14 ms·

Right to repair is increasingly hitting people outside of agrarian/industrial contexts. This month, Google shipped the last update for my Pixel phone. The hard

by ISL 7y ago

Right to repair is increasingly hitting people outside of agrarian/industrial contexts. This month, Google shipped the last update for my Pixel phone. The hardware is functional and in great shape, but I don't think there are any truly viable ways for me to keep it secure. I have a tablet that long-ago met the same fate. This is in the same world where I can 'apt-get update' my seven-year old desktop and work with aplomb. It is my understanding that the primary blocker to serious open-source kernel development on phones is closed-source drivers for the phone hardware.

eastof 7y ago
You can get really good support from Lineage OS for years to come. Been running it on all my android devices for years. The flagship models like Pixel usually have the best ongoing support.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  > The flagship models like Pixel usually have the best ongoing support. When was the last time you checked on this? As far as I can see, LineageOS support is pretty much restricted to phones that have had it for years. There is no hope if you have a recent phone. There's also no hope if you have an old phone, unless it's already supported. For example, the most recent Pixel with support is... the Pixel. The original.
  - Enginerrrd 7y ago
    This has been my experience, and I feel like I've been lookding pretty hard. I'd really like to see this problem get solved.
  - vorpalhex 7y ago
    Lineage depends on the community to issue device specific builds. For instance, my dual sim traveling phone has no official Lineage support, but is well supported through the community (and indeed, everything works quite well). I do wish Lineage had a way to promote and adopt community versions more officially.
    - thaumasiotes 7y ago
      > I do wish Lineage had a way to promote and adopt community versions more officially. They do. That's what official support is. https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/ https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/ But they're a dead project.
      - yorwba 7y ago
        Last change 4 minutes ago: https://review.lineageos.org/q/status:open https://review.lineageos.org/q/status:open Looks quite alive to me.
        thaumasiotes 7y ago
        An active project that supports no hardware is still a dead project. If you want to run LineageOS, that's not a realistic goal. It's a pipe dream.
        yorwba 7y ago
        I run LineageOS on my phone. I specifically bought the phone to run LineageOS on it. It's only a pipe dream if you want to take any random phone and change the operating system.
    - zozbot234 7y ago
      Can't have "official" support unless everything is working. "Promoting" beta-level code would be a disaster.
      - thaumasiotes 7y ago
        The release model that LineageOS inherited from CyanogenMod included three branches of varying levels of stability. The philosophy that if it isn't already finished, there's no point starting is the problem with LineageOS today.
  - zozbot234 7y ago
    > There is no hope if you have a recent phone. OnePlus 6, 6T, 7 Pro - these are not "old" devices. Granted, you might argue that OnePlus doesn't count, lol.
- pedrocr 7y ago
  You really can't. Devices get dropped often and kernels are left at old versions with security bugs unpatched. There's nothing in Android that's like a proper Linux distribution that keeps working for decades on the same hardware with full kernel updates.
- snowron6 7y ago
  Really? There's been no support for the pixel since the first one. It sucks, I'd love to run lineage on my pixel 2.
  - bobbean 7y ago
    Honest question, what use would Lineage be on a pixel? I've used it a few times for older phones, but that was mainly to get rid of a bunch of the stupid restrictions and bloatware those phones had. Pixel phones seem like they wouldn't benefit too much from it. (Again I haven't looked into it in a while so I'm not sure of the benefits)
- netsharc 7y ago
  I ordered a cheap Android phone the other day because installing a non-OEM OS like Lineage mean... banking software doesn't work. I have an older phone but the last stock ROM on it is Android 5, although it is currently running Lineage with Android 9. So I bought that phone to keep at stock and have a phone I can do my banking with. Come to think of it, I should just switch banks!
  - linuxftw 7y ago
    You can side-load firefox and just use the bank's mobile site.
    - efreak 7y ago
      Side loading is unnecessary. Firefox is available on both the play store and Fdroid (not sure if it's in the default Fdroid repo, but I know there's at least one third party repo with official builds)
    - netsharc 7y ago
      The app has features using the camera though, and can act as a 2FA for desktop logins, otherwise I'd need my card and a card reader with a PIN pad to input the challenge given during the login process.
  - blacksmith_tb 7y ago
    Magisk[1] works with Lineage and might be able to fool your annoying banking app. 1: https://forum.xda-developers.com/apps/magisk/official-magisk-v7-universal-systemless-t3473445 https://forum.xda-developers.com/apps/magisk/official-magisk...
    - takeda 7y ago
      Don't use Magisk, but it allowed me to fool all apps that I'm aware of. I really don't understand this mentality (doing it with a bank app, I also had it with OTP app), because I have full control over my phone that somehow makes it compromised? What's next? I no longer will have access to my bank account because I'm less trustworthy?
- takeda 7y ago
