Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Where to buy a non-Apple, non-Google smartphone

theregister.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 335 posts

Re: Where to buy a non-Apple, non-Google smartphone

#91

Post by SoftTalker »

The_President wrote: post #25
skc wrote: post #24

Many years later and I'm still bitter that the tech press laughed Windows Phone out of the room straight to its demise. Yes it had very little developer support but at some point things were looking up. It was just the butt of too many jokes from influential people. A third ecosystem right now would have been amazing

The Windows phone didn't make it due to Microsoft failing to compete, not the press. Not many tech products exite me less than the concept of a Microsoft Windows 365 Copilot Cortana phone.

Windows phones were great at the time, everyone I knew who had a Lumia loved it, but yeah imagining what it would be like today makes me shudder.

Re: Where to buy a non-Apple, non-Google smartphone

#92

Post by amunozo »

SoftTalker wrote: post #86
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #76

The challenge isn't buying it, the challenge is being able to do phone things with it. Nowadays, you can no longer exist in society without a phone. Most things will work but it takes one critical service that doesn't have a viable workaround, and you're forced to buy (and possibly carry) a "mainstream" phone just for that. Banking, government, authentication, postal service and public transit apps are just some of t…

You can exist, but life will be as inconvenient as it was in the 1990s (though importantly, it didn't seem inconvenient at the time, it was just the way things were).

I disagree. You cannot even book appointments in a lot of banks today, a thing you could do in the 90s. Like that, a lot of services are unavailable without a smartphone and its non-smartphone equivalent is not available anymore.

Re: Where to buy a non-Apple, non-Google smartphone

#93

Post by pokstad »

The majority of these phones are running a modified version of Android. I wouldn’t call that non-Google. There is a total lack of diversity in the phone market. I’ve been trying to find a minimal feature phone for my kids and looked at Nokia, but non-Android Nokia phones don’t support enough US cellular bands.

Re: Where to buy a non-Apple, non-Google smartphone

#94

Post by SoftTalker »

amunozo wrote: post #92
SoftTalker wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can exist, but life will be as inconvenient as it was in the 1990s (though importantly, it didn't seem inconvenient at the time, it was just the way things were).

I disagree. You cannot even book appointments in a lot of banks today, a thing you could do in the 90s. Like that, a lot of services are unavailable without a smartphone and its non-smartphone equivalent is not available anymore.

Not my experience. I'm in the USA, and there are still bank branches everywhere, I'd say as many as ever and new ones are being built. In fact within a mile of my house the finishing touches on the latest new one (full remodel of a former restaurant building) are just about done.

Re: Where to buy a non-Apple, non-Google smartphone

#95

Post by bdangubic »

amunozo wrote: post #92
SoftTalker wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can exist, but life will be as inconvenient as it was in the 1990s (though importantly, it didn't seem inconvenient at the time, it was just the way things were).

I disagree. You cannot even book appointments in a lot of banks today, a thing you could do in the 90s. Like that, a lot of services are unavailable without a smartphone and its non-smartphone equivalent is not available anymore.

Why does this permeate the HN all the time. You can 100% function without a fucking smartphone. My Dad doesn’t have one, he has zero-to-no trouble going to the bank and paying his bills and just about every other imaginable thing. If there was something he could not do and there were repercussions for it he’d be calling an attorney to rectify the situation. It is crazy to keep reading this over and over on HN, so weird

Re: Where to buy a non-Apple, non-Google smartphone

#97

Post by MrMorden »

mmooss wrote: post #72
skc wrote: post #24

Many years later and I'm still bitter that the tech press laughed Windows Phone out of the room straight to its demise. Yes it had very little developer support but at some point things were looking up. It was just the butt of too many jokes from influential people. A third ecosystem right now would have been amazing

Why not Blackberry as the third ecosystem? They used QNX, a respected realtime OS, and had a history of making appealing, highly functional phones.

Lack of applications. They decided to fix that by adding an Android subsystem, and nobody wanted to publish their Android applications to the Amazon store even with Amazon throwing gobs of money at publishers and only some APIs having been moved into Google Play Services.

