5 ms·

I enjoy the Pinephone, but it certainly has its issues. I’d kill for better performance; it’s very close to usability. I also have some issues with the hardware

by jchw 6y ago

I enjoy the Pinephone, but it certainly has its issues. I’d kill for better performance; it’s very close to usability. I also have some issues with the hardware (it seems my battery has stopped working entirely, recently.) On the other hand, there is one confounding software issue that I think makes it the hardest as a full replacement for a modern smartphone: push notifications. An equivalent for APNS or FCM that allows for relatively low power consumption, low latency push notifications would need to be devised, financed and actually adopted. It’s nice to imagine a world where apps on phones are like how apps on desktop are and just keep, for example, active WebSocket connections at all times, but this doesn’t appear to be something practical with current technology. Maybe federated, E2EE push notifications could come into existence? A sort of ActivityPub of pushes... It’s a pipe dream, but one can hope.

ryukafalz 6y ago
> A sort of ActivityPub of pushes... Now that you mention it, ActivityPub itself wouldn't be bad for this!
aidenn0 6y ago
Conversations.im does jabber on Android without push notifications. It just leaves an idle TCP socket. I haven't noticed latency issues with that, but I'm not a heavy user
- snazz 6y ago
  Having each app run in the background and manage its own notifications can work, but also causes battery life issues with more apps.
  - rubatuga 6y ago
    I mean, if you just have a select() command blocking, I don't see why having a 100 sockets open would be any different than 1 socket.
    - detaro 6y ago
      You need to keep the connection alive, which means regular traffic, which means regularly sending data, which needs energy. More connections mean a) more traffic and b) unless you add some coordination mechanism, waking up the modem more often at random times, which is energy-intensive in itself.
      - rubatuga 6y ago
        I see, we need some coordination mechanism, and at that point, why not just use a central server to manage notifications :)
      - zozbot234 6y ago
        > unless you add some coordination mechanism, waking up the modem more often at random times, which is energy-intensive in itself. You just need to coalesce timer wakeups, which Linux supports already at the kernel level AFAICT.
    - ryukafalz 6y ago
      Part of the problem is that Linux desktop apps typically aren't designed to conserve on network usage and/or don't have mechanisms to do so without a push server. For example, Matrix clients on Android/iOS will stay suspended entirely, then will wake up when you receive a push notification. Desktop clients, on the other hand, will stay running and receive every message, even if they're not messages that you necessarily care about/that would notify. The protocol could in theory have an in-band way to tell the server "hey, I really only care about notifications now, could you only send me those?" but currently it doesn't. By contrast, most Android/iOS apps can rely on push notifications and suspend completely when they're not in the foreground - meaning they're not receiving anything but what's important enough to notify about.
      - aidenn0 6y ago
        > For example, Matrix clients on Android/iOS will stay suspended entirely, then will wake up when you receive a push notification. Doesn't the protocol already need to do something to support that? Presumably it's an out-of-band notification, and they needed to add support for that. If they already added FCM an APNS, they'll have to add something to support a 3rd OS. It could be in-band or out-of-band, but either way sending a message on a TCP connection is really all that is needed. As a side note, Jabber did add an in-band way as you suggest, but then also had to add OOB signalling because Apple disallows open sockets for background apps.
Krisjohn 6y ago
Telegram is pretty good at going ding when there's a new message.
reitanuki 6y ago
UnifiedPush is something that's looking to address this.
wjertyj 6y ago
The lack of a self-hosted push notification system is a massive hole in the user privacy story for users of all phones. I dream of being able to configure my phone (be it android, linux, or ios) to proxy all communication with push services through a host I control. At the nitty-gritty implementation level, I kind of hope the LinuxPhone world adopts Matrix as a standardish notification transport.
- 3np 6y ago
  MQTT seems way more suitable for push. Maybe some system/os level integration needed to make it efficient?
oneplane 6y ago
Without mass-market and the scale that comes with it (including returning income from existing users) it's near impossible to provide the same nice UX as an iPhone or a Google-riddled Android phone. That's the whole problem with most projects and why they neither produce acceptable usability nor a an acceptable price point. It's not that it's not technically possible, it's just infeasible without becoming yet another android vendor. Even just having an 'alternative OS' on existing hardware is a non-existent market, and those projects try very very hard. Adding the hardware problem in to the mix makes it harder, not easier.
- jchw 6y ago
  I’m not very concerned with it competing per se; they managed to put out a fairly compelling package and sell through 30k units. Yeah, they won’t be fabbing custom ARM cores any time soon, but it ain’t nothing. Open source software is a slow burn. It takes time, but projects can grow for a very long time even when things seem dormant, and then suddenly seemingly out of nowhere things are actually pretty good. I certainly was impressed with how well they were able to bring GNOME onto phones so far. It’ll always work best if people don’t consider them to be on the same level as commercial software; it has a different appeal, but one that should not be discounted. Just as there have been so many “year of the Linux desktops,” so to have there been many incorrect calls about the death of it.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  I keep wondering why nobody just supersets Android. Even just having an Android phone which is designed to be repairable and have drivers in the kernel tree so it isn't tied to a specific kernel version, people would pay for that. And then on top of it you can add all of your Google-alternative libraries and services, which need not be perfect immediately to get people to use it because they can start off running Android apps and buying it for the open hardware. But as you get more users, the software improves too.
  - cuu508 6y ago
    The mass market does not care about repairable hardware or open drivers. Using niche open SoC will make the device slower and/or more expensive. The mass market cares about price and performance.
m463 6y ago
I have a librem 5 and it seems quite a bit smoother than the pine videos I've seen. In some pine videos I've seen people swiping multiple times before the touch is detected or an action is taken. I don't know if purism has tighter driver integration, or if the hardware is just faster. I haven't figured out how to get good apps though. I found this ubuntu touch video on another type of phone (?) and it looks like stuff is out there: https://youtu.be/Nf_DnsZHwdE https://youtu.be/Nf_DnsZHwdE
- jchw 6y ago
  Someone at Purism once said the issue was related to memory IIRC. So it’s possible that is a piece of the puzzle.
  - seba_dos1 6y ago
    RAM is almost 3 times faster indeed, but it's not the only thing that matters (CPU clock and double the L2 cache, much more powerful GPU, faster eMMC, better thermals). That's not "tighter integration", that hardware is simply more powerful.
swiley 6y ago
Mozilla has mobile style push notifications for Firefox and you can just leave eg a mail client running in the background using the IMAP IDLE feature for mail. As long as you restrict that sort of thing to just a couple apps it's fine. More than push notifications the WiFi firmware needs a feature to whitelist IPs that can wake the phone from sleep so you get instant notifications from services.

