I don't understand the aversion to rooting, other than the obvious security implications. Few consumers install Ubuntu (or another desktop distro) on their mach

I don't understand the aversion to rooting, other than the obvious security implications. Few consumers install Ubuntu (or another desktop distro) on their machine and don't allow themselves root access, so it's difficult to imagine having much freedoms on your phone without doing so either. Try a custom ROM (e.g. CyanogenMod or its apparent descendant LineageOS) which adds many more options to AOSP and doesn't force you to use Google Play Services. I'm running this currently with an open source Google Play alternative [1] and it works surprisingly well, with far better battery life and performance. [1]: https://github.com/microg/android_packages_apps_GmsCore/wiki https://github.com/microg/android_packages_apps_GmsCore/wiki