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Since no one else has, I'll take the piss out of this "hollier than thou" bullshit. > Devices are your personal property. We won’t force you to have anything y
by zanny 9y ago
Since no one else has, I'll take the piss out of this "hollier than thou" bullshit.
> Devices are your personal property. We won’t force you to have anything you don’t want.
Devices are your personal property. The SoC is still a proprietary trade secret, the baseband is still spying on you for the NSA, the GPU is still a closed blob piece of shit. No mainline driver support, bootloader is closed source, firmware is closed source. We own this phone, you don't.
> We will always play well with others. Closed ecosystems are divisive and outdated.
....
> Devices shouldn’t become outdated every year. They should evolve with you.
Devices become outdated because shitty vendors refuse to open source and mainline drivers for their components.
> Technology should assist you so that you can get on with enjoying life.
Technology should be trustable, and a device where you cannot tell if or when the microphone and/or camera are recording and being remotely accessed is anything but.
Not wanting to single Essential out too much here - every vendor goes on and on about how great this phone is for you, while holding as much of a vice grip over the operation of the device as possible to make sure you need to buy another one as soon as possible through planned obsolescence. It is just the stick up the ass language announcements like these use is really infuriating when the people making them know full well how much they are screwing you over.
The first actually open platform phone is the one that will have longevity. The rest are snake oil about how good they will take of you because you can't take care of yourself with your own software that you can trust.
- steeve 9y ago> Devices become outdated because shitty vendors refuse to open source and mainline drivers for their components. YES. This one of the major reasons of the Android versions fragmentation. However, most of them don't even have mainline-able drivers. See Amlogic which got rejected because of "shitty code".
- mscdex 9y agoAmlogic is being supported in the mainline kernel, see the work going on for the Odroid C2 for example, which uses an Amlogic S905. See this[1] site for more information and the incoming patches page[2] for a more up-to-date view on what's being worked on. [1]: http://linux-meson.com/doku.php http://linux-meson.com/doku.php [2]: https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/linux-amlogic/list/ https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/linux-amlogic/list/
- steeve 9y agoYes, and this is awesome, but this still ongoing and was not always the case [1] [2]. Following the "shitty code" debacle, Amlogic announced a two year effort to mainline their drivers. [1] https://github.com/steeve/linux-amlogic https://github.com/steeve/linux-amlogic [2] http://www.cnx-software.com/2016/08/19/amlogic-releases-linux-3-14-source-code-for-s905x-s905d-and-s912-processors-has-started-working-on-linux-4-4-android-7-0/ http://www.cnx-software.com/2016/08/19/amlogic-releases-linu...
- throwaway2048 9y agohttps://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-33/product_id-47/year-2017/Linux-Linux-Kernel.html https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-33/p... For some fun reading, 357 CVEs in the linux kernel in 2017, 191 of them remote root, 95%+ of the total in closed source ARM drivers. (basicly everying labeled broadcomm and qualcomm). For those keeping score, 2017 ALONE has produced 1/3rd of the linux kernel vulnerabilities ever observed. We need to demand vendors do better.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- IanKelling 9y agoAnd without running proprietary javascript, their page displays no text. So, ya.
- leereeves 9y agoProprietary means privately owned. Who owns Javascript? ECMA is a public standard.
- brandonhsiao 9y agoI think he means the unobfuscated code is proprietary.
- leereeves 9y agoCould be. It's not obfuscated > // Polyfill for creating CustomEvents on IE9/10/11 > function EmailInput(e,t,i,n){function r() but it does contain some proprietary code from GreenSock.
- column 9y agoBut is js really needed on such a page? Wouldn't css-grid do the job just fine?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- wooter 9y agoid imagine the company has web apps (internal and external). why support multiple stacks for what is not even remotely close to their core competency? isomorphism, for example, is a big advantage for both maintainability, community support, and rapid delivery
- coldtea 9y agoBecause 1/100000 of their customers might have JS turned of?
- RachelF 9y agoYes, it isn't as innovative as the marketing dept would have you believe. The Xiaomi Mi Mix from 2016 contained more innovative features. The Essential phone is just another large, high end Android very similar to the Samsung S7/S8 or Xiaomi Mi6 or new LG - Very nice, but not a major innovation.