  Are there any flagship models that still have phone jack and an sdcard? Supposedly there's so many Android phones but all are removing things. You can get phones with these, but then their support doesn't last long and generally no one cares about maintaining a replacement OS like Lineage OS. My ideal phone would have: - size that does fit in a hand - phone jack - sdcard - hardware keyboard - ir blaster - stereo speakers that actually face the user - work with frequencies of my cell provider - easy to root - good battery life - easy to open and fix - recent hardware (I rarely play games but want it to be responsive) But since then I started giving up on some features though those 3 are still important to me. It's impossible to find one that has all of those things now, the only phones that I owned and really like and were very close to ideal were Motorola Droid 1, and HTC One M8 and it feels like it only goes downhill.
  - doubt_me 7y ago
    Asus 2018+ Idk about rooting tho. That's a maybe. If I could throw down 500$+ I'd be able to find out. My LG v20 was purchased the week it came out cause I'm an audiophile. This thing is literally bullet proof and 100$ now. Best phone I've ever owned. Still using it. Rooted n debloated stock ROMs are all I'm interested in all the custom ones never get updates correctly.
  - efreak 7y ago
    The ir blaster would be nice, but personally I'm more interested in wireless charging (and having nfc in a us device that _isn't_ flagship... Why is it always only available in eu versions...) Hardware keyboard isn't something I need personally, but it would certainly be useful; At least add a T9 keyboard, it shouldn't be hard to adapt autocorrect for that. Good battery life isn't enough: I'd rather have a battery that's twice the size (6-7Ah). This makes it 5mm thicker and 5mm thicker? That's fine with me. Not everyone cares about the camera on their phone. Dedicated cameras are still a thing, and cheap ones still work better than your expensive smartphone. Being able to read QR and bar codes is enough for me. And to get it off my chest: give me back my buttons. I want hardware buttons on the side. Give me a home button (I don't care how big the bezel is) and instead of having an assistant button, add a pair of customizable buttons to the side of the screen (scroll for browsers and ebooks, skip/seek media, browser history, launch an app, etc). The best thing about desktop/laptop is being able to set hotkeys And as someone who likes using tablets, please make your tablets support cases/covers that don't require a clamshell. The Nvidia shield tablet (at least) has magnetic notches in the side, which match up to magnetic tabs on the side of the cover, allowing it to be attached/removed easily. Clamshells are annoying.
aguyfromnb 7y ago
>This month, Google shipped the last update for my Pixel phone. The hardware is functional and in great shape, but I don't think there are any truly viable ways for me to keep it secure. The same thing happened recently with the Chromebook I purchased for my significant other. She's a very light computer user, so we thought it was a perfect device. It was great, until one day she received a message saying, essentially, "this device is no longer supported and is now insecure". Meanwhile, I've got an Ubuntu distribution running on a 10 year old computer in my basement (and soon will on this Chromebook). I certainly won't buy another Chromebook to have it unsupported in 3 years.
- ProZsolt 7y ago
  You should get ~7 years of update. Here you can check: https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en I think it should be more, but it's on par with MacBooks
  - boredishBoi 7y ago
    Actually MacBooks get 6/7 years from when Apple stops selling them. In contrast, the timer starts as soon as the first Chromebook with that cpu is released. It was a nasty surprise when I found that out
    - choward 7y ago
      That is terrible. So they'll never create a device that is good enough that they'll sell for for 6 years unless they sell something they don't support.
      - pgeorgi 7y ago
        Or extend the support: https://9to5google.com/2019/11/05/google-chromebooks-extended-software-support/ https://9to5google.com/2019/11/05/google-chromebooks-extende... Other than that, few vendors sell 6 year old computers. Since Apple is often put up as model company here: 2013 had the iPhone 5s which was sold until early 2016, and the end-2013 MacBook Pro (based on Haswell) which was replaced by its successor in 2014 (based on Haswell-Refresh).
geofft 7y ago
> It is my understanding that the primary blocker to serious open-source kernel development on phones is closed-source drivers for the phone hardware. For what it's worth, Google (or at least parts of Google) agrees that the closed-source drivers are a problem for extended security lifecycle, and they're working with the Linux community to a) extend the kernel LTS cycle to 6 years b) make something that looks awfully like a stable API/ABI for drivers so that Android can upgrade you to a later point release of that LTS without requiring additional work from the hardware manufacturer. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/11/google-outlines-plans-for-mainline-linux-kernel-support-in-android/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/11/google-outlines-plan...
- ISL 7y ago
  In this case, my phone is a Google product. Google can make available the drivers if it so desires.
  - sangnoir 7y ago
    Google doesn't make chips and therefore doesn't own the SoC IP - Qualcomm does. Google may not make unilaterally decide to avail those drivers. They could theoretically play hardball with Qualcomm on the licensing, but I doubt the Pixel line brings in enough revenue for Qualcomm to even consider that threat for more than half a second.
