[HN Gopher] PinePhone Pro Announced
___________________________________________________________________
PinePhone Pro Announced
Author : abawany
Score : 403 points
Date : 2021-10-15 14:21 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.pine64.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.pine64.org)
| philliphaydon wrote:
| Physically it just looks like every other android phone :( I
| really wish the Ubuntu phone got funded cos I liked the look of
| that.
|
| Edit: meant ubuntu edge phone not Mozilla.
| dbeley wrote:
| That's basically because they outsourced the design to a cheap
| chinese smartphone manufacturer. It was definitely the right
| choice as the Pinephone has basically zero hardware issues,
| unlike the Librem 5 or even the Fairphone.
| belval wrote:
| I curious about the opinion of HN on the absence of 1080p (it's
| still 720p). Specially this part of the blog post:
|
| > The decision to maintain the original PinePhone's screen
| resolution of 1440x720 was made early on; higher resolution
| panels consume more power and increase SoC's load, resulting in
| shorter battery life and higher average thermals. A few extra
| pixels aren't worth it.[1]
|
| While I understand the point they are making, the PinePhone's
| screen is almost 6" and pixel density is probably the first thing
| that I notice on a new smartphone. It just seems very low?
|
| For context I am fully aware of the project, its goals and that
| it's not trying to take over the global smartphone market, but
| for some reason 1080p feels like the baseline in 2021.
|
| [1] https://pine64.org/2021/10/15/october-update-introducing-
| the...
| officeplant wrote:
| >1080p feels like the baseline in 2021.
|
| The lower end Android market is still dominated by 720p(ish)
| phones. Especially the sub $150 market. Having used a few of
| them I don't think its an issue. Especially when you get a
| phone with a 720 screen, a modern low end efficient octo-core
| SoC, and a 4000mAh battery. The 3-4 days of battery life feel
| like you've gone back in time 15 years to cellphones lasting
| most of the week again.
| Fnoord wrote:
| Yeah, but... the Pro is not in a low-end sub $150 market. The
| Pro is twice as expensive as the normal Pinephone: 400 USD +
| taxes. I don't see how its worth the money if it still isn't
| gonna be usable as daily driver.
|
| Steam Deck only supports 1280 x 800, and that's gonna be OK
| for handheld gaming. I rather have 120 Hz and OLED but it
| ain't gonna happen for now.
|
| I really doubt you get 3-4 days on a Pinephone once you start
| using sync services (for photo's, e-mail, IM, etc). Or use
| the screen extensively (browsing, video, etc). Of course the
| device lasts long if you don't use it for much.
|
| While a Pinephone would be good for watching video's, it
| isn't because no Widevine, and that's what people need.
| Without Android emulation, it ain't gonna be popular.
| _Microsoft_ knows this. Its why they 're going for rolling
| out WSLg's successor on Windows 11, targeting Android GUI
| apps.
| noasaservice wrote:
| > While I understand the point they are making, the PinePhone's
| screen is almost 6" and pixel density is probably the first
| thing that I notice on a new smartphone. It just seems very
| low?
|
| With convergence, its HDMI out.
| belval wrote:
| Didn't think of that one, that would make sense.
| reginold wrote:
| As a new PinePhone owner this month, screen res is a non-issue.
| No one is buying this phone as a daily driver right now.
| There's very few apps available. GPS was 50 miles off when I
| tried it. For devs interested in a new project, PinePhone needs
| your help!
|
| MVP = Linux on a smartphone
|
| That said, I haven't read the announcement closely but wonder
| why they used the "Pro" moniker. Just say it's the new version
| of the PinePhone? What problem does naming it "Pro" solve?
| Vinnl wrote:
| > That said, I haven't read the announcement closely but
| wonder why they used the "Pro" moniker. Just say it's the new
| version of the PinePhone? What problem does naming it "Pro"
| solve?
|
| I think they wanted to avoid (unsuccessfully, it seems)
| people thinking it's the "new" Pinephone. Rather, as I
| understand it both will be sold at the same time, and one is
| just more powerful than the other.
| reginold wrote:
| Appreciate your response!
|
| "Both will be sold at the same time" -- ah now I see what
| they're going for. Does this mean further fragmentation of
| their limited dev resources?
| TheUnelisted wrote:
| No, because any pretty much any work done for one device
| will help the other since they are mainline devices.
| nousermane wrote:
| Depends on how good user's eyesight is. Many are just not able
| to tell the difference between 5-6" 720 and 1080 lines.
|
| Not without reading glasses, at least.
| emteycz wrote:
| But people that need glasses keep them on
| nousermane wrote:
| People with presbyopia [0] rarely do. This is a pretty
| common condition with older folks.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyopia
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Pretty common is an understatement. Everyone I have met
| over 50 used reading glasses. It starts somewhere between
| 40 and 45, but the number of people without presbyopia
| over 50 must be minuscule.
| ncmncm wrote:
| I used reading glasses, for years. I don't need them
| anymore.
|
| Sometime last year I started drinking kombucha, a pint
| most days. That is the only thing I can think of to
| credit the change to. My diastolic blood pressure also
| went down, from 90 to 70.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| That is remarkable because, as I understand it,
| presbyopia is simply a consequence of the proteins in the
| eye hardening over time, and hence everyone is expected
| to get it around the same age. I struggle to see how
| kombucha would help them soften.
|
| https://www.nei.nih.gov/learn-about-eye-health/eye-
| condition...
|
| http://www.carolinaeyemd.com/eye-conditions-
| hendersonville/p...
| SkeuomorphicBee wrote:
| > the PinePhone's screen is almost 6" and pixel density is
| probably the first thing that I notice on a new smartphone. It
| just seems very low?
|
| I don't think it is as big an issue. I have an old 1st Gen
| Nexus 7, it has 720p resolution on a 7" screen, it is perfectly
| readable and a generally nice screen to use (I would still be
| using the device frequently if it wasn't painfully slow due to
| degrading flash). The difference to a super-high resolution
| modern device is obvious on a side by side comparison, but not
| on its own. When I'm just using the device I don't even notice
| the lower resolution.
| megous wrote:
| There's more to screen quality than just pixels.
| opencl wrote:
| I think the performance loss for a higher resolution screen
| would not be worthwhile here. The GPU in the Pinephone Pro is a
| lot faster than the original but it's a 6 year old design that
| is not exactly great by modern standards. And a lot of the
| existing software stack is not even GPU accelerated yet. 1080p
| would probably give quite noticably worse performance.
| megous wrote:
| Pinebook Pro (same SoC) has 1080p panel.
|
| It works fine and SoC is fast enough to drive it. Even A64
| will drive 1080p external monitor just fine (if you turn off
| the GPU and use older software made for it, like Xorg, and
| i3wm).
|
| I believe the power efficiency argument, though. Pinephone
| pro needs every bit of power savings it can get, because
| RK3399 is not exactly a phone SoC.
| Brave-Steak wrote:
| I think there are _far_ more important aspects to a phone than
| pixel density. If somebody told me I could get better battery
| life and performance with lower pixel density, it would be a
| no-brainer for me to say yes.
| jchw wrote:
| I own an original PinePhone. Most people are aware of its
| issues by now, but I always found the screen (and by and large,
| the general build quality) to be oddly sufficient. It isn't
| overkill, but I don't think it is terribly limiting either. I
| suppose a higher DPI screen would be a nice luxury, but it can
| definitely wait for the SoC to catch up.
