LineageOS and ChromeOS Flex are 2 heroes of extending the useful life of older hardware.
LineageOS is currently installed on 1.5M Android devices
151–160 of 184 posts
Re: LineageOS is currently installed on 1.5M Android devices
#152Earlier quoted context omitted.
>When in your 80's you dont need or want the constant nagging of apps pestering you when all you want to do is text and call your family and friends. I'm nowhere near 80 or retirement and I have the same sentiment. Add datamining concerns to the list. The modern smart phone can stay off my lawn. I get enough Internet here at my desk.
This. I really like the idea of a pocket supercomputer like modern smartphone hardware. But I despise the software ecosystems that apple and google have built for them, with constant surveillance, lock-in, ads, tracking, horrible UIs and centralization.
A computer lets you build and run programs directly on device, with no internet. Our phones are closer to Super Nintendos than supercomputers.
Re: LineageOS is currently installed on 1.5M Android devices
#153I install Lineage on the phones of the elderly at local care homes and any people who are interested in prolonging the life of their old phones. Poor people can't afford a new phone every two years. When in your 80's you dont need or want the constant nagging of apps pestering you when all you want to do is text and call your family and friends. I use abd to delete/disable every unnecessary useless app and leave them…
Take something as simple and necessary like Messenger or WhatsApp. Try to use it with no previous knowledge, texting, calling, turning on camera during call. All the text the UI displays, how it is worded. It's ridiculously unintuitive, not inclusive, a real barrier. There should be law to mandate the UI of any app beyond a userbase of 100M. If you say that would severely restrict apps becoming that big, yeah that wo…
There is some level of a fix to this: which is to have an option that turns icons into their alt text. The camera icon becomes the word "camera", to flip the camera becomes the word "flip", the call icon becomes the word "call" and so on.
It's low effort to implement: just add the appropriate tags if they're not there, throw some i18n at it, then test it on different screen sizes.
This can probably happen on the OS level with some design guidelines.
Re: LineageOS is currently installed on 1.5M Android devices
#154Earlier quoted context omitted.
This. I really like the idea of a pocket supercomputer like modern smartphone hardware. But I despise the software ecosystems that apple and google have built for them, with constant surveillance, lock-in, ads, tracking, horrible UIs and centralization.
A computer lets you build and run programs directly on device, with no internet. Our phones are closer to Super Nintendos than supercomputers.
True. I like the analogy. The sad thing is that this is purely a software limitation. The hardware would be capable of so much more, it is more powerful than desktop computers of just a couple of years ago.
Re: LineageOS is currently installed on 1.5M Android devices
#155Earlier quoted context omitted.
I never understood the banking app thing. I can use my banks website to manage my finances, using my built-from-source Gentoo Linux computer. Why must a phone then be totally locked down?
Bank would probably prefer if they could lock that websi5e down as well.
They've tried: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Environment_Integrity
Re: LineageOS is currently installed on 1.5M Android devices
#156Earlier quoted context omitted.
Around here using an app for two factor is widely a default. Even the government requires it for their services. It's a practical requirement, just like how a back account itself is.
What app? A standard app like Google Authenticator? If so you can get a Yubikey and use Yubikey authenticator on a LineageOS device and it will work fine with all of those services. It follows the same standard as Google Authenticator and is a drop-in replacement.
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Re: LineageOS is currently installed on 1.5M Android devices
#157Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had an iPhone 4 and then a 5c (same size as the 5). The 4 was usually fine, sometimes a bit cramped, but the 5c really hit the sweet spot for screen size and one-handed usability. Someday I hope someone makes a decent modern phone just like the 5c.
And bring back the plastic back (albeit using recycled supermarket bags or whatever). The 5c was such a great phone.
Exactly! I had really hoped that would catch on, but I only ever saw it on some Nokia Winphones and cheaper Androids. The glass back is one of my least favorite features of modern phones and metal isn't much better (pick your poison: shatter, dent, or scratch). The 5c was also a bit of a callback to Apple's white polycarbonate era and some of my absolute favorite Macs.
I even saw some renders of a translucent replacement back for the 5c inspired by the original fruit iMacs[1]. (Shut up and take my money!)
1: https://9to5mac.com/2013/04/03/concept-imagines-low-cost-iph...
Re: LineageOS is currently installed on 1.5M Android devices
#158Earlier quoted context omitted.
This. I really like the idea of a pocket supercomputer like modern smartphone hardware. But I despise the software ecosystems that apple and google have built for them, with constant surveillance, lock-in, ads, tracking, horrible UIs and centralization.
A computer lets you build and run programs directly on device, with no internet. Our phones are closer to Super Nintendos than supercomputers.
Our phones are closer to Super Nintendos than supercomputers.
I think you have the relationship reversed. Supercomputers are closer to Super Nintendos than smartphones.
Re: LineageOS is currently installed on 1.5M Android devices
#159I am pretty hard on phones. Been using lineage for years now on google pixel unlocked phones. 5a and now 6a. I have found both to have some real durability problems. Are there any good alternatives that are unlocked to use with lineage?
It might be worth to switch to GrapheneOS if you have Pixel phones: https://grapheneos.org/ It is a more serious project than LineageOS in the sense that they take security very seriously and they take their development more professionally too. There are no disadvantages to using GrapheneOS compared to LineageOS. You can see a comparison here: https://eylenburg.github.io/android_comparison.htm
Second this. The focus on security from GrapheneOS is a breath of fresh air compared to the (historically) questionable conventions in most of the third-party Android distribution ecosystem.
As an example, Graphene even recommends not using Firefox [0]. I actually still do, but I understand their rationale and it's very well presented. The way they explain such things in clear English is very helpful and hopefully indicative of a similar amount of consideration being made elsewhere in the project.
Re: LineageOS is currently installed on 1.5M Android devices
#160I install Lineage on the phones of the elderly at local care homes and any people who are interested in prolonging the life of their old phones. Poor people can't afford a new phone every two years. When in your 80's you dont need or want the constant nagging of apps pestering you when all you want to do is text and call your family and friends. I use abd to delete/disable every unnecessary useless app and leave them…
>When in your 80's you dont need or want the constant nagging of apps pestering you when all you want to do is text and call your family and friends. I'm nowhere near 80 or retirement and I have the same sentiment. Add datamining concerns to the list. The modern smart phone can stay off my lawn. I get enough Internet here at my desk.
i'm of the same mind. I set limits. I don't play games on my phone (except maybe in exceptional circumstances like on an airplane) and I don't use it for social media (only exception is facebook messenger because so many family members use it). I find when I draw fences around things like that it helps a lot to get back time from time stealing activities. I treat my phone as a tool and not as entertainment, otherwise I'd be spending all my free time doom scrolling and playing puzzle games on it. yeah I used to do that a few years back until I cataloged my hours and it was truly scary how much time was wasted.