I hate it too but tbf its descriptive of what it originally meant: sticking something into the side of your computer (edit: or any device) and loading software from that.
The term isn’t invented by Android and didn’t have any negative connotation originally. That’s all Android’s doing.
edit: what’s with the downvotes? I’m stating fact and I’m definitely not defending Android in any way.
edit2: I’m just trying to raise awareness of the history of this and other terms, and how Android and other entities sometimes hijack them for their own purposes.
It is circumventing roadblocks put in place, but it is still downloading and installing.
Some people now call it sideloading, yes, and with normal language I’d say accept this mistaken usage as one definition, the linguist way.
But since this is a political fight, i will not accept when anyone follows this big-tech framing of “this is not the right way to install an app. Here’s a scary word for it.”
Please don’t participate in this cultural fight to make something normal sound strange.
But that’s what I’m trying to explain and nobody seems to get: that’s the meaning Android put into the term. Long before that, it just used to describe “the process of transferring files between two local devices”.
One more time: Android adopted this term and made it into something “bad”. And I fucking hate that, and everything that entails right now, just like the rest of you.
But the term sideloading is older than Android, and originally did not have this negative connotation, quite the opposite.
Neither wikipedia nor Android are the arbiters for how words get used. I am claiming that we should shun Android’s definition since it is self-serving/and deteimental to society.
Anyone using the 2nd definition without criticizing it is supporting big tech. It is not a high bar to ask people to think critically about the words they use.
“sideloading process”
I hate it. It’s just setting up software I own on a computer I own. It’s literally just “installing”.
I hate it too but tbf its descriptive of what it originally meant: sticking something into the side of your computer (edit: or any device) and loading software from that.
The term isn’t invented by Android and didn’t have any negative connotation originally. That’s all Android’s doing.
edit: what’s with the downvotes? I’m stating fact and I’m definitely not defending Android in any way.
edit2: I’m just trying to raise awareness of the history of this and other terms, and how Android and other entities sometimes hijack them for their own purposes.
I “sideload” apps onto my watch because it’s done entirely from my phone. I don’t need a PC to put apps on my phone, so it’s just “installing”.
I was refering to the origins of that term. “Computer” as in any device with an OS.
If you are download the software on a separate device, and transferring it over, via adb or something, I’d call that sideloading.
If you’re downloading it directly on your phone and installing it, I’d call that installing, regardless of what Google and Apple preferred i call it.
No, that’s downloading.
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It is not descriptive as you claim.
It is circumventing roadblocks put in place, but it is still downloading and installing.
Some people now call it sideloading, yes, and with normal language I’d say accept this mistaken usage as one definition, the linguist way.
But since this is a political fight, i will not accept when anyone follows this big-tech framing of “this is not the right way to install an app. Here’s a scary word for it.”
Please don’t participate in this cultural fight to make something normal sound strange.
It’s in the wikipedia article I linked.
But that’s what I’m trying to explain and nobody seems to get: that’s the meaning Android put into the term. Long before that, it just used to describe “the process of transferring files between two local devices”.
One more time: Android adopted this term and made it into something “bad”. And I fucking hate that, and everything that entails right now, just like the rest of you.
But the term sideloading is older than Android, and originally did not have this negative connotation, quite the opposite.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sideloading#Historical
Neither wikipedia nor Android are the arbiters for how words get used. I am claiming that we should shun Android’s definition since it is self-serving/and deteimental to society.
See for reference these two definitions on wiktionary: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/sideload
Anyone using the 2nd definition without criticizing it is supporting big tech. It is not a high bar to ask people to think critically about the words they use.