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Android loses 8% of its global OS market share in five years

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Re: Android loses 8% of its global OS market share in five years

#521

Post by fsflover »

rglullis wrote: post #518
fsflover wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If you are okay with not being able to reliably make calls, fine, but don't oversell on the definition of "daily driver" This is an outdated information. The development pace of Pinephone is unprecedented. Even here on HN I saw many recent posts saying that calls and MMS work fine already.

Ok, good to know. Too bad that I needed a phone 10 months ago. Update: reading through https://www.reddit.com/r/pinephone/comments/u6zzyc/how_pinep... (from 6 days ago) it seems like you are not just overselling hard , you are trying to convince people to switch to something that is absolutely not ready for general consumption. You do realize that if your goal is to get more people to adopt FOSS, your approach is mor…

Yes, it's not ready for general consumption. Mainly due to the battery life (I use two batteries) and sluggishness (it's fast if you use non-mainstream Sxmo). For Librem 5 (which I also preordered) both these points are fine (well, the battery is still worse than for Android).

Note that we are not on Reddit but on HN. Is its audience ordinary people? My goal is to bring more technical people to GNU/Linux phones.

Re: Android loses 8% of its global OS market share in five years

#522

Post by rglullis »

fsflover wrote: post #521
rglullis wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, good to know. Too bad that I needed a phone 10 months ago. Update: reading through https://www.reddit.com/r/pinephone/comments/u6zzyc/how_pinep... (from 6 days ago) it seems like you are not just overselling hard , you are trying to convince people to switch to something that is absolutely not ready for general consumption. You do realize that if your goal is to get more people to adopt FOSS, your approach is mor…

Yes, it's not ready for general consumption. Mainly due to the battery life (I use two batteries) and sluggishness (it's fast if you use non-mainstream Sxmo). For Librem 5 (which I also preordered) both these points are fine (well, the battery is still worse than for Android). Note that we are not on Reddit but on HN. Is its audience ordinary people? My goal is to bring more technical people to GNU/Linux phones.

HN audience is large and diverse enough to the point that it makes no sense to think as some homogeneous group of people who are interested in tinkering with their phones. By making absurd claims about the feasibility of the Pinephone as a daily driver, you are doing a disservice to your own community.

Also, is your goal to get people to use GNU/Linux phones or is it to maximize the overall adoption of Free Software? The former requires a radical shift in consumer behavior and will be unlikely to happen, the latter can be done in gradual steps with a much higher chance of success.

Think of it this way: if you manage to upset me, who is pretty much in favor of F/LOSS, imagine how many bridges you burned with those "on the other side"?

Re: Android loses 8% of its global OS market share in five years

#523

Post by fsflover »

rglullis wrote: post #522
fsflover wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's not ready for general consumption. Mainly due to the battery life (I use two batteries) and sluggishness (it's fast if you use non-mainstream Sxmo). For Librem 5 (which I also preordered) both these points are fine (well, the battery is still worse than for Android). Note that we are not on Reddit but on HN. Is its audience ordinary people? My goal is to bring more technical people to GNU/Linux phones.

HN audience is large and diverse enough to the point that it makes no sense to think as some homogeneous group of people who are interested in tinkering with their phones. By making absurd claims about the feasibility of the Pinephone as a daily driver, you are doing a disservice to your own community. Also, is your goal to get people to use GNU/Linux phones or is it to maximize the overall adoption of Free Software?…

> By making absurd claims about the feasibility of the Pinephone as a daily driver

Where did I make this claim? I said that I use it as a daily driver. It's possible, though not for everyone yet.

> Also, is your goal to get people to use GNU/Linux phones or is it to maximize the overall adoption of Free Software?

It's the same goal. Adoption of Free Software without using it on the phones will not help much. There are more people using smartphones than computers. I also don't see how one is a "radical shift" while the other is "gradual steps". It's the same to me. People are going to switch to new type of smartphones slowly: first developers, then early adopters, then theirs friends and then the rest. Same for Free Software.

> HN audience is large and diverse enough to the point that it makes no sense to think as some homogeneous group of people who are interested in tinkering with their phones.

This is true, but these people are "hackers", i.e. interested in though-provoking things and intellectually curious. I don't expect that they would just buy a new phone with a new OS without doing any research and believing a random comment on HN.

