Google appears to have quietly rolled out a feature to the Play Store that allows users to remotely uninstall apps from other devices.

  • @[email protected]
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    8011 months ago

    I know it’s sometimes informative, but I really hate the popularity of “$x quietly does $y” in headlines.

    You want Google to run ads on TV or something? It’s a tiny feature.

    • @[email protected]
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      311 months ago

      It’s probably more to mean they didn’t make a blog post or a popup dialog or something

      But yeah a lot of media headlines and wording tends to make things as sensationalized as possible bc clicks or smth

    • SanguinePar
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      3011 months ago

      Agreed, it’s such a clickbaity tactic - makes it sound like they’re revealing some dark secret Google wanted kept hidden, when in fact it sounds like a small but useful change to improve customer experience, but not something that they would make a big deal out of.

      • @[email protected]
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        1111 months ago

        Yeah. The title actually made me think they had rolled out the ability for Google to remove an app from my phone when it’s been removed from the Play Store.

        • Chewy
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          11 months ago

          Google has always been able to remove installed apps remotely, although I believe they only use it for malicious apps, not for apps that simply get removed from the Play Store.

          But I’ve also been mislead by the headline.

          Clickbait makes me appreciate my preferred small tech news outlet, which has been doing serious journalism without sensationalism for over 25 years. The authors even interact in their forum, which is still active because of how the site actually cares about the community.

          My mental list of sites I try to avoid is longer than the list of actually good sites. Sadly those thrash sites get pushed up in rankings of Google News and similar aggregators because clickbait clicks well.