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Your phone is about to stop being yours

keepandroidopen.org

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Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#481

Post by akramachamarei »

lucb1e wrote: post #316
akramachamarei wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just to play devils advocate, the petition is a bit of FUD too, no? I ask as an F-droid user and downloader of unofficial apks. Speaking purely from my own experience, all the side-loaded apps I care about are fungible; I could get them or similar quality equivalents from GPS. With the exception of a 4chan reader, that hasn't been hosted there and likely won't be. I don't mind the 1 day wait too much. I understand po…

> all the side-loaded apps I care about are fungible; I could get them or similar quality equivalents from GPS You're missing out then!

I am very open to first hand recommendations :)

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#482

Post by digitist »

pngwen wrote: post #68

This change has served me well! I have been a Mac OS X users for years who used an android phone. As soon as google announced their impending walled garden status, I went out and bought into the ios eco system. I have really been enjoying my iphone, ipad, and apple watch. You see, the only value that Android really offered me was the ability to run my own code on my own device. Since they are taking that away that ju…

[dead]

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#483

Post by Dylan16807 »

compass_copium wrote: post #465
Dylan16807 wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you are using a phone that costs significantly less than that (and I am speaking from personal experience! I had an Obamaphone that I got at a foodbank for many years, as well as a number of crappy used Androids!) your phone storage is so limiting that you are struggling to install more than a few apps. The only phone I've ever had trouble installing more than a few apps was one with 512MB of storage. If I go ch…

I have never had a cheap phone where OS updates did not make the category in storage swell to take up most of the phone's space. Hardware may be cheap enough now that budget phones are more useable--32 GB for <$100 is a major improvement.

I'm used to fixed partition sizes. The OS eating into user space sounds pretty ugly. And updates to builtin apps since the last OS update eat space, but only so much.

Regardless, since they have a 16GB model I strongly doubt the 32GB model would ever have less than 16GB of usable space.

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#484

Post by criddell »

Zak wrote: post #476
criddell wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sysadmin part is their value-add. One reason my current phone being an iPhone after being 100% Android for a decade are the better walls and nicer garden. These are sold as consumer devices and not general computers. It sounds like you want something different. They’re selling cars and you want a motorcycle.

Android was very open when it was released and for some time after. Installing APKs directly was easy. Most devices had unlocked or unlockable bootloaders. An Android phone treated its user much like a PC did. More sysadmin-as-a-service type stuff is fine as long as the opt-out is easy. This isn't. I'm upset about the rug pull.

I understand. I was one of the 25 people excited about the OtherOS option on the PS3. When Sony removed that in an update I was bummed because that’s one of the reasons I bought it.

You never know though. Sometimes things go the other way. When the iPhone launched there was no way to create apps for it or install third party applications except as web apps.

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#485

Post by socalgal2 »

pngwen wrote: post #68

This change has served me well! I have been a Mac OS X users for years who used an android phone. As soon as google announced their impending walled garden status, I went out and bought into the ios eco system. I have really been enjoying my iphone, ipad, and apple watch. You see, the only value that Android really offered me was the ability to run my own code on my own device. Since they are taking that away that ju…

No, Android still offers way more features than iOS.

Replace the lock screen with a custom app

Replace the home screen with a custom app

Set default apps for SMS, phone service, assistant, camera, photo gallery. all things you can not change on iOS

Always on widgets and dynamic wallpapers

It has a much more customizable inter app communication system so that you can get more apps to be the default viewers

At allows true background tasks like say a BitTorrent client

It supports shared storage like SMB and a user accessible file system

Custom NFC apps

USB host mode

Multiple users/profiles

And about 70 other things

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#486

Post by socalgal2 »

gvurrdon wrote: post #315
svat wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here is a table I just made (edit: changed to list as HN wraps code blocks now), of iOS vs Android (now) vs Android (after Sep 2026 or 2027 or whenever these announced changes take effect): •1. Where most users can install software from: ↠↠ iOS: official store (App Store) + (in EU) other stores ↠↠ Android (now): official store (Play Store), other stores (e.g. F-Droid), arbitrary APKs ↠↠ Android (after changes): offic…

Android does indeed still look better. But, I would not consider having to send a copy of my government ID to Google, or having them be able to block apps when so ordered by government, to be acceptable.

I agree it’s not acceptable. so then iOS is just as not acceptable as it has all the same issues and worse. this thread started as switching to iOS

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#487

Post by kuhsaft »

handedness wrote: post #450
fsflover wrote: post #400

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except Librem 5 has been created and is usable by the HN people.

Does the Librem 5 not rely on any non-free code or infrastructure?

It does. They obscure the usage of non-free hardware/firmware by not shipping it as part of the OS, but as a bundle on separate flash storage that is loaded into the OS by initrd. That blob is updatable as "firmware". The 100% free open-source is just marketing. It's just for the OS. A lot of the hardware and firmware is proprietary.

https://github.com/linuxboot/heads/blob/c859c28b88b7bc197c16...

https://forums.puri.sm/t/the-librem-5-blob-list/28815/26

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#488

Post by jMyles »

john_strinlai wrote: post #384
wiseowise wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is a very HN view of Android. Just because you're HN dweller doesn't make it HN view. The openness, freedom, customizability and accessibility (money wise) were the tenets that differentiated Android from Apple devices.

> The openness, freedom, customizability and accessibility (money wise) were the tenets that differentiated Android from Apple devices. i have never heard someone outside of tech circles (e.g. HN) mention openness, freedom, or customization, even as a passing comment. they use a phone to access mainstream apps (youtube, instagram, reddit, maybe their bank) and text/call. mention "apk" or "fdroid" and their eyes start…

> i have never heard someone outside of tech circles (e.g. HN) mention openness, freedom, or customization, even as a passing comment.

And how do you qualify "(e.g. HN)" for this purpose? Places where people value openness?

These feels like a no-true-scotsman.

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#489

Post by WhyNotHugo »

drnick1 wrote: post #8

I don't care, I run Graphene, and my phone is definitely mine. Most Android apps just work, and the ones that don't are the kind of malware I am happy to do without.

Ironically, you’ve had to pay Google for the privilege of opting out of their new rules.

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#490

Post by WhyNotHugo »

dethos wrote: post #75

To be sincere, they were never truly ours. A proof of that is they were able to come up with this, and you don't have a way to reject it. What we actually need are (open) alternatives, not to double down on Google's ecosystem and Google-controlled OS. We need to control the device we bought and be able to run whatever we wish on it. Just like we do on PCs.

https://postmarketos.org is working on developing a Linux distribution for mobile devices (including smartphones), aligned with these goals: free open source software, empowering users to control their own devices.

I won't deny that a lot of application support still needs more work. But this is definitely moving in the right direction.

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