Re: Android loses 8% of its global OS market share in five years

#524

Post by alimov »

privacyking wrote: post #461
alimov wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can do all of this on iOS

Not even close to the same extent as you can on Android

Not sure what I’m missing here. I make Android and iOS apps and so I have access to both operating systems and various devices on a daily basis. What is iOS missing that Android has (when it comes to notification settings)?

Re: Android loses 8% of its global OS market share in five years

#525

Post by rglullis »

fsflover wrote: post #523
rglullis wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HN audience is large and diverse enough to the point that it makes no sense to think as some homogeneous group of people who are interested in tinkering with their phones. By making absurd claims about the feasibility of the Pinephone as a daily driver, you are doing a disservice to your own community. Also, is your goal to get people to use GNU/Linux phones or is it to maximize the overall adoption of Free Software?…

> By making absurd claims about the feasibility of the Pinephone as a daily driver Where did I make this claim? I said that I use it as a daily driver. It's possible , though not for everyone yet. > Also, is your goal to get people to use GNU/Linux phones or is it to maximize the overall adoption of Free Software? It's the same goal. Adoption of Free Software without using it on the phones will not help much. There a…

The original comment I responded to was complaining about how the Google/Apple duopoly leads to a "pick your poison" situation and the user hostility. My recommendation was to into Google-free Android distros that can be used and do not require big compromises in terms of usability.

Your interjection came off as one that could provide the same level of usability and no compromises on the freedom aspect. It's only now that you are backing off on the claim by adding the caveat that you can use it as a daily driver.

> Adoption of Free Software without using it on the phones will not help anyone.

AOSP is free-software. F-Droid only distributes free-software. So why did you feel the need to interject about

> I also don't see how one is a "radical shift" while the other is "gradual steps".

The amount of people that could be interested in using /e/OS with F-Droid is orders of magnitude higher than the amount of people interested in tinkering with "Pure FOSS, GNU/Linux".

"Google Android -> AOSP + closed apps + f-droid" is a much easier adoption curve than "Google Android -> GNU/Linux"

Re: Android loses 8% of its global OS market share in five years

#526

Post by fsflover »

rglullis wrote: post #525
fsflover wrote: post #523

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> By making absurd claims about the feasibility of the Pinephone as a daily driver Where did I make this claim? I said that I use it as a daily driver. It's possible , though not for everyone yet. > Also, is your goal to get people to use GNU/Linux phones or is it to maximize the overall adoption of Free Software? It's the same goal. Adoption of Free Software without using it on the phones will not help much. There a…

The original comment I responded to was complaining about how the Google/Apple duopoly leads to a "pick your poison" situation and the user hostility. My recommendation was to into Google-free Android distros that can be used and do not require big compromises in terms of usability. Your interjection came off as one that could provide the same level of usability and no compromises on the freedom aspect. It's only now…

> AOSP is free-software.

There is no phone in the world which can run AOSP without proprietary software, at least drivers. (Well, technically, Pinehone and Librem 5 could do it, but it's not ported yet.) F-Droid is great, but it's running on top of a proprietary OS. It's probably a step in the right direction, but you can't just say "AOSP is FLOSS".

> The amount of people that could be interested in using /e/OS with F-Droid is orders of magnitude higher than the amount of people interested in tinkering with "Pure FOSS, GNU/Linux".

Every single change in the society starts like this. I don't see anything wrong or unexpected here. It doesn't mean that one should not promote the change. To me it even proves my point, because more technical people will get interested first anyway.

> The original comment I responded to was complaining about how the Google/Apple duopoly leads to a "pick your poison" situation and the user hostility. My recommendation was to into Google-free Android distros that can be used and do not require big compromises in terms of usability.

In this way you are still supporting Google with your money, it's not the best solution to the problem. Yes, the compromises are smaller and I did not disagree with it. I just noted in my original comment that anything Google-related will inevitably become e-waste, even if you use "AOSP" on it.

> Your interjection came off as one that could provide the same level of usability

You are probably right, and I could add a disclaimer that GNU/Linux phones can't do everything yet and are less reliable. But I don't see how those things were implied.