by jchw 6y ago

ryukafalz 6y ago

> A sort of ActivityPub of pushes... Now that you mention it, ActivityPub itself wouldn't be bad for this!

aidenn0 6y ago

Conversations.im does jabber on Android without push notifications. It just leaves an idle TCP socket. I haven't noticed latency issues with that, but I'm not a heavy user

snazz 6y ago
Having each app run in the background and manage its own notifications can work, but also causes battery life issues with more apps.
- rubatuga 6y ago
  I mean, if you just have a select() command blocking, I don't see why having a 100 sockets open would be any different than 1 socket.
  - detaro 6y ago
    You need to keep the connection alive, which means regular traffic, which means regularly sending data, which needs energy. More connections mean a) more traffic and b) unless you add some coordination mechanism, waking up the modem more often at random times, which is energy-intensive in itself.
    - rubatuga 6y ago
      I see, we need some coordination mechanism, and at that point, why not just use a central server to manage notifications :)
    - zozbot234 6y ago
      > unless you add some coordination mechanism, waking up the modem more often at random times, which is energy-intensive in itself. You just need to coalesce timer wakeups, which Linux supports already at the kernel level AFAICT.
  - ryukafalz 6y ago
    Part of the problem is that Linux desktop apps typically aren't designed to conserve on network usage and/or don't have mechanisms to do so without a push server. For example, Matrix clients on Android/iOS will stay suspended entirely, then will wake up when you receive a push notification. Desktop clients, on the other hand, will stay running and receive every message, even if they're not messages that you necessarily care about/that would notify. The protocol could in theory have an in-band way to tell the server "hey, I really only care about notifications now, could you only send me those?" but currently it doesn't. By contrast, most Android/iOS apps can rely on push notifications and suspend completely when they're not in the foreground - meaning they're not receiving anything but what's important enough to notify about.
    - aidenn0 6y ago
      > For example, Matrix clients on Android/iOS will stay suspended entirely, then will wake up when you receive a push notification. Doesn't the protocol already need to do something to support that? Presumably it's an out-of-band notification, and they needed to add support for that. If they already added FCM an APNS, they'll have to add something to support a 3rd OS. It could be in-band or out-of-band, but either way sending a message on a TCP connection is really all that is needed. As a side note, Jabber did add an in-band way as you suggest, but then also had to add OOB signalling because Apple disallows open sockets for background apps.

