161–170 of 221 posts
The case for the Pine phone and other divergent devices is incredibly urgent.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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.
Not a very clean solution but if someone (power user) wants to avoid the playstore entirely, they can perhaps do so by simply force-disabling the app (using tools like adb), and then use something like apkmirror[1] or apkpure[2] or aptoide to install the APKs for the apps directly and bypass the store entirely? [1] https://www.apkmirror.com/ [2] https://m.apkpure.com/
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/
Yeah, my first thought after reading the article was something like, "so I guess everyone will have to start grabbing phone/SMS apps out of F-Droid now". Annoying, but not that big of a deal, and I suspect the replacements will be better anyways. Worst case, the community and/or individual ROMs just fork the old AOSP versions, which has happened before as Google abandons things.
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.
Ok, naive question but I would dearly love to have an informed answer as another phone of mine is dying, it is still TINA and I can't for the life of me project how this will play out: The first iphone was released in 2007. That's like 15 years ago. People were probably toying with "smart" phones already few years before that. Its not that the world doesn't know how to manufacture smartphones and/or write software fo…
The best we’ve got so far are exactly custom android builds like grapheneOS or lineage that replace software on phones other companies build. Apparently google doesn’t like that, though, so they’re going to continue to make AOSP worse and worse to protect their spyware.
The best case currently probably varies between something like grapheneOS on a pixel phone or lineageOS which is less privacy focused but has a much wider range of supported devices.
Ok, naive question but I would dearly love to have an informed answer as another phone of mine is dying, it is still TINA and I can't for the life of me project how this will play out: The first iphone was released in 2007. That's like 15 years ago. People were probably toying with "smart" phones already few years before that. Its not that the world doesn't know how to manufacture smartphones and/or write software fo…
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…
I haven't run in to that lately, but an issue I find much more annoying is the lack of support around re-locking with a custom root of trust. I think a few others support it, but I've only seen mention of it on the Pixel phones (and I won't buy Google hardware after they wouldn't replace my Pixel 3 that was bricked by their EDL hardware issue).
Ok, naive question but I would dearly love to have an informed answer as another phone of mine is dying, it is still TINA and I can't for the life of me project how this will play out: The first iphone was released in 2007. That's like 15 years ago. People were probably toying with "smart" phones already few years before that. Its not that the world doesn't know how to manufacture smartphones and/or write software fo…
Because manufacturing mobile phones is hard and expensive. Companies have large teams of hardware and software people will incentivized to develop phones and lots of them fail. The best we’ve got so far are exactly custom android builds like grapheneOS or lineage that replace software on phones other companies build. Apparently google doesn’t like that, though, so they’re going to continue to make AOSP worse and wors…
I appreciate that, but in 2021 there were like 1.8 billion phones manufactured and sold.
Are you saying that none of those existing manufacturers can afford or is interested to offer a FOSS mobile?
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…
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because manufacturing mobile phones is hard and expensive. Companies have large teams of hardware and software people will incentivized to develop phones and lots of them fail. The best we’ve got so far are exactly custom android builds like grapheneOS or lineage that replace software on phones other companies build. Apparently google doesn’t like that, though, so they’re going to continue to make AOSP worse and wors…
> Because manufacturing mobile phones is hard and expensive I appreciate that, but in 2021 there were like 1.8 billion phones manufactured and sold. Are you saying that none of those existing manufacturers can afford or is interested to offer a FOSS mobile?