| ben-schaaf wrote:
| I've got both a pinephone and a 1080p android phone. Compared
| to a laptop/desktop everything is already scaled to 2x or more,
| so while I can tell them apart I can't say I'm actually losing
| anything from the 720p display. The only exception I've found
| is content consumption, but if I care enough I've got plenty
| better, larger screens to use.
| hcal wrote:
| I have one and I'm using it right now. It is more than fine. My
| eyes aren't perfect so maybe others would care more but the
| image is super crisp and looks really good.
|
| The screen outclasses the rest of the hardware.
| mcdonje wrote:
| I appreciate the blurbs about who it is and isn't for. I'm
| currently in the latter group, but I commend the project. Now
| that there's a good hardware target, hopefully the software will
| catch up.
| 29083011397778 wrote:
| I would argue there was already a reasonably hardware target -
| the biggest thing was (for me) the modem. It was power-hungry,
| dropped signal, and for some people, didn't work with VoLTE.
| The Pro uses the same modem, meaning hardware support has been
| improving for the last two years :)
| ericmay wrote:
| I love the desktop-ness of this. I wish Apple enabled this with
| iPhone. I'd finally be able to have one device.
| rich_sasha wrote:
| Honest question: what is the path to something resembling wider-
| audience usability (i.e. not a toy project)? Or is that not
| really a plan?
|
| I'd LOVE an open, Linux-based phone. But I also need a phone that
| does video calls, has a working browser, messenger etc. One that
| works with at least a good bunch of most common apps.
|
| Is that likely to ever happen? Or is this a very interesting
| project, but really aimed at tinkerers, or people who don't use
| WhatsApp etc.
| olau wrote:
| Probably only if people chip in and help. I don't know much
| about this eco system, but it's my impression that most of the
| components are already there, including Android emulation, they
| just need more work.
|
| Probably rewarding work, too.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| It is likely to happen, yes. It just takes time. Remember,
| desktop Linux was aimed at tinkerers for gears before it became
| useable by your average person.
|
| The big difference is that at that time desktop machines had
| pretty standard hardware, and hardware was largely
| interoperable, whereas with mobile these guys basically have to
| develop hardware, set the standard, and software developers
| have to develop the software specifically for the hardware.
| It's a lot harder, but if you look at the pace of things since
| librem and pine started, the development of this is moving at a
| faster pace than desktop Linux did.
| dbeley wrote:
| > But I also need a phone that does video calls, has a working
| browser, messenger etc
|
| The current Pinephone has almost all of that right now (desktop
| firefox run very well, messaging works - MMS too -, video calls
| works in the browser).
|
| > One that works with at least a good bunch of most common
| apps.
|
| That's on the "most common apps" devs to do the work, and they
| are very unlikely to do so.
|
| You could use something like Waydroid on the Pinephone to run
| some Android apps in a stable-ish way (SailfishOS has a similar
| feature).
| CameronNemo wrote:
| How performant are video calls in Firefox on the Pinephone?
| (Or Pinebook Pro for that matter?)
|
| Last I tried zoom with 4 people on my PBP, it was stutter
| city.
| treesknees wrote:
| Never say never, but I'm not optimistic for it. The biggest
| issue is app compatibility. Even with a huge budget and
| namesake like Microsoft Windows, you can see how Microsoft's
| mobile OS projects have essentially disappeared when trying to
| compete against iOS and Android. Maybe someone will get Android
| apps running natively on a Linux distro, but then you're still
| missing the unlicensed framework around Google Play that breaks
| many existing popular apps.
|
| We also don't even have this with desktops or laptops today.
| CPUs are still proprietary and running closed-source software.
| On mobile it's even more locked down, where I can almost
| guarantee you will never have open software running on baseband
| controller or SIM card on any public network like Verizon.
| TobTobXX wrote:
| > Maybe someone will get Android apps running natively on a
| Linux distro
|
| Depending on what you mean by 'native', you might find
| Waydroid[0] interesting. It only does containerization, not
| emulation.
|
| And also: While yes, Linux on the desktop isn't too
| successful, it is at a state that you can daily drive with it
| for all tasks. Maybe you won't get the MS Office suite
| running, but there are alternatives.
|
| I think the Linux mobile niche will go into the same
| direction. It won't be successful, if measured by raw
| numbers, but it will be successful in that it will provide a
| functional alternative for those willing to do it. It won't
| ever run WhatsApp, but it will run usable alternatives.
|
| > _Depending on what you mean by 'native', you might find
| Waydroid[0] interesting. It only does containerization, not
| emulation._
|
| [0]: https://github.com/waydroid/waydroid
| amarsahinovic wrote:
| I recently backed Astro Slide on Indiegogo[0] and they do say
| it will be able to boot Linux alongside Android 11. The
| designer behind Astro Slide is Martin Riddiford who was also
| the designer of Psion Series 5[1].
|
| [0] https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/astro-
| slide-5g-transforme...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psion_Series_5
| opan wrote:
| I made a comment elsewhere in the thread about the Gemini
| PDA. Do not trust this company to deliver proper GNU/Linux
| support. Ever. They keep using MediaTek chips and horrible
| shims to use Android drivers on GNU/Linux and none of it
| works well at all. It's not even close to the experience you
| would get with a PinePhone or Librem 5. You are giving up a
| lot to get those better specs. After getting a Gemini PDA I
| am never buying anything from Planet Computers again.
| WhatIsDukkha wrote:
| Be aware that planetcomputers/astro slide has done a really
| really bad job of supporting their devices with os updates on
| the Android side.
|
| Even with some linux support (which I haven't checked lately)
| it was a hard pass to support the slide.
| MerelyMortal wrote:
| When I first saw their Indiegogo advertising that it
| _could_ boot Linux, I tried looking for any pictures
| /video/evidence of it, and found nothing.
| TheUnelisted wrote:
| It does "run", but it's not really running Linux. It's
| just android with a halium layer running Linux software
| on top. So when android support ends, which it will
| seeing how they've not been great at software support,
| your "Linux" build will also no longer get updates.
| That's why Mainline Linux is such a big deal, as even if
| support ends, you'll still be able to get the latest
| Linux kernel and distributions can continue basically
| forever supporting the device.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Forget being able to use it for office. Is it able to take a
| decent picture or video yet?
|
| The performance of those apps on the original pinephone is just
| hideous.
|
| Also, is it just me, or was the original already pretty chunky,
| and now they've added 2mm making it 11mm thick.
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| This isn't for me and I don't ever expect Linux phones to
| actually take off, but I'm heartened that Pine64 exists and that
| they are doing this stuff.
|
| I have a Pinebook that I got as a toy machine and was very
| impressed with the execution. And unlike Purism, Pine64 has good
| customer/developer communication and isn't making impossible-to-
| keep promises about deliverability or even capabilities.
|
| So not for me, but I'm glad this sort of project exists.
| md8z wrote:
| I don't have any comments on the Purism customer support
| because I haven't bought their phone, but as a Pinephone owner
| it's good to have them around. Purism has been investing a lot
| more in the software side of things. They work well with
| upstream. Their new projects are good too, phosh and libhandy
| came from Purism and are both extremely useful on the
| Pinephone.
| filmgirlcw wrote:
| I'm not trying to discount Purism's software work, but
| hearing so many people wait four plus years to have phones
| delivered or more than a year for a laptop - unable to get
| refunds, it leaves a bad taste. My own limited experience is
| that I wound up on their press list and then they sent me an
| unsolicited request to "invest" in their company (by way of a
| convertible note...lol, no thanks) and apparently they've
| done this to customers they still owe products to.