Krisjohn 6y ago

Telegram is pretty good at going ding when there's a new message.

reitanuki 6y ago

UnifiedPush is something that's looking to address this.

wjertyj 6y ago

The lack of a self-hosted push notification system is a massive hole in the user privacy story for users of all phones. I dream of being able to configure my phone (be it android, linux, or ios) to proxy all communication with push services through a host I control. At the nitty-gritty implementation level, I kind of hope the LinuxPhone world adopts Matrix as a standardish notification transport.

3np 6y ago
MQTT seems way more suitable for push. Maybe some system/os level integration needed to make it efficient?

oneplane 6y ago

Without mass-market and the scale that comes with it (including returning income from existing users) it's near impossible to provide the same nice UX as an iPhone or a Google-riddled Android phone. That's the whole problem with most projects and why they neither produce acceptable usability nor a an acceptable price point. It's not that it's not technically possible, it's just infeasible without becoming yet another android vendor. Even just having an 'alternative OS' on existing hardware is a non-existent market, and those projects try very very hard. Adding the hardware problem in to the mix makes it harder, not easier.

jchw 6y ago
I’m not very concerned with it competing per se; they managed to put out a fairly compelling package and sell through 30k units. Yeah, they won’t be fabbing custom ARM cores any time soon, but it ain’t nothing. Open source software is a slow burn. It takes time, but projects can grow for a very long time even when things seem dormant, and then suddenly seemingly out of nowhere things are actually pretty good. I certainly was impressed with how well they were able to bring GNOME onto phones so far. It’ll always work best if people don’t consider them to be on the same level as commercial software; it has a different appeal, but one that should not be discounted. Just as there have been so many “year of the Linux desktops,” so to have there been many incorrect calls about the death of it.
AnthonyMouse 6y ago
I keep wondering why nobody just supersets Android. Even just having an Android phone which is designed to be repairable and have drivers in the kernel tree so it isn't tied to a specific kernel version, people would pay for that. And then on top of it you can add all of your Google-alternative libraries and services, which need not be perfect immediately to get people to use it because they can start off running Android apps and buying it for the open hardware. But as you get more users, the software improves too.
- cuu508 6y ago
  The mass market does not care about repairable hardware or open drivers. Using niche open SoC will make the device slower and/or more expensive. The mass market cares about price and performance.

m463 6y ago

I have a librem 5 and it seems quite a bit smoother than the pine videos I've seen. In some pine videos I've seen people swiping multiple times before the touch is detected or an action is taken. I don't know if purism has tighter driver integration, or if the hardware is just faster. I haven't figured out how to get good apps though. I found this ubuntu touch video on another type of phone (?) and it looks like stuff is out there: https://youtu.be/Nf_DnsZHwdE https://youtu.be/Nf_DnsZHwdE

jchw 6y ago
Someone at Purism once said the issue was related to memory IIRC. So it’s possible that is a piece of the puzzle.
- seba_dos1 6y ago
  RAM is almost 3 times faster indeed, but it's not the only thing that matters (CPU clock and double the L2 cache, much more powerful GPU, faster eMMC, better thermals). That's not "tighter integration", that hardware is simply more powerful.

swiley 6y ago

Mozilla has mobile style push notifications for Firefox and you can just leave eg a mail client running in the background using the IMAP IDLE feature for mail. As long as you restrict that sort of thing to just a couple apps it's fine. More than push notifications the WiFi firmware needs a feature to whitelist IPs that can wake the phone from sleep so you get instant notifications from services.