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Jolla on track to ship new phone with Sailfish OS, user-replaceable battery

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Re: Jolla on track to ship new phone with Sailfish OS, user-replaceable battery

#41
post #32

Are these non Google non Apple phones viable any more? Considering you almost can't do banking, and in some places interact with the government, without a locked down phone...

Afaik there is an android compatibility layer but I don't know if it allows banking apps to works

It would not in principle, those rely on hardware backed keys with Google's latest iteration of Google Play Integrity. The only success people have had is by using leaked vendor keys and spoofing device fingerprints for old A11-era devices which did not have the hardware baked in. In time even this avenue will no longer work. People have been trying to get around it for a while [1] but afaik the concept is cryptographically airtight.

[1] https://xdaforums.com/t/discussion-the-root-and-mod-hiding-f...

Re: Jolla on track to ship new phone with Sailfish OS, user-replaceable battery

#42
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Afaik there is an android compatibility layer but I don't know if it allows banking apps to works

Maybe I'm out of the loop but what is everyone doing with banking apps on their phones that's so essential. I see this argument all the time but it's baffling to me.

For quite many banks a mobile phone is now the only 2FA they support.

Re: Jolla on track to ship new phone with Sailfish OS, user-replaceable battery

#43
post #36

The absence of eSIM is a deal breaker for me. I need to travel to the US for work and last time I was there I was having a hard time to find a physical SIM for the phone I had then.

I certainly do not want to try to talk you into this particular phone – but just in the general case so you know, it's pretty easy to get physical Sims that you can download an eSIM onto.

Re: Jolla on track to ship new phone with Sailfish OS, user-replaceable battery

#44
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Your standard is "succeed against Google and Apple within 13 years..." Absolutely not. My standard is the many other AOSP-based ROMs communities and companies that were founded around them, having success within a few years - yes, they could lean on the ecosystem compatibility and didn't produce their own hardware, but maybe that's a more viable way to start? "shoestring budget with no volume discounts" does not ex…

AOSP is just a totally different destination, it's not a faster route to the same one. Sailfish is spiritually MeeGo: actual Linux on the phone, not a custom skin on Google's foundations. Obviously it's faster to build a kit-car than a car factory, I don't see how that's a rebuttal, it's an entirely different conversation. An AOSP fork on Qualcomm hardware isn't independence. Jolla are actually trying to build the fa…

Why is AOSP a wrong path? Why would it be "tainted"? Any large enough entity can fork. Hundreds already did, successfully. Even China couldn't do otherwise - via Huawei they mutated it to HarmonyOS (becoming much different from its roots, and incompatible to it, structurally becoming superior in many ways). Why throw away 20 years of development and a sea of dev experience?

But even if you insist on a non-AOSP way: Supporting any other, more well regarded projects and initiatives? Random top of my head idea: motivate Fairphone (Denmark) to adopt some non-android OS like Ubuntu Touch?

Re: Jolla on track to ship new phone with Sailfish OS, user-replaceable battery

#45
post #32

Are these non Google non Apple phones viable any more? Considering you almost can't do banking, and in some places interact with the government, without a locked down phone...

If you use it without compatibility layer it's probably on the same level as a kaios phone. There is a lot of slop on the sailfish store.

Re: Jolla on track to ship new phone with Sailfish OS, user-replaceable battery

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but I also wanted to signify that I find any user trust (eg as a result of this new marketing campaign) is misplaced and steals air from a better alternative.

Which is?

See my reply above

Re: Jolla on track to ship new phone with Sailfish OS, user-replaceable battery

#47
post #32

Are these non Google non Apple phones viable any more? Considering you almost can't do banking, and in some places interact with the government, without a locked down phone...

They will be able to do banking at least once the legislators tear down the walled gardens in a sensible way. Are the security benefits from the Appstore/Playstore real or security theatre?

I'm pretty sure that, if there are security benefits, they have been artificially tied to the use of the company's distribution method, that coincidentally really needs to be sending usage statistics, monitoring, etc. Surely there exist no conflicts of interest to be found.

Re: Jolla on track to ship new phone with Sailfish OS, user-replaceable battery

#48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't the security hardware features of the GrapheneOS phones also rely on proprietary software/firmware?

To my knowledge you have some proprietary firmware blobs, drivers, HAL and the Trusted Execution Environment shipping with GrapheneOS. But replacing Pixel's stock Android with GrapheneOS doesn't expose you to more proprietary components but instead reduces it (by sandboxing Google Play Services for example) and improves upon Android security overall (memory allocation, etc). So yeah, GrapheneOS isn't 100% OSS, as far…

You're not wrong, but the main selling point of GrapheneOS in comparison to other options is security, and it relies on proprietary software. So to me it looks a bit similar, although I agree that less blobs is definitely important.

Re: Jolla on track to ship new phone with Sailfish OS, user-replaceable battery

#49
post #26

Jolla / Sailfish is a 13 year old project and through all this time they couldn't make a foothold, or even sustain some small motivated community around them. During this time: - company folded and changed hand multiple times, including russian ownership - the tablet scandal leaving users with lost funds - closed source parts - locked bootloader - charging a $50 device reset fee - not much change in Sailfish OS since…

> Jolla / Sailfish is a 13 year old project Realistically building a production quality database takes 10 years. Building a production quality game engine takes 10 years. They're building a mobile operating system and the hardware it runs on; that's harder and a moving target. How long do you think it takes to build a supply chain of hardware that doesn't suck (if it takes 2 years to get moving: you need to start wit…

[deleted]

Re: Jolla on track to ship new phone with Sailfish OS, user-replaceable battery

#50
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm out of the loop but what is everyone doing with banking apps on their phones that's so essential. I see this argument all the time but it's baffling to me.

For quite many banks a mobile phone is now the only 2FA they support.

Or worse.

My bank closed down their old online banking site and the new one needs the phone for 2FA... but ... drumroll ...

... the idiots also want me to keep using the token device to log in before approving the log in via my phone.

Security theater.

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