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Why a European mobile operating system can’t challenge Android and iOS

• McDev 4y ago
  >First of all, Stryjak should have been aware that /e/OS is compatible with any mobile application from the Android world This is probably because /e/OS IS Android. It also contains microG, an open source framework that talks to Google Play Services.
• VBprogrammer 4y ago
  The title is a bit misleading here. The article is actually arguing against the title. Europe is so heterogeneous that any claims about it as a whole are misleading at best. Germans are probably the most privacy conscious people in the western world, for reasons which should probably be obvious given their history.
  • dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago
    > Europe is so heterogeneous that any claims about it as a whole are misleading at best. I don't think that's the case, especially among the younger generations which are largely English speaking and grew up with the internet. Also, for example, if you looked at the US in detail you'd find just as many cultural difference between individuals states, it's likely true of any large country or federation.
    • aleph_minus_one 4y ago
      > I don't think that's the case, especially among the younger generations which are largely English speaking and grew up with the internet. In Germany and as far as I am aware also in France and Spain - all three are among the largest EU countries - the younger generation is hardly largely English-speaking. Only the more educated people (who studied at a university) are typically somewhat confident in their English, and at least in these three countries English is nevertheless only used as a second/"helper" language. With UK having left the EU, the only EU countries where English is an official language are Ireland and Malta; in both of these countries English is only one of the official languages, not the only one.
      • Semaphor 4y ago
        > the younger generation is hardly largely English-speaking I agree. While I don’t have any direct contact with younger people, our fantasy stores went from being 50/50 English/German products to having 99% in German.
        • yorwba 4y ago
          That indicates that there is no strong preference of English over German, but not that the people buying German products aren't largely English-speaking. If only 20% of German speakers don't speak English, then a store can expect a 25% boost in sales by offering a German version. And assuming German-English bilinguals are indifferent to the language, there's then little reason to offer the English product anymore. It's a winner-takes-all situation. (FWIW, first-time university students have consistently made up >50% of Germans in their respective age cohort for the past decade, so most ≈20–30 year-olds are in that university-educated English-speaking group.) https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-Umwelt/Bildung-Forschung-Kultur/Bildungsindikatoren/studienanfaengerquote-tabelle.html https://www.destatis.de/DE/Themen/Gesellschaft-Umwelt/Bildun...
          • Semaphor 4y ago
            Point taken. Though my experience in university (2005ish) was that most people could hold a conversation, but were often struggling with vocabulary and grammar. > And assuming German-English bilinguals are indifferent to the language Well, I stopped going to those stores because I prefer English, but I’m not exactly representative ;)
    • justeleblanc 4y ago
      > I don't think that's the case, especially among the younger generations which are largely English speaking and grew up with the internet. Have you been to Europe outside of its big touristy capitals? To describe the younger generation as "largely English-speaking" is absurd. I'm from a medium-sized city in northern France. Go there and try speaking English to the young people in the street. See where that gets you.
      • dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago
        OK, maybe I should have been a bit more specific. Most young people speak some English is what I meant, not that it was their primary language, which is obviously not the case. I'm here in coastal Croatia and English ability is common, if mixed, with younger people being mostly proficient. Of course the French are in a class of their own when it comes to (not) speaking English, but I'd still posit there are plenty of young French people who speak or understand English to some degree. If I needed help on your streets with only English I'm sure there would be someone who would be able to help me out.
      • revelio 4y ago
        France is an exception. In most parts of Europe the young people speak excellent English or are even fluent. France takes a sort of cultural pride in the French language that other cultures don't.
        • justeleblanc 4y ago
          I've traveled a lot in Europe. People like to harp on France, but I've found that in most countries, outside big cities, English proficiency was not widespread.
          • revelio 4y ago
            Not been my experience but I guess it depends a lot on what you mean by proficiency. Also depends where you are and who you talk to. In the Nordics I never encountered a young person who wasn't nearly fluent in English. In bigger countries like Germany you can easily find people who don't speak English but they tend to themselves be immigrants and e.g. working in shops. Germans themselves learn it in school and do better.
