They are completely free and you don't have to pay for every upgrade.

They're open source, just get the builds from f-droid instead of the paid play store builds. You can still pay to support the developer.

Maybe this is the root of the problem and contention in this thread.

It seems even people who are reasonably technically savvy, as demonstrated by some posts, think that it requires various payments.

How did they come to this conclusion?

The Play Store isn't free to distribute in. The developers, reasonably, want Play Store users to help recoup that distribution cost. If you get it from Fdroid or build it yourself, it's free.

Should have been more clear --- by "upgrade" I meant a hardware change. Phone hardware is designed to be replaced every 2-3 years.

And I already pointed out the definition of "free" at work here.

Google Play app purchases are tied to your account, not your phone. You don't need to try purchase when you get a new phone.

Can I migrate them to my work phone?

In any case, I don't use "Google Play".

Then where did you get them that you paid for them?

Read carefully --- I never said that I did.

If you don't use Google Play and didn't pay for the apps, then why are you complaining? You can just use the ones from F-Droid, which will give you all of the functionality and no nags for free.

Wonder how I got nag screens? Must have been my mistake.

Yes, they are open source and free on f-droid.

Yes - do a build and throw the apk onto the new phone.

you can log in with your personal Google account for a few mins, install the app and logout.

E: not very useful if you don't use "Google Play" Store

I have a "Google free" phone --- meaning it is totally stripped of all Googly things and Google Play in particular.

Yes you can, I'm not sure what was the issue of OP but all apps (including paid) are linked to your google account, so they are available on any phone linked to your google account

You can copy apps off of Android phones even without Google Play.

Yeah but it's not a migration. E.g. you don't get access to your data in many (most?) cases, often thanks to security consultants like myself who see their scanning tool warn that backups are enabled for an app and put a recommendation in the report to not let users access their own data. (FTR I've never done that, but had colleagues that I had to argue with...)

Just yesterday in an OpenStreetMap chat, I had to disappoint a user who wanted to access a locally stored recording in some app. They didn't have root and so they couldn't access it from outside the app.

Backups aka accessing your own data is one of the biggest problems I have as an android user, with as only solution rooting the device and treating it like a normal desktop OS where you also have root, except various apps start to complain when you do so. Apple really has the nicer solution here via the iTunes software.

You're absolutely right about the data, but I think the context of this thread was more about transferring the .apk itself, to avoid having to download (and potentially purchase) it again.

> they are only "free" if you don't mind the nag screen and the orange theme which can only be changed in the purchased version

Wow, add a gimmick as a little perk to those who donate without actually impairing functionality for free users and next thing people will comment on how annoying it is that the color orange can't be changed.

I've never before heard someone complain that a color can't be changed in an app, it's not a common feature.

I've got the orange theme myself also after donating, don't mind it. I also still get the nag screen in some of the apps once a month or so, not sure how to turn it off but it doesn't bother me enough to figure it out.

I don't think they're actually complaining that the color can't be changed. I think they're complaining that there's functionality which can only be obtained through paying; that functionality could be totally meaningless and it'd still cause complaints.

Personally, I agree with you; adding unnecessary customization options which are only available to pro features is one of the least unethical ways of making money for software.

I wonder how much does it cost to change the theme in the slack app, or whatsapp green , or tidal, or any other app that DOESNT even let you change colours.

People complaining about it is just complain to complain.

* it doesn't bother me enough to figure it out.*

Doesn't bother me either now that I use a different app.

Heh, that's also always a solution of course :)