10 ms·

One doesn't have to dream. Flashing a rom on google-branded phones is so simple, a non-tech person can follow a 5min youtube video to do it. The Nexus 6 from 2

One doesn't have to dream. Flashing a rom on google-branded phones is so simple, a non-tech person can follow a 5min youtube video to do it. The Nexus 6 from 2014 can have the latest android running on it - not just security updates. And unlike an iphone, it has a build that disables some eyecandy that keeps it actually usable and fast. As I understand it if you run the last supported ios on an iphone 5s, with all the patches, you can take a nap while waiting for the answer slider to draw when you get a call. IS that the dreaming you're talking about? During the nap? I'm a tech guy though. had a nexus 6, now got a pixel2. all custom roms, completely degoogled. In addition to phone tasks, I use the phone for solitaire, basic web reading, and email. I charge once per week. Both phones are extremely easy to flash. No hacking or exploits required.

Stephen304 5y ago
I just flashed my pixel 2 to lineage 18 now that it's not receiving updates, and I was disappointed to discover that because of SafetyNet, I can't use Google pay in stores or install the Netflix app. So to me it's still less than ideal.
calvinmorrison 5y ago
Yeah I am running CalyxOS on my pixels, works splendid
josephg 5y ago
I love the openness of android, and the explicit permission to root your phone. But iphones have amazing longevity. The iphone 5s you mentioned came out in 2013 - which is 8 years ago now. Back then Obama was still in his first term. Maybe it is way too slow to handle the most recent version of iOS, but I'd rather a phone vendor that releases operating system updates for 8 years than a vendor who releases updates for only 2 years (like you get with certain android vendors.) Last year I replaced my iphone 6s with an iphone 12. The thing that astonishes me is that I didn't need to. After a battery replacement, my 5 year old iphone was still running fine. It still runs the latest OS, and it ran every app I threw at it with aplomb. I really only upgraded it as a personal indulgence. Its still in use by a friend. I'm absolutely on board with complaints about apple's lock in. I'm disgusted by some of the documents that came out in the epic court case, and I wish you could easily root iphones. But it feels like a stretch to complain about their longevity.
- soylentnewsorg 5y ago
  I love the iphone. I get my wife the latest and greatest every two years, and I forget about it. If she had an Android anything, I'd be spending at least an hour per week on tech support. It's absolutely worth the inflated price for me, and the fact that it's extremely limited in possible features is a bonus. Just like I used to love stick, but now an automatic tranny is great, as my enjoyment is the destination not the trip. Now as far as the iphone 6s being usable - that's my point. It is usable, on the old OS it was designed for. Because you can't load your own OS on it, it will never run the latest. While the Nexus does run the latest, and is completely usable. I do remember when my brother loaded some latest ios on his iphone 5S, and it literally became too slow to answer a phonecall. Apple's lock-in is in my opinion a feature for its target market. That's why they get like $1200 from me every two years. Me, my concern was battery life. For that I needed to not have crap that keeps phoning home and waking up the phone. Imagine charging once per week. While not an issue now, I used to travel a lot. Country-hopping trips. Yes, you can charge at the airport, tied to a full charing pole for an hour. Yes you can charge while sleeping on the plane and have a usb cable hanging in six inches in front of your face getting in the way. Or... You can literally not worry about it for a week. There are of course other things - I want to chromecast my screen or cast a movie from a pirate streaming site (not the youtube app). I want toggles on my lock screen and home screen to turn off data/wifi/bluetooth. I want to turn on the flashlight if I press both power buttons when the phone screen is off. I more importantly need a filesystem that I can store OVAs on that I can take to customer sites for demos - why would I carry a usb stick when my phone is always with me. I want a web server running on it and my laptop to dump