  • ChuckNorris89 4y ago
    >Germans are probably the most privacy conscious people in the western world Yeah, that's why every morning on the tram I see the average Germans texting on Tinder, WhatsApp, Snapchat, Telegram, and mindlessly scrolling through Instagram and TikTok, the most privacy focused apps on the planet. Sounds very privacy conscious, handing your most intimate data to US & Chinese companies. Also, A lot of German are really into digital banks and brokers lately like N26, Scalable Capital, etc. which report everything to the Government authorities anyway, so I'm not buying the whole privacy angle. Cash usage at small businesses is mostly to enable tax fraud.
    • AlecSchueler 4y ago
      Their lack of privacy consciousness doesn't imply that they aren't the world's most privacy conscious people, in a world where almost no one seems to care at all about their privacy. Germany is well known for giving support to political endeavors which help to ensure the privacy of citizens. Try looking around Munich on Street View.
    • postdb 4y ago
      May be true, but if you ever being to Berlin, and you want to go to a restaurant, you better bring cash. No body accepts cards or electronic payments there. It is a breath of fresh air for privacy focused people.
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      • justeleblanc 4y ago
        This has nothing to do with privacy and everything to do with tax fraud.
        • rs999gti 4y ago
          And credit card transaction fees
  • BjoernKW 4y ago
    More often than not, "privacy" is merely used as an argument to avoid change and slow down progress, though. During the pandemic, for example, remote work tools were routinely criticised or even banned in Germany due to their supposed privacy implications - with schools and public administration often having been the worst offenders. There were civil servants who were "working from home", but in fact couldn't do any actual work because they were not allowed to access their department's intranet from home. There were even teachers who refused to use video conferencing solutions for teaching their classes. While some of that criticism regarding privacy issues with some of those tools might even have been valid, without suggesting a viable alternative, such criticism is pointless and detrimental, because all it achieves is to promote inertia and the status quo.
• riffraff 4y ago
  > I am the creator of Mandrake Linux oh that is where I knew the name from. I have very fond memories of Mandrake. But why does this article has "— Gaël Duval — December 1st 2022" at the end, if it's supposedly published on March 27 2023?
  • pavlov 4y ago
    Maybe it‘s simply creation date vs. last modified.
• dkjaudyeqooe 4y ago
  Yes it's impossible until it isn't. I'm sure people swore that Nokia was also unassailable in its time. What the EU (or someone) needs to provide is a much better product, and personally I think iOS and Android are pretty bad. People are stuck in those ghettos but those with imagination can envisage something much better.
  • palata 4y ago
    Genuine question: do you think iOS and Android are pretty bad from looking at the UX, or from looking at the actual architecture in the underlying codebase? Said differently: do you have any kind of idea about the complexity of the system below the UI? When you imagine something much better, does it involve the security model/team, for instance? Because that's the first thing: you don't ship to billions of devices with a nicer UI: you need a solid system below. The second thing is lock-in effect. Does your much better system require a brand new app store with brand new apps? Because that's how Windows phones failed. Or does your better system reuse Android apps (in which case how is it much better than Android)?
• sampa 4y ago
  the answer is simple, it won't be allowed. only the US can spy on everybody and secretly subpoena US companies
  • drstewart 4y ago
    So why did the US allow GDPR to pass? Weird incongruity don't you think?
    • glogla 4y ago
      GDPR doesn't apply when "national security" is at stake, so the governments themselves are not restricted by it.
    • sampa 4y ago
      they know to choose their battles can't control everything, who'll then believe they're the leader of free world?
  • Joker_vD 4y ago
    That's the rules-based world order and them's the rules. The US's leadership of the world is very important for human rights and freedom.
• GalenErso 4y ago
  First mover advantage. Android and iOS are too entrenched. It would take one of those to lose its competitive edge, like Facebook did versus Tiktok. Or for Europe to borrow a page from China and force their citizens to use this European mobile operating system while shielding it from outside competition, until perhaps it gains enough traction worldwide to challenge the dominance of the other two. It's the same story across industries. Europe missed the fifth generation fighter aircraft boat, so now everyone is buying F-35s. Even if FCAS and Tempest ever get off the ground, the F-35 will be too entrenched in allied air forces to be dislodged. Rockets too. Europe missed the reusable rocket boat, and now SpaceX is eating the Ariane's lunch, for the most part, except for politically sensitive European projects for which they still use more expensive Ariane launchers. The rocket market is more prone to disruption however, because launches are a one-and-done kind of thing. Switching launch provider is easier than switching operating system or the composition of an air fleet.
