out the door. All in all, Obtainium may be a tricky app to set up initially, but if you're only installing a few apps anyway, it becomes an excellent plugin to assist with management. You can also set up Obtainium to notify you when an app developer releases an update or set it up to check in intervals (so it doesn't immediately use up all your data). So, if you're hoping to use Obtainium for app discovery, you'll have a hard time. The downside of Obtainium is that it requires you to manually add apps or search for sources. It's an excellent way to cut out the middle man of needing an app store to acquire some apps, especially if you're a user who doesn't care for an app store's bloatware. You can think of Obtainium as a helpful plugin it allows you to grab apps from the actual sources and all the updates that come with it. It will pull up apps hosted from other open sources, such as GitHub and F-Droid. We've included Obtainium (by ImranR98) as an honorable mention on this list, as Obtainium plays more of a supportive role in retrieving APKs. So improvements are likely to continue, making this a noteworthy choice as an alternative to keep in your back pocket. Still, the developers are working hard to bring AppGallery up to speed as a complete replacement for the Play Store major changes to the store were pushed through in 2020 to focus on honing in on popular and familiar apps. Unfortunately, app discovery is still a weak point for AppGallery. Huawei lets you download apps directly from the store, but if the store doesn't have the app, you can grab the linked APK by tapping "get" (as opposed to "install" for current app listings). But thankfully, any Android-powered device has access to Huawei AppGallery, and most will find it much less cluttered and more straightforward to navigate than the Play Store. Huawei devices come preloaded with the AppGallery already since, unfortunately, Huawei doesn't play nice with Google ( considering that all Google-serviced apps are banned). ![]() It still has a ways to go to catch up to Google, but still, over the years, it has impressively grown, laying in around 580 million monthly active users (in 2022).
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