    - gowld 7y ago
      The drivers work fine; the problem is Google dropping OS support. If Google doesn't figure something out soon, a lot of people who bought Google's iPhone competitor since 2016 are starting to notice that Pixels have no longevity and no resale value, and wondering why they are paying more to get less than an iPhone.
      - sangnoir 7y ago
        The drivers don't work fine when you upgrade the Linux kernel - which is the planned obsolescence that Qualcomm has relied on to push the sales of the latest Snapdragon. I don't know if custom Android ROMs are still a popular, but (SoC & camera) drivers were what forced custom ROMs to stick old kernels. Project Treble is Google's plan to keep the drivers working - I don't know how well that's going seeing that OEMs were given the option to not support it at the time it was launched.
rollerboi 7y ago
Saw this on a YC thread a while back, but I keep witnessing examples of it every couple weeks: https://alexdanco.com/2019/10/26/everything-is-amazing-but-nothing-is-ours/?fbclid=IwAR1tz3Et74UqcIQ_ZSjEW2NOWeInLN3AR3yU3EUcLDdnx0OdG2QTG31Z98Y https://alexdanco.com/2019/10/26/everything-is-amazing-but-n... Everything is amazing but nothing is ours.
Erlich_Bachman 7y ago
Librem phones can't come soon enough.
- takeda 7y ago
  The issue there is that you're missing the app ecosystem. Without it, why not just use a "dumb" phone?
  - ssivark 7y ago
    The app ecosystem is just a matter of time, once there exists a solid foundation. We need the breakthrough device that will make it possible to get started. Consider Linux on the desktop. For about a decade after it became popular (late 90s) ie till late 2000s, the user experience was crappy, and the app ecosystem was sparse. But they developed so well over the next ten years that in many ways Linux today is more user-friendly than Windows/OS-X. Enough people want it, and it will happen. And as it happens, more and more people will want it... especially since popular mobile platforms provide less freedom than the desktop ones.
    - gowld 7y ago
      95% of the market does not find Linux more user-friendly than Windows/MacOS. While Linux was getting its shoelaces tied, ChromeOS showed up and put the lie to the dream that any user-controlled Linux would satisfy the market's needs. 2020 is the Year of Linux on the Desktop.
      - takeda 7y ago
        That was true before, but now 95% of people wouldn't even notice that you replaced Windows with Linux. The only program they typically use is a web browser.
      - p1necone 7y ago
        Usability is not the only thing that affects adoption. I'd wager a pretty large chunk of that 95% doesn't even know what Linux is. It also doesn't matter how usable Linux is when you can't go into a store and buy a PC with it preinstalled (although that probably falls under the umbrella of "usability" for many).
cletus 7y ago
So here is an area where Apple is significantly better than Android. The original Pixel is just over 3 years old and is now EOL for official releases. iOS 13 (current version) has minimum hadware of the iPhone 6S, released September 2015. That may only be a year but it will continue to receive iOS 13 updates for probably another year or so at least (rumour has it iOS 14 will be released late 2020 and no one yet knows the minimum hardware spec for that). Android has always been terrible for OS updates. Google's hardware was at least significantly better than, say, Samsung (for older phones getting the latest Android) but still... not great.
- p1necone 7y ago
  This is still garbage compared to Windows and Linux though. You can take basically any x86 computer from more than a decade ago and install modern Windows or your favourite linux distribution on it and it will work (albeit potentially quite slowly depending on the hardware). Are there any good reasons why Android and iOS are so much worse in this regard?
  - wishinghand 7y ago
    The market will bear it. Especially in the age of subsidized phones people didn’t mind the cost as much. This may change with $1000+ flagship phones.
    - cletus 7y ago
      This is the area where Apple now sucks, hard. Go back 5-10 years ago the the Macbook Air (not the original form ~2008 but the second one from 2010-2011) was an awesome piece of hardware. I mean it still had soldered RAM (I think?) and lacked upgradeability but it was cheap and good. Apple's current leadership didn't like this so we end up with useless features like the Touch Bar, which exist for one reason and one reason only: to drive up the ASP (average selling price) of Macbooks. The same thing has happened to iPhones. The last iPhone I bought was the 6S 4 years ago and I think it was $649? Expensive but not ridiculously so. Like paying that every 3 years wasn't terrible. But now? The 11 Pro is >$1000. WTF? And these things keep getting worse as they add features no one wants or needs to drive up the ASP (eg Force Touch). Oh and current iPhones use FaceID which is terrible. The false negative rate is really high and having no home button actually sucks. For example, you used to get to the home screen by pressing it. Now you need to swipe up. But which direction you have to swipe up from depends on the orientation of the app you're using. That may not be obvious. It sucks. But I don't want to pay $1000+ for a phone with a battery that noticeably degrades in 2-3 years. To hell with that. I'd be tempted to buy the iPhone 8 (the last one with Touch ID) but for a now 2 year old model the price is unjustifiably high as they want to drive you to buy the 11 or at least the XR.

