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> I am concerned about the availability of a map app on Librem, but surely one of the existing libre OSM solutions could be ported over? I think that you unde

> I am concerned about the availability of a map app on Librem, but surely one of the existing libre OSM solutions could be ported over? I think that you underestimate the amount of work required to port applications for a new OS. You cannot use existing desktop apps on mobile without remaking their UI and refactoring them. Who is going to do it? Who will pay for it? Will Linux users who got used to free software, pay for apps? I know how many time it takes developing a single mobile app, and it is not less than hundreds or thousands of man-hours for one app. Android has a working model for developers to earn money which attracts them and motivates to write new software, and the costs are distributed across millions of users which allows to keep the prices low. Privacy-oriented phones are unlikely to become a mass product quickly so they won't create an attractive market in the nearest future, and even if someone writes or ports an app, they won't be able to keep the price low. And as I understand, this small market of privacy/freedom-oriented phones is going to be divided between several vendors with incompatible OS distributions. That means that there won't be many third-party applications. There will be a Firefox-based browser, Terminal (not very usable on the phone), several built-in apps and that's all. There will be no games, no popular messenger apps, no bank apps, no apps to play music, no manga selling apps, no photo editing apps, no apps to buy clothes or order a taxi. Regarding memory usage, Android has a system that can start or stop background services, unload applications to free memory while preserving their state. Linux applications are not written with this in mind, and you cannot unload them and restore back. So they will use more memory.

Mediterraneo10 7y ago
> You cannot use existing desktop apps on mobile without remaking their UI and refactoring them. Supposedly the GNOME platform that Librem has chosen makes this much easier. > There will be no games, no popular messenger apps, no bank apps, no apps to play music, no manga selling apps, no photo editing apps, no apps to buy clothes or order a taxi. That sounds rather like how life already is for Android users who only get stuff through F-Droid. I don’t have games on my Android phone, I told my bank I don’t want their app and I use their other 2FA solution instead. I don’t read manga, so obviously I have no manga-related apps. When it comes to online shopping, I do all that through the browser – honestly, I have never even thought about installing a retailer’s own app. When it comes to “popular messenger apps”, again, the sort of people who would be interested in Librem’s phone are probably the sort of people who are presently using Telegram or Signal on their Android phones. There are already Desktop Linux versions of those apps, and while the UI may be an issue, it is not hard to believe that usable ports will appear for Librem. As for “apps to play music”, back on my old Nokia N900 I was very satisfied with using MPD to play music, which could be readily installed on Librem’s phone without even having to port it. I also know that whipping up a new MPD client for whatever UI is not that much work at all, definitely not “millions of man hours”.

Mediterraneo10 7y ago

> You cannot use existing desktop apps on mobile without remaking their UI and refactoring them. Supposedly the GNOME platform that Librem has chosen makes this much easier. > There will be no games, no popular messenger apps, no bank apps, no apps to play music, no manga selling apps, no photo editing apps, no apps to buy clothes or order a taxi. That sounds rather like how life already is for Android users who only get stuff through F-Droid. I don’t have games on my Android phone, I told my bank I don’t want their app and I use their other 2FA solution instead. I don’t read manga, so obviously I have no manga-related apps. When it comes to online shopping, I do all that through the browser – honestly, I have never even thought about installing a retailer’s own app. When it comes to “popular messenger apps”, again, the sort of people who would be interested in Librem’s phone are probably the sort of people who are presently using Telegram or Signal on their Android phones. There are already Desktop Linux versions of those apps, and while the UI may be an issue, it is not hard to believe that usable ports will appear for Librem. As for “apps to play music”, back on my old Nokia N900 I was very satisfied with using MPD to play music, which could be readily installed on Librem’s phone without even having to port it. I also know that whipping up a new MPD client for whatever UI is not that much work at all, definitely not “millions of man hours”.