a backup of itself onto the phone daily. This means the phone phone software needs to recognize that the phone hardware is a computer, not a toy for 5yo kids. My wife on the other hand needs it to be a toy, because if it wasn't, she'd do everything possible to get viruses, delete everything, and screw something up. So I got an android, she has an iphone. Now, you think I'm complaining about longevity. Let's see the reality though. The post I'm replying to touts the iphone's longevity compared to Android. I point out Android has much, much longer longevity and he has it backwards. You then declare I'm complaining about the iphone's longevity. Now, normally I would normally unload on you with all kinds of funny (for me) things at this point, because you now fit into a certain category of people, but this isn't the place.
vanilla_nut 5y ago
This sounds brilliant. If you were to start fresh today, what device would you use? My aged iPhone is on its last legs, and I’m looking for something on the small side (preferably Nexus 5 sized at most) that I can degoogle and use for telegram, HN, reddit, music, and podcasts. It seems like every older phone has a gotcha, like nonfunctional cameras or missing wireless bands. 7 days of battery sounds magnificent.
- soylentnewsorg 5y ago
  Samsung S10 and S10+ looks to me like the place to be, flashed w/ a custom degoogled ROM. Nokia Maps (here wego), Open Camera, something like Aptoide, K9 mail. https://forum.xda-developers.com/c/samsung-galaxy-s10.8693/ https://forum.xda-developers.com/c/samsung-galaxy-s10.8693/ I did a lot of research earlier, because I don't use a case, dropped my pixel 2xl, and the glass on the corner cracked. I ended up just putting a dab of epoxy on it instead though. I use the carbonOS ROM on the pixel, which os only for pixels I think. You do have to go through a lot of system services and turn off the unneeded ones though. Lots of useless stuff like "carrier services" and "sprint dm" and a bunch of other crap - just google them one by one. An app like Fibers is great too - I use it to do things like display percentages instead of icons, and when I need turn off half the screen pixels. You can do that in low brightness situations like reading this site in bed w/ the lights off, and you can't tell it's half the resolution. Adguard is great too - blocking ads at the DNS level saves quite a bit of battery when online. Now here's the main thing - I do spend a couple of hours per day using it - either for email or reading sites. I get about 4 days from 90% to 25%. I never go below 25% or above 90% - my battery is like new 3+ years later. Another feature that an iphone can't have - an app having access to limit your max charge limit. I'm just guessing that 100%-0% is going to be about 7 days, so I can't fully promise that. Also, a couple of banking apps don't work. The Uber app doesn't work either - you have to use the website versions.
  - vanilla_nut 5y ago
    All of that sounds good except for the phone size. I'd go for a Pixel 5, but... no 3.5mm jack is a dealbreaker. So I guess the Pixel 4a is my only real choice.
jvanderbot 5y ago
Just adding my vote for the pixel 2 with custom Roms and OS. A breeze, efficient, and light.
- soylentnewsorg 5y ago
  it's def not for the iphone crowd though. also the crappiest lineageOS support ever - but lots of other roms. I got the panda version. after 2 months in my side pocket, the white paint that for some reason the google geniuses decided should cover the also white plastic, started peeling off. From rubbing with my leather wallet. completely irrelevant to the functionality, which is the good part about it. searched it and everyone w/o a case is having the paint peeling issue. but... it's a much better issue than the entire phone, front and back being made of glass that breaks and costs $100+ to replace, and falls frequently because it's too slippery to hold in one hand.
DCKing 5y ago