|
| So it's cool they contribute to upstream. Still strikes me as
| a very poorly run business.
| md8z wrote:
| That's a shame because I do think they are doing a lot of
| things right as far as being an open source company goes.
| The software people who work there don't seem to have
| anything to do with any questionable financial decisions,
| but they get associated with that just for being there.
| GeckoEidechse wrote:
| Same. I may have bought a PinePhone but it's running mobian
| with phosh, so all the heavy lifting to get a working phone
| UI was done by Purism including GTK libraries like libhandy
| (now libadwaita).
|
| I'm ever grateful for their work.
| segalord wrote:
| Just give us accesible hardware kill switches on the side and I'm
| sold
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| Eh, I disagree. I'd hate to accidentally enable one of the
| things shut off by those switches. Software controls are likely
| adequate for day-to-day "I just don't want tracking here or
| there" events, but the physical hardware switch should give you
| an "I don't want this happening ever" comfort, which is best
| done by something more secured behind a cover.
| noasaservice wrote:
| Damn, and I just put in an order for the PinePhone 1.5 days ago.
|
| Just emailed them to see if they can make this work, and upgrade
| appropriate for the difference.
| TheUnelisted wrote:
| Well, the "Explorer Edition" units haven't gone on sale yet.
| Right now only developer units are on sale, and those are
| strictly for developers who will contribute to the kernel,
| firmware, drivers, and shell. But I'm sure they will be willing
| to process a refund for you if your device hasn't shipped out
| yet, otherwise you'll have to return it minus the cost of
| shipping.
| nottaylorswift wrote:
| $400? Absolutely never.
| pengaru wrote:
| Disappointed they didn't take this opportunity to make hardware
| switches more conveniently accessible without removing the rear
| cover, like the Librem 5.
|
| Maybe that's not such a priority when you're fully aware the
| thing isn't actually usable as a daily driver one might be
| regularly toggling cell/wifi/camera on.
| megous wrote:
| Compatibility with all the pinephone back covers and the
| upcoming keyboard is more important, I guess.
| nsonha wrote:
| The spec is so unimpressive. I don't know about other people but
| I'm not getting a Linux phone for minimalism, I'm getting one
| that could host all my personal computing need and even replace a
| desktop.
| darkwater wrote:
| Is there any real technical reason that forbid a non Android
| underdog phone maker like Pine64 to be able to run banking apps
| as MFA devices? I mean, I don't see any tech issue for this phone
| to provide a secure enclave chip (I mean, like one in a yubikey)
| and enroll in a standard WebAuthn workflow. I'm specifically
| looking at UE banks regulations that forces me to use my Android
| phone to permit/deny any operation instead of letting me use if I
| want my yubikey to do the same in the browser
| second--shift wrote:
| If I buy this phone today, in {6 months, 1 year, 5 years} when
| Linux is ready for phones, will I be supported in that future
| still?
|
| I'd hate to buy this phone to support a project and then never
| have access to what I wished the product was.
| drewda wrote:
| I recall seeing pictures and notes about a PinePhone with a
| physical keyboard. Is that actually under development as well? Or
| is that just someone's experiment?
| megous wrote:
| It was delayed several times because of repeated issues with
| the quality of the keyboard membrane.
| bluGill wrote:
| Yes, someone else posed a link to the full update elsewhere.
| The keyboard should be shipping soon.
|
| Or you can use a USB-c adapter to use any USB keyboard today.
| nightski wrote:
| Nokia is re-releasing their 6310 phone this year and honestly I'm
| more tempted to go down that path at this point. Just a regular,
| reliable phone. The most painful thing for me at this point will
| probably be authenticator apps.
|
| That said the pine phone looks really cool and I hope they
| succeed. Mobile Linux is going to be such a large uphill battle
| without huge investments. But with Google/Apple having
| compensation packages amounting in the 300k-500k+ per year you'd
| think there would be room for a competitor in there _somewhere_.
|
| [1] https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_int/nokia-6310
| baby-yoda wrote:
| is there a roadmap for Nokia feature phones? would take an
| updated 6310 but would really love an e71/72 successor with
| modern features.
| slim wrote:
| 6300 has kaios. It should have the authenticator apps in store.
| busymom0 wrote:
| Does the Nokia allow you to load mp3 files and play them? That
| would solve it for me.
| rjsw wrote:
| All of the HMD/Nokia feature phones can play mp3 files.
| h0p3 wrote:
| Is there anyone here who has more than 3 months of using their
| [[Pinephone|https://philosopher.life/#Pinephone]] as a daily
| driver (a solid habit) or who knows someone who does? I'd like to
| speak with you (or them) because I'm in need of patient guidance.
| I'm willing to live off a commandline if I'm forced to do that.
| KingMachiavelli wrote:
| > The result of this cooperation is the RK3399S - a RK3399
| variant made specifically for the PinePhone Pro.
|
| Looks like the RK3399 was used in some chromebooks so hopefully
| that means it has great upstream Linux support. We can hope it
| doesn't require any device overlays or weird kernel patches.
| officeplant wrote:
| The RK3399 is also in the pinebook pro and their higher end SBC
| offering. Linux support is fairly good especially since the
| community developed Panfrost drivers for the Mali GPU.
|
| I've played around with a chromebook on the same chip and while
| ChromeOS is of course much more polished the Pinebook Pro is
| very usable.
| SergeAx wrote:
| Got my Pinephone today. Currently the most usable modus operandi
| is to install openssh server and remote from desktop) Getting so
| much fun anyway, worth every buck.
|
| I wonder. Firefox has Android version with mobile-optimized look
| and feel. I beleive it shares a lot of code with desktop version.
| How hard will it be to build that version for Linux graphics
| desktop?
| Klasiaster wrote:
| For me the main pain point of the current PinePhone is not its
| performance, it's the driver and firmware issues. Mainline Linux
| does not work well with the current PinePhone and various patches
| are not upstreamed or not even written yet to fix the remaining
| bugs. The cameras don't work with most software, the out-of-tree
| WiFi driver has stability issues to the point where I rather use
| LTE or USB, the USB-C firmware is flunky, the modem firmware
| crashes and needs a lot of workarounds.
|
| I hoped they chose components for the PinePhone Pro that work out
| of the box in terms of firmware and having no downstream Linux
| patches in the near future, but it seems quite similar to the
| current PinePhone, only slight improvements. The camera OV5640 is
| the same (hopefully someone came up with better v4l2 integration
| since the second camera is different?), the modem EG25-G is the
| same, no info on the used USB-C chip, but at least there is a
| better WiFi chip.
| CameronNemo wrote:
| Weird that they advertise how this is a mainline Linux
| experience, while at the same time claiming video output
| through the typec port.
|
| I own a PinebookPro. The only way I get video output through
| the typec port is through some hacky patchset that will not be
| accepted upstream, and which occasionally breaks on new kernel
| releases. Some people report that it does not work whatsoever.
| I actually have to flip the typec plug to get it to work -- the
| video output is not reversible for some reason.
|
| They also mention that the Pinephone Pro will support a suspend
| mode, which is something I have never been able to get working
| on my PinebookPro. The best that device can do is 1.7W while
| idle.
|
| I'm glad to see this announcement, because I hope that these
| new rk3399-ish devices will improve software support for my
| PBP, but I implore anyone who is concerned about the above two
| features to wait and see. I certainly won't be buying another
| rk3399 device anytime soon, even though it is one of the best
| supported high performance offerings for mainline TF-A, U-Boot,
| and Linux.