by ISL 7y ago

eastof 7y ago

You can get really good support from Lineage OS for years to come. Been running it on all my android devices for years. The flagship models like Pixel usually have the best ongoing support.

thaumasiotes 7y ago
> The flagship models like Pixel usually have the best ongoing support. When was the last time you checked on this? As far as I can see, LineageOS support is pretty much restricted to phones that have had it for years. There is no hope if you have a recent phone. There's also no hope if you have an old phone, unless it's already supported. For example, the most recent Pixel with support is... the Pixel. The original.
- Enginerrrd 7y ago
  This has been my experience, and I feel like I've been lookding pretty hard. I'd really like to see this problem get solved.
- vorpalhex 7y ago
  Lineage depends on the community to issue device specific builds. For instance, my dual sim traveling phone has no official Lineage support, but is well supported through the community (and indeed, everything works quite well). I do wish Lineage had a way to promote and adopt community versions more officially.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    > I do wish Lineage had a way to promote and adopt community versions more officially. They do. That's what official support is. https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/ https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/ But they're a dead project.
    - yorwba 7y ago
      Last change 4 minutes ago: https://review.lineageos.org/q/status:open https://review.lineageos.org/q/status:open Looks quite alive to me.
      - thaumasiotes 7y ago
        An active project that supports no hardware is still a dead project. If you want to run LineageOS, that's not a realistic goal. It's a pipe dream.
        yorwba 7y ago
        I run LineageOS on my phone. I specifically bought the phone to run LineageOS on it. It's only a pipe dream if you want to take any random phone and change the operating system.
  - zozbot234 7y ago
    Can't have "official" support unless everything is working. "Promoting" beta-level code would be a disaster.
    - thaumasiotes 7y ago
      The release model that LineageOS inherited from CyanogenMod included three branches of varying levels of stability. The philosophy that if it isn't already finished, there's no point starting is the problem with LineageOS today.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  > There is no hope if you have a recent phone. OnePlus 6, 6T, 7 Pro - these are not "old" devices. Granted, you might argue that OnePlus doesn't count, lol.
pedrocr 7y ago
You really can't. Devices get dropped often and kernels are left at old versions with security bugs unpatched. There's nothing in Android that's like a proper Linux distribution that keeps working for decades on the same hardware with full kernel updates.
snowron6 7y ago
Really? There's been no support for the pixel since the first one. It sucks, I'd love to run lineage on my pixel 2.
- bobbean 7y ago
  Honest question, what use would Lineage be on a pixel? I've used it a few times for older phones, but that was mainly to get rid of a bunch of the stupid restrictions and bloatware those phones had. Pixel phones seem like they wouldn't benefit too much from it. (Again I haven't looked into it in a while so I'm not sure of the benefits)
netsharc 7y ago
I ordered a cheap Android phone the other day because installing a non-OEM OS like Lineage mean... banking software doesn't work. I have an older phone but the last stock ROM on it is Android 5, although it is currently running Lineage with Android 9. So I bought that phone to keep at stock and have a phone I can do my banking with. Come to think of it, I should just switch banks!
- linuxftw 7y ago
  You can side-load firefox and just use the bank's mobile site.