- froo 9y ago>> Devices shouldn’t become outdated every year. They should evolve with you. I really don't understand this sentiment. I've still got my iPhone 6 Plus. I haven't seen the need to upgrade yet. It does absolutely everything I want. At this rate, the only reason I'm going to upgrade is if I destroy my phone somehow (I've yet to even put a major scratch on any of my smartphones over the years) or if a vendor comes out with some feature where I'm like "yeah, I could really see myself getting use out of that" >> Technology should assist you so that you can get on with enjoying life. It's a smartphone for crying out loud. It's a platform designed for communication. Bonus points for having a camera in my pocket and some apps which help me for various tasks. > The first actually open platform phone is the one that will have longevity. Exactly, I feel that we're kind of getting there with all of the recent phones that have come out in the last couple of years. There's no real killer feature anyone's come out with, just nice things to have.
- patrickthebold 9y ago>>I've still got my iPhone 6 Plus. Not the parent, but that's pretty new. I used a 4s earlier this year and there were several apps that couldn't be upgraded and/or stopped working.
- froo 9y agoThat doesn't seem to be a manufacturer issue though is it? In case of tablets, my partner is still using her iPad 2 and Netflix has a version of their app that still runs on that. The core software on her tablet, like the core software on my older phones that were given to family members still work fine. Its the 3rd party apps that seem to be abandoned by software developers. That's going to happen regardless of what phone manufacturer's want.
- Joeri 9y agoI have an original ipad and netflix is pretty much the only thing that still works fine on that. You can't use it to browse the web anymore because web pages have gotten so heavy it runs out of memory trying to render them. The app store is also broken to the degree of being unusable, even if you could find apps. If it wasn't so locked down it would still make an excellent linux device, but as it stands it's basically a dedicated netflix viewer. So in my view it's a bit of both. These devices could have a longer life with manufacturer support, but the app developers are the ones driving the obsolescence.
- spotman 9y ago"the first actually open phone will have longevity" you mean like openmoko?
- trapperkeeper74 9y agoOpen ASIC IP cores and firmwares are a must-have. Without independently-verifiable silicon, there's no telling was is or isn't there.
- pjc50 9y agoFinancing this is the real problem. Open source software relies on volunteer labour and the small costs of donated hosting, hardware etc. Open source hardware does not have nearly enough demand to fund it and cannot protect its revenue stream from competitors.
- exikyut 9y agoTotally agree. My question is, how do you verify the fabs are trustworthy? Genuinely curious - I'm actually trying to answer this myself at the moment. The best I've come up with is, go to >2 fabs, have them deliver wafers but not saw them, scan and compare the wafers using trusted equipment, then take the wafers back to the fab for sawing. The last step is the biggest issue; you could be bait-and-switched. Sawing doesn't sound as expensive as actual photolithography/etching kit, but I suspect it would still be prohibitive for most. Thing is, you could tamper with a small number of chips on the wafer image in such a way that a quick but unlikely interaction with the end device would easily spot the tampered units. Then it would be a simple matter to insert a "picker" into somewhere in the manufacturing/shipping logistics to find the tampered device(s) and reroute them.
- pjc50 9y agoIt's much harder for the fab to backdoor things than any other stage, and it also takes time for them to prepare such an attack once they have your GDSII files. So it would show up as a manufacturing delay. For anything other than milspec this probably isn't worth worrying about at this time. Also, I'm not 100% sure that two fabs would actually produce optically identical chips; would there be process differences?
- exikyut 9y agoArg. I'm actually considering the problem of a secure design that's secure both through being transparently open source, and by using a super-simple architecture. And unfortunately these two properties mean that a) well, everyone has the GDSII, and b) the architecture is super-easy to hack. It makes perfect sense that a fab would need time to mount an attack on a closed and complex design though. Very good point about process differences. That totally makes sense, and would likely require human verification to handle, which for big chips would be, at the very least, hilariously expensive.
- tomaskafka 9y ago> Technology should be trustable, and a device where you cannot tell if or when the microphone and/or camera are recording and being remotely accessed is anything but. Yes. This means no Google services.