Re: Where to buy a non-Apple, non-Google smartphone

#98

Post by izacus »

em-bee wrote: post #74
izacus wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GrapheneOS is a Google OS - it's a slightly modified Android developed by Google and continues to be dependent on Google for updates. (Murena /e/OS is similar. No, slamming the downvote button won't make either of them any less Google dependant OSes.)

you are being downvoted because the article considers de-googled versions of android acceptable. and neither are dependent on google in the sense that even if google stopped publishing android source altogether they could continue to develop the versions they already have. that's the whole point of Free Software and Open Source.

Yeah, and that's utter nonsense. Noone is really stepping up to develop Android beyond repackaging it.

If Google decides to remove a feature, GrapheneOS and other forks will end up without it too. If they stop publishing security patches, the forks end up insecure too.

It's just like all the Chrome "forks" when ManifestV2 died. None of them survived for more than a few versions until maintainers lost interest.

Calling any of these Google free is downright lying.

Re: Where to buy a non-Apple, non-Google smartphone

#99

Post by bdangubic »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #76

The challenge isn't buying it, the challenge is being able to do phone things with it. Nowadays, you can no longer exist in society without a phone. Most things will work but it takes one critical service that doesn't have a viable workaround, and you're forced to buy (and possibly carry) a "mainstream" phone just for that. Banking, government, authentication, postal service and public transit apps are just some of t…

> Nowadays, you can no longer exist in society without a phone.

millions of people would like a word…

> Most things will work but it takes one critical service that doesn't have a viable workaround, and you're forced to buy (and possibly carry) a "mainstream" phone just for that.

Absolutely not, if there is “critical service” that requires an iPhone or Android you call an attorney.

> Banking, government, authentication, postal service and public transit apps are just some of the common categories that will, in the end, force you to use one of those systems, unless governments mandate viable alternatives.

There are now and there always will be alternatives

> As an individual, it feels like my options are to either submit or try to live a hermit's life, bringing endless suffering and exclusion to myself.

As an individual you can and should fight any system that forces you into buying a smartphone. Alternatives must exist even if they might be “incovenient” (e.g. have to do it browser vs. via some “App”)

Re: Where to buy a non-Apple, non-Google smartphone

#100

Post by stateofinquiry »

echelon wrote: post #40
janvlug wrote: post #13

I use a Librem5 Linux phone. With the default PureOS operating system. Enjoy your freedom, break free from Google and Apple. Have a full Linux computer in your pocket that you can also use for calling. See also the discussion on this post: https://mastodon.social/@janvlug/116504044251287290

> Enjoy your freedom, break free from Google and Apple. You can't escape it. Your friends and employers and banks use it. The state will soon mandate it for ID. It's the accepted worldwide compute platform, and you're being the nail that sticks out. Your usage is subject to breaking randomly, being unsupported, losing access or being banned by stepping outside the traffic lines, etc. They'll use attestation, certs an…

Yup. I have not tried using a non-GoogleAndroid or iOS smartphone, but what you describe perfectly reflects what I experienced when I went started to work for a large employer 16 y ago. I had been using Linux as my main OS on desktops and mobile computers for at least 15 y by then. Slowly the grind of hacking my system to access the VPN, check email on their Exchange server, open MS Word docs.. it all pushed me to MacOS from about 2015 - 2021. Eventually I could not abide by Apple's incompatible hold on my data, Gatekeeper (I really hate the concept that they must approve software I want to run on my own hardware) and the unrepairability of their machines.. so I am now on Win 11. Right now, considering the trade offs, I think this is the best choice. I see a lot of people extolling Linux lately, so maybe it is time to try going back.

Back OT, smartphones were always less open than the general purpose computers of yore. And it looks like they are increasingly a requirement for participating in many societies. In general I don't find this a good thing, but have little faith that regulators will 'solve' is because they have their own pitfalls (recent examples from EU: age verification and chat control).

Post reply on HN