  - efreak 7y ago
    Side loading is unnecessary. Firefox is available on both the play store and Fdroid (not sure if it's in the default Fdroid repo, but I know there's at least one third party repo with official builds)
  - netsharc 7y ago
    The app has features using the camera though, and can act as a 2FA for desktop logins, otherwise I'd need my card and a card reader with a PIN pad to input the challenge given during the login process.
- blacksmith_tb 7y ago
  Magisk[1] works with Lineage and might be able to fool your annoying banking app. 1: https://forum.xda-developers.com/apps/magisk/official-magisk-v7-universal-systemless-t3473445 https://forum.xda-developers.com/apps/magisk/official-magisk...
  - takeda 7y ago
    Don't use Magisk, but it allowed me to fool all apps that I'm aware of. I really don't understand this mentality (doing it with a bank app, I also had it with OTP app), because I have full control over my phone that somehow makes it compromised? What's next? I no longer will have access to my bank account because I'm less trustworthy?
takeda 7y ago
Are there any flagship models that still have phone jack and an sdcard? Supposedly there's so many Android phones but all are removing things. You can get phones with these, but then their support doesn't last long and generally no one cares about maintaining a replacement OS like Lineage OS. My ideal phone would have: - size that does fit in a hand - phone jack - sdcard - hardware keyboard - ir blaster - stereo speakers that actually face the user - work with frequencies of my cell provider - easy to root - good battery life - easy to open and fix - recent hardware (I rarely play games but want it to be responsive) But since then I started giving up on some features though those 3 are still important to me. It's impossible to find one that has all of those things now, the only phones that I owned and really like and were very close to ideal were Motorola Droid 1, and HTC One M8 and it feels like it only goes downhill.
- doubt_me 7y ago
  Asus 2018+ Idk about rooting tho. That's a maybe. If I could throw down 500$+ I'd be able to find out. My LG v20 was purchased the week it came out cause I'm an audiophile. This thing is literally bullet proof and 100$ now. Best phone I've ever owned. Still using it. Rooted n debloated stock ROMs are all I'm interested in all the custom ones never get updates correctly.
- efreak 7y ago
  The ir blaster would be nice, but personally I'm more interested in wireless charging (and having nfc in a us device that _isn't_ flagship... Why is it always only available in eu versions...) Hardware keyboard isn't something I need personally, but it would certainly be useful; At least add a T9 keyboard, it shouldn't be hard to adapt autocorrect for that. Good battery life isn't enough: I'd rather have a battery that's twice the size (6-7Ah). This makes it 5mm thicker and 5mm thicker? That's fine with me. Not everyone cares about the camera on their phone. Dedicated cameras are still a thing, and cheap ones still work better than your expensive smartphone. Being able to read QR and bar codes is enough for me. And to get it off my chest: give me back my buttons. I want hardware buttons on the side. Give me a home button (I don't care how big the bezel is) and instead of having an assistant button, add a pair of customizable buttons to the side of the screen (scroll for browsers and ebooks, skip/seek media, browser history, launch an app, etc). The best thing about desktop/laptop is being able to set hotkeys And as someone who likes using tablets, please make your tablets support cases/covers that don't require a clamshell. The Nvidia shield tablet (at least) has magnetic notches in the side, which match up to magnetic tabs on the side of the cover, allowing it to be attached/removed easily. Clamshells are annoying.