That’s all great - but don’t lure people too much into a false sense of security. While your Nexus 6 may run a shiny new version of Android, underneath it runs a crusty old 2017 kernel full of holes of different sizes. The community is great, but vendor support remains important. LineageOS and other projects can’t fix things in kernels they can’t compile - they can only provide security updates for open source components. That makes Google’s promise here so key. 5 years of updates is 5 years of kernel level fixes. After that, it’s probably left up to the community. I really don’t recommend people to go out and buy abandoned Android phones to flash software. LineageOS and other community projects are a blessing in many many ways, but they don’t make your phone completely up to date. And that’s something one should make an informed decision about (buying an iPhone, I decided against that).
- ablekh 5y ago
  > underneath it runs a crusty old 2017 kernel full of holes of different sizes > LineageOS and other projects can’t fix things in kernels they can’t compile I think that you're wrong on this, that is unless you decided to use term "kernel" above too liberally, referring to all software running on a device. AFAIK, alternative Android images, such as LineageOS, include relevant - and quite up-to-date! - AOSP common kernels (aka Android common kernels or ACKs; https://source.android.com/devices/architecture/kernel/android-common https://source.android.com/devices/architecture/kernel/andro...), which are open source, plus some manufacturer-specific proprietary binary drivers and firmware (though there exist a related, but slowly-moving, project Replicant focused on creating and maintaining a fully open, i.e., kernel + drivers + firmware, Android distribution: https://replicant.us https://replicant.us).
  - arendtio 5y ago
    So would you please help me to find an ROM with an up-to-date Android Common Kernel for my i9300 Samsung Galaxy S3? AFAIK, the only way to run it with working drivers for all hardware components, are ROMs which use the rusty 3.0.101 Linux kernel from back in the day and I think that is what DCKing is referring to. If you want to create a new ROM, you either have to use the old kernel and have an upper Limit of Android 7.x (in this case) or you have to accept, that not all components are supported (e.g. no GPS). I would be glad if the situation would be different. Maybe it is different for phones you buy today?
DeathArrow 5y ago
Wasn't Apple intentionally slowing older phones with updates? I remember reading some news about it.
- kaba0 5y ago
  They throttled performance depending on battery capacity, because the alternative was that the battery could not keep up with a sudden spike, powering off completely. The problem was that they didn’t notify users, and after people in France winning a lawsuit, they now have it opt in I think? Nonetheless, it was a feature made in good faith.
  - llampx 5y ago
    The optics of that were absolutely terrible. They could have announced it in WWDC and made people aware of it. Instead they raised a shitstorm for no good reason.
    - sedawk 5y ago
      Good intent or not, the management execution of it was completely botched. They could have even come out on top by projecting that they care about older devices' usability, if they had announced the feature; it was a no brainier and PR/marketing person worth their salt would tell that. Which makes me question the bit: "good intent on their part" :-|
      - llampx 5y ago
        Yup, planned obsolescence is real and a part of every megacap's strategy.
- user-the-name 5y ago
  Apple was intentionally lowering power usage on old phones with failing batteries, in order to prolong battery life and get you more use out of them.
duckmysick 5y ago
Can you run banking apps on custom roms? The Barclays app refused to run on mine a few years ago, but maybe something changed since.
- soylentnewsorg 5y ago
  it's not a custom rom thing. they check for root and sometimes google play. i have to turn off root if i run a banking app. uber won't work - i use their website version. vanguard app runs perfectly fine on my custom rom, downloaded from the aptoide store.
- aembleton 5y ago
  Monzo, Starling and Curve all work for me on a custom rom. I haven't rooted my phone though.
mundanevoice 5y ago
> Flashing a rom on google-branded phones is so simple, a non-tech person can follow a 5min youtube video to do it Lol, this reeks of how little you understand how much a non-tech person is capable of. A vast majority of Android users won't bother or know how to flash the ROM.
coz131 5y ago
It does not matter if it is a 5 min youtube video, that just wont happen to the majority of the population. Most people can't even change their battery in their car.
major--neither 5y ago
which rom?

