10 ms·

Between this and Jeffrey Paul's article shared yesterday about Big Sur and Apple Silicon[1], it's becoming increasingly tempting to throw my phone away and keep

• deeter72 6y ago
  I personally feel like, Apple is the best choice for the time being until actual daily usable Linux high end phones are a reality. Apple although has highly monopolistic practices are privacy oriented and are interested on just selling the physical device.
  • dogma1138 6y ago
    Linux high end phones will never be a reality, at least not what people here would consider Linux at best you’ll get is Android or Android like OS. Other than that you’ll get low volume low end devices at high end or higher prices due to lack of economy of scale. What most consumers actually want and I’ll put in that list also many many people that say they want a “Linux Phone” but in reality will go back to their iPhone/Android after a week is quite different than what a tiny niche is willing and capable of dealing with.
    • t0astbread 6y ago
      I guess what people want when they say they want a "Linux phone" is a phone that allows them to hack, mix and match their system the way they can on a desktop Linux system.
      • dogma1138 6y ago
        They can do that with many Android phones it’s not hard to find ones with a boot loader you can open including the Google Pixel. I used Android from day one till the LG Nexus and I switched to an iPhone after having to spend yet another weekend compiling a kernel to update my phone. Most people want a device that “just works”. Overall I would be good money on the fact that the percentage of people that say they want to be able to hack their phone freely and will actually do so is very slim because again Android gives you 90% if not more of that freedom already and some devices even can boot other OSes. Sure things like the blobs on the baseband are still closed but that will always be the case no one realistically is expecting a high end 100% open source phone, and if you are keep dreaming. And yes while having a phone that just works and one that is open isn’t mutually exclusive in principal but it is in practice especially once you account for economics. Like it or not securing an open system is harder, and companies don’t like investing time and money developing features hardly anyone will use.
        • t0astbread 6y ago
          Well, you're right, Android does offer more extensibility than people give it credit for: If you're okay with its heavyweight development tools you can (for example) write a custom launcher to change some of the UI and you can extend/intercept some system functionality with apps. There's also Termux which offers a Linux shell environment based on the underlying kernel combined with APIs for Android-specific functionality. It's actually quite powerful, you can run scripts or daemons in the background without a problem. But what I mean is most of the system isn't really open like that. Configuration, application data and stuff like that is mostly managed by the system and you can't access or change that data without major hacks. Termux feels like a second-class citizen because most of the ecosystem isn't built with something like it in mind (in contrast to the "CLI-by-default" experience on other Linux systems). There's also a few (non-embedded) system components like the backup system (which, if I'm not mistaken, is provided by the Google Services Framework) which you can't easily replace. Of course, when it comes to security this is not something you should give to anyone who doesn't know to protect themselves using it. And I assume it wouldn't be a financial success either, I just guessed this is what people mean when they say they don't like Android because it's too restrictive.
        • brnt 6y ago
          I've been using LineageOS for some years now, on 5 phones so far, and it has been, apart from initial installation, 'just works'. It auto updates, I never have to compile anything, I wouldn't know how to.
    • Silhouette 6y ago
      Usually I'm a sceptic about Linux taking over the world, but this is actually the one situation where I could believe substantial progress might be made. If someone developed a slick UI for the basic phone functionality and a genuinely open Linux-based platform, provided compatibility with the major APIs needed to write Android apps so portability was easy, and maybe even funded the whole thing using an app store that took a fraction of the cut that Google and Apple demand, I could see that sort of model gaining enough traction to be viable. Unlike on the desktop, most important phone apps aren't so large and complicated that they couldn't be ported to or reimplemented on a new platform with a realistic amount of effort. You could offer a significantly better developer experience than either of the dominant platforms today, which would be essential to supporting the apps users expect to find available on any mobile platform today but also potentially attracting some unique and better apps over the longer term. From the user's side, they'd be genuinely in control of their own device. There could be real security, stability and privacy benefits as a result, and you could do away with a lot of the things that annoy users of current mobile platforms. As ever, the problem is how to bootstrap a two-sided market. It would probably have to be extremely easy for developers to port their existing Android apps. You might also have to convince one of the major phone manufacturers who can make good hardware at competitive prices to support your platform as an option, or possibly make it easy to install it as a replacement on existing phones. But with the right promotional strategy even these things don't seem totally out of the question. It's a huge potential market, on a scale where one or more well-capitalised big players in the industry could potentially take an interest.
      • bashinator 6y ago
        Didn’t Canonical try to do something like this?
        • nitrogen 6y ago
          It sounds a lot like Nokia's Maemo, which was doomed by a lack of investment, subsequent renaming to ugly-sounding names, and bouncing back and forth between orgs after Microsoft's agent provocateur sabotaged Nokia's phone division.
    • nitrogen 6y ago
      What I want is a Maemo-based phone, with at least 20% marketshare and an Android compat layer so there is an ecosystem to support it, and the same camera as any other flagship level phone.