  • makeitdouble 4y ago
    Neither android nor iOS are the first movers though. They both came after the other players were already struggling trying to make it happen without reaching critical mass.
  • dagw 4y ago
    First mover advantage. Microsoft, BlackBerry, Symbian, Nokia, Palm. They all 'moved' before Android and iOS and at various points in time where the leading players in their market segments. Yet they all rested on their laurels and fell to Android and iOS.
    • postdb 4y ago
      iOS is really the game changer that brought a new paradigm of using a computer in your pocket. Andriod is a just copy of iPhone/iOS.
      • dagw 4y ago
        iOS is really the game changer Agreed, but not by being first. Apple won by waiting till the time was right, all the technology was mature and then executing everything better than everybody else. And if we look across the past decade or so we'll find plenty of times that Apple and iOS copied features first seen in Android phones.
• glogla 4y ago
  I mthink realistically, as long as Google can abuse its market position to make any other mobile OSs nonviable by withholding access Gmail and Youtube and so on, nothing can challenge Android and iOS (which has the critical mass so that Google can't do this to get rid of it). Even Microsoft with its infinite money failed when competing, because a monopoly to most of the Internet's email and video is just that powerful.
  • yosito 4y ago
    I think you overestimate the importance of Gmail and YouTube in Europe.
    • justeleblanc 4y ago
      I'm amazed at these posts. Where have you been in Europe? I live in France and near everyone's personal email is @gmail.com. Youtube is still king (though twitch and tiktok are killing it with the younger people).
      • yosito 4y ago
        I'm Hungarian. While I do know a few people who make a living as YouTubers, I don't feel that it's for everyone. And while Gmail is well-known, I'm pretty sure it doesn't have more than 50% of the email market here. When I've been in Germany, it seems like no one uses Gmail at all.
  • acdha 4y ago
    Windows Phone was more about Microsoft’s failure to execute - I remember users complaining that even Microsoft’s own apps were notably better on iOS. These days I’d also think the bigger question would be availability of popular streaming music & video apps and Tik Tok.
  • phh 4y ago
    If I was making an OS in Europe, I definitely wouldn't mind shipping Google's gmail + youtube Android apps in a non-Google OS. I have very little doubt that the EU's anti-trust would side with me.
• 0xDEF 4y ago
  Android is a mobile-specific middleware layer running on a European operating system.
  • yosito 4y ago
    And creating a Google-free fork of Android for the European market would be relatively easy. You'd basically just need a European Android App Store to replace Google Play. The rest is details.
    • em-bee 4y ago
      that's exactly what /e/OS-Murena is doing.
  • em500 4y ago
    Which European operating system is that? Android is built on AOSP and the Linux kernel, neither is particularly European.
• thepangolino 4y ago
  Most alternative linux based operating systems such as Sailfish OS(0.) or PureOS(1.) are perfectly able to run Android apps. It is purely a licensing issue. 0. https://tuxphones.com/purism-librem-5-run-android-apps-anbox-linux-fdroid/ https://tuxphones.com/purism-librem-5-run-android-apps-anbox... 1. https://docs.sailfishos.org/Support/Help_Articles/Android_App_Support/ https://docs.sailfishos.org/Support/Help_Articles/Android_Ap...
• makeitdouble 4y ago
  > Let’s think of it this way: would you switch to a phone that didn’t have a native Gmail app? Or Twitter? TikTok? Instagram? It would take an inordinate amount of time just for those companies to port over their software — and they’re some of the best-resourced organisations in the world. “ The funny thing is, these services all have fully functional websites and have no specific elements that need to be native. A PWA would be enough, except perhaps for Instagram and the camera/movie filters, and TikTok for the movie editor which could need to be separate apps.
  • b112 4y ago
    But then how would they get your contact list, geo-location, track you, and other things which generate profit?
  • AlecSchueler 4y ago
    WhatsApp would be the only thing you couldn't replace with a web version, since you need to use WhatsApp on your phone to verify your session. Sites like Instagram will also become increasingly aggressive in pushing you towards the app as you use the mobile web version until it eventually denies you new content. I believe Twitter and TikTok are the same.