| Fnoord wrote:
| > but at least there is a better WiFi chip.
|
| Strangely, it sports Bluetooth 4.1, while 5.1 is from December
| 2019.
| megous wrote:
| Wifi is different, with mainline driver and regularly updated
| firmware from cypress (same as Rpi4 wifi chip). Type-C stuff is
| different, more sane. Main camera is different and selected to
| already have mainline linux support...
|
| I don't think this complaint is fair. Only major thing that's
| the same is the modem, but that would be quite annoying thing
| to change, because it would void the hard work of people
| working on the FOSS Linux stack for EG25-G modem.
| Klasiaster wrote:
| Great to hear about the USB-C situation improving and
| confirmation about better WiFi! Do both cameras already work
| with common V4L2 applications like Firefox, Cheese etc?
|
| Yes, it's sane to keep the EG25-G modem only because there is
| one guy doing an enormous work with
| https://github.com/Biktorgj/pinephone_modem_sdk
| megous wrote:
| That's not a problem with camera drivers but with firefox
| and cheese using old APIs. Cameras are v4l2 subdevices,
| cheese ignores all that. Firefox is the same I guess.
|
| It will improve once these big apps switch to libcamera,
| like Chrome is doing.
| guerrilla wrote:
| I think your expectations may not be aligned with what they're
| selling. From the website:
|
| > We're not in the business of selling empty promises - a much
| faster mainline Linux smartphone won't make the existing
| operating systems more refined, nor will it magically spawn
| software replacements for your iOS or Android applications.
| There is a long road ahead of us, all of us, and it will
| require time and effort for the software to reach a degree of
| maturity that would satisfy mainstream users.
| Klasiaster wrote:
| I'm not a hardware guy and think it's a question about the
| approach: do you build something and throw it to the kernel
| devs to see if they can make it work, or do you build
| something and see yourself if it works well with existing
| software.
| dleslie wrote:
| They seem to have fixed my personal gripe with the PinePhone: the
| camera was terrible.
| TobTobXX wrote:
| I think most of the limitation might actually lie in software.
| I have a CE and Megapixels (the camera app I'm using) can store
| raw files and the raw files and the processed jpg files have a
| significant gap in quality.
| julienchastang wrote:
| One thing I will note is how absolutely essential smart phones
| have become to our daily existence. A colleague's phone recently
| broke and her life shutdown because she could not 2fa anywhere,
| including for reporting her time card, etc. As a result, I cannot
| take any risks when purchasing a phone. I have to have the most
| reliable option possible.
| Iolaum wrote:
| No matter how reliable your phone is you can always have an
| accident, like the phone drops and breaks. A good practice, if
| possible, is to keep an old(er) phone as a backup device and
| make sure you have proper/backups migration paths.
|
| P.S. As a pinephone owner I don't consider it to be a good
| options for a backup device. I can only hope that one day the
| ecosystem gets there.
| Arch-TK wrote:
| >As a result, I cannot take any risks when purchasing a phone.
|
| Or you could make better choices when it comes to how you
| organise your life so that you do not get in situations where
| losing your phone completely screws you over.
|
| Seriously I don't get why people wilfully get into situations
| where important things in their life rest on the reliability of
| their phone.
|
| It takes a minimal amount of awareness. And there's no excuse
| for it. My life is not massively negatively impacted by just
| refusing to be get chained to a phone.
| julienchastang wrote:
| The problem is what do you do about 2fa which more and more
| organizations are requiring almost always via sms ? I suppose
| yubikeys could be part of the solution of getting away from
| the phone for auth.
| capableweb wrote:
| Agree, it's a bit frightening we're so locked to our phones
| today.
|
| But why leave that comment on this particular submission? The
| PinePhone is not meant to be a phone you use day-to-day, it's
| meant for curious developers to hack around on. They are being
| very upfront about this as well. Maybe in the future this will
| change.
| julienchastang wrote:
| > But why leave that comment on this particular submission?
|
| Sorry if I sounded negative. I agree, efforts like these
| should be lauded.
| aero-glide2 wrote:
| If anyone from India bought a PinePhone previously and is no
| longer using it, feel free to ship it to me :D
| bluecatswim wrote:
| Do they ship here? A lot of products shipping from China have
| trouble getting to India.
| nyanpasu64 wrote:
| I don't think I'm ordering this at $399. This is over twice the
| price of the previous PinePhone (admittedly it was borderline
| useless), and solidly out of "novelty buy" territory. If I wanted
| a tech toy, I'd order a handheld emulation device with
| (questionably comfortable) physical buttons and _working games
| /emulators_ for $50.
| Program_Install wrote:
| As a concept this is fine, mainstream will never happen with the
| current set of societal priorities. It's not flashy enough, it
| requires some tinkering, and my friends won't think it's cool
| enough. Unfortunate, because at least in my opinion this is the
| direction we should all be going.
| officeplant wrote:
| I've had the Braveheart and later Mobian releases of the
| Pinephone. Currently have a Pinebook Pro. I'm super excited for
| the Pinephone Pro to finally get moved to rockchip hardware even
| if it is just a downclocked 2016 SoC with a few more tweaks for
| Pine64.
|
| The progress they are making is great but still far from daily
| driving for me personally. I'm just glad the community exists.
| Even with the bugs and flaws the products may have it is better
| than nothing.
| pcdoodle wrote:
| The CPU has a passmark of around 2000 I think. It's clearly
| quite an upgrade. Also, they have kept backwards hardware
| compatibility (Pogo Pins, Screen size and Button Placement),
| that's a huge motivator for a hardware eco system to pop up
| around it. Can't wait for these tires to warm up!
| codezero wrote:
| This looks neat and I appreciate how clear they are about
| expectation setting. With that said it's disappointing to see
| only Bluetooth 4.1. A lot of modern devices rely on features from
| 5.0 either for low power usage, or bi-directional high quality
| audio.
|
| It seems fine for a general productivity device, but not for
| things like video conferencing, or media consumption, which I
| guess aligns with their inability to support DRM.
| ghoward wrote:
| Mini Ask HN:
|
| The comments here seem to say that PinePhone and friends are not
| ready to be daily drivers or even occasional drivers. I think
| that's fine.
|
| However, I do want to support these people and their work. I also
| need an ARM machine to do tests on (for portability of software
| and such), so I'm thinking of buying this Pro version. Yes, I'll
| spend a lot more than I need to, but I _really_ want to support
| them.
|
| So question: are the PinePhone and friends good enough to do
| development on? And not even normal development; just
| downloading, building, and testing?
| djent wrote:
| A Raspberry Pi may be more useful for your ARM build server
| related tasks, as the PinePhone runs on battery, has only one
| USB C port, etc. If you are developing applications for the
| PinePhone or other mobile viewports, then absolutely the
| PinePhone is for you.
| ghoward wrote:
| The battery and port is a fair point. Thank you.
| bluGill wrote:
| Instead of a phone, pine64 makes a lot of other computers
| designed more for what you want. They are cheaper and have
| cases that make it a lot easier to use for what you want. (I'm
| typing this on a pinebook pro laptop from them)
|
| The only reason to buy a phone vs something else from them is
| the phone donates a bit of money to some other project. But you
| can directly donate to KDE or whatever and get the same result.
| TobTobXX wrote:
| I have a PP CE and I'm trying to do Rust GUIs. Now the Rust
| compiler is known to be slow, and with C (and maybe using an
| optimized compiler like tcc), YMMV. But Rust development (at
| least when using any amount of dependencies) is unbearable.