- TrickyRick 9y agoAlso don't forget: > Premium materials and true craftsmanship shouldn’t just be for the few. Then maybe they should not have priced it in line with the iPhone?
- mangecoeur 9y agoMaybe when you live in the Valley you get a very skewed idea of who 'the few' are :P Maybe they think anyone who doesn't buy a new flagship smartphone every 6 months is living in destitution :)
- roryisok 9y agoExactly. The many can't afford to drop €699 on the "base" model phone, especially an unproven one.
- mathgenius 9y agoAnd this: > we’re working around the clock Why are they working around the clock? It sounds like they are running late and/or don't know what they are doing.
- erlend_sh 9y ago> The first actually open platform phone is the one that will have longevity FairPhone is trying to do that, in software, hardware and way beyond: https://shop.fairphone.com/en/ https://shop.fairphone.com/en/
- cerberusss 9y agoA colleague of mine showed me her FairPhone. She then proceeded to disassemble it, right in front of my eyes. She's a biologist and told me that she broke the screen during fieldwork. Just ordered a new screen on the FairPhone site and replaced it herself. Amazing tech.
- everybodyknows 9y agoFairphone has been pushing into the predictable headwinds, without much help from economy of scale or supportive tech partners: https://forum.fairphone.com/t/is-it-worth-to-buy-a-fairphone-2-in-2017/28522/3 https://forum.fairphone.com/t/is-it-worth-to-buy-a-fairphone...
- everybodyknows 9y agoFairphone has been pushing into the predictable headwinds, without much help from economy of scale or supportive tech partners: https://forum.fairphone.com/t/is-it-worth-to-buy-a-fairphone-2-in-2017/28522/3 https://forum.fairphone.com/t/is-it-worth-to-buy-a-fairphone...
- dwighttk 9y ago"recent upgrade to Android 6.0 Marshmallow" when was that written?
- jrs95 9y ago> Devices shouldn’t become outdated every year. They should evolve with you. Doesn't have a removable battery...so, how exactly is this going to last me any longer than anything else?
- ericabiz 9y agoDon't know about this phone (we'll have to wait for the teardown), but iPhone batteries are pretty easily replaceable, and you don't need to go to an Apple Store to have them replaced. I run a chain of independent repair shops and we replace iPhone batteries all day long. A press push for environmental reasons has made sure most smartphone batteries aren't glued in. Now MacBooks and Surface Books, on the other hand, do tend to have glued-in batteries on newer models, so more pressure is needed there. We can still replace them, but they're a pain, and glue is not environmentally friendly at all.
- jrs95 9y agoGood to know! I'll probably go that route in a couple years then rather than buying a new device.
- SippinLean 9y agoExtracting them with a torx driver, heat gun, and an hour's labor is not the same as a swappable battery.
- justinjlynn 9y agoYou forgot the step of desperately trying to not crack anything while doing so for said hour.
- gleenn 9y agoVery true, but we are discussing phones, and without glue on my few year old Mac book air, it was less than 10 minutes as there was no glue. Again you're right, it ain't swappable, but it was surprisingly easier than I thought when it isn't glued.
- pantalaimon 9y ago> Devices become outdated because shitty vendors refuse to open source and mainline drivers for their components. To play the devil's advocate here, you could also blame Linux for not providing a stable driver ABI and instead tries to force all vendors to adapt their coding practices if they want to play along. Many companies don't want to take the burden to rewrite their code if the Kernel maintainers have a different opinion on how things should be done.
- zanny 9y agoYou don't really have to mainline your drivers. You just have to open source them. I guarantee if the chipset drivers and GPU drivers for most Samsung S phones were open sourced the phones would see community merged drivers or a popular third party repo supporting their continued maintenance. Of course, it would be preferable that companies support their hardware in (open) software themselves (like Intel and AMD do for their GPUs / wifi / ethernet / ASM extensions), but we don't have anything close to that right now in mobile.
- dwighttk 9y ago>The first actually open platform phone is the one that will have longevity. I hear that a lot, but rarely see it work out that way in practice.