    • phh 4y ago
      Whatsapp does have a PWA variant though, used in India for KaiOS (which is pretty much FirefoxOS)
    • gibspaulding 4y ago
      I use Instagram mostly through the web interface (because uBlock Origin), and while it works pretty well on desktop, on mobile Firefox its super buggy and generally not a great experience. It's worth it for me to see what's going on without adds, but I can't imagine most people would accept the tradeoff.
    • makeitdouble 4y ago
      There's a bunch of other social media services (Line does something similar, mixi does too) that force some anchoring to a mobile phone, probably to guarantee access to the phone number and be sure to have you use the service on the go. I think they care less about being native than having direct access to your phone and data. An alternative OS giving similar privileges to PWA could probably be rubber stamped by these services. (do we want that though ?)
• kyrra 4y ago
  My take on why a third mobile OS is hard is that phones don't have a standard BIOS type system that gets all basic I/O working on it. So having an OS that can install on existing phones is a bunch of work. And there were previously other OSes. Microsoft has windows phone with its tiles. There was WebOS. And some others. At the commercial phone OS level, it seems it's hard to be profitable unless you have tons of users. For the Linux like phone OS, I'd love to see one, but I feel like we get back to my original point, supporting existing hardware is hard due to device specific BSPs needed.
  • phh 4y ago
    > My take on why a third mobile OS is hard is that phones don't have a standard BIOS type system that gets all basic I/O working on it. So having an OS that can install on existing phones is a bunch of work. You can have AOSP-based OS (nowadays "smartphone OS" covers a whole bunch of stuff that isn't in AOSP so I don't consider that it's the same OS) that re-uses original Android OEM drivers. You can take pretty much any Android smartphone (assuming it doesn't prevent you from running your own software) and run an AOSP-based OS on it with literally 0 effort. That's called Project Treble, or GSI. You'll find dozens of ROMs (both Google Android, and Google-less) that will work on pretty much any modern (less than 4 yr old) Android smartphone. Even better, it is possible to use those drivers meant for Android on GNU/Linux through Halium. There are even tech demos where you don't need original kernel source or anything, you just flash it, and it mostly works on any modern-ish Android smartphone that lets you flash your own software. Really, the drivers and hardware support has no reason to be a blocker in the 2020s (I'm not saying it's totally free though) to make a new mobile OS, except that you're stuck to support a wide range of rather old vendor Linux kernels. PS: The future is brighter, and in few years you'll probably be able to make a really brand new OS, that will run in a VM with drivers running in another VM alongside yours
    • palata 4y ago
      > You can have AOSP-based OS I call those Android flavours. Those are not separate OSes. Windows Mobile was a third mobile OS. /e/ OS is not. Just like there are not tens of different browsers out there: all the Chromium-based are essentially Chrome with small changes (that people care about, but still small changes).
• PaulHoule 4y ago
  It sounds like it's basically an Android fork in which case it's arguable that it "challenges Android" although, like Amazon's Fire OS, it challenges parts of the ecosystem built on top of Android.
  • jansan 4y ago
    THis isn't necessarily a contradiction. Microsoft Edge is basically a Chrome fork, and without doubt challenges Chrome.
    • tzs 4y ago
      Microsoft has a big advantage though due to their size. Microsoft has the resources to fix bugs, implement new standards, and add new features themselves without using any new Google work. They've got the resources to make it so the relationship of Edge to Chromium is like the relationship of Chromium to Webkit, or of Webkit to KHTML. Small companies making a fork of a big Google project like Chromium or Android are much less likely to be able to do that. They are likely to have to keep porting over much from Google to keep their project relevant. That makes it a lot harder to really challenge the Google project.
• zoobab 4y ago
  There is space for a new runtime, a Python phone. Creating a simple app for iOS or Android is way too complicated. And the EU DMA's legislation sucks at replacing the entire OS, it will just cement the existing oligopoly, without any right for the end user to have a app store where you can replace the OS, only the apps.
  • tiedieconderoga 4y ago
    Sounds like a very cool idea, but isn't that the problem that Electron was trying to solve? Write your app once in easy-to-use JS, run it anywhere?
    • wizzwizz4 4y ago
      It's also the problem that Microsoft's HTML Applications were trying to solve. Also the problem that Microsoft's VBScript was trying to solve. Also the problem that Chrome PWA were trying to solve. Also the problem that Apple HyperCard was trying to solve. Also the problem that Borderland Delphi was trying to solve. Also the problem that Bubble(.io) was trying to solve. It's an old problem. Nobody's yet solved it for good.