|
| I have hopes for getting cross-compilation working, but no luck
| so far...
| freeopinion wrote:
| Yes
| ghoward wrote:
| Thank you!
|
| I have more questions if you don't mind.
|
| Is the experience alright? Are there any gotchas that I would
| need to know?
| abawany wrote:
| An anecdote: my eye opener was when I connected mine
| (3gb/32gb) to a usb-c hub (after seeing Martjin Braam's YT
| video on it) and was able to then connect it to my 27" hp
| monitor via hdmi and attach my keyboard/mouse as well: any
| complaints I had about Pinephone's 'rough edges' up to that
| point (which tbh, were plenty) disappeared.
|
| Generally speaking though, the performance will be pretty
| sad and the device will get fairly hot during normal use. I
| am looking forward to getting this new device (Pro) at some
| point to see the improved performance. The software also
| keeps improving. When I got it (as a ubports 2gb edition, I
| later upgraded to the 3gb board), the software was in poor
| shape so I put it away for a bit. Mobian versions starting
| last summer really improved on the usability though.
| timwaagh wrote:
| I'd expect the battery performance to suffer. Android did a lot
| of things to optimize that vis a vis 'normal' linux.
| smokelegend wrote:
| 4GB mem.....? Really 4GB? That's it?
|
| Would it really have been that bad to at least offer a 8GB, 16GB,
| or 32GB Memory upgrade.
|
| Just feels like a huge let down. I get it the price of
| electronics(i.e. memory) is more expensive, but this makes it
| look like a joke in comparison with other "phones".
|
| And if it were marketed as a mini computer 4GB of ram isn't
| saying much. Hexacore processor, 128GB Emmc storage awesome but
| then I read 4GB of ram and it's like a smack in the face. If this
| is to be a "flagship" for years to come, I'm really disappointed
| they went with limited memory.
|
| Would I pay $699 instead of $399 for more memory... yeah I would
| cammikebrown wrote:
| My iPhone 12 (4 GB RAM) is usually faster than my Windows PC
| (16 GB, Ryzen 2600).
| busymom0 wrote:
| iOS has always handles memory much better than other
| competitors. Even simple apps I develop for iOS use lesser
| RAM than the same thing on Android.
| nsonha wrote:
| is that a joke? they run completely different things
| CameronNemo wrote:
| That is the limit for the rk3399 SoC. I'm surprised they did
| not wait for the rk3588, or just use a Mediatek Dimensity SoC.
|
| If you are based in Europe, you may be interested in the
| Fairphone 4, which has 6 or 8 GB of RAM.
| opan wrote:
| MediaTek is horribly hostile to free software and would be a
| terrible fit in something like this. MediaTek is the reason
| the Gemini PDA couldn't do what the PinePhone is doing
| despite making some similar claims.
|
| As for not waiting for a newer Rockchip part, it sounds like
| they are making it clear this is not a second generation
| PinePhone, just a more powerful version of what we already
| had. There will likely be a proper second generation with
| more major changes later on.
| CameronNemo wrote:
| I'd be interested to learn more about Mediatek's hostility.
| I only mention them because I did not see any red flags on
| their SoC specifications.
| my123 wrote:
| MediaTek puts the responsibility of releasing the
| downstream kernel tree source code on the Android OEMs.
|
| And some of those don't comply with that.
|
| (but otherwise, they are upstreaming support for their
| SoCs nowadays anyway)
| bluGill wrote:
| Pine64 has other CPUs they can work with, but they are not
| well supported yet. I wouldn't be surprised to see another
| phone rev with a much better CPU in the future once the
| Quarts-64 line starts working well. Right now the people who
| can do that work already have plenty of hardware to work
| with, while people who can do phone work really want a
| somewhat faster CPU now.
| jjmellon wrote:
| I received a Pinephone in the latest shipment, about three weeks
| ago. I also got the convergence dock to be able to attach a
| monitor, keyboard and mouse. I am extremely motivated to get off
| Android on my phone, and yet my Pinephone has already been
| discarded (and I never even put a SIM card in it).
|
| There are far too many out-of-the-box bugs and glitches to
| consider this a usable product. For example, the convergence dock
| will not display on a monitor. Firefox browser displays too wide
| for the phone screen, so unusable. A dozen other issues on first
| day.
|
| Even a development board should work better than this, have
| documentation of the known problems, and have some support
| mechanism that works.
|
| I don't think better/more expensive hardware is the problem. It's
| software, caused by lack of users, lack of investment, and too
| many "competing" distributions of Linux.
| reginold wrote:
| Similar experience with a new PinePhone last week but different
| conclusion.
|
| PinePhone is our only hope. It's still in Beta, months or years
| from being consumer ready. And that's just where it needs to be
| from a development standpoint. Don't rush.
|
| That said, reading your comment I also wonder about having too
| many distros of Linux going after PinePhone. I had an SD card
| with I believe 14 distros. Doesn't that mean the core
| development is divided 14 times? It seems like combining
| together strengths would be beneficial.
| idle_zealot wrote:
| > Doesn't that mean the core development is divided 14 times?
|
| I don't think it's quite that simple. A lot of these
| competing mobile distros are using and working on the same
| libraries and porting desktop applications to mobile in
| similar ways. The biggest differences are usually the desktop
| distro that they've made their base and their desktop
| environment of choice. It's common to see enhancements to an
| application or even core functionality like battery
| utilization or suspend improvements land in one distro and
| then be quickly adopted by others. As someone who's mostly a
| bystander, the outliers seem to be the people working on the
| distros that aren't ports of desktop Linux, like Sailfish,
| Nemo, and Ubuntu Touch. Of the main desktop-Linux-ports
| cluster the biggest divide seems to exist between launcher/DE
| development. Developers are split between the Gnome-based
| Phosh interface and the Plasma mobile interface. But a
| similar dichotomy exists on desktop. I'll also throw in an
| honorable mention of sxmo and its wayland port, which I
| consider the equivalent to the underdog tiling window
| managers on the desktop; which is to say its only option good
| enough to consider using.
| reginold wrote:
| good to know, appreciate the clarification! Glad to hear
| the work is cumulative.
| josteink wrote:
| > I'll also throw in an honorable mention of sxmo and its
| wayland port, which I consider the equivalent to the
| underdog tiling window managers on the desktop; which is to
| say its only option good enough to consider using.
|
| It's a funny thing indeed.
|
| sxmo seems to be the only option _not_ focusing on
| competing with Apple and Google on a "good enough for
| mainstream" ux.
|
| I mean Phosh is nice and all. Having frameworks for
| contacts and calendars just like in Gnome is nice.
| Pulseaudio working just as on the desktop is great too. But
| the total experience still leaves the impression of a very
| subpar iOS/Android copy.
|
| sxmo though, that has decided to _not_ compete with Apple
| and Google on what they do best, but rather do their own
| thing and re-envision what a Linux smartphone should /could
| be.
|
| And I like it. I like it a lot. It's by far my favourite
| Linux smart-phone experience so far.
|
| I just need a better phone to run it on, and the Pinephone
| Pro could be that phone.
|
| New phone or not, I'd also appreciate if sxmo managed to
| rebase on/ship for Mobian too. The package selection for
| pmOS and Alpine is pretty weak in comparison.
| md8z wrote:
| I looked into sxmo and I think it falls clearly into the
| "clever hack" category and not in the "actually usable"
| category. There is only so far you can get on a
| touchscreen device without actually programming any of
| the apps to support touch. The lack of hardware
| acceleration in anything X related is also basically
| going to ensure that it always has poor performance,
| everything needs to be moved to use GLES based rendering.
