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Android source code will be released twice per year instead of every quarter.
by TechTechTech 9mo ago
Android source code will be released twice per year instead of every quarter.
- idle_zealot 9mo agoAt this rate, given a few more years Google will announce that they're moving to a "once a century" release model for AOSP.
- LoganDark 9mo agoThey'll decrease the frequency by a year every year so they never actually release it again
- cyberax 9mo agoWould it be so bad? The recent Androids have been going downhill. E.g. the mandatory edge-to-edge nonsense.
- LoganDark 9mo ago[flagged]
- morcus 9mo agoI am asking out of curiosity and nothing else: what use cases do you have that motivate you to get a new phone every year? Do iPhones get notably better with every release? I'm guessing camera or storage would be big ones?
- hypercube33 9mo agoI'm not parent but a counter perspective - the only three motivations I have are: phone dies camera vastly improves (imo it's been on a decline since the Nexus 6) phone is too slow to use I'm on year 5 of my Samsung s21u that I can replace the Samsung ux slop with asop ports
- LoganDark 9mo agoWell, with this last one they finally made the telephoto 48MP. Also, vapor chamber is nice. I don't know if the 18 will have enough for me to upgrade, and it might even have a reason for me not to upgrade (removing gestures from Camera Control). But so far it's been every year, because I've only been using iPhone for a couple years, and my first was a refurbished 15 Pro Max. The 17 Pro (non-Max) only comes with up to 1TB of storage, but that's still more than my 15 of before.
- cyberax 9mo ago> when I started being able to afford to get the latest iPhone every year. I'm truly sorry about you having to re-live the trauma of using iPhone all the time.
- LoganDark 9mo agoIf it's not for you, that's fine. I used to think it wasn't for me too.
- lrvick 9mo agoIt is not for anyone but Apple, because they control the source code and full remote code execution access to your device at a higher privilege level than you as the supposed owner have.
- LoganDark 9mo agoI trust Apple with that. Maybe not as much as I would've were Jobs still around, but I certainly still trust them more than any Android OEM.
- MarsIronPI 9mo agoIncluding custom ROM devs like the GrapheneOS team or the LineageOS team? That's a lot of trust you're putting in a company that only has their own profit at heart.
- rwyinuse 9mo agoAfter Trump's re-election, I figured that there's not much difference between using a cheap Android from Chinese OEM, or an iPhone. Both will give away my information if the totalitarian government (Chinese or American) requests so. I don't really have particular preference on whether it's the Chinese or Americans spying on me, so in the end it all boils down to price. Chinese Android devices deliver same level of performance and features as Apple for 1/4 of the price. Of course if I really cared about privacy, I would just install GrapheneOS or LineageOS on supported Android device, so no Apple in that case either.
- mixermachine 9mo agoGot to say, I like the current Android versions. In the early days I flashed my Motorola Defy every second month with some cool new ROM. Always rooted and Xposed, always enabling something new. Now I run a S23 Ultra and after two years it still does everything I need. OneUI 8.0 and Android 16. For work (app de) I also have a Pixel 7a, always with the newest Android Beta. Also works well. Even the entry level phones work OK to pretty good now. My Samsung A16 5G (also for work) functions surprisingly well for 150€.
- drnick1 9mo ago> Now I run a S23 Ultra and after two years it still does everything I need. Maybe, but it is fully under Google and Samsung's control, and is choke full of spyware. You couldn't pay me to use a stock (Googled) Android phone for this reason alone.
- LoganDark 9mo agoBack when I used Android phones, tweaking was pretty important to me too. I still remember when I installed CyanogenMod on a Motorola XT1565, those were the days... Eventually, LineageOS, and then some new phones happened, not all of which were rootable, though I eventually ended up with a OnePlus 7 Pro which was pretty tweakable and even opened the possibility of bootloader re-locking, until a TWRP bug wiped my device and I pretty much stopped tweaking. Was never quite able to get EdXposed working right again...
- MarsIronPI 9mo agoHow well is rooting supported on these newer Android versions/devices? If I install LineageOS on my device, for example, I can be reasonably sure that Magisk will work fine. But how well does it work on a stock, locked-down ROM?
- kasabali 9mo agoMost devices doesn't have unlockable bootloaders now thus you can't even root them unless it was a popular device and a temporary /finicky hack was found.
- Groxx 9mo agoGreat. So now nobody gets bugfixes until after the main vendors get priority access to it. for six months. There's no way this isn't intentional hostility towards forks.
- BoorishBears 9mo agoThe writing was on the wall the day they shipped Doze with GPS as an OS feature. All those years back I started calling it, since I built software for (long-lived) HMI devices that ran on Android
- kotaKat 9mo agoWe were doomed when they stopped shipping a dialer or SMS app in AOSP. “Phone by Google” is disgusting.
- lossyalgo 9mo agoAnd then Signal removed SMS support so we're stuck with Gogole's crap.
- Zak 9mo agoThere are several SMS clients on F-Droid.
- Groxx 9mo agoYea, SMS and phone apps are quite numerous. I don't think it's a problem, the subsystems all the apps use is open enough and not hard to build against. Except for RCS, that's completely locked down and is pretty solidly becoming literally just Google. Fuck RCS.
- okanat 9mo agoNot just Google is the problem, the entire industry is the problem. Almost all of the cell-based standards are locked away and purely depend on the operators, major infrastructure companies like Motorola, Ericsson and Huawei and modem implementors like Qualcomm, Apple or Broadcom. Implementing them independently is extremely difficult and even if you manage to do it you cannot have them commercially available due to radio regulation and patents. Even academic research can only be done with collaboration of those huge companies. It is impossible to make a phone that is LTE capable completely independently (or even without nation state support). You cannot implement VoLTE or RCS without support from the carriers. They all have their own proprietary protocol on top of the standards. Google has basically infinite money and their own patents and industry relationships and government support so they can figure out RCS. An indie company, even with infinitely motivated engineers and good funding do not have any of it.
- bossyTeacher 9mo agoThis is them trying to strangle Graphene and LineageOs. We desperately need an ecosystem where manufacturers are legally compelled to publish the source code for their drivers and similar so as to make it easier for alternative Oses to exist. Android will soon become fully closed source. The writing is on the wall.
- yaro330 9mo agoNo, neither of them register as a blip on the usage stats and both have, and will continue having, priority access through OEM partnerships.
- aesh2Xa1 9mo agoThe founder of GrapheneOS commented on this a few days ago here on HN, and basically said it doesn't impact GrapheneOS. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46550366 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46550366
- singpolyma3 9mo agoThe drivers are legally required to be, well not published, but the source sent to anyone who asks.
- TingPing 9mo agoPlenty of drivers are proprietary. There are many ways of doing so, like much of it can exist in userspace, or in firmware, or using a shim in the kernel.
- singpolyma3 9mo agoJust because it's legally required doesn't mean everyone obeys the law I agree.