      • zoobab 4y ago
        "Nobody's yet solved it for good" What we have now is 2 giants imposing the programming language we have to use.
        • LelouBil 4y ago
          We still have a ton of different ways to build cross-platform apps.
        • palata 4y ago
          Do you mean that Swift/Kotlin are the problem? I completely disagree, those are amazing languages. The "problem" that all those technologies are trying to solve is that people want to be productive without learning the tools.
• favsq 4y ago
  The tech sector in Europe is really pathetic. The only arguments that European tech products use to support themselves are "it's European" and "protects your privacy" (as in, it follows the GDPR, as any other product from other countries would). Just look at this article: it doesn't say "a third mobile OS can't challenge..." but "a European mobile OS can't challenge...". They aren't even shooting for "good" anymore, just "European"
  • the-smug-one 4y ago
    >Just look at this article: it doesn't say "a third mobile OS can't challenge..." but "a European mobile OS can't challenge...". They aren't even shooting for "good" anymore, just "European" That's the original NextWeb article title.
  • aleph_minus_one 4y ago
    > They aren't even shooting for "good" anymore, just "European" This can also be interpreted differently: there is so much distrust with respect to the privacy that US or Chinese products provide that it does not have to be "good" to still get accepted.
    • rs999gti 4y ago
      > with respect to the privacy that US or Chinese products provide Does this mean that EU apps all charge subscriptions or are advertising heavy in order to provide their service and data privacy? They are not charities so if they are not selling their data, they have to be making money some other way
      • phh 4y ago
        IMO Europeans have much less "we MUST scale to infinity and beyond" mentality than SV culture. Once you have a working product that pays 10 people, just being able to pay those 10 people + a little margin can be enough. And not trying to scale to infinity means cash is used more efficiently, thus small ad revenu can be enough.
    • 4y ago
• azubinski 4y ago
  But it's not an "European mobile operating system", it's a “deGoogled” version of Android OS. How can Android OS challenge Android OS?
  • QuarterReptile 4y ago
    To me, the real question is how this differs from Graphene OS, which has the advantage of already working- so much, so, it seems, that they get security patches faster than almost any other Android phones. And then it's a game of re-Googling your de-Googled phone for most people, it seems. Privacy-respecting phones already exist in the US market (I think it's pretty much illegal in Europe to get cell service without government ID, but that's not firsthand). If you think you care, buy https://inteltechniques.com/book7a.html https://inteltechniques.com/book7a.html, get a Pixel phone, and try for yourself. Ironically, they're handicapped by Google's SoCs being quite bad (though seemingly not much worse than most recent Qualcomm flagship products, this most recent generation excepted). Edit: this site suggests that there are quite a few countries in Europe where you don't have to register: https://prepaid-data-sim-card.fandom.com/wiki/Registration_Policies_Per_Country https://prepaid-data-sim-card.fandom.com/wiki/Registration_P...
    • palata 4y ago
      > To me, the real question is how this differs from Graphene OS, which has the advantage of already working /e/ OS already works, I've been using it for 2 years flawlessly. What's the difference with GrapheneOS? They target a slightly different audience. GrapheneOS is really into security, and for that they only target Pixel phones. CalyxOS is based on Graphene and tries to make it more user-friendly (at the cost of being less secure: different users, different threat models). /e/ OS is based on Lineage (I believe), and also tries to make it more user-friendly. They all have a focus on privacy (as in, not being tracked by Google & Co), but they do it differently. I would argue that they are all on the same side.
    • em-bee 4y ago
      as far as i understand the key difference is that /e/OS removes any connections made to google, whereas grapheneOS considers that in itself problematic because that changes the fingerprint of the phone, therefore grapheneOS has toggles to allow making a GrapheneOS device appear to be an AOSP device (from: https://grapheneos.org/features https://grapheneos.org/features ) so it seems that /e/OS implements less security features than grapheneOS. i haven't used grapheneOS so i don't know if there are any other differences. /e/OS certainly is more userfriendly (compared to the lineageOS it is based on)
• poisonborz 4y ago
  Let's be honest here, European <any software tech> can't really challenge the global industry right now. We have a few Spotifys and SAPs as outliers, but due to the legal context, administrative hurdles and reasons much better explained in googleable articles there are ample reasons why the tech sector of the EU is severly challenged, despite still having quite a good amount of brain resources left. Mobile - with its close integration needs with other high tech industries and cutthroat margins - is near the tip of that huge iceberg.
