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> I'm not knowledgeable enough -- what would it take to escape the Apple/Google duopoly? At this point? Reliable emulation that can run 99% of Android apps, to
by JoshTriplett 11mo ago
> I'm not knowledgeable enough -- what would it take to escape the Apple/Google duopoly?
At this point? Reliable emulation that can run 99% of Android apps, to provide a bridge until the platform is interesting enough for people to develop for it "natively".
I think the easiest way to do that would be to run Android in a VM.
- gunalx 11mo agoYou can go the waydroid style with namespacing, or native containers if using the linux kernel. No need to do a full vm
- deleted 11mo ago[deleted]
- JoshTriplett 11mo agoYou could, but using containers requires that your kernel directly provide and secure Android-compatible functionality, such as binder. A VM gives you more options for abstracting that functionality. If you expect to be "essentially android, but a little different", containers make sense. If you want to build an entirely different mobile OS, but provide Android compatibility, I think a VM is much more likely to give you the flexibility to not defer to Android design decisions.
- lawn 11mo agoSimilar to how Valve is managing the transition from Windows to Linux.
- stOneskull 11mo agoit'd be cool if they made Steam Phone.. it could be to Steam Deck as iPhone was to iPod Touch.
- charcircuit 11mo agoWhy not run Android directly, such as using Graphene OS. It's decades ahead in both OS architecture, developer tools, and developers compared to non Android based Linux operating systems.
- fsflover 11mo agoGraphene uses the Google codebase, so Google is choosing its long-term development strategy and standards it will support. It's like choosing Chromium to escape Chrome.
- DANmode 11mo agoNot the worst choices!
- fsflover 11mo agoIndeed. However, in terms of the independence, better choices exist.
- charcircuit 11mo agoIf someone is making a new browser, considering you want to support the same web standards as everyone else, being independent is pretty low on the priority lists. In fact it is more of a liability since it could make for compatibility issues.
- fsflover 11mo agoI don't understand what you're talking about. Firefox supports all reasonable standards and so does GNU/Linux.
- charcircuit 11mo agoThe same can be said about the Linux codebase. Tomorrow Linus could private his branch and stop supporting public releases. If AOSP goes closed source then people can fork it and continue to maintain it.
- jazzyjackson 11mo agoHas no one mentioned not using a smartphone as an option?
- palata 11mo agoHow do you run WhatsApp or Signal without a smartphone? Pretty hard. If your answer is "don't use them", then you're not living in a country where the vast majority of communications are done on WhatsApp or Signal, good for you I guess.
- _heimdall 11mo agoAccess to Signal and Bitwarden are the only two apps I really need daily that keep me on a smartphone. I have tried using a feature phone in the last couple years, but honestly I might as well just not have a phone at that point as almost all my communication is via Signal.
- udev4096 11mo agoSignal can be used without a phone using signal-cli. You can sign up with it and either attach your account to signal-desktop or keep using signal-cli
- palata 11mo ago"You don't need a smartphone, you can just carry a laptop with you" :-)
- prmoustache 11mo agoYou don't have to be available on instant messaging 24/7. It is a convenience or inconvenience you decides to have or not.
- palata 11mo ago"You don't need to connect to the Internet at all". How is that an answer to someone saying that they don't see how they can stay connected without having a smartphone?
- palata 11mo agoWell if you rely on running Android apps, you still rely on Android. Actually, if you rely on the app, you really on the Android SDK which is not open source. Now if you could run AOSP but your own apps built with an open source SDK, that would be a different story. Some people seem to really want to do that with PWAs. I personnally tend to hate webapps, but I have to admit that they can be open source.
- mschuster91 11mo ago> I think the easiest way to do that would be to run Android in a VM. Sony's cameras used to have an Android userland that they used for their PlayMemories apps. No idea how exactly that one was implemented though, but it should be possible to get Android apps without going into being an Android fork.
- rjdj377dhabsn 11mo ago> I think the easiest way to do that would be to run Android in a VM. The problem is the critical payment and government ID apps that will never run in an Android VM because they intentionally break without hardware attestation.
- A4ET8a8uTh0_v2 11mo agoYep, otherwise, VM is effectively one of the better ( and maybe even safer ) way of trying to escape the established ecosystem.
- lanfeust6 11mo agoIsn't this spoofable with root access?
- JoshTriplett 11mo agoParts of it are, parts of it aren't. Some of it is based on hardware attestation.
- rjdj377dhabsn 11mo agoThe private key used for attestation is stored in the secure element hardware, which runs its own OS, completely inaccessible to the main hardware's OS, even with root. Some apps don't actually check the attestation signatures, so they could be spoofed for now, but if spoofing became common, apps would just get strict about checking attestation.