Re: Android loses 8% of its global OS market share in five years

#527

Post by freedomben »

afterburner wrote: post #133
freedomben wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I typically tell people if you want an apples-to-apples (no pun intended) comparison, you can't compare iOS to Android. You need to compare iPhone to Google Pixel. If iOS was open source and available for 3rd parties to roll-their-own, you wouldn't take a cheap "iPhone" maker and compare that against the latest Pixel Pro, so the reverse shouldn't be done either.

It seems though in the latest iteration at least, the Pixel 6 is actually worse than the Samsung S22. And frankly I've often felt like Samsungs were the flagship Android phones, not Google's phones.

Kind of a late comment but I really do wish Samsung would make a serious attempt at a "stock android" type of device that was affordable, because I think they would kill it. Their phones have always seemed really high quality to me, but so expensive, and the S2 that I had back in the day was riddled with Samsung versions of apps that I didn't want.

Re: Android loses 8% of its global OS market share in five years

#528

Post by rglullis »

fsflover wrote: post #526
rglullis wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original comment I responded to was complaining about how the Google/Apple duopoly leads to a "pick your poison" situation and the user hostility. My recommendation was to into Google-free Android distros that can be used and do not require big compromises in terms of usability. Your interjection came off as one that could provide the same level of usability and no compromises on the freedom aspect. It's only now…

> AOSP is free-software. There is no phone in the world which can run AOSP without proprietary software, at least drivers. (Well, technically, Pinehone and Librem 5 could do it, but it's not ported yet.) F-Droid is great, but it's running on top of a proprietary OS. It's probably a step in the right direction, but you can't just say "AOSP is FLOSS". > The amount of people that could be interested in using /e/OS with…

> but you can't just say "AOSP is FLOSS".

That's why I had my quip about "FOSS purists". In practical terms, people using AOSP (and boo-hoo closed drivers) have a lot more options of free software in applications and all other aspects that matters to them.

> It doesn't mean that one should not promote the change.

We have a quarter of a century of "This is the year of Linux on the desktop", and any adoption that Linux ever got could never be attributed to an increase "technical people" interested in a "pure" alternative. Valve's working on Proton and making gaming on Linux a reality is doing more for FOSS than any "activist" ever will.

The problem of FOSS is not a lack of education or promotion. The problem is that its activists miss the forest for the trees. To illustrate, instead of taking my comment about an alternative that would be miles better than iOS/Google Android and adding to it, to make the message stronger, you decided to "educate" them, and now all it's left is the two of us on a debate that does not help the others in any way.

> In this way you are still supporting Google with your money.

No, I am not. A Google-free Android, is as useful to Google as a GNU/Linux system. Google will only make money if people continue to use its search and see their ads.

Re: Android loses 8% of its global OS market share in five years

#529

Post by [deleted] »

cookie_monsta wrote: post #415
Kye wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Either you have especially pliant friends, or you've never tried to do this.

Agreed. It's not just convincing all (or even most) of your friends, it's getting them to convince all their friends to switch (and so on)

[deleted]

Re: Android loses 8% of its global OS market share in five years

#530

Post by dmead »

freedomben wrote: post #43
dmead wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it seriously worth it for people to do stuff like this? I remember when stallman said he was giving the one laptop per child program a shot. Since the drivers for the wifi were non free he used some USB device instead. Last I read that lasted a few months because he got sick of it. I can't imagine adding all those steps to use a smartphone is any less annoying.

I think you're genuinely asking, but just FYI it might seem to some people like you're perpetuating the common trope of "Stallman radicalism" or nothing. By far more people on Linux are willing to run some amount of "non-free" software depending on the situation. For example the Nvidia proprietary drivers are one of the most popular packages for many distros. The only real problem right now is just lack of apps. Devs…

I didn't say that. And I don't' think people think that when questions like that are asked.

People don't care about this stuff if it's going to waste a ton of their time.

Theres a reason people buy closed source oems and don't care. It's because it works and doesn't waste their time.

Imagine buying an open source car where you can to periodically rebuilt parts of the engine because it was "free". That's absurd, people aren't buying a philosophical journey. they're buying a car.

I'm sure if pinephone or OLPC used entirely free drivers and didn't waste your time to do the same asks people would find it much more agreeable.

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