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LineageOS is currently installed on 1.5M Android devices

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Re: LineageOS is currently installed on 1.5M Android devices

#91
post #2

I 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…

Can LineageOS do major upgrades without needing support? (so once it's installed you never need to reinstall, and you can keep it safely up-to-date forever by clicking a button every so often - like Silverblue)

No. Not even Google Pixel can promise error-free major upgrade jumps e.g from Android 12 to 13.

But on LineageOS you can update through all the updates for the major Android version (mostly ASB fixes and some new features here and there) by clicking a button from the Updater menu, courtesy of Android's A-B dynamic partitioning update system.

Re: LineageOS is currently installed on 1.5M Android devices

#92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DivestOS is a slightly modified Lineage version that officially supports relocking on some phones (in contrast with Lineage, which I think can be relocked but explicitly tells users not to do that). It also has sandboxed implementations of both official Google services — ported from Graphene, I think – and microG. I'm using it with microG, bootloader relocked, and it seems to pass SafetyNet this way – at least the ap…

Yeah US companies are weirdly strict on this. The McDonalds app won't even work if installed through the Aurora store, it has a custom screen that says it won't work if it wasn't installed through the play store :D Ridiculous. It doesn't even handle payments here in Europe, you still have to pay at the kiosk.

Oh yeah you're right! McDonalds and Revolut are the only two apps that don't work on my phone no matter what I try. (Those and the phone-as-a-card-terminal apps, but that's totally reasonable.)

Re: LineageOS is currently installed on 1.5M Android devices

#93
post #58
post #2

I 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…

>ageist demeaning Doro Not everything is an ism. Doro makes phones for people with poor eyesight. Most of those people are old. Glancing at their product catalogue, it doesn't seem much different from what you're doing with Lineage OS. Not everyone will have a geeky son to make a customised Lineage phone. Doro fills a niche. Be thankful someone does.

> Not everything is an ism. Doro makes phones for people with poor eyesight. Most of those people are old. Glancing at their product catalogue, it doesn't seem much different from what you're doing with Lineage OS. Not everyone will have a geeky son to make a customised Lineage phone. Doro fills a niche. Be thankful someone does.

My father has a Doro handset. I recommended it to him based on a misunderstanding of the advertisement* and have regretted it every since.

The user interface is confusingly designed, with nested menus ten levels deep in which pressing the wrong button can just delete your message, contact etc. without waiting for confirmation. The screen is tiny and low resolution - I have 20/20 eyesight and still can't see what the status icons are supposed to be! It is so awkward to change the ring volume and unclear what mode the phone's in, that my father doesn't trust it not to ring at concerts, so leaves it at home.

All that leads me to the opinion that Doro is just predating on older users and their carers with the idea of being simple and accessible, whilst actually doing absolutely no real UX research. Yet, their 'dumbphones' approach the price of some basic smartphones which have hardware orders of magnitude more powerful.

* This was back when 2G was new, and I incorrectly assumed that it would imply some level of internet capability on any handset new enough to support it. The device in question does not have any internet support.

Re: LineageOS is currently installed on 1.5M Android devices

#94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bank would probably prefer if they could lock that websi5e down as well.

Banks are all form over function. I came to my bank to discuss a mortgage and I saw them log into their environment. A nice Windows environment with bright blue title bars and big red X buttons. In other words, Windows XP for which even the long term extended support has long since passed.

Did you mean the other way around?

Re: LineageOS is currently installed on 1.5M Android devices

#95
post #2

I 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…

I kind of agree with this. Whatsapp for example, has become so incredibly big in many different parts of the world that it has become a sort of de facto standard for communication to the point where government agencies even use it to communicate information to citizens via chatbots. It feels to me like there is a need for formal standardization but how would you go about enforcing that?

Re: LineageOS is currently installed on 1.5M Android devices

#96
There's almost no reason to not install it after 3 years. I haven't tried banking apps but everything else works at least as good as with stock Android. In fact some apps even got tweaked, e.g. the Timer has more config options and battery life doubles. (With a Pixel of course GrapheneOS is another option)

Re: LineageOS is currently installed on 1.5M Android devices

#97
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As already mentioned, OnePlus is the usual alternative. If you want it cheaper, I also have good experiences with Motorola phones. Unlocking requires you to register, but you can use a throwaway mail account and it has worked for me so far many times. Just make sure the device is officially supported by Lineage, I have very mixed experiences with unofficial ports. Stay clear of anything from Xiaomi. Unlocking is a ni…

I agree regarding Xiaomi. But they are quite cheap devices. Like $300 can get you a pretty decent phone. It's just a 7 day waiting time period and you need a Xiaomi account logged in on the phone for those 7 days. I won't say it's the end of the world.

I can only say that I did it with two phones, and every time it was a hassle. On your phone, you need to login with this "Mi account" and grant pretty much every permission there is. Then you need a Windows PC and install a dubious application, connect your mobile and then hope it works, which it might not (happened to me), in which case go to Reddit and find a download link to some older version that still works (it did).

First time I needed to wait 2 weeks. Second time, I made the mistake of using the same Mi account and had to wait 4 weeks, because I did not know each time you unlock something your waiting time doubles. If your phone for whatever reason looses the Mi account connection, everything gets reset and you start from scratch.

It's not the end of the world, but 300$ will also give you a pretty decent Motorola Moto G phone, which are way easier to unlock (all you need is a mail address, and you'll get your unlock code instantly).

Re: LineageOS is currently installed on 1.5M Android devices

#98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They ship the iPhone SE. That’s about as small as you can reasonably expect any smartphone to be.

I just got an iPhone SE 1st gen, for the size and headphone jack. It's great.

THE SE 1 was damn near perfect. Great size, no camera bump, headphone jack, great battery life, fantastic all-metal build quality, fingerprint sensor...

Re: LineageOS is currently installed on 1.5M Android devices

#99
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>ageist demeaning Doro Not everything is an ism. Doro makes phones for people with poor eyesight. Most of those people are old. Glancing at their product catalogue, it doesn't seem much different from what you're doing with Lineage OS. Not everyone will have a geeky son to make a customised Lineage phone. Doro fills a niche. Be thankful someone does.

> Not everything is an ism. Doro makes phones for people with poor eyesight. Most of those people are old. Glancing at their product catalogue, it doesn't seem much different from what you're doing with Lineage OS. Not everyone will have a geeky son to make a customised Lineage phone. Doro fills a niche. Be thankful someone does. My father has a Doro handset. I recommended it to him based on a misunderstanding of the…

BlindShell sells a phone for vision-impaired users, with support for popular assistive apps, plus audio for NFC tags, https://blindshellusa.com.

Re: LineageOS is currently installed on 1.5M Android devices

#100
post #2

I 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…

My elderly parents especially have problems with buttons that need 2 steps to press them. E.g. in Whatsapp if the other party wants to start a video call, a small button will pop up that just shakes around and needs to be pulled up.

They usually don't even notice that button. And if they do, they certainly don't understand that it needs to be pulled up...

Another big issue is that buttons and input fields are often not clearly recognizable as one.

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