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Your phone is about to stop being yours

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Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#751

Post by palata »

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…

> 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

Except they are not. And you can actually do that on iOS.

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#752

Post by nerdsniper »

rTX5CMRXIfFG wrote: post #479
jech wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I’m aware of alternate mainframe OSs but I’m not sure how common using one was. Extremely common at major universities and research centres. CTSS, ITS, TENEX, Multics, Unix and even VM/370 were all alternate operating at some point. > Other than OS2, alternate OSs for other systems were rather rare, You weren't there, were you? A lot of people replaced MS-DOS with DR-DOS before Microsoft deliberately broke it with…

> at major universities and research centres So not common outside of ivory towers, no?

That was a huge fraction of computing at the time. Before 1992 or so, the only people I was aware of that was into computers were all associated with a University. Typewriters were still actually very common.

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#753

Post by gvurrdon »

socalgal2 wrote: post #486
gvurrdon wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I agree with you that iOS is just as not acceptable, and don't plan to switch to it myself.

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#754

Post by palata »

storus wrote: post #741
palata wrote: post #732

Respectfully, I think this is the wrong fight. And I fear it may be counter-productive, because all the effort put into asking Google to make it a little less painful to install an unverified app is not put into the real fight. IMHO, it should be fine for Google or Apple to do whatever they want with their OS. What should be forbidden is to prevent people from installing an alternative OS on their hardware. But this…

ARM doesn't have any initialization/boot standard enforced on phone manufacturers so everyone is doing their own and never upstreams anything. It's a general ARM problem. PC with some lucky coincidence avoided that fate and we got used to it. RISC-V is in even worse shape than ARM as the fragmentation is even at the CPU instruction level. Both ARM and RISC-V have some discussions/proposed standards but nothing enforc…

Interesting insights, thanks!

If I may ask: is that a reason to prevent me from unlocking, adding custom keys and relocking the bootloader? It feels like you are talking about the implementation details below that. I don't really mind if it is different, I just want a common API, and it seems like whatever is done on the Pixel phones is totally fine. Why not make that mandatory for all manufacturers?

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#755

Post by newsy-combi »

karlzt wrote: post #258

This is the most important part: >> Developers Do not sign up. Don't join the program by signing up for the Android Developer Console and agreeing to their irrevocable Terms and Conditions. Don't verify your identity. Don't play ball. Google's plan only works if developers comply. Don't. Talk other developers and organizations out of signing up. Add the FreeDroidWarn library to your apps to warn users. Run a website?…

Lots of nay-sayers to this, but yes, strikes do work and it's one of the very few real tools for change that people have.

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#756

Post by palata »

codedokode wrote: post #748
palata wrote: post #732

Respectfully, I think this is the wrong fight. And I fear it may be counter-productive, because all the effort put into asking Google to make it a little less painful to install an unverified app is not put into the real fight. IMHO, it should be fine for Google or Apple to do whatever they want with their OS. What should be forbidden is to prevent people from installing an alternative OS on their hardware. But this…

This should apply not only to phones. Every device with CPU and programmable memory should allow user to reprogram it. However, the user may waive this right for purpose of theft protection.

Agreed. And it does not mean that they should open source everything.

If I buy a connected fridge, they should give me a technical way to flash my own OS on it. Maybe I will lose most functionality by doing that, and maybe it will be a lot of work for me to get the OS working properly with the fridge. But it should be possible.

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#757

Post by palata »

toss1 wrote: post #750

So much for vibe-coding apps for personal or niche use (e.g., club/sport/charity, etc.). Or will Google carve out an exception for Gemini/Antigravity/CoLab/AI Studio/Whatever? At least a usable exception, but smells a lot like antitrust lock-in if you prefer Claude/ChatGPT/DeepSeek/Whatever.

> So much for vibe-coding apps for personal or niche use

You will still be able to do that...

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#758

Post by newsy-combi »

simpaticoder wrote: post #696
karlzt wrote: post #258

This is the most important part: >> Developers Do not sign up. Don't join the program by signing up for the Android Developer Console and agreeing to their irrevocable Terms and Conditions. Don't verify your identity. Don't play ball. Google's plan only works if developers comply. Don't. Talk other developers and organizations out of signing up. Add the FreeDroidWarn library to your apps to warn users. Run a website?…

This is the part that makes the least sense. It shows a profound lack of empathy. For many devs this is equivalent to saying "Give up your livelihood to show you support this principle, that will likely have little to no effect". This is advice aimed at wealthy hobbyists. What's worse is that it's not even a principled view. If you really don't trust Google, then you shouldn't rely on Google's software no matter what…

Lack of empathy better describes Google's psychopathic pursuit of ever more control over its users, while the products get ever more enshittified of course.

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#759

Post by dariosalvi78 »

rimliu wrote: post #598
dariosalvi78 wrote: post #592

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I used to own a house, I could decorate it the way I wanted. It was hard work, but it was mine! Then they locked it, so I went to live in a luxury hotel, it's more expensive, I can't decide how I want it and I don't own anything, but it's such a superior experience!

Some want ownership, some want experience. People differ, who might have thought.

it's not the choice, it's the argument: OP seems to be happy to give up freedom (he or she initially cherished) because everything now is crap anyways, so let's just bathe in shit and celebrate it...

Re: Your phone is about to stop being yours

#760

Post by empyrrhicist »

rootusrootus wrote: post #285
empyrrhicist wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the vastly superior apple experience After switching away from GrapheneOS to iOS after RCS stopped working for me, I can safely say my experience has been the opposite. The camera is the only thing better for me on iOS - everything else is buggier and worse. A few of my favorites: 1. Safari is buggy as hell, and requires installing apps to run things like ad blockers. 2. The settings are ALL over the place and very…

> Apple maps is hot garbage. I had to install Google Maps anyway to get decent performance I hear this and wonder how much must be regional. I'm experiencing the opposite. Apple Maps has gotten quite good, while Google Maps seems to just be rotting away. Both do work reasonably well in my home area of the PNW, but Apple Maps is a bit more polished. But in some places, like recently when I was on a business trip in Au…

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