[phillc73]

Thought I'd give these guys a chance. Your brief write up piqued my interest.

Their website says, give us your phone number and we'll send you a link to download the app. I'm thinking this is great, a direct APK download and no Google Play Store interference, they just want to protect the download link a bit. I enter my phone number.

I receive my SMS with the download link (http://revolut.com/get). Not being an https link is a bit shoddy from a financial service. I load this page in my phone's browser. It appears to just be the homepage again. I click the "Get the App" link again and........ I'm redirected to Google Play Store.

They've no chance of my custom now. N26 was the same. Why won't these organisations at least offer a direct APK download from their own infrastructure?

[thenomad]

Because they'd have to talk users through allowing direct APK installs, complete with all the scary warnings.

That's going to reduce the number of customers they get a lot more than a redirect to the Play Store.

[phillc73]

How about a choice of Google Play Store or direct download, for "Advanced" users? That's all I'm asking, just a tiny little 8pt font link to directly download the APK.

[yladiz]

Why would a business host a APK directly when they can just utilize Google's infrastructure for free? Likely you would have a lot of users mistakingly download the APK if they saw the link and get confused as to why it's not working like all their other apps, whereas downloading from Google Play Store works seamlessly.

[phillc73]

Then host the APK on GitHub. They don't have to host source there as well. And I'm sure they can design a page in such a way that only the more technical potential customers go for the direct download.

It's also rather ridiculous that these services are accessible/usable/activated only via an installed app on my phone or tablet. Just make the service available via my web browser and the issue is resolved.

In the end I just don't bother with these services - N26, Monzo and now Revolut. I'll just stick with TransferWise.

[ndr]

How would you deal with updates?

[tonyhb]

Most users don't allow installs from untrusted services. Users that aren't you would have a very hard time.