351–360 of 375 posts
It is frustrating to me that despite the blunt verbiage about it being a beta device for software and hardware developers, people even here are griping about it being not ready for everyday use. If a free and open-source mobile operating system is missing software support for a feature you want, please contribute to its development.
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I honestly do not see what is so remarkable about it. It just never seemed to me like a unique vision but instead an effort to adapt some existing X11 tools to a mobile workflow. Which is a fine thing to do if you like those tools, but that's different from having some grand new vision. To elaborate: The use of a tiling window manager with explicit workspaces doesn't really make sense to me on a phone since every app…
> The use of shell scripts doesn't really make sense since editing text on a phone is awful. You don't have to write the scripts on the phone. You can ssh into it from your desktop. Or connect a keyboard and screen.
I've seen some neat code editors on iOS/Android that do some fun things like:
- Have a special keyboard that contains only symbols for the target language
- Handles all editing at the AST level so you can't make typos
- Make heavy use of completions everywhere possible
There seems to be no reason we can't also have that here.
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You can also run non-AOSP based OSes on Fairphone. Its just that people like and require backwards compatibility.
If you're talking about /e/, that's essentially a android fork. It takes away a lot of the tracking, sure, but it's still android.
I am talking about the plethora of OSes available otherwise, such as postmarketOS, Mobian, Ubuntu Touch, SailfishOS, etc. It al runs a Linux kernel though, so anyone can pull the 'but its still Linux' card and discussion is over.
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Language is very small part of it. For example me contributing a anx7688 driver for pinephone to make convergence work was C coding, yes, but also reading through type-c spec, battery charging 1.2 spec, usb-pd specs, alt-dp specs, and figuring out how it all works from 0 knowledge, to tie all that together on a quirky HW design, with several hardware bugs that I had to discover first, and non-cooperating PMIC/and typ…
So drivers are definitely awesome. But at some point adding some usability for “killer apps” on the mainline phones might pull in significant users.
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Really depends how you define the task doesn't it? If it's "I have the ability to message other people" there's plenty of ways to accomplish that on this device. If you define the task as "I need to message other people specifically on a Google/Apple messenger application", well then it's always going to be out of Pine64s hands to some extent?
How about "I need to message other people in a way that doesn't make everyone I know have to change the current way they do things". I wasn't necessarily referring to iMessage. But, WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Slack. To be fair, I've also failed to find a list of supported apps. The best I found was: https://www.reddit.com/r/PINE64official/comments/okjeuk/apps...
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> The use of shell scripts doesn't really make sense since editing text on a phone is awful. You don't have to write the scripts on the phone. You can ssh into it from your desktop. Or connect a keyboard and screen.
Yeah but that kind of defeats the purpose of having a phone, doesn't it? :) I've seen some neat code editors on iOS/Android that do some fun things like: - Have a special keyboard that contains only symbols for the target language - Handles all editing at the AST level so you can't make typos - Make heavy use of completions everywhere possible There seems to be no reason we can't also have that here.
No, I would say it opens up infinite possibilities for useful customizations. Even if you aren't a programmer, someone likely writes a relevant script for your use case.
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How many hundreds or thousands of enthusiasts are needed before it's suitable to be a daily driver? I see the fragmented approach on the software side as a major hindrance to the goal of achieving a device that can be used by a normal person as a reasonable replacement for other smart phones. I check in on it every l every 6 months or so, update my pinephone and give it a few days. So far, it doesn't meet reliability…
One problem is even governments support only the duopoly of smartphone makers. For example, try downloading a "Covid App" for a Linux phone. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_apps
For tracing, at least Sailfish OS has an app called Contrac [1]. I looked into porting it over to other PinePhone OS, but with the CRUST and deep sleep, it would not really be useful there anyway (as it would not be active most of the time).
Regarding QR certificates, there’s Vakzination [2].
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Yeah but that kind of defeats the purpose of having a phone, doesn't it? :) I've seen some neat code editors on iOS/Android that do some fun things like: - Have a special keyboard that contains only symbols for the target language - Handles all editing at the AST level so you can't make typos - Make heavy use of completions everywhere possible There seems to be no reason we can't also have that here.
> Yeah but that kind of defeats the purpose of having a phone, doesn't it? :) No, I would say it opens up infinite possibilities for useful customizations. Even if you aren't a programmer, someone likely writes a relevant script for your use case.
The other platforms have figured this out, where the "someone likely writes a relevant script for your use case" becomes "someone likely writes a relevant app for your use case" and you just go to the app store and download it. No need to mess with scripts or plug in a keyboard, and you still get to have plenty of customization. I believe flatpak has started to add categories for mobile apps so that is bringing us closer to where things need to be.
Edit: I found the Purism blog post where they talk about this, the metadata should be usable by anyone doing packaging or building a mobile shell. https://puri.sm/posts/specify-form-factors-in-your-librem-5-...
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If you're talking about /e/, that's essentially a android fork. It takes away a lot of the tracking, sure, but it's still android.
I'm not talking specifically about /e/ (though I would recommend looking into it, if you want privacy and Android backwards compatibility). I am talking about the plethora of OSes available otherwise, such as postmarketOS, Mobian, Ubuntu Touch, SailfishOS, etc. It al runs a Linux kernel though, so anyone can pull the 'but its still Linux' card and discussion is over.
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I'm not talking specifically about /e/ (though I would recommend looking into it, if you want privacy and Android backwards compatibility). I am talking about the plethora of OSes available otherwise, such as postmarketOS, Mobian, Ubuntu Touch, SailfishOS, etc. It al runs a Linux kernel though, so anyone can pull the 'but its still Linux' card and discussion is over.
Do those run or are supported on fairphone? The only thing I found when googling "fairphone4 alternative OS" was mentions of /e/.