Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

KaiOS

en.wikipedia.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 81 posts

Re: KaiOS

#41

Post by bArray »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #25
bArray wrote: post #22

Can we just build phones with a basic x86/AMD64 architecture and a small BIOS so we can load any OS onto them easily from a micro SD? I recently tried to get Halium boot running for my mobile, it's nigh on impossible if it's more than a few years old. (This was in an attempt to load Ubuntu OS onto it.) Why does it have to be this difficult to try a different OS, when loading an OS onto a new laptop is so relatively e…

The Nokia 9000 had a 286: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_9000_Communicator

As I said in different comment, without something like a BIOS to get some code running with some basic functionality, things are quite difficult [1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21005593

Re: KaiOS

#42

Post by bArray »

Freak_NL wrote: post #27
bArray wrote: post #22

Can we just build phones with a basic x86/AMD64 architecture and a small BIOS so we can load any OS onto them easily from a micro SD? I recently tried to get Halium boot running for my mobile, it's nigh on impossible if it's more than a few years old. (This was in an attempt to load Ubuntu OS onto it.) Why does it have to be this difficult to try a different OS, when loading an OS onto a new laptop is so relatively e…

The problem isn't technical. It's about control (not the user's obviously), and 'must-have' apps that run only on Android and IOS.

Maybe for some, but why almost all but a few "indie" phones are locked down in this way? I suspect it's more about cost as having a "motherboard" chip means increasing the BOM and pushes an already tight PCB layout to be tighter. Still, I really hope there is some way to incentivize manufacturers to do this.

Re: KaiOS

#43

Post by bArray »

inawarminister wrote: post #34
bArray wrote: post #22

Can we just build phones with a basic x86/AMD64 architecture and a small BIOS so we can load any OS onto them easily from a micro SD? I recently tried to get Halium boot running for my mobile, it's nigh on impossible if it's more than a few years old. (This was in an attempt to load Ubuntu OS onto it.) Why does it have to be this difficult to try a different OS, when loading an OS onto a new laptop is so relatively e…

AFAIK PinePhone first edition will run like this. A MVP OS in NAND and in-development Linux Mobile distros (UBPorts, Plasma Mobile, KaiOS et al) running directly from MicroSD

They have a guaranteed customer if this is the case. PineTime also makes me quite excited.

Re: KaiOS

#44

Post by bArray »

akhilcacharya wrote: post #26
bArray wrote: post #22

Can we just build phones with a basic x86/AMD64 architecture and a small BIOS so we can load any OS onto them easily from a micro SD? I recently tried to get Halium boot running for my mobile, it's nigh on impossible if it's more than a few years old. (This was in an attempt to load Ubuntu OS onto it.) Why does it have to be this difficult to try a different OS, when loading an OS onto a new laptop is so relatively e…

If you can do that today with a battery life of over 8 hours (and OS drivers for the cellular modems) I'll be impressed.

Eh, it's not that difficult. What do you think uses all the power in your phone? It's the display, WiFi, cellular, etc. Most of the time your CPU is under-clocked to save power and reduce heat. A lot of the Intel Atom chips will run as passively as an ARM chip will with comparable throughput.

The only thing is PCB space, but even then, I wouldn't except modern chip processes not being able to replicate the BIOS setup in a small chip. It should even be possible to get a BIOS into the same die as the processor to save space.

By the way, the reason for wanting x86/AMD64 is because OSes that support a BIOS are already built for these architectures, whereas anybody building OSes for ARM doesn't expect such niceties, hence the current state of mobile phone OSes. If ARM gained BIOS support, it would too be suitable.

Re: KaiOS

#45

Post by robinparriath »

Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #19
projektfu wrote: post #17

KaiOS supports WhatsApp in India, but not everywhere else yet. That’s probably the one application keeping me on a smartphone.

That's likely cause of exclusivity agreement between KaiOS and Jio. Besides, Reliance (the parent of Jio) is an investor in KaiOS, so is Google.

I have a Nokia 8110 4G bought in India and it has Jio store , a carrier specific version Kai OS store. It has apps curated by Jio for the Indian market.

We get Whatsapp, but lose a lot of other apps. My efforts of using the main KaiOS store have met a dead-end.

It's still a nice phone. I just wish I didn't have a carrier specific version of the KaiOS store.

