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Google is about to make life more difficult for custom ROM fans

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Re: Google is about to make life more difficult for custom ROM fans

#91

Post by palata »

ntp85 wrote: post #84
palata wrote: post #56

I disagree with this title. I use /e/ OS, and I couldn't care less about that news. I already use a custom SMS app, and I am not even sure if my system comes with the default dialer. There are many things Google can do to make like more difficult for custom ROMs, but I don't think this is one.

Ah, a fellow /e/ user. While I completely agree with you concerning dialer and SMS apps, the mentioned SafetyNet restrictions from the article could be causing problems in the future as many apps, especially banking apps, potentially rely on those.

Yes, I am a bit worried about SafetyNet as well.

Re: Google is about to make life more difficult for custom ROM fans

#92

Post by qwerty456127 »

> Google's decision to deprecate two key open-source apps

What are "two key open-source apps"?

> Google has quietly deprecated support for the Dialer and Messaging apps in AOSP. This means brands need to use their own apps or Google’s latest phone and messaging apps.

Don't custom ROMs use either their own dialer apps or Google's apps already? What are the options other than Goole and your own?

> Custom ROM developers might need to develop their own phone and texting apps

How is this a problem? Developing a basic dialer or a messaging app seems a trivial task (perhaps I'm wrong, I can only judge on the UI/functionality and don't know the internals).

Re: Google is about to make life more difficult for custom ROM fans

#93

Post by luca020400 »

hedora wrote: post #78
luca020400 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their plan is to remove them altogether. Still those apps have not been maintained in years, that's the normal course of action for apps in AOSP.

I think the big question is whether they “improve” the APIs these apps require at the same time. That would break the alternative implementations.

Android APIs are stable and an app will keep working until Google decides to bump the min SDK version in Android itself. The APIs a Google app uses are the same as any other app. Unless the app is privileged ( = can use system APIs ) there's no difference in capabilities.

Re: Google is about to make life more difficult for custom ROM fans

#94

Post by jraph »

palata wrote: post #89
jraph wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I have. I know all this. I also know that the phone I was using back then is discontinued from what I can read from the LineageOS website. Which should not happen for a 7 years old device. And in any case, I strongly believe I should not have to use proprietary drivers. > And maybe it takes a little bit longer to get a GPS fix (I'm talking a couple of minutes, sometimes). That's probably related to A-GPS. The mo…

> That's probably related to A-GPS. Yes that's what I think, too. I use microG, and it's using the "Mozilla Location Service" (which could use some love, maybe?). Also it's not bad, just a bit slower than Google phones (but Google is really good at tracking, so I expect their A-GPS to have better data, I suppose) :-).

I would export A-GPS [1] data to be the same for everyone. It's just orbital data about the satellites that the GPS satellites also send you, but at a speed of 50 bit/s and you have to wait for the satellite to start broadcast it. As a consequence, it would take about 10 mins to have a fix, while it is instantaneous when the data is already there because it was downloaded beforehand. This data is typically provided by Qualcomm for phones based on their chips, but I guess this data is provided by many other companies.

This is how you would typically do it on a phone running mobile Linux / ModemManager:

    wget -N http://xtrapath2.izatcloud.net/xtra3gr.bin
    sudo mmcli -m any --location-inject-assistance-data=xtra3gr.bin
And I do get an instant GPS fix on the PinePhone Pro with this.

I don't know how it works on Android, I didn't know how this stuff worked back then, I would expect something in the OS to fetch and inject A-GPS data on a regular schedule but that might be something to look into on your side. Some devices are just worse than others when it comes to get a GPS fix, regardless the OS.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assisted_GPS

Re: Google is about to make life more difficult for custom ROM fans

#95

Post by namro »

Grimburger wrote: post #70
deng wrote: post #33

Has the author of this article ever used a custom ROM? There are so many free alternatives for these apps out there. If I remember correctly, LineageOS ships with their own version of Dialer/Messages anyway. I usually replace them with the versions of SimpleMobileTools, which work just fine. The main difficulty for custom ROMs are not these standard apps. The real issues are bootloaders which cannot be unlocked, undo…

> Just look how Google effectively broke the AuroraStore App recently. For anyone who has been hit by this, you can workaround the api issue by long pressing on a playstore http link and clicking open in app (aurora icon). So you can't search using the app anymore, but if you have the link to what you want you can still install without playstore or a google account. It's frustrating but isn't the end.