| josteink wrote:
| > I looked into sxmo and I think it falls clearly into
| the "clever hack" category and not in the "actually
| usable" category.
|
| Agree to disagree? Also I think you're being somewhat
| disingenuous or uncharitable here.
|
| sxmo has _clearly_ had a unique vision for mobile Linux
| for power users and executed on just that.
|
| All core phone functionality is available through
| regular, composable shell-scripts. And all major events
| can be hooked by simple user-controlled scripts in
| $HOME/.config/sxmo without any other alterations to the
| OS at large, no root required. It successfully employs a
| tiling window-manager by default to allow simple(!)
| mobile-oriented multi-tasking.
|
| That's quite something of its own, with no equivalent
| anywhere else in mobile space, Linux-based or not.
|
| This is clearly a power-user enabling mobile Linux shell,
| and it's making no excuses about it.
|
| Sure there might be technical improvements which are
| possible at several levels in the stack. I'm not debating
| that.
|
| That does however in no way take away from the _vision_
| behind it and how well that has been executed so far.
| md8z wrote:
| I honestly do not see what is so remarkable about it. It
| just never seemed to me like a unique vision but instead
| an effort to adapt some existing X11 tools to a mobile
| workflow. Which is a fine thing to do if you like those
| tools, but that's different from having some grand new
| vision.
|
| To elaborate: The use of a tiling window manager with
| explicit workspaces doesn't really make sense to me on a
| phone since every app runs fullscreen anyway. The use of
| shell scripts doesn't really make sense since editing
| text on a phone is awful. I don't understand what the
| definition of "power user" means here either. What does
| this do that other phones and shells can't do? I can edit
| shell scripts in Termux on Android too, but it's still
| awful and unpleasant. Unfortunately I just wasn't able to
| figure out any reason to use it.
|
| And just to be clear, I would not describe any Linux
| phone as a grand new vision. They're sadly all playing
| catch up.
|
| Edit: I forgot to mention, the use of volume buttons to
| control a device with a touchscreen is pretty ridiculous.
| I mean, come on, you have that big nice touchscreen and
| you're not going to use it? Or has this improved recently
| where you don't have to do that anymore? Please let me
| know, thanks. Maybe I'll try it again if this is any
| better.
| officeplant wrote:
| >Doesn't that mean the core development is divided 14 times?
|
| Honestly I don't think personally that it hurts things as
| much as one might expect. There is a lot of work from each
| distro that benefits all of the others. For example the
| Mobian dev was one of the first to really tackle the issue of
| battery life and their work benefited all the other teams.
|
| That being said it might be better to have a few larger dev
| teams, but as long as their works contribute back to the
| community there is always benefit to the whole.
| 29083011397778 wrote:
| I'd second your assumption. Geary, MegaPixels (the camera
| app), Phosh (one of the few window managers), the modem
| firmware, and more are mostly shared between all the
| distros. Doubly so for upstreamed SoC firmware, battery
| efficiency improvements, and more that I'm sure I'm
| overlooking.
|
| Frankly, it makes me question anyone who says desktop Linux
| is divided because we have options - at this point, it's
| more like there's no large corporate backer with a vested
| interest in making the desktop experience mainstream.
| reginold wrote:
| Asking for clarity since I'm one month into my Linux
| journey: Are you saying that most of the distros are
| really just more surface level changes rather than deep
| "divisions"? I've been struggling to understand.
| TobTobXX wrote:
| Most distributions are derivations and arise because some
| skilled people wished some core functionality would be
| different.
|
| And other distributions started from scratch, but
| obviously don't want to do really everything on their
| own, so they took other software.
|
| The result is that a lot of established software is
| shared.
| bluGill wrote:
| Mostly. There are a half dozen different desktops to
| choose from. Same for ways to package software. Most of
| what a distribution does is make some choices and
| configure it. Most distributions learn from each other in
| some way. Most distributions fix things upstream so that
| other distributions can take advantage for their useful
| changes.
| opan wrote:
| They ship different things out of the box but can largely
| use the same exact software. They may update at different
| rates and thus have different versions of things. They
| are not entirely different operating system like Mac OS
| vs Windows.
| abacadaba wrote:
| SteamOS?
| 29083011397778 wrote:
| Good catch, thank you. While Steam currently _prints_
| money AFAIK, they 're simultaneously 30 years behind
| Apple and Microsoft (as far as being the driving force of
| a desktop) and the reason Steam (and gaming on Linux) has
| come so far, so fast recently.
| tediousdemise wrote:
| I noticed many of the same issues, but the most concerning one
| for me was that the modem (behind the upper rear of the phone)
| gets extremely hot. This has to be terrible for battery life
| and general longevity.
| megous wrote:
| Modem is a heatsink for pretty much all the other heat
| producing stuff in that phone. It gets hot when whatever else
| gets hot (PMIC when charging, or SoC when doing soc stuff).
| 29083011397778 wrote:
| Many people are running an open-source re-implementation of
| the modem [0]. Neither the proprietary nor the open-source
| firmware for the modem are perfect, but the latter has the
| advantage of being clocked down to 100MHz instead of the
| default 400. This allows _much_ better battery life, as well
| as giving off far less heat :)
|
| [0] https://github.com/Biktorgj/pinephone_modem_sdk
| 29083011397778 wrote:
| I wouldn't want to say you must try again, but if you're
| interested in playing more with the toy for nerds, the Mobian
| wiki [0] is full of helpful tips.
|
| You're right, lots of things don't fit the screen. Running
| scale-to-fit firefox on [1]
|
| would fix your issues with Firefox not scaling correctly, for
| the most part. The other person that replied to you is right -
| it's currently a toy for nerds more than a drop-in replacement.
| With compromise and some effort (such as running your own
| Matrix server to replace Signal / Whatsapp / Discord), it can
| be done. But I'd hope to inspire you to try again, while
| tempering expectations for just how ready mobile Linux
| currently is :)
|
| [0] https://wiki.mobian-project.org/
|
| [1] https://wiki.mobian-
| project.org/doku.php?id=tweaks&s[]=scale...
| linmob wrote:
| From reading OP I it sounds more like mobile-config-firefox
| is not installed and thus Firefox does not work properly.
| _joel wrote:
| For me, the deal breaker is not being able to run any banking
| apps. That's not a fault of the PinePhone, but a sad reflection
| of the state of affairs.
| MerelyMortal wrote:
| Can you open banking websites? The only downside of not using
| an Android/iOS app (in my case at least) would be "mobile
| deposits" (depositing a check by taking a picture of it).
| eptcyka wrote:
| A lot of banks in the UK offer better IX through their apps
| when compared to websites, some don't offer a fully
| featured web client at all (Monzo and friends).
| _joel wrote:
| In addition to the UX they also lack the functionality and
| some use the mobile app as a 2FA mechanism for the website
| site, so to use that I'd have to carry around another
| android/iphone just to 2FA.
| casept wrote:
| Why do you want to move off Android? Depending on the reason,
| your needs would probably be better met with an alternative
| Android distribution on Android hardware.
| prox wrote:
| I never liked Android, having owned a few. The hardware is
| quickly obsolete, interface has this clunky feeling, apps
| don't work properly, often because devs don't see the same
| rewards as their iOS brethren. And however you spin it, it's
| all proprietary sponsored.
|
| A linux phone might have the same problems, but at least its
| far more closer to the Open Source side of things.
