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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

#141

Post by o1y32 »

colordrops wrote: post #67
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

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.

I don't know where you can find that "only a few thousand" people or the funding. I don't know if one can even count the number of failed attempts at a mobile operating system.

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

#142

Post by pmontra »

doctor_lollipop wrote: post #126
pmontra wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are no real alternatives. I'm installing apps on a factory reset Samsung A40 from 2019. The last ones of all the process are banking apps, github (only because they decided I need 2FA (*)) and a digital identity one for my country, basically another 2FA. I really don't have an alternative for them. In theory I could leave an Android phone in a drawer at home for those apps, use WhatsApp web on the Pine, maybe T…

FYI, you can use oathtool on your PC for 2FA, you don't need custom apps for that.

That's not going to work with my bank, maybe GitHub?

I googled and found this from HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35083499#35086708

I'll give it a try. It doesn't change that 2FA is a pain and I'll log into GitHub only if strictly necessary. Maybe reduced logins are part of their security plan.

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

#143

Post by maksimur »

nickelpro wrote: post #52
quaintdev wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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

It's part of the recurring pattern of blindness towards the actual level of caring among average service users. Reddit is another example of this pattern. Mind you I say this as the minority who cares.

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

#144

Post by genpfault »

oars wrote: post #109
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.

Check out Simple SMS Messenger[1], been using it since Signal dropped SMS support.

[1]: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.simplemobiletools.smsmes...

[2]: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.simplemobiletools.thanky...

[3]: https://github.com/SimpleMobileTools/Simple-SMS-Messenger

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

#145

Post by Ruthalas »

nine_k wrote: post #134
neurostimulant wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After spelunking into the dialer source code a bit, it seems the important stuff related to receiving and initiating calls are already handled by android's TelecomManager and the dialer only provides interface for users to interact with TelecomManager. I haven't really dig into Messages source code these days, but a few years ago I was making an app that can send MMS messages and it was insane how much heavy lifting…

QKSMS which I installed through F-droid works pretty well for me for years, FWIW.

I can second the recommendation for QKSMS, it's simple and reliable in my experience.

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

#146

Post by Ruthalas »

magnat wrote: post #101
jraph wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Do you have a suggestion for an alternative?

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

#147

Post by surajrmal »

tentacleuno wrote: post #97
luca020400 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

All oems or rom makers are able to make whatever apps they want system apps. So even if this is being done, Google dialer isn't getting access to something others cannot.

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

#148

Post by surajrmal »

0xedd wrote: post #25
charcircuit wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Pinephone can suffer from the same issue where people maintaining the software included may decide they no longer want to maintain their software anymore. It's no different for this. Either someone needs to step up to mountain it or you replace it with something else. Wanting to get rid of the rest of Android just because dialer and messenger are no longer maintained is throwing the baby out with the bath water.

The difference is one is planned. Google promotes dependency on their services. There are alternatives to gapps. There are also alternatives to paved roads. The problem is they add more hoops to jump through. They care about the 99 percentile. Those won't keep chasing said hoops. While large orgs help maintain relevant FOSS, to them, AOSP is left to rot. In our case, several k employees, we have teams dedicated to re…

A few questions: 1. Given the existence of FOSS alternatives, is it important that these apps live as part of AOSP? It seems to me that this is an improvement as a bad default is worse than no default. 2. Given the apps were not maintained by Google, did anyone else volunteer to maintain them? Has anyone tried to upstream an alternative app to AOSP which will be maintained?

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

#150

Post by surajrmal »

0xedd wrote: post #27
charcircuit wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the bootloader, all of the services, the kernel, the window manager, etc were open source, but edge was closed source and bundled in a separate version of Windows then yes I would consider Windows an open source operating system.

Because the desktop OS is used for so much more. But if the core functionality is missing, the point is lost. A better analogy, as you like to play games, is a VPN company releasing their app as open source, after being critiqued for privacy issues. Only to find out just the GUI was released but the rest can be installed using a plugin system.

The analogy is lost here because the core is open source but the GUI is not. Core system services do most of the heavy lifting for these apps and that remains in AOSP.
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