Stephen304 5y ago

I just flashed my pixel 2 to lineage 18 now that it's not receiving updates, and I was disappointed to discover that because of SafetyNet, I can't use Google pay in stores or install the Netflix app. So to me it's still less than ideal.

calvinmorrison 5y ago

Yeah I am running CalyxOS on my pixels, works splendid

josephg 5y ago

I love the openness of android, and the explicit permission to root your phone. But iphones have amazing longevity. The iphone 5s you mentioned came out in 2013 - which is 8 years ago now. Back then Obama was still in his first term. Maybe it is way too slow to handle the most recent version of iOS, but I'd rather a phone vendor that releases operating system updates for 8 years than a vendor who releases updates for only 2 years (like you get with certain android vendors.) Last year I replaced my iphone 6s with an iphone 12. The thing that astonishes me is that I didn't need to. After a battery replacement, my 5 year old iphone was still running fine. It still runs the latest OS, and it ran every app I threw at it with aplomb. I really only upgraded it as a personal indulgence. Its still in use by a friend. I'm absolutely on board with complaints about apple's lock in. I'm disgusted by some of the documents that came out in the epic court case, and I wish you could easily root iphones. But it feels like a stretch to complain about their longevity.

soylentnewsorg 5y ago
I love the iphone. I get my wife the latest and greatest every two years, and I forget about it. If she had an Android anything, I'd be spending at least an hour per week on tech support. It's absolutely worth the inflated price for me, and the fact that it's extremely limited in possible features is a bonus. Just like I used to love stick, but now an automatic tranny is great, as my enjoyment is the destination not the trip. Now as far as the iphone 6s being usable - that's my point. It is usable, on the old OS it was designed for. Because you can't load your own OS on it, it will never run the latest. While the Nexus does run the latest, and is completely usable. I do remember when my brother loaded some latest ios on his iphone 5S, and it literally became too slow to answer a phonecall. Apple's lock-in is in my opinion a feature for its target market. That's why they get like $1200 from me every two years. Me, my concern was battery life. For that I needed to not have crap that keeps phoning home and waking up the phone. Imagine charging once per week. While not an issue now, I used to travel a lot. Country-hopping trips. Yes, you can charge at the airport, tied to a full charing pole for an hour. Yes you can charge while sleeping on the plane and have a usb cable hanging in six inches in front of your face getting in the way. Or... You can literally not worry about it for a week. There are of course other things - I want to chromecast my screen or cast a movie from a pirate streaming site (not the youtube app). I want toggles on my lock screen and home screen to turn off data/wifi/bluetooth. I want to turn on the flashlight if I press both power buttons when the phone screen is off. I more importantly need a filesystem that I can store OVAs on that I can take to customer sites for demos - why would I carry a usb stick when my phone is always with me. I want a web server running on it and my laptop to dump a backup of itself onto the phone daily. This means the phone phone software needs to recognize that the phone hardware is a computer, not a toy for 5yo kids. My wife on the other hand needs it to be a toy, because if it wasn't, she'd do everything possible to get viruses, delete everything, and screw something up. So I got an android, she has an iphone. Now, you think I'm complaining about longevity. Let's see the reality though. The post I'm replying to touts the iphone's longevity compared to Android. I point out Android has much, much longer longevity and he has it backwards. You then declare I'm complaining about the iphone's longevity. Now, normally I would normally unload on you with all kinds of funny (for me) things at this point, because you now fit into a certain category of people, but this isn't the place.

vanilla_nut 5y ago

This sounds brilliant. If you were to start fresh today, what device would you use? My aged iPhone is on its last legs, and I’m looking for something on the small side (preferably Nexus 5 sized at most) that I can degoogle and use for telegram, HN, reddit, music, and podcasts. It seems like every older phone has a gotcha, like nonfunctional cameras or missing wireless bands. 7 days of battery sounds magnificent.

soylentnewsorg 5y ago
Samsung S10 and S10+ looks to me like the place to be, flashed w/ a custom degoogled ROM. Nokia Maps (here wego), Open Camera, something like Aptoide, K9 mail. https://forum.xda-developers.com/c/samsung-galaxy-s10.8693/ https://forum.xda-developers.com/c/samsung-galaxy-s10.8693/ I did a lot of research earlier, because I don't use a case, dropped my pixel 2xl, and the glass on the corner cracked. I ended up just putting a dab of epoxy on it instead though. I use the carbonOS ROM on the pixel, which os only for pixels I think. You do have to go through a lot of system services and turn off the unneeded ones though. Lots of useless stuff like "carrier services" and "sprint dm" and a bunch of other crap - just google them one by one. An app like Fibers is great too - I use it to do things like display percentages instead of icons, and when I need turn off half the screen pixels. You can do that in low brightness situations like reading this site in bed w/ the lights off, and you can't tell it's half the resolution. Adguard is great too - blocking ads at the DNS level saves quite a bit of battery when online. Now here's the main thing - I do spend a couple of hours per day using it - either for email or reading sites. I get about 4 days from 90% to 25%. I never go below 25% or above 90% - my battery is like new 3+ years later. Another feature that an iphone can't have - an app having access to limit your max charge limit. I'm just guessing that 100%-0% is going to be about 7 days, so I can't fully promise that. Also, a couple of banking apps don't work. The Uber app doesn't work either - you have to use the website versions.
- vanilla_nut 5y ago
  All of that sounds good except for the phone size. I'd go for a Pixel 5, but... no 3.5mm jack is a dealbreaker. So I guess the Pixel 4a is my only real choice.

jvanderbot 5y ago

Just adding my vote for the pixel 2 with custom Roms and OS. A breeze, efficient, and light.

soylentnewsorg 5y ago
it's def not for the iphone crowd though. also the crappiest lineageOS support ever - but lots of other roms. I got the panda version. after 2 months in my side pocket, the white paint that for some reason the google geniuses decided should cover the also white plastic, started peeling off. From rubbing with my leather wallet. completely irrelevant to the functionality, which is the good part about it. searched it and everyone w/o a case is having the paint peeling issue. but... it's a much better issue than the entire phone, front and back being made of glass that breaks and costs $100+ to replace, and falls frequently because it's too slippery to hold in one hand.

