5 ms·

My honest question is: What's the alternative. I'm not an apple fan. Most of my personal devices run Linux, but I feel essentially trapped on an iPhone. It doe

My honest question is: What's the alternative. I'm not an apple fan. Most of my personal devices run Linux, but I feel essentially trapped on an iPhone. It doesn't seem like there's a truly useful open phone out there. I don't like Apple, and I don't trust them or their ostensibly pro-privacy stance much, but I want as little privacy invasion and as little advertising as possible on my phone, and I think as bad as Apple is, they're still better than a fully Googled version of Android. Unfortunately, a lot of people, myself included, need at least some apps that require either an iPhone or a fully Googled version of android. I suppose there's always the option to dual-wield and use a Linux or de-googled android phone for daily use and keep a second device around for the apps that won't run there, but that is both a pain I don't expect many people to buy into. I'm just about at the point of going this route for myself, but it does feel more like admitting defeat than anything else.

MrStonedOne 4y ago
[dead]
jacksonkmarley 4y ago
> dual-wield and use a Linux or de-googled android phone for daily use and keep a second device around for the apps that won't run there I was thinking about this but what happens with on-the-spot payments? This seems like a functionality that's really convenient (not having to carry a bank card) but that would be on the official device, not the daily use device due to security issues. But paying for stuff in person is a daily use activity.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  > I was thinking about this but what happens with on-the-spot payments? YMMV, but I don't (and won't) use my smartphone for this right now anyway. It's fine. Barely an inconvenience.
danaris 4y ago
My question, building on that one, is: Can there be a true alternative? This is a genuine question, not an attempt to paint Apple as the be-all and end-all or a paragon of perfection (for all that I'm an unapologetic Apple fan, I recognize that they have serious faults). I think there is a strong case to be made that the limitations Apple has placed on the iPhone are instrumental in guaranteeing the privacy and (relative) freedom from crap that makes it as good as it is. There is also a strong case to be made that it should be possible to create a phone (or computer) with nontrivial privacy safeguards, but without the specific limitations Apple imposes. I lean somewhat toward the former camp, as I believe that in a space like smartphone apps, bad actors are both willing and able to do whatever is necessary to make their unethical money, whether that's with extra ads, crapware apps, or just actual malware, scams, and theft. But I would genuinely love to be proven wrong, and I hope that there comes a day when we have a meaningful competition in the space without sacrificing our collective ability to use our phones without fear.
- error503 4y ago
  From a technical perspective, of course it is possible to give users control of the trust on the devices they ostensibly own, rather than giant megacorps, and I remain extremely unconvinced that this leads to a meaningful loss of security or privacy for those users. From a socioeconomic perspective, it's a much bigger question; the allure for those megacorps is far too strong and the economics of the industry makes it hard for society to wrest power from them, and for some reason people seem mostly okay with this status quo. It seems to me that it's inevitable that if we let these megacorps control our devices, they will use it against us in one way or another. The only way for us as users to actually have freedom, security, and privacy is if we can control what entities the device trusts ourselves. We must create choice where the corps would rather we have none. I will also point out that I consider Apple's rent seeking and censorship, that is more or less literally impossible to avoid, to be unethical use of this power they wield over users, and a pretty clear and meaningful way that users are harmed by it. In very concrete ways it can be considered more harmful than malware. But few seem to care enough to ask for control of their devices back, and in many of these threads more seem willing to jump to the defence of these practices than see them as a problem.
JohnFen 4y ago
This is what I'll be doing. There are no smartphones on the market that I feel comfortable with trusting, even a little, so I'll be shifting to using a dumbphone instead, and also carrying a real, honest-to-goodness pocket computer that doesn't have a cell phone attached to it. The phone will be used for exchanging calls and texts. The computer for everything else.
- klondike_klive 4y ago
  Which pocket computer would you choose? Out of interest.
  - JohnFen 4y ago
    I haven't decided. The pickings seem slim, but I'm still working through the options (including the option of building my own).
the_third_wave 4y ago
The solution is a de-Googled Android running an AOSP-derived distribution with an enclave (or 'second space' or 'multiple personalities') for those few Google or Google-dependent apps. You can either use one of the second space/enclave/container apps to create such an enclave or you can enable and disable the apps before and after each use (which is what I do). It is always worth trying those apps on a Google-free device since many of them work fine without having any Google services installed even though the complain loudly about GSF needing to be installed for them to work correctly - the Swedish BankID tool is one of the latter, it always produces a popup telling me it won't work without Google Services but does its job once that popup is dismissed. Eventually there may be a non-Android 100% free software alternative but as it stands now the above solution works fine and keeps the data vampires from your door.