| abacadaba wrote:
| Unfortunately I think AOSP distributions are a long-term
| dead-end. Unless maybe if there was a hard fork. Or else it's
| just a scramble to keep up with whatever changes google is
| making, dealing with unsupported hardware and hoping that
| whoever maintains the build for you device knows what they're
| doing, and re-implementing gapps to try to get some mostly
| broken compatibility.
| 29083011397778 wrote:
| Not OP, but I'd assume everyone with the goal of dropping iOS
| and Android is doing so for philosophical reasons. I still
| have my BlackBerry KeyOne. Battery life is still measured in
| days, but GApps bloat has pushed me to Open Street Maps.
| Literally every single aspect of the KeyOne is better, from
| battery life to performance to app availability and polish -
| but opting out of all tracking may be more meaningful to
| some.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| In the article we are discussing, the gist of your concerns is
| addressed. The pinephone (and mobile Linux in general) is
| extremely immature and only really for hobbyists and people
| developing for it. You expected a daily driver, right now it is
| a toy for nerds.
|
| Lack of users, investment and too many competing distros were
| all given in the early days of desktop Linux as reasons why it
| was simply not worthwhile. The thing is, this phase of
| development, where some devices exist that only nerds play with
| for a while, is necessary for there to ever be a mature Linux
| mobile UX. When you buy one of these devices you're not buying
| a Linux phone, you're _choosing to participate_ in the process
| by which a Linux phone becomes a reality. And that process is
| picking up steam, Ubuntu tried it, many people have run Linux
| on their android devices with unlocked bootloaders, but pine
| (and librem and others) have actually created a market
| environment where things are actually advancing, and in my
| opinion advancing much faster than desktop Linux did.
| Aeolun wrote:
| > right now it is a toy for nerds
|
| I have some standards for my toys though. If it's sold as a
| phone, it should actually work as a phone (even a shitty
| one).
|
| If they were selling it as a mini linux computer with
| integrated screen I wouldn't mind so much.
| fouric wrote:
| It's not the Pine organization's fault that you have a
| different definition of "toy" and "phone" than they do -
| and it's _definitely_ your fault that you didn 't read the
| _numerous prominent disclaimers_ spread _all_ across their
| site that _the PinePhone is not a finished product_.
| reginold wrote:
| I hear you both. I'm new to Linux, and when the Pinephone
| said it was for "advanced Linux users" I figured "how
| hard can it be?". I bought one and 24 hours later decided
| to pass it on. Turns out they really do mean "advanced"!
|
| > This is the Beta Edition of the PinePhone. The pre-
| installed Manjaro with Plasma Mobile OS, that ships with
| this edition of the PinePhone, is a beta software build.
| This effectively means that while core functionality of
| the PinePhone still an ongoing effort. Thus, the device
| cannot considered a consumer-ready product.
| josteink wrote:
| > I have some standards for my toys though. If it's sold as
| a phone, it should actually work as a phone (even a shitty
| one).
|
| It is sold as _Phone hardware_ with explicit remarks about
| software being a community effort and that you load it with
| whatever you like.
|
| Does someone who sells you a PC (HW) promise you that the
| software you load on it later will be bug-free? Of course
| not. That's not a hardware-matter.
|
| Same here with Pine64 and the PinePhone. They're selling
| you hardware. And that's it.
| RussianCow wrote:
| > Does someone who sells you a PC (HW) promise you that
| the software you load on it later will be bug-free?
|
| No, but if someone was selling PCs with super buggy
| software that regularly crashes your OS or prevents
| everyday functionality from working, people would be
| returning those PCs en masse, even if the hardware maker
| wasn't responsible for the software at all.[0] Even if
| you only "sell" the hardware, customers expect the full
| package to work.
|
| That's not to say I agree with all the complaints here,
| though; this case is different because Pine64 has
| numerous disclaimers and warnings on the website, and
| they are very up front and honest about the viability of
| the PinePhone as a daily driver.
|
| [0]: Whenever I hear non-techy friends complain about
| system instability, they pretty consistently blame the
| computer itself, not Windows or whatever software is
| likely actually causing their frustration.
| josteink wrote:
| > No, but if someone was selling PCs with super buggy
| software
|
| What you're clearing missing is that they _are not
| selling you software_.
|
| They are selling you open, unlocked hardware _to run
| software on_ , with no promises/liabilities about the
| software. Just like Intel, AMD, ARM, MSI, Asus, Kingston
| and a lot of other hardware suppliers. They even
| explicitly state this when you buy the phone.
|
| They are explicitly _not_ selling you a combined hardware
| /software package like Apple does with the iPhone or OEMs
| are doing with Android.
|
| How can you then complain about this later?
|
| Edit: You might even say that this combined HW/SW
| appliance-model applied by the rest of the smartphone
| market is the exact thing they are fighting against.
|
| They are selling HW as HW, leaving users free to run the
| software they prefer.
| jjulius wrote:
| It literally says "Beta" for each phone that is for sale.
|
| https://pine64.com/product-
| category/pinephone/?v=0446c16e2e6...
| necrotic_comp wrote:
| That's how I'm seeing this - as a mini linux computer with
| the ability to make calls and send text messages at some
| point in the future.
|
| Just a linux computer with a cellular modem sounds amazing
| to me, tbh.
| nottaylorswift wrote:
| Then buy any of the 3 billion Android handsets. Most
| average $100 and were out of beta in 08'.
| necrotic_comp wrote:
| Android handsets aren't really linux boxes. I can't ssh
| into them, I can't write little python scripts, etc. An
| actual, general purpose, real foss portable phone factor
| computer will be amazing as it matures.
| nottaylorswift wrote:
| There's nothing new here. I remember having those
| features in the Nokia N900 in 09. I think this product is
| grossly overpriced for a cheap generic Android phone
| loaded with a beta Linux distro. In Shenzhen they'll sell
| you a case of 50 for $400. Save your money or buy a Quest
| 2.
| oynqr wrote:
| Except this one is going to run a close to mainline
| kernel pretty soon and those android phones will be stuck
| in the last decade, forever.
| int_19h wrote:
| > I can't ssh into them
|
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.xnano.a
| ndr...
|
| > I can't write little python scripts
|
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ru.iiec.pyd
| roi...
|
| And those don't even require an unlocked bootloader. If
| you do unlock, sky's the limit - it really is a general
| purpose portable computer then.
| bluGill wrote:
| They have always been honest about what it is for. It is
| your fault for not knowing that when ordering. A little
| research reveals plenty of people are using it as their
| daily phone, but all agree that there are rough edges to
| fix.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| Well, it does work as a phone; you can call telephone
| numbers with it.
|
| But that's not what you mean when you say "phone" is it?
| The word "phone" is synonymous at this point with "mini
| computer."
|
| What if it were sold as a phone with a big caveat, loudly
| announced, that said "this thing is for tinkerers and
| developers and is not ready for causal daily use"? That's
| the thing, it is marketed that way. You bought something
| you didn't want, _you want what it is going to be_ , and we
| are all very excited about it and a bit impatient, but we
| cannot blame the product for ourselves being impatient.
| howlin wrote:
| I have one from a year or so ago, and it just collects dust
| right now. If I understood how utterly unusable it was and
| how unusable it would continue to be, I would have preferred
| to just donate to Pine's organization rather than have them
| send me clutter.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| I'll take it off your hands and you can consider that a
| donation.
| [deleted]
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| I largely agree with the assessment. I am still glad I bought
| mine, because even though it is gathering dust, I am hoping
| the purchase contributed somewhat to a better mobile future.