It's infuriating how hard Google makes it to manually update apps. We really need to dig down that awful play store. Aurora is just there, at the start. Really hope the community finds a way to keep aurora working

Re: Google is about to make life more difficult for custom ROM fans

#96

Post by Xeamek »

albertopv wrote: post #9

How can you call Android an open source mobile OS anymore given even these basic functions will be dropped?

Is Linux not open source because it doesn't ship with client apps by default?

There are tons of things to criticize google for, but the fact that they won't maintain a client app that's so barebone it's practically unusable anyway, isn't one of them.

Re: Google is about to make life more difficult for custom ROM fans

#97

Post by tentacleuno »

luca020400 wrote: post #93
hedora wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the big question is whether they “improve” the APIs these apps require at the same time. That would break the alternative implementations.

Android APIs are stable and an app will keep working until Google decides to bump the min SDK version in Android itself. The APIs a Google app uses are the same as any other app. Unless the app is privileged ( = can use system APIs ) there's no difference in capabilities.

Actually there are a few APIs you can't use when the app isn't signed by a system key.

Re: Google is about to make life more difficult for custom ROM fans

#98

Post by palata »

jraph wrote: post #94
palata wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's probably related to A-GPS. Yes that's what I think, too. I use microG, and it's using the "Mozilla Location Service" (which could use some love, maybe?). Also it's not bad, just a bit slower than Google phones (but Google is really good at tracking, so I expect their A-GPS to have better data, I suppose) :-).

I would export A-GPS [1] data to be the same for everyone. It's just orbital data about the satellites that the GPS satellites also send you, but at a speed of 50 bit/s and you have to wait for the satellite to start broadcast it. As a consequence, it would take about 10 mins to have a fix, while it is instantaneous when the data is already there because it was downloaded beforehand. This data is typically provided b…

Oh, I thought it relied on stuff like WiFi/Cell-based localization. Now I wonder if something is wrong with my software, or if the Fairphone 3+ is just slow at getting a GPS fix :)

Re: Google is about to make life more difficult for custom ROM fans

#99

Post by josefx »

palata wrote: post #73
colordrops wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't take a 100 million people to build a new phone ecosystem. Only a few thousand, if even that. If there is no alternative, it will get built and be usable. I avoid other open phone projects because I don't have the time and AOSP works fine, but if Google breaks it beyond usability, you better believe I'll be jumping onto one of the fully open projects even if it has major limitations.

If Google "breaks" AOSP, I am pretty sure that the next big thing will be a fork of AOSP. But that would probably be bad for Google (they probably wouldn't want Samsung + Huawei + others to start maintaining a fork of AOSP, I think).

As far as I understand the distributor licensing for Googles apps and services outright prohibits manufacturers from selling any unapproved or Google free Android devices in countries where that isn't considered anti competitive.

Re: Google is about to make life more difficult for custom ROM fans

#100

Post by charcircuit »

jraph wrote: post #82
palata wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But the comparison works. No mobile linux distro adds hoops to jump through. Right. Sounds a bit pedantic to me, but okay :). I guess my point is that AOSP is open source, and in a much better shape for mobile than Mobile Linux. It is great to see work going on with Mobile Linux, and I find projects like PostmarketOS really cool. I just don't like how (some) Mobile Linux fans apparently seem to jump on every opport…

> Sounds a bit pedantic to me, but okay :). Ah, the distinction is important indeed :-) The expectation is that things are improving. I think many people in the mobile Linux do think Android is doomed, or at least is not an interesting path anymore for the long run. That's what drives them. Android works, but has some flaws this ecosystem can't see being avoided. Being stuck with the custom kernel and the proprietary…

>Being stuck with the custom kernel

Android already works on the kernel. You don't need a custom kernel.

>and the proprietary drivers

If it uses proprietary Linux kernel modules they will still be proprietary kernel modules without the rest of Android.

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