MrStonedOne 4y ago

[dead]

jacksonkmarley 4y ago

> dual-wield and use a Linux or de-googled android phone for daily use and keep a second device around for the apps that won't run there I was thinking about this but what happens with on-the-spot payments? This seems like a functionality that's really convenient (not having to carry a bank card) but that would be on the official device, not the daily use device due to security issues. But paying for stuff in person is a daily use activity.

JohnFen 4y ago
> I was thinking about this but what happens with on-the-spot payments? YMMV, but I don't (and won't) use my smartphone for this right now anyway. It's fine. Barely an inconvenience.

danaris 4y ago

My question, building on that one, is: Can there be a true alternative? This is a genuine question, not an attempt to paint Apple as the be-all and end-all or a paragon of perfection (for all that I'm an unapologetic Apple fan, I recognize that they have serious faults). I think there is a strong case to be made that the limitations Apple has placed on the iPhone are instrumental in guaranteeing the privacy and (relative) freedom from crap that makes it as good as it is. There is also a strong case to be made that it should be possible to create a phone (or computer) with nontrivial privacy safeguards, but without the specific limitations Apple imposes. I lean somewhat toward the former camp, as I believe that in a space like smartphone apps, bad actors are both willing and able to do whatever is necessary to make their unethical money, whether that's with extra ads, crapware apps, or just actual malware, scams, and theft. But I would genuinely love to be proven wrong, and I hope that there comes a day when we have a meaningful competition in the space without sacrificing our collective ability to use our phones without fear.

error503 4y ago
From a technical perspective, of course it is possible to give users control of the trust on the devices they ostensibly own, rather than giant megacorps, and I remain extremely unconvinced that this leads to a meaningful loss of security or privacy for those users. From a socioeconomic perspective, it's a much bigger question; the allure for those megacorps is far too strong and the economics of the industry makes it hard for society to wrest power from them, and for some reason people seem mostly okay with this status quo. It seems to me that it's inevitable that if we let these megacorps control our devices, they will use it against us in one way or another. The only way for us as users to actually have freedom, security, and privacy is if we can control what entities the device trusts ourselves. We must create choice where the corps would rather we have none. I will also point out that I consider Apple's rent seeking and censorship, that is more or less literally impossible to avoid, to be unethical use of this power they wield over users, and a pretty clear and meaningful way that users are harmed by it. In very concrete ways it can be considered more harmful than malware. But few seem to care enough to ask for control of their devices back, and in many of these threads more seem willing to jump to the defence of these practices than see them as a problem.

JohnFen 4y ago

This is what I'll be doing. There are no smartphones on the market that I feel comfortable with trusting, even a little, so I'll be shifting to using a dumbphone instead, and also carrying a real, honest-to-goodness pocket computer that doesn't have a cell phone attached to it. The phone will be used for exchanging calls and texts. The computer for everything else.

klondike_klive 4y ago
Which pocket computer would you choose? Out of interest.
- JohnFen 4y ago
  I haven't decided. The pickings seem slim, but I'm still working through the options (including the option of building my own).

the_third_wave 4y ago

The solution is a de-Googled Android running an AOSP-derived distribution with an enclave (or 'second space' or 'multiple personalities') for those few Google or Google-dependent apps. You can either use one of the second space/enclave/container apps to create such an enclave or you can enable and disable the apps before and after each use (which is what I do). It is always worth trying those apps on a Google-free device since many of them work fine without having any Google services installed even though the complain loudly about GSF needing to be installed for them to work correctly - the Swedish BankID tool is one of the latter, it always produces a popup telling me it won't work without Google Services but does its job once that popup is dismissed. Eventually there may be a non-Android 100% free software alternative but as it stands now the above solution works fine and keeps the data vampires from your door.