  • paulluuk 4y ago
    It could be that legal requirements are a constraint, but I think that the lack of investors is the real issue. Because we're not really comparing Europe to "all of the US", we're comparing all of Europe to Silicon Valley -- I doubt Europe is a worse place to start a tech company than, say, Nebraska.
    • golergka 4y ago
      > Nebraska is an at-will employment state. This means employees can be dismissed for any reason at any time and without notice when an employment contract or other governing principle is not in effect. https://www.mightyrecruiter.com/recruiter-guide/at-will-employment-wrongful-termination-laws-nebraska/ https://www.mightyrecruiter.com/recruiter-guide/at-will-empl... Almost any american state is a vastly better place to start a company than almost any european country.
      • pavlov 4y ago
        Do you really think Lincoln, Nebraska is automatically a better place to start a company than, say, Stockholm? Talent availability and local startup ecosystem don't count for anything? All that matters is that you can dismiss employees for any reason at any time?
        • golergka 4y ago
          It's 2023, best talent in tech works from home anyway. A developer in Stockholm would rather work for a corp from Delaware for $200k as a contractor than for a local company where he would be lucky to make $70k post-tax.
• TMWNN 4y ago
  The only successful rival to Apple's iOS came from Google, a planet-spanning company with almost infinite resources. In turn, even Microsoft—also world-girdling, also with Scrooge McDuck's coffers—couldn't compete against Android and iOS despite spending tens of billions including buying Nokia.[1] What other entity in the US—let alone Europe—is anywhere in the ballpark in terms of having the financial, technological, and brand-awareness resources to have a chance? [1] Heck, might be tens of billions even excluding Nokia
  • A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
    Sure, but have you tried using OS generated for MS phone? I remember looking at their phones and their one distinct advantage was an amazing ( for the time ) screen with crazy resolution and excel integration. That was it. Everything else was the same Windows, but more locked ( that at least was my first impression; after that I did not care enough to keep track of it. ). It is almost like they failed, because this 'phone' project was an afterthought and it was more important to take down Nokia.
• _rdvw 4y ago
  To answer the title: Maybe because they consistently go months without providing basic security updates to their users, phoning home to Google out of the box despite advertising otherwise, selling devices that are already end-of-life, and even leaking user-data to other users as I note in my list with cited sources here: https://divestos.org/misc/e.txt https://divestos.org/misc/e.txt Noting my bias as having my own Android fork.
  • A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
    Thank you. I was not aware of DivestOS, but it will be on my radar now as a possible alternative.
  • palata 4y ago
    DivestOS seems like a nice project. However, every single time I read about it, it is from the author. Not by explaining why I should like DivestOS, but by explaining over and over again why other Android alternatives are so very very very bad. To me it's a bit like those people who keep telling everyone and their dog that "Signal is ridiculously insecure because they require your phone number". I guess in the hope of converting them to their own secure messaging app that nobody has ever heard about and that requires 17 steps to add a contact. But in reality, I'm pretty sure that they push people back to WhatsApp/Telegram. That is counter-productive IMHO, because they would benefit from people getting open to Signal (if people refuse to install Signal, they probably won't remotely consider those exotic super-secure apps). Same thing here. If my parents can move to /e/ OS, that's great for all the alternative Android flavours, because it means that they moved away from Google/Samsung/etc. But if you go tell my parents that they need GrapheneOS, with a Pixel phone, and that their most important apps don't run there "for security", then my parents will just stay on the Android from Samsung. I guess DivestOS is a nice idea, but honestly the behavior of the author (criticizing all efforts I can see out there) does not make me want to look into it.
    • _rdvw 4y ago
      > Not by explaining why I should like DivestOS Because I'm not trying to shill my project, but instead provide factual information about others in a thread about them. > because it means that they moved away from Google/Samsung/etc. But they didn't as my link describes. > most important apps don't run there "for security" But this is just wrong, GrapheneOS has superior compatibility compared to systems shipping microG. > criticizing all efforts I can see out there Yet I have pages dedicated to recommendations of projects, thanking people who made it possible, along with many contributions back: - https://divestos.org/pages/recommended_apps https://divestos.org/pages/recommended_apps - https://divestos.org/pages/patch_levels#secure https://divestos.org/pages/patch_levels#secure - https://divestos.org/pages/about https://divestos.org/pages/about It only happens to seem that way because there are sadly a lot of companies portraying themself as helpful open source projects when they really just want to sell insecure devices to pad their pockets.
