Comment 3 for bug 1434151

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Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt) wrote :

So, there are two ways of updating a default app: individually (like non-default apps), which currently requires an Ubuntu One account; and as part of the system, which doesn't.

Has anyone done a cost-benefit on having two methods that differ in this way? I guess the cost is confusion that if your Ubuntu One account gets lost/deleted, you'll see updates for some apps sometimes require an Ubuntu One account and sometimes don't. And in not knowing whether you need to update them at all when you're about to install a system update anyway. The benefit might be that if you urgently need an update to a particular default app, you can get it without updating the whole system; though that won't reduce the size of the next system update.

There are probably other technical issues that I have no idea about. So this isn't a UI design question, it's a store architecture question. (And almost certainly not an ubuntu-download-manager bug: ubuntu-download-manager is mechanism, not policy.)

The design currently assumes that if you aren't signed in to Ubuntu One, you won't see any app updates at all: "Sign in to Ubuntu One to receive updates for apps." <https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SoftwareUpdates#presenting-mobile> So, this does require design changes either way: to make that message refer either to "other apps", or to something like "non-default apps". I can't specify which until the store question is answered.