Re: KaiOS

#46

Post by antsar »

shifto wrote: post #15
throwre434234 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't upvote this enough. There is already very little accountability or awareness about what Google Services do behind the scenes. You make a call, your phone connects to 1e100.net; you change some settings, your phone connects to 1e100.net. It's insane that no one seems to be paying attention to any of these.

Where did you get this from? I just checked my local DNS server and my home devices have never attempted to connect to this domain even though I have quite a few android devices.

It's an internal domain. The user-facing stuff uses vanity domains (google, youtube, etc) but the servers' "true" hostnames reside in 1e100.net.

https://support.google.com/faqs/answer/174717?hl=en

For example, here's the IP I get for "google.com":

    $ dig google.com +short
    172.217.10.238
A reverse lookup on that IP resolves to...

    $ dig -x 172.217.10.238 +short
    lga25s59-in-f14.1e100.net.
So, you're most certainly connecting to things in that domain, which is just a roundabout way of saying you're connecting to some Google property.

Re: KaiOS

#47

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

throwre434234 wrote: post #10
5trokerac3 wrote: post #8

> As of February 2018, KaiOS Technologies has partnered with Airfind, Facebook, Google, Twitter... The Nokia KaiOS devices come with built in Google services, which instantly disqualify them for me. I don't trust that information from those phones aren't being seeded to Google.

Can't upvote this enough. There is already very little accountability or awareness about what Google Services do behind the scenes. You make a call, your phone connects to 1e100.net; you change some settings, your phone connects to 1e100.net. It's insane that no one seems to be paying attention to any of these.

I'm seeing lots of traffic to amazonaws now too.

Re: KaiOS

#48

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

justicezyx wrote: post #39
Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #29

It's remarkable what KaiOS has achieved when the behemoths like Microsoft, Blackberry who tried to become the 3rd player in the smartphone OS wars failed. KaiOS is now holds the 2nd position in India. Cyanogenmod had a slim chance to pull off what KaiOS did, as it took a similar first approach but failed miserably with its exclusivity agreement with two companies (OnePlus & Micromax)! But the growth of KaiOS came fro…

You miss the point, Kaios would be killed in any situation if it were part of Microsoft or Blackberry or Google. Their appetite has no minor project like this...

I didn't suggest it was/wasn't part of Microsoft or BB, I suggested it pulled of something which they didn't; Google was not even in that statement.

Even Firefox itself wouldn't have been able to pull this off because it's FSF philosophy would have been in conflict with exclusivity agreements which KaiOS offers to the carriers & also it being a closed source.

Although FSF supporter in me wishes FireFoxOS had survived even at enthusiast level like Ubuntu Touch does.

Re: KaiOS

#49

Post by Abishek_Muthian »

robinparriath wrote: post #45
Abishek_Muthian wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's likely cause of exclusivity agreement between KaiOS and Jio. Besides, Reliance (the parent of Jio) is an investor in KaiOS, so is Google.

I have a Nokia 8110 4G bought in India and it has Jio store , a carrier specific version Kai OS store. It has apps curated by Jio for the Indian market. We get Whatsapp, but lose a lot of other apps. My efforts of using the main KaiOS store have met a dead-end. It's still a nice phone. I just wish I didn't have a carrier specific version of the KaiOS store.

What is the main difference you see between WhatsApp on KaiOS and that of android/iOS.

Re: KaiOS

#50

Post by seniorivn »

CaptainZapp wrote: post #23
5trokerac3 wrote: post #8

> As of February 2018, KaiOS Technologies has partnered with Airfind, Facebook, Google, Twitter... The Nokia KaiOS devices come with built in Google services, which instantly disqualify them for me. I don't trust that information from those phones aren't being seeded to Google.

It's not only that. I really gave it a shot and I'd be totally willing to accept a phone with reduced functionality as long as I can use it as a hotspot. The problem is that that thing is so buggy and error prone that it's borderline unusable. Initially it could do Umlauts (Language setting is German), but can't anymore since it ran a software update. Email (very primitive, but would have been fine for on the road) i…

You can use dozens of android phones with custom ROM without any google services. It's usable and a lot more private than iPhone(which is only better than google because they failed to build a successful ad network) But for example if you are in any authoritarian state like china, Apple will hand over all your data to authorities, just in case. And Google at least some time before hasn't agreed to do that and got screwed over(now they are trying to get back to mainland market by building censorship search, sucking up to Huawei and other CCP(Chinese Communist Party) branches)
Post reply on HN