• FrankyHollywood 4y ago
  There is Sailfish OS, been using it for a couple of years now... works pretty great. Not free, but that's kind of the point, you pay for a product so they don't have to get your money in some hidden way. There are native apps, and you can download Android apps from open app stores. I was surprised how many companies deploy to these open stores, like my own bank. https://sailfishos.org/ https://sailfishos.org/ "Sailfish OS is a European alternative to dominating mobile operating systems"
  • palata 4y ago
    Interesting, I have never seen a Sailfish phone. > With Sailfish OS you can run beautiful gesture-based native apps powered by Qt framework I wonder how Qt mobile apps can remotely compete with iOS/Android ones. Like... do they actually have mobile devs willing to write mobile apps in Qt? That's a genuine question. I, for one, wouldn't want to.
    • mariusor 4y ago
      The ecosystem is not great, I think Jolla doesn't really have the resources to promote good mobile applications, and none to dedicate to convince existing mobile developers to create QtQuick versions. Despite that, the hobbyists are making things, and they work decently well most of the time.
      • palata 4y ago
        Sounds fair. And they support Android apps, which is cool.
  • Yizahi 4y ago
    I find it funny to see a GDPR banner on the privacy oriented website. It means that they are storing more PII and/or longer than is really needed, the question is why.
• devsda 4y ago
  > Let’s think of it this way: would you switch to a phone that didn’t have a native Gmail app? Or Twitter? TikTok? Instagram? It would take an inordinate amount of time just for those companies to port over their software — and they’re some of the best-resourced organisations in the world Another reason, many of these apps collect lots of user data to monetize it. Judging by the way they reacted to iOS privacy changes, we can guess how a more privacy focused OS will be treated. Even if /e/OS has android app compatibility, there's no guarantee that these vendors will not cripple functionality when they detect that the OS is not android.
  • palata 4y ago
    > Even if /e/OS has android app compatibility, there's no guarantee that these vendors will not cripple functionality when they detect that the OS is not android. /e/ OS is Android. Just without the Google & Co trackers. /e/ OS does not prevent apps from leaking your data: it removes the trackers from the system. Then you have to choose your apps wisely, like on any other OS.
    • A4ET8a8uTh0 4y ago
      Yes, but, note for comparison how, firefox, chrome or its derivatives are treated when they try to use Origin, NoScript and the like. Websites don't like it. It used to be they would try to fail gracefully, but that is increasingly not the case. More often than not, I get an error suggesting I don't use firefox ( the error is not really about firefox since website works just fine with extensions turned off ).
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      • palata 4y ago
        Right. Yeah sure, apps can cripple functionality if they detect that there are no Google Services. In fact some apps just crash. In my 2 years on a de-Googled phones, I have had only 2 apps that crashed (presumably because I don't have the Google Services), one of which I did not really care about. The other is my banking app though, so I just had to get used to not having it :-).
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• lifeinthevoid 4y ago
  sidenote: /e/OS is a horrible name imo, the slashes are just confusing.
  • marban 4y ago
    I thought it was a typo referring to Reddit.
  • em-bee 4y ago
    unfortunate accident because the previous name had a trademark issue. so they used this temporary name until they could get a new name that is trademark safe. my guess is that they chose a horrible name intentionally, in order to avoid trademark risks and make it easier to change the name later. that new name appears to be Murena, but it looks like they decided to use Murena only as a brand for the phones that they sell themselves, leaving /e/OS as the name of the actual software.
• asow92 4y ago
  As a mobile developer: The two primary OS ecosystems are already difficult to develop for. And we already kind of have a third if you count Amazon Fire, as they run Android without Google services, which creates all kinds of edge cases specific to this OS flavor. What could end up happening is the smaller OS markets would end up getting a lower quality of service because it's hard for product teams to justify the dev and maintenance time investment for smaller user bases. Stretching us thiner than we are will mean a lower quality of service for all app users unless it becomes easier to develop for multiple OS flavors at once. And no, RN and Flutter are not silver bullets here: they come with their own tradeoffs that each team must assess for their product.