      • dogma1138 6y ago
        Well you can buy an Xperia 10 which whilst isn’t a super high end phone is still pretty decent and it runs SailFishOS... but then again you can probably count the number of people that did that on your fingers. The issue is that whilst people want it there is never a good enough “reason” for that other than I want it, Maemo doesn’t give you more freedom than what AOSP does already at least not on the software level, you can degoogle and Android phone completely and do w/e you want with it. However people don’t seem to be doing that, and those who do often do that for academic purposes rather than to have their own personalized daily driver. Even more so often the wishes of many people when it comes to customization doesn’t even require a rooted phone and a customized AOSP ROM, if you look at what people customize on their desktop which is often limited to their desktop environment and their workflow can be done on stock Android using alternative launchers and other apps. Wanting for an Android competitor for the sake of having competition is fine, but it won’t look much different or it won’t be much of a competitor.
        • nitrogen 6y ago
          The problem I see is that distributed collective action, like a bunch of people all choosing to support one contender against the duopoly, isn't achievable by the open source ecosystem. It's fragmentary by design and by personality. So there are a lot of things you "can" do, but no turn-key solution I can buy from a store or download from GitLab. The other problem is that you have to choose between hardware quality and customization, because hardware is locked down and there isn't enough economic air left in the room for a third player to be able to invest enough to compete. As for not looking much different from Android, the key difference would be where the control lies, and what the mindset is around control. You should have a robust code signing and containerization/permissions system, but those should be in the hands of users. With Android every single app installs with permission to portscan every network you connect it to. You will have an app store, but the user will come first, not the ad network.
    • windsurfer 6y ago
      I'm currently using an Fxtec Pro1 [1], which has a respectable Snapdragon 835 and 6GB of ram. It was released last year with an older processor but compare the Geekbench scores to the "High end" new Pixel 5 [2]. It unofficially supports quite a few distributions of Linux including Ubports Ubuntu Touch, Sailfish OS, and LineageOS. Official support for Ubuntu Touch and LineageOS is coming next month. It's a niche device for sure but it exists, is being manufactured, and is available for purchase. [1]: https://fxtec.com/ https://fxtec.com/ [2]: https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/compare/4573446?baseline=4715119 https://browser.geekbench.com/v5/cpu/compare/4573446?baselin...
      • larntz 6y ago
        This looks very interesting! Headphone jack and everything! I have an Pixel2 and was thinking I'd get an iPhone next, but I'm really turned off by Apple's behaviour lately. I also don't want to send more money to Google. I'm willing to accept that it may not be as polished as the big players, but how would you say it compares to other high-end Android phones? And if you've tried running linux on it is it usable with reliable call quality?
        • windsurfer 6y ago
          I have been using the device with my own build of LineageOS 16.0. It's an Android-Linux OS but it has a custom Linux kernel where I have been customizing the keyboard driver. There are a few blobs in there but it's not too bad. Reception and sound quality have been totally fine with no complaints.
      • heavyset_go 6y ago
        I've been keeping an eye on this for a while now. Is the battery user replaceable?
      • RonanTheGrey 6y ago
        Whoa. This looks exactly like what I've been looking for. Taking a serious look
  • Silhouette 6y ago
    The trouble with Apple's mobile devices is almost the opposite to Android ones: your data is heavily restricted to the Apple ecosystem (unless you're willing to give up a lot of that privacy) so even you may have difficulty transferring it to other equipment or services you choose to use. The trend may be further in that direction, too, if reports of future portless devices that can only communicate wirelessly turn out to be accurate.
  • itronitron 6y ago
    The highly monopolistic practices are much less of an issue if you don't install any apps.
• narogab 6y ago
  luord says >"...and keep using only Linux ..."< Tempting but, since the last update, Ubuntu's disk indicator flashes every second, reminding me of the doomsday countdown in "Independence Day" and of HAL reading lips in "2001".
• qz2 6y ago
  I’m working on the same thing and the phone at the moment. I doubt I’ll be able to go cold turkey so I’m blowing one app away every two weeks until I don’t need it any more. It’s not as hard as it felt like it was going to be.
  • generalizations 6y ago
    Maps with live traffic is going to be the tough one; at least it is for me.
    • bashinator 6y ago
      This would have been a dealbreaker for me, but now that my company has permanent WFH, live traffic is much more of a would-be-nice.
      • generalizations 6y ago
        I mean, this year of all years traffic is less of an issue, but travel is still a thing in general and I wouldn't want to buy a smartphone just for that.
      • kelnos 6y ago
        I worked from home most of the time before COVID, and still appreciated being able to do a quick check for the fastest route whenever I wanted to drive somewhere, even if I already knew how to get there. There are many other uses for a car than commuting to work ;)
    • qz2 6y ago
      I live in London U.K. and have done 400 miles this year. Decided I’m going to get rid of the car in the new year. That solves the problem :)
      • generalizations 6y ago
        You city people with your public transit. :D Doesn't really work when half the people I know live more than an hour's drive away.
