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Dianne Hackborn

@hackbod@mastodon.social

mastodon 4.7.0-beta.1

Software engineer on #Android at Google. I of course only speak for myself.

Read "Androids" https://www.amazon.com/Androids-Built-Android-Operating-System-ebook/dp/B09QPMNWS5/ by @chethaase@androiddev.social for lots of good stuff on Android.

I wrote the Android section of recent editions of Modern Operating Systems: https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Operating-Systems-Andrew-Tanenbaum-ebook/dp/B09ZHR7NRK/

Also expect posts on music, queer issues, politics, and whatever else has my attention.

1112 Followers

553 Following

12 Posts

Joined June 11, 2022

Web site (old and crufty):

http://www.angryredplanet.com/~hackbod/

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/hackbod

Job:

https://www.android.com/

Posts

Dianne Hackborn @hackbod@mastodon.social · Jun 29, 2026

@opny721@mastodon.uno @js@podcastindex.social

I don't really want to get into a discussion about whether YouTube is good or bad. 🙂

I don't think it is at all clear what way pre-install drives things. When looking at TVs, NetFlix is pre-installed because it is popular... in fact NetFlix uses its popularity to become pre-installed and even have a dedicated button. That surely helps reinforce its popularity, but I can't think of something that became popular by first being preinstalled.

Dianne Hackborn @hackbod@mastodon.social · Jun 25, 2026

@opny721@mastodon.uno @js@podcastindex.social

This is for *TV* use, it has nothing to do with phones.

Also by that argument, shouldn't Apple TV be at the top since it is pre-installed on all iPhones and those hold a higher market share in the US?

Dianne Hackborn @hackbod@mastodon.social · Apr 15, 2026

Replying to @alecmuffett@mastodon.social

@alecmuffett @Xzan Android's Find Hub initially wasn't as good because it was trying to be better about privacy. :) That limited how much devices were participating in it. There have been changes since then, and I think these days it is on par with iOS -- see for example https://www.androidauthority.com/shipped-apple-google-tile-bluetooth-trackers-europe-shocking-results-3647618/

Dianne Hackborn @hackbod@mastodon.social · Apr 01, 2026

@mattsheffield@mastodon.social @sysop408@sfba.social

There is tons of really good non-formulaic stuff being created, you just have to dig a little bit for it. I think the main thing that has changed is popular music has become more formulaic from the past... though it always has been somewhat formulaic.

Of course it is also now a lot easier to go off into your own personal preferred style of music with algorithmic suggestions. Which in a way can result in people being exposed to less variety unless the look for it.

mastodon.social

Matthew Sheffield (@mattsheffield@mastodon.social) - Mastodon

Dianne Hackborn @hackbod@mastodon.social · Mar 06, 2026

Replying to @ansuz@gts.cryptography.dog

@ansuz@gts.cryptography.dog @joeyh@sunbeam.city @cwebber@social.coop Ah but even if you can use a specific seed and try to use this to call it a "compiler", your compiler here is the very specific sets of weights within that model, and any change breaks its determinism. I think there being one and exactly one possible implementation to get the specified set of outputs can count as an actual compiler.

Dianne Hackborn @hackbod@mastodon.social · Mar 05, 2026

Replying to @Luk@mamot.fr

@Luk@mamot.fr @davidgerard@circumstances.run Isn't that just the message to users for everything now with AI? 😛

Dianne Hackborn @hackbod@mastodon.social · Jan 06, 2026

Replying to @pluralistic@mamot.fr

@pluralistic@mamot.fr I don't disagree with your overall position, however I don't think these location uses are good examples of it. None of this is because of bugs in existing location code. From the very beginning, when location was only based on GPS, the contract was that you got back "here's a location and how accurate it is" giving you the center point and circle around it. The examples here are all new uses that didn't properly make use of how location data was always provided.

Dianne Hackborn @hackbod@mastodon.social · Apr 15, 2023

Replying to @mmasnick@mastodon.social

@mmasnick Really struck by: "I think we’ve run, in my estimation over the past five years, however long it’s been, a grand experiment in the idea that pervasive censorship successfully combats ideas that the owners of the platforms don’t like. And my read is that that hasn’t actually worked." I guess he is saying in the last 5 years content moderation got more aggressive and made it worse, but I think you should compare to pre-social media publishers with much more content moderation.

Dianne Hackborn @hackbod@mastodon.social · Jan 04, 2023

Replying to @grvsmth@lingo.lol

@grvsmth@lingo.lol I am pretty sure it does show unlisted posts (of people you follow). I've found what I need to do to not see every reply post is to just turn them off in the filter settings for the feed. So you get to decide yourself if you want to see them all or not. See screenshot for where this is in the Mastodon web app (tap the control icon on the right to access them).

Dianne Hackborn @hackbod@mastodon.social · Nov 27, 2022

Replying to @Rairii@haqueers.com

@Rairii@haqueers.com This isn't at all about Play Store. It is that privileged pre-installed apps can get additional permissions, since they are part of the device and vetted by the OEM. (Note that an app you side-load is by definition completely untrusted.) So any pre-installed store can be trusted in this way: Play Store, Samsung App Store, Amazon App Store, etc.

Dianne Hackborn @hackbod@mastodon.social · Nov 27, 2022

Replying to @Rairii@haqueers.com

@Rairii@haqueers.com Ah okay so you'd like an AOSP feature where you could say "allow this app to silently install other apps without me knowing about it"? (Just checking, that is something I personally would be super uncomfortable with having. It's better now with runtime permissions, at the very least this could not be used for installing pre-Marshmallow apps where permissions are shown to the user at install time.)

Dianne Hackborn @hackbod@mastodon.social · Nov 24, 2022

Replying to @Rairii@haqueers.com

@Rairii@haqueers.com @brianhough@mastodon.social @taylorlorenz@mastodon.social @esqueer@mastodon.social Which APIs? I think the only one of significance is being able to directly install an app without going through the platform's confirmation dialog. Any pre-installed store can get this permission, it just isn't available to things not pre-installed, which seems reasonable? We did improve this recently where non-pre-installed apps can now install updates to apps they had previous installed without confirmation.

Dianne Hackborn

Posts

Matthew Sheffield (@mattsheffield@mastodon.social) - Mastodon

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