  • palata 4y ago
    > And we already kind of have a third if you count Amazon Fire, as they run Android without Google services Genuine question: how is that different than e.g. /e/ OS? It's not like there are tons of alternative Android SDKs. I essentially see this: - iOS - Android with Google Services - Android without Google Services - others Of course you need to support the first two. Apparently you do support the third, which is great. But then I would think that if it works on Amazon Fire without the Google Services, it will work on a de-Googled /e/OS, CalyxOS or GrapheneOS.
    • asow92 4y ago
      Real world example: One of the app teams I work with has apps for iOS, Android with Google Services, and Android without Google Service (FireOS). The FireOS app is behind the Google app and here's what one of the Android devs had to say about it: "There are a few libraries we use that aren't supported on Amazon, but the big ones are that it doesn't have access to the Google Play store or Google Play Services. Amazon has their own app store and subscription system, which isn't too bad conceptually, but it does require restructuring the subscription code to have a more generic store interface, and implementing that for the Amazon store Google Play Services is more of a pain. They've become much more integral to Android apps generally since we last updated the Amazon app, and we've also become more heavily dependent on things like Google Analytics/Google Tag Manager. The native APIs for those rely on Google Play Services. The suggestion from Amazon seems to be to use the javascript versions, which I think means creating a dummy webview and invoking javascript through it." So there is a time cost associated with maintaining this bifurcation which may not match up with the potential return. Granted, this maintenance may be a one-time investment or can be thought of when designing a new app, but many apps have been around for years at this point and have plenty of baked in assumptions about the OS ecosystem that it's running on. I'm not saying alternate OSs can't be done, but it will be a hard sell for many app product teams unless engineers add support out of love for the project on their own time.
• 35mm 4y ago
  As a European - maybe try starting WhatsApp? Even the police use this for public facing communication in Spain. The EU could put some cash into an open solution.
• palata 4y ago
  The title is confusing, because it's a quote of yet another article. The linked article explains why they believe this is wrong. That has the interesting side-effect of revealing who has been commenting here without reading the article, though :-). Which is kind of funny, because the original article that was criticizing /e/ OS did not actually really know what /e/ OS was... it seems like no one is interested in hearing the others, just sharing their uninformed opinion.
• jagermo 4y ago
  my take: It's apps. Windows mobile had decent hadware, but not enough relevant apps. Blackberry had a huge market share and a fantasic messenger, but not enough relevant apps. Huawei builds fantastic phones, but has no access to google play and is missing relevant apps. if you want another vendor in the mobile space, you need to solve the app problem, especially around security. It doesn't help if you can sideload programs if they won't start because of security issues. I tried running a custom rom a few years back, but then my mobile banking app wouldn't run, neither did netflix or some of the carsharing apps I use. I would love to see more openness and the ability to use whatever system I want. but I don't think it will work without government mandated access rules akin to net neutrality.
  • kdjfjxidj 4y ago
    your take is bad. bb had android phones with both infinitely better hardware than any google phone to date (it had a qwerty keyboard), and zero bloat, even less than google pixel! i just dumped my bb key2 for lack of updates and got a pixel 7 pro. what a downgrade on every single aspect. bb key2 and priv models were literally everything hn crowd claims will throw money at. they failed. so, everything in your take is wrong. real world suggest the correct answer is only: marketing. consumers are dumb :(
    • jagermo 4y ago
      the bb android phones were horrible sluggish slow devices compared to their older bbos phones or a lot of other android phones. i had a passport and a priv. The passport was the best phone i ever had, the priv was meh. But again, BBOS was missing all the important apps, like sonos, banking or carsharing. But, to be fair, bb made a lot of wrong decisions, from the playbook to Alicia Keys to their Music Streaming service. The phones were the tail end, especially after blackberry handed them over to TLC for production. edit: But yes, agree with the consumer statement.
    • fomine3 4y ago
      phys qwerty crowd are very small and vocal
• AHOHA 4y ago
  Because Europe is now mostly living on past’s legacy, the harsh truth is that without North America (software) and China/Taiwan (hardware), technology wouldn’t have progressed a thing in the past decade or so.