• smt88 6y ago
  What about LineageOS with a non-Google app store?
  • mdpm 6y ago
    I've been trying to execute on this approach, as I'm very interested in checking out of the tracking-by-default ecosystems. We're using some Xiaomi devices we purchased, and I'm currently seething. I can't root without 'unlocking', which is a process that requires me to activate a Mi Account, which then requires my email and a SIM (?!), and 'find my device' (location) to even allow installation of apps via USB. To unlock the computers I bought, so I can use the root account, to install an alternate. Seems the prison walls are just set far enough away that we don't notice. tl;dr, in order to get some privacy, I'm being asked to associate my IMEI, my IMSI, my email, and my location.
    • asdfasgasdgasdg 6y ago
      This situation won't change until these companies are legally required to change, or until they have an economic incentive to do so. If even people like yourself who are interested in rooting don't bother to research the issue before making a purchasing decision, I don't have high hopes for the economic path. So the question is whether there is a sufficiently interested political constituency to get a law passed.
    • andysch 6y ago
      yea it's so annoying to unlock the bootloader on Mi phones.. Samsungs are less a pain
    • mappu 6y ago
      There was a massive wave of phones being sold with unlocked bootloaders with preinstalled malware. How do you stop this? Unscrupulous retailers would buy thousands of your latest phone, root it and sell it for $1 less than MSRP, and make much more than that from injecting extra ads and stealing data. Not to mention, all the bad press "you" get for "shipping a phone with ads in it". Mere tamper-evidence - having a "bootloader unlocked" warning on boot - isn't obvious enough for a new user who has just bought the phone for the first time. So all manufacturers have added time locks and anti-fraud detection for bootloader unlocking. The time lock in particular is the best way to cut down this effect during the early sales process after which time it's hard to catch up in review score. But a time lock can only be implemented securely via a remote server out of the user's hands. Xiaomi getting the telemetry is a cherry on top, but it's not originally nefarious - or at least - it's less nefarious than the problem it's intending to solve
• nunodonato 6y ago
  same with me. I'm buying a new phone soon due to mine being too old and slow. Librem seems like a great choice, even though it still has a quite good share of bugs... but I need to support this effort. It's sad the lack of alternatives
  • 29083011397778 6y ago
    > I'm buying a new phone soon due to mine being too old and slow And you don't think this is related to Google Play Services constantly running in the background, searching for networks, location, open & installed apps, and OS metrics, per the linked article? Reading through r/BlackBerry, it seems my KeyOne is only useable because I've disabled Google Play Services - otherwise it would be dramatically slower with much worse battery life.
    • nunodonato 6y ago
      I might give that a try... I dont use any google services except maps, but there are easy alternatives to that. thanks for suggestion
      • samoa42 6y ago
        > I dont use any google services except maps you may have gotten that wrong 'google play services' is software package (app) that sits between the os (android) and the (other) apps. it provides a lot of middleware like maps and push-notifications. it has grown in power to the point that an android phone without them is pretty much pointless, hence micro-g tries to substitute.
• slothtrop 6y ago
  I ordered my Pinephone this month and patiently awaiting it. Despite what may currently be lacking, it's in a good enough place to be a daily driver for myself. My Blackberry Q10 served me well for years but the battery is starting to go and the OS + apps are no longer supported. I can actually say I've skipped Android/iOS entirely.
  • SuperPaintMan 6y ago
    If you don't mind hacking around and a bit of Jank, you can get the Lineage GSI working on the UniHertz Titan. Still Android, but you keep the HW Kepboard and the batterylife and build on it is insane. Not nearly as clean as stock or the Key2, but much more freedom respecting.
  • fakedang 6y ago
    Fellow Q10 fan here. Only switched to Android for my usual apps because the BB app store is crappy. Else it could run most Android apps, simply by installing the apks.
    • CosmicShadow 6y ago
      I miss my Passport!
  • etaioinshrdlu 6y ago
    You're saying the PinePhone is a daily driver before you've tried it? I just got mine and it is significantly buggier, crashier, and slower than expected. The USB C port is also of low quality. It is overall worse quality than expected.
    • bsharitt 6y ago
      Yeah, I was excited to try to daily drive a Pinephone expecting it to be "a bit buggier" that a regular phone, but it's still a long way to go once I got it.
    • slothtrop 6y ago
• tictok4 6y ago
  !
  • dwighttk 6y ago
    what do you do with it?
    • tictok4 6y ago
      call,text,media player,photos/videos text is insecure but thats not my threat model
    • CompuHacker 6y ago
      One could still make .. how do you say, "telephone" calls? Phones still have a lot of compute and sensor hardware that standalone apps can make use of. Heck, my Galaxy S3 can be a desktop replacement with MHL-out and USB or Bluetooth interfaces. And a lot of patience.