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Keep Android Open

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Re: Keep Android Open

#281

Post by gspr »

cosmic_cheese wrote: post #225
codethief wrote: post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strong disagree. Linux, its permission system and its (barely existent) application isolation are lightyears away from the security guarantees that Android brings.

Desktop OSes and their derivatives are woefully behind in this regard, and unfortunately the will to bring them up to par is incredibly weak. Of those in mass use (Qubes OS is neat but its user base isn’t even a rounding error), macOS probably does the most, but it’s still lagging behind iOS and what’s been implemented has come with much consternation from the technically inclined peanut gallery. I understand some am…

Aren't all the necessary pieces for something better essentially in place now that unprivileged namespaces are well-established?

They've for sure had more than their fair share of security issues, but those are bugs, not fundamental design problems as far as I understand?

Re: Keep Android Open

#282

Post by 1718627440 »

bdangubic wrote: post #273
1718627440 wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People outsource the brutality (to the government), so that they don't need to deal with it in their daily life. If we couldn't force companies to act in ways we want through a formal system, then the world would look much more brutal.

or alternatively we can just stop using products/services of said companies

I can ban persons from doing things, I rather not have them do. Companies are legal persons, so why shouldn't this apply to them? At some point ignoring behaviour is not making it go away, it needs to be actively worked against, otherwise it will become (practically) mandatory.

Re: Keep Android Open

#283

Post by aagha »

This is where I wish someone like MKBHD and others with big Android followings would speak up and say they will both blast this practice and not review any new Android phones/(Google) apps unless there's a full walk-back of this position.

Re: Keep Android Open

#284

Post by davidw »

The relative openness is the reason I gravitated towards Android and Google. I've never really taken advantage of it, but it's nice knowing it's there and that my phone (a Google Pixel) is something I have more control over than with other vendors.

Re: Keep Android Open

#285

Post by DesaiAshu »

The biggest surprise I had in attempting to distribute my first Android app is how difficult it is to get beta-testers through the "standard" channels. It requires a 1 week review and 25 beta-users invited by email addresses

In contrast, Apple has a ~48 hour turnaround for reviews before you can upload to TestFlight and distribute a beta with a link

Not sure if I am in some "trusted developer" cohort on iOS but not Android - but the difference was enough for me to stop trying on Android

Re: Keep Android Open

#286

Post by aembleton »

rzerowan wrote: post #128
nimbius wrote: post #25

This isnt going to be a popular post because the HN crowd is very much a "China bad" crowd but I hypothesize China will likely step in and offer a fork that's compatible with open ecosystems not under the direct control of the us state department. This might be in the form of commits and investment in fdroid and pinephone, or a tiktok like alternative to the wests walled garden. Edit: this will likely exist "uncensor…

Maybe a shift to Huaweis HarmonyOS with its android compatibility layer or SailfishOS if they play their cards right. As far as HarmonyOS i dont see many uptakes outside strict US free requirements as the other OEMs are lazy and also dont want to be locked into a competitor. SailfishOS looks like its your time to faceplant once more , by not having a proper stratergy on monetizing on the many missteps from the curren…

As of version 5, HarmonyOS doesn't have the Android compatibility layer. There are emulators that allow APKs to run, but they're a bit clunky.

Re: Keep Android Open

#287

Post by emsign »

handity wrote: post #87
paxys wrote: post #73

The fundamental problem is that we are relying on the good graces of Google to keep Android open, despite the fact that it often runs run contrary to their goals as a $4T for-profit behemoth. This may have worked in the past, but the "don't be evil" days are very far behind us. I don't see a real future for Andrioid as an open platform unless the community comes together and does a hard fork. Google can continue to d…

A hard fork doesn't matter when the vast majority of phones have a locked bootloader.

People will keep using the OS their phone comes with and that would be Google's Android. It's worse than with Windows PCs and Windows to be honest because phones have a locked bootloader.

Re: Keep Android Open

#288

Post by a456463 »

paulryanrogers wrote: post #218
chrneu wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's relatively easy. It's basically a command for each step you want to do and it tends to fail gracefully nowadays. If you can install a linux distro you can flash a custom rom on a well-supported phone. If it were more mainstream I could see GUI apps to manage all this for people, if they don't already exist. Idk I just use adb.

It's also high risk. I've bricked two phones doing it.

I flash phones almost every other week. And tablets. I have been flashing since Androids came out. But never bricked. But maybe that is why I don't have any problems.

Re: Keep Android Open

#289

Post by wolrah »

user3939382 wrote: post #263
Onawa wrote: post #259

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been flashing phones for over 2 decades and have never bricked a phone. How did you manage that?

Are you seriously implying that flashing phones doesn’t risk bricking them or you’re not aware of that risk are you serious?

> Are you seriously implying that flashing phones doesn’t risk bricking them or you’re not aware of that risk are you serious?

Yes, that is generally the case. As a general rule with an Android phone reflashing the OS itself or the bootloader carries no risk of bricking the device (meaning making it impossible to recover without specialized hardware and/or opening up parts that were not intended to be opened).

There are plenty of ways to "soft-brick" a device such that you might need to plug it in to a computer, and adb/fastboot can definitely be a pain in the ass to use (especially on Windows), but if you have a device with an unlocked bootloader it's very rare to be able to actually brick the device while doing normal things.

Now, if you're doing abnormal things like reflashing the radio firmware you can absolutely brick some devices there, but you don't have to do that just to boot an alternative OS and generally shouldn't be doing it without very good reason and specific knowledge of exactly what you're doing.

I'm not going to say there are no devices where the standard process to flash an alternative OS is dangerous, but none of the relatively common ones I've ever owned or used have been built that way because OEMs don't want their own official firmware updates to be dangerous either.

tl;dr: It is sometimes possible to brick a device by flashing the wrong thing incorrectly, but the risk of doing that if you are just installing an alternative OS through a standard process is basically zero.

Re: Keep Android Open

#290

Post by Tharre »

iririririr wrote: post #211
Tharre wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who else is going to maintain and develop it? It's the same issue as with Chrome, even if you force Google to give it to some other company, they're all just as bad. And it's too big and too costly to maintain for anyone else but tech giants. The only other options would be convincing users to pay 5 bucks a month for their software, or have some Government fork over the tens of millions required to pay open source de…

I welcome feature stagnation on mobile! Every single release is a step backwards. Android 15 cannot hold a candle to what cynogenmod did on top of android 2.3. And that's objective.

> And that's objective.

I don't think you understand what that word means.

Regardless, your opinion (and mine) is irrelevant. People want at least some of the features of modern android, and any alternative lacking those is not going to be adopted by most people. Just look at how many people try GrapheneOS and find the minor things to be dealbreakers for them.

And as long as that's the case you can't expect people to vote for a scenario where they'll end up with a, in their eyes, worse product.

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