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

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

androidauthority.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 221 posts

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

#101

Post by magnat »

jraph wrote: post #7
jeroenhd wrote: post #5

Most custom ROMs don't seem to use the AOSP dialer anyway. I've mostly seen forks with some nice features Google's dialer still lacks (call recording, for one). AOSP hasn't been a useful Android distribution for years. Luckily, you can make it useful through third party apps like the Simple apps: https://www.simplemobiletools.com/

if QKSMS still exists, it seems like a good replacement for the messaging app. That's what I used when I used Android a few years ago.

QKSMS has not been updated for two years and has broken MMS support.

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

#102

Post by Gordonjcp »

nirimda wrote: post #69
nickelpro wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

99.9% of consumers do not care about this and are totally willing (and expect) to connect their phone to their Google/Apple account Not saying the grievance isn't valid, but don't fool yourself

99.9% of consumers probably have never heard about custom ROMs, and I'd reckon 99.9% of consumers who do hear about custom ROMs have boring old fashioned objections like "will it break my warranty" and "if it ain't broke don't fix it" and "I wonder what's on Netflix tonight/I think I shall be washing my hair". For the few people who distrust Google enough to install LineageOS or some such, they probably distrust Goog…

> they probably distrust Google enough to not care too much about not using Google

I think you probably greatly overestimate how much normal people worry about things like that.

Look out your window and count how many tinfoil hats you see people with. If there's more than maybe one or two, you live in a fairly atypical part of the world and it might be time to move house.

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

#103

Post by eloisant »

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…

Yes, but this title is much more clickbait than just "Google stops developping 2 open source apps".

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

#104

Post by [deleted] »

palata wrote: post #51
gostsamo wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pinephone has multiple compatible os-s, while most android phones don't have alternatives and become unusable if android drops support for them. Also, Google and the big OEM-s have the incentive to break compatibility to provide you with the newest gadget, which is not true for the pines. yet.

Wow... people, can you please just read a bit about AOSP before dropping such complaints? There is no "Android drops support for them". It's "Google drops support for them". Google maintains AOSP, but if they stopped doing that, probably AOSP would survive in some form. Also I am not convinced that companies like Samsung would be happy to go with a completely proprietary Google OS, so chances are that they would get…

[deleted]

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

#105

Post by Catholic_Tree »

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #57

The real concern is not the loss of the AOSP apps but the lack of new but mandatory features in AOSP and even more undocumented APIs. For example, RCS only works with Google messenger and there's no sign of that expanding (unless your Samsung). Even Visual Voicemail which should/is an open standard has a lot of carrier specific code (I think it can still be extracted from the Google Phone app but I'm not sure on the…

I am curious, how is the experience of running GrapheneOS on the Google Fold? On my Pixel 6 it runs quite well, but I would imagine that the Folding aspect brings in quite a bit of additional complexity.

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

#106

Post by pjc50 »

quaintdev wrote: post #45
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…

> It's getting more and more difficult to use Android without a Google Account. Good that is how they shoot themselves in the foot. The more they do this, the more people will realise they need alternative and ditch Android.

Following the death of Windows phone and the earlier death of Symbian, the two options are "Android" or "iOS". This is apparently "not a monopoly".

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

#107

Post by sanitycheck »

I got a new Android phone two weeks ago, Google's default messaging app has turned into such a mess that I've replaced it with one from F-Droid already - and I'm liable to do the same with Photos.

I think this will have precisely zero impact on "custom ROM fans".

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

#108

Post by phh »

josefx wrote: post #99
palata wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's a pretty weird subject: the document that has been mentioned in the press about that requirement doesn't exactly say that Google app are required, it says that when you do an "Android" it must always comply to Android APIs. Which can be done without Google apps. BTW that agreement still exists even where it was deemed anti-competitive, but in domains where Google isn't a monopoly (like cars).

That being said, it's Google. Even you didn't sign anything that says you're not allowed to do Google-less Android, when you launch a non-Google device, Googly devices may just "mysteriously" fall into "oops sorry we are understaffed, we don't have time to handle your requests".

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

#109

Post by oars »

sanitycheck wrote: post #107

I got a new Android phone two weeks ago, Google's default messaging app has turned into such a mess that I've replaced it with one from F-Droid already - and I'm liable to do the same with Photos. I think this will have precisely zero impact on "custom ROM fans".

What app do you recommend from F-Droid? I've been looking for an alternative as well but none of the ones in the Play Store look appealing to me.

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

#110

Post by ranting-moth »

sanitycheck wrote: post #107

I got a new Android phone two weeks ago, Google's default messaging app has turned into such a mess that I've replaced it with one from F-Droid already - and I'm liable to do the same with Photos. I think this will have precisely zero impact on "custom ROM fans".

Google could have pretty much owned the entire messaging ecosystem today had they just done it properly to start with.

When Android was new, you had to wait for eventually Skype to do an Android release. Then there was Hangout, Talk, Duo, Meet, ... and of course the built in SMS app.

Post reply on HN