aguyfromnb 7y ago

>This month, Google shipped the last update for my Pixel phone. The hardware is functional and in great shape, but I don't think there are any truly viable ways for me to keep it secure. The same thing happened recently with the Chromebook I purchased for my significant other. She's a very light computer user, so we thought it was a perfect device. It was great, until one day she received a message saying, essentially, "this device is no longer supported and is now insecure". Meanwhile, I've got an Ubuntu distribution running on a 10 year old computer in my basement (and soon will on this Chromebook). I certainly won't buy another Chromebook to have it unsupported in 3 years.

ProZsolt 7y ago
You should get ~7 years of update. Here you can check: https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en https://support.google.com/chrome/a/answer/6220366?hl=en I think it should be more, but it's on par with MacBooks
- boredishBoi 7y ago
  Actually MacBooks get 6/7 years from when Apple stops selling them. In contrast, the timer starts as soon as the first Chromebook with that cpu is released. It was a nasty surprise when I found that out
  - choward 7y ago
    That is terrible. So they'll never create a device that is good enough that they'll sell for for 6 years unless they sell something they don't support.
    - pgeorgi 7y ago
      Or extend the support: https://9to5google.com/2019/11/05/google-chromebooks-extended-software-support/ https://9to5google.com/2019/11/05/google-chromebooks-extende... Other than that, few vendors sell 6 year old computers. Since Apple is often put up as model company here: 2013 had the iPhone 5s which was sold until early 2016, and the end-2013 MacBook Pro (based on Haswell) which was replaced by its successor in 2014 (based on Haswell-Refresh).

geofft 7y ago

> It is my understanding that the primary blocker to serious open-source kernel development on phones is closed-source drivers for the phone hardware. For what it's worth, Google (or at least parts of Google) agrees that the closed-source drivers are a problem for extended security lifecycle, and they're working with the Linux community to a) extend the kernel LTS cycle to 6 years b) make something that looks awfully like a stable API/ABI for drivers so that Android can upgrade you to a later point release of that LTS without requiring additional work from the hardware manufacturer. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/11/google-outlines-plans-for-mainline-linux-kernel-support-in-android/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/11/google-outlines-plan...

ISL 7y ago
In this case, my phone is a Google product. Google can make available the drivers if it so desires.
- sangnoir 7y ago
  Google doesn't make chips and therefore doesn't own the SoC IP - Qualcomm does. Google may not make unilaterally decide to avail those drivers. They could theoretically play hardball with Qualcomm on the licensing, but I doubt the Pixel line brings in enough revenue for Qualcomm to even consider that threat for more than half a second.
  - gowld 7y ago
    The drivers work fine; the problem is Google dropping OS support. If Google doesn't figure something out soon, a lot of people who bought Google's iPhone competitor since 2016 are starting to notice that Pixels have no longevity and no resale value, and wondering why they are paying more to get less than an iPhone.
    - sangnoir 7y ago
      The drivers don't work fine when you upgrade the Linux kernel - which is the planned obsolescence that Qualcomm has relied on to push the sales of the latest Snapdragon. I don't know if custom Android ROMs are still a popular, but (SoC & camera) drivers were what forced custom ROMs to stick old kernels. Project Treble is Google's plan to keep the drivers working - I don't know how well that's going seeing that OEMs were given the option to not support it at the time it was launched.

rollerboi 7y ago

Saw this on a YC thread a while back, but I keep witnessing examples of it every couple weeks: https://alexdanco.com/2019/10/26/everything-is-amazing-but-nothing-is-ours/?fbclid=IwAR1tz3Et74UqcIQ_ZSjEW2NOWeInLN3AR3yU3EUcLDdnx0OdG2QTG31Z98Y https://alexdanco.com/2019/10/26/everything-is-amazing-but-n... Everything is amazing but nothing is ours.