DCKing 5y ago

That’s all great - but don’t lure people too much into a false sense of security. While your Nexus 6 may run a shiny new version of Android, underneath it runs a crusty old 2017 kernel full of holes of different sizes. The community is great, but vendor support remains important. LineageOS and other projects can’t fix things in kernels they can’t compile - they can only provide security updates for open source components. That makes Google’s promise here so key. 5 years of updates is 5 years of kernel level fixes. After that, it’s probably left up to the community. I really don’t recommend people to go out and buy abandoned Android phones to flash software. LineageOS and other community projects are a blessing in many many ways, but they don’t make your phone completely up to date. And that’s something one should make an informed decision about (buying an iPhone, I decided against that).

ablekh 5y ago
> underneath it runs a crusty old 2017 kernel full of holes of different sizes > LineageOS and other projects can’t fix things in kernels they can’t compile I think that you're wrong on this, that is unless you decided to use term "kernel" above too liberally, referring to all software running on a device. AFAIK, alternative Android images, such as LineageOS, include relevant - and quite up-to-date! - AOSP common kernels (aka Android common kernels or ACKs; https://source.android.com/devices/architecture/kernel/android-common https://source.android.com/devices/architecture/kernel/andro...), which are open source, plus some manufacturer-specific proprietary binary drivers and firmware (though there exist a related, but slowly-moving, project Replicant focused on creating and maintaining a fully open, i.e., kernel + drivers + firmware, Android distribution: https://replicant.us https://replicant.us).
- arendtio 5y ago
  So would you please help me to find an ROM with an up-to-date Android Common Kernel for my i9300 Samsung Galaxy S3? AFAIK, the only way to run it with working drivers for all hardware components, are ROMs which use the rusty 3.0.101 Linux kernel from back in the day and I think that is what DCKing is referring to. If you want to create a new ROM, you either have to use the old kernel and have an upper Limit of Android 7.x (in this case) or you have to accept, that not all components are supported (e.g. no GPS). I would be glad if the situation would be different. Maybe it is different for phones you buy today?

DeathArrow 5y ago

Wasn't Apple intentionally slowing older phones with updates? I remember reading some news about it.

kaba0 5y ago
They throttled performance depending on battery capacity, because the alternative was that the battery could not keep up with a sudden spike, powering off completely. The problem was that they didn’t notify users, and after people in France winning a lawsuit, they now have it opt in I think? Nonetheless, it was a feature made in good faith.
- llampx 5y ago
  The optics of that were absolutely terrible. They could have announced it in WWDC and made people aware of it. Instead they raised a shitstorm for no good reason.
  - sedawk 5y ago
    Good intent or not, the management execution of it was completely botched. They could have even come out on top by projecting that they care about older devices' usability, if they had announced the feature; it was a no brainier and PR/marketing person worth their salt would tell that. Which makes me question the bit: "good intent on their part" :-|
    - llampx 5y ago
      Yup, planned obsolescence is real and a part of every megacap's strategy.
user-the-name 5y ago
Apple was intentionally lowering power usage on old phones with failing batteries, in order to prolong battery life and get you more use out of them.

duckmysick 5y ago

Can you run banking apps on custom roms? The Barclays app refused to run on mine a few years ago, but maybe something changed since.

soylentnewsorg 5y ago
it's not a custom rom thing. they check for root and sometimes google play. i have to turn off root if i run a banking app. uber won't work - i use their website version. vanguard app runs perfectly fine on my custom rom, downloaded from the aptoide store.
aembleton 5y ago
Monzo, Starling and Curve all work for me on a custom rom. I haven't rooted my phone though.

mundanevoice 5y ago

> Flashing a rom on google-branded phones is so simple, a non-tech person can follow a 5min youtube video to do it Lol, this reeks of how little you understand how much a non-tech person is capable of. A vast majority of Android users won't bother or know how to flash the ROM.

coz131 5y ago

It does not matter if it is a 5 min youtube video, that just wont happen to the majority of the population. Most people can't even change their battery in their car.

major--neither 5y ago

which rom?