This summary of the video was created by an AI. It might contain some inaccuracies.
00:00:00 – 00:16:10
The video centers on demonstrating and discussing a new app called Obtainium, which offers a streamlined solution for tracking and updating apps on Android devices. With its user-friendly design and emphasis on security and privacy, Obtainium has become popular, garnering over 900 stars on GitHub. The speaker explains how to download and install Obtainium from GitHub, detailing steps like enabling installation permissions and avoiding reliance on Google Play services.
Key functionalities within Obtainium include tracking and updating apps, filtering release titles, and setting download preferences. The speaker particularly emphasizes using trusted sources for initial app installations to ensure security through Android's signature checks.
Various apps, such as NewPipe, Mullvad VPN, and Signal, are used to demonstrate Obtainium’s capabilities, especially its ability to automatically locate and download APKs, ensuring users always have the latest updates. The video also covers differences between obtaining APKs from GitHub and F-Droid, using “Goodtime” as an example of an app whose APK is exclusive to F-Droid.
The speaker notes some limitations of Obtainium, like handling web scraping due to changes in YouTube’s layout and the lack of a Flutter plug-in for automatic updates—soliciting developer assistance for improvement. Despite these challenges, the speaker expresses overall satisfaction with Obtainium’s performance, encouraging viewers to explore further while acknowledging the app's ongoing enhancement potential.
00:00:00
In this segment of the video, the creator talks about a new app called Obtainium, which automates the process of tracking and updating apps, providing a more streamlined alternative to the manual method discussed in previous videos. Obtainium has gained significant traction with over 900 stars on GitHub. The creator demonstrates how to download and install Obtainium from GitHub onto a Google Pixel device, specifically detailing steps such as downloading the appropriate APK file and enabling installation permissions. They highlight that the app does not require Google Play services for notifications and praise the app’s thoughtful design and aesthetics.
00:03:00
In this part of the video, the speaker discusses their motivation for using the app Obtainium, emphasizing its security and privacy features despite any potential interface shortcomings. They express satisfaction with its user-friendly design and note the developer’s active involvement in updates. Moving through the interface, the speaker highlights key functionalities: the “apps” list for tracking and updating apps (with Obtainium included by default), and the “add app” feature. They mention import/export options for transferring app data, default settings, and proceed to demonstrate adding an app. The speaker searches for “NewPipe” on GitHub, choosing the official repository to ensure reliability. They address options for GitHub releases, advising against using pre-releases and explaining the fallback to older releases feature, which ensures compatibility despite developers’ potential release management issues.
00:06:00
In this part of the video, the speaker explains several features and settings of the Obtainium app, including:
1. **Fall back to an older release:** This option is typically left enabled.
2. **Filter release titles by regular expression:** Used for edge cases, usually not needed.
3. **Track only:** When enabled, it tracks updates but doesn’t download them. The speaker prefers to leave it disabled to allow Obtainium to download APKs for installation.
4. **Standard Version detection:** Left set to default.
The speaker demonstrates adding a new app to Obtainium, showing permissions required, and ensuring that Obtainium can check for updates and notify users. The example app “New Pipe” is installed and tracked successfully.
For security, the speaker advises initially installing apps manually from a trusted source to ensure the certificate is pinned by Android, enforcing signature checks for future updates. An example is provided with “Dev X5,” illustrating downloading it from the official GitHub releases, installing it, and then adding it to Obtainium for tracked updates.
00:09:00
In this part of the video, the speaker demonstrates how to use Obtainium to manage app installations and updates. They begin by copying a URL, adding it in Obtainium, and checking that the DAV X5 app is installed and up-to-date. Obtainium is set to handle future updates for this app. The speaker then explains how to add other apps like Mullvad and Signal by having Obtainium locate and download the necessary APKs automatically. After demonstrating the process with Mullvad VPN, they show an example of updating an older version of New Pipe using Obtainium. They conclude by explaining how to find the source code for open-source apps using the F-Droid website, specifically showing how to locate New Pipe’s source code hosted on GitHub.
00:12:00
In this segment, the video focuses on using Obtainium to download APKs. First, it’s shown that NewPipe publishes its APK on GitHub, making it accessible for download via Obtainium. In contrast, some developers only publish their APKs on F-Droid, even if their source code is on GitHub. As an example, the video walks through finding and downloading the “Goodtime” productivity app. Since its APK is only on F-Droid, the presenter copies the F-Droid link into Obtainium, adds the app, and installs it. The video notes that using Obtainium avoids some of F-Droid’s limitations, such as outdated SDK targets. The segment concludes by acknowledging that while Obtainium has made managing apps easier, there are some limitations, particularly with install statuses and data gathering via web scraping.
00:15:00
In this segment, the speaker discusses a limitation of the app due to YouTube layout changes that can affect web scraping functionality, explaining that it’s not the fault of the app developer but rather the nature of web scraping. The speaker then addresses the lack of a capable Flutter plug-in for auto-unattended updates, urging any Android developers to assist by looking into issue number 25. The speaker highlights the benefits they’ve experienced using the app, called Obtainium, over a few weeks and encourages viewers to watch additional recommended videos.