Erlich_Bachman 7y ago

Librem phones can't come soon enough.

takeda 7y ago
The issue there is that you're missing the app ecosystem. Without it, why not just use a "dumb" phone?
- ssivark 7y ago
  The app ecosystem is just a matter of time, once there exists a solid foundation. We need the breakthrough device that will make it possible to get started. Consider Linux on the desktop. For about a decade after it became popular (late 90s) ie till late 2000s, the user experience was crappy, and the app ecosystem was sparse. But they developed so well over the next ten years that in many ways Linux today is more user-friendly than Windows/OS-X. Enough people want it, and it will happen. And as it happens, more and more people will want it... especially since popular mobile platforms provide less freedom than the desktop ones.
  - gowld 7y ago
    95% of the market does not find Linux more user-friendly than Windows/MacOS. While Linux was getting its shoelaces tied, ChromeOS showed up and put the lie to the dream that any user-controlled Linux would satisfy the market's needs. 2020 is the Year of Linux on the Desktop.
    - takeda 7y ago
      That was true before, but now 95% of people wouldn't even notice that you replaced Windows with Linux. The only program they typically use is a web browser.
    - p1necone 7y ago
      Usability is not the only thing that affects adoption. I'd wager a pretty large chunk of that 95% doesn't even know what Linux is. It also doesn't matter how usable Linux is when you can't go into a store and buy a PC with it preinstalled (although that probably falls under the umbrella of "usability" for many).

cletus 7y ago

So here is an area where Apple is significantly better than Android. The original Pixel is just over 3 years old and is now EOL for official releases. iOS 13 (current version) has minimum hadware of the iPhone 6S, released September 2015. That may only be a year but it will continue to receive iOS 13 updates for probably another year or so at least (rumour has it iOS 14 will be released late 2020 and no one yet knows the minimum hardware spec for that). Android has always been terrible for OS updates. Google's hardware was at least significantly better than, say, Samsung (for older phones getting the latest Android) but still... not great.

p1necone 7y ago
This is still garbage compared to Windows and Linux though. You can take basically any x86 computer from more than a decade ago and install modern Windows or your favourite linux distribution on it and it will work (albeit potentially quite slowly depending on the hardware). Are there any good reasons why Android and iOS are so much worse in this regard?
- wishinghand 7y ago
  The market will bear it. Especially in the age of subsidized phones people didn’t mind the cost as much. This may change with $1000+ flagship phones.
  - cletus 7y ago
    This is the area where Apple now sucks, hard. Go back 5-10 years ago the the Macbook Air (not the original form ~2008 but the second one from 2010-2011) was an awesome piece of hardware. I mean it still had soldered RAM (I think?) and lacked upgradeability but it was cheap and good. Apple's current leadership didn't like this so we end up with useless features like the Touch Bar, which exist for one reason and one reason only: to drive up the ASP (average selling price) of Macbooks. The same thing has happened to iPhones. The last iPhone I bought was the 6S 4 years ago and I think it was $649? Expensive but not ridiculously so. Like paying that every 3 years wasn't terrible. But now? The 11 Pro is >$1000. WTF? And these things keep getting worse as they add features no one wants or needs to drive up the ASP (eg Force Touch). Oh and current iPhones use FaceID which is terrible. The false negative rate is really high and having no home button actually sucks. For example, you used to get to the home screen by pressing it. Now you need to swipe up. But which direction you have to swipe up from depends on the orientation of the app you're using. That may not be obvious. It sucks. But I don't want to pay $1000+ for a phone with a battery that noticeably degrades in 2-3 years. To hell with that. I'd be tempted to buy the iPhone 8 (the last one with Touch ID) but for a now 2 year old model the price is unjustifiably high as they want to drive you to buy the 11 or at least the XR.