|
| I may have mentioned it before, but default OS is just
| painful to use ( thankfully, there are other options ). And
| here is the part of the problem. I am motivated to use it.
| Right now it still feels so janky, most people won't even get
| past initial boot process.
| prox wrote:
| I think the message / take away is : developers,
| developers, developers. Something that quickly evolves by
| the shared power of a lot of minds. If you are buying it,
| toss it away and don't contribute, this will hamper future
| succes.
| phero_cnstrcts wrote:
| Is there a way to sell apps?
| prox wrote:
| I don't know. My old phone is still working, and holding
| out as long as I can. Then I will buy a Linux Phone.
| bluGill wrote:
| Did you develop one? Remember the post you replied to was
| developers developers developers.
| squarefoot wrote:
| > When you buy one of these devices you're not buying a Linux
| phone, you're choosing to participate in the process by which
| a Linux phone becomes a reality.
|
| That is very true, and I would add that some of this reality
| is already in front of us. How many Android or Apple devices
| can run full featured office suites, graphics and audio
| manipulation software, development systems etc. complete
| browsers, electronics simulation software, etc, and I mean
| the real ones, not cut down mobile versions, all for free?
| Probably none. The problem with the PinePhone is that it
| still lacks functionality in those two fields where 99.9% of
| normal non tech users would want it to excel, that is, calls
| and messaging. Non tech users want it for calls, SMS, MMS and
| Whatsapp, period, and they very much prefer a costly Android
| or Apple phone that addresses those needs although it would
| be way inferior in everything else, including privacy and
| security. I think the PinePhone developers are already
| addressing some of these requirements, so hopefully it's a
| matter of time, but for most people, being able to run the
| WhatsApp client at decent speed would be the killer feature.
| No matter if run sandboxed with Android libraries, under a VM
| or reverse engineered; WhatsApp compatibility is the #1
| feature that could bring the most users on the PinePhone
| bandwagon.
| pengaru wrote:
| > For example, the convergence dock will not display on a
| monitor.
|
| I recently watched a presentation [0] that focused on the
| pinephone state-of-affairs, and it did not leave me with the
| impression the dock couldn't display on a monitor.
|
| Are you sure you're not just experiencing some pathological
| incompatibility problem? Or am I going senile and need to re-
| watch the video?
|
| [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuEL_GJ1Y2s
| megous wrote:
| He's experiencing a known HW issue, most likely. There's a
| manual workaround for now: https://xnux.eu/log/#045
|
| I'll implement a SW workaround eventually, but I'm still
| recuperating a bit from the work on the Pinephopne keyboard.
| Once it's released, donations will hopefully increase a bit
| again, and I'll be able to do more development other than a
| kernel maintenance.
|
| Now there's also Pinephone Pro and Quartz64 based router
| sitting on my table which I'm mostly playing with these days,
| so I'm a bit torn on where to focus my energy next. :)
| Groxx wrote:
| tbh I think Pine has been _extremely, excessively_ clear about
| this being the expected state of their phones. It 's stated
| over and over on almost every page that the software is
| incomplete and not suitable for most people, it's primarily a
| developer target to try to achieve that over the span of years.
| jjulius wrote:
| >There are far too many out-of-the-box bugs and glitches to
| consider this a usable product.
|
| Their phones are clearly marked as "Beta" on their store[1].
| Forgive me for being so blunt, but what did you expect?
|
| [1]https://pine64.com/product-
| category/pinephone/?v=0446c16e2e6...
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Beta traditionally means it works in the common case, with
| some glitches and bugs around obscure uses that wider testing
| will identify.
|
| The PP I received was crashy and couldn't even update the OS
| because a file or library was broken. :-(
|
| I had to start it up ten times, run a terminal with a mobile
| keyboard in a 4pt font to fix the updater before it crashed
| at the one minute mark.
|
| I'd call it pre-alpha.
| jjmellon wrote:
| I am a software developer. I would honestly not have the nerve
| to release a product with software in the state the Pinephone
| is in today. But of course, pine64.org takes no responsibility
| for the software on their phone, it's a "community project".
|
| Until there's somebody who is willing to be embarrassed by the
| state of this software, and able to do something about it,
| there is no hope here. It does not get better.
| megous wrote:
| People are improving the SW constantly. And it does steadily
| get better ever since the release (and before, because A64 is
| older than the pinephone, and was also implemented in
| mainline Linux by someone other than the SoC vendor).
| jjulius wrote:
| >I would honestly not have the nerve to release a product
| with software in the state the Pinephone is in today.
|
| To be fair, they're clearly marked as "Beta" on their store.
|
| https://pine64.com/product-
| category/pinephone/?v=0446c16e2e6...
| Shared404 wrote:
| What Pine has done is break the chicken/egg cycle of "there's
| no hardware -> there's no software"
|
| I disagree with your assessment. There are plenty of
| competent programmers who are working on pushing forward this
| software, and even following from the outside I've watched
| massive improvements over time.
|
| We needed (more) open hardware before the software could get
| properly started, and that's what Pine provided.
| idle_zealot wrote:
| I don't know how closely you've been following the
| progression of development, but every few months I get the
| itch to play around with my PinePhone and flash the latest
| version of one of the OSes. The experience is consistently
| greatly improved over the last time. I'm at the point now
| where the greatest usability issue I run into is performance,
| though I'm sure if I were to daily-drive I'd bump into more.
| md8z wrote:
| "I'm at the point now where the greatest usability issue I
| run into is performance"
|
| As someone who has used the latest iOS and Android, I can't
| agree. The performance of the Pinephone is indeed really
| terrible, but the usability in general is also awful. There
| are just way too many little details that are missing, most
| Linux apps are still not really built for touch. It will be
| a while before all the important apps are fully ported over
| to Qt Quick and libhandy/libadwaita, but maybe by then they
| will have made a few more revisions with a better CPU. And
| of course I expect desktop users to start complaining when
| that happens because some apps will start to get more
| mobile-oriented...
| [deleted]
| dbeley wrote:
| What OS did you use? I use mine with Phosh (tested Mobian and
| Archlinux) and I don't have the same experience at all. The
| device is still severely underpowered though so the Pro version
| with a much better CPU is a welcome change.
| horsawlarway wrote:
| Can confirm that the Arch build for my pinephone performed
| _significantly_ better than the default KDE rom that shipped
| with my device. Vibration, lights, volume & volume rockers,
| responsiveness, calls, keyboard etc - all mostly working on
| the arch release.
|
| But I 100% agree - the device is just too slow for me. Would
| love the increased RAM and extra CPU power.
| 3np wrote:
| Plasma Mobile does not have autoscaling of windows like Phosh
| does.
| 131012 wrote:
| A basic but very important question: can it phone and
| send/receive text message reliably?
|
| Smartphones are so bloated with functionalities, it seems
| nobody ever talks about that. I don't see the answer on the
| website.
| Klasiaster wrote:
| Not reliably, the modem can crash at any time and until you
| restart it manually from the terminal you can't send/receive
| text/calls.
| josteink wrote:
| I send and receive texts all the time on my PP. What are
| you talking about?
| blueblob wrote:
| I saw an article that touched on this for the pinephone (not
| the pro) and they said that it made and received calls fine
| but did not originally have dtmf support. If you need to
| check your voicemail and enter a passcode or use an automated
| system to pick up your prescription, you could not use it for
| that. It seems that has been ironed out depending on which OS
| you put on it.
| hutzlibu wrote:
| "A basic but very important question: can it phone and
| send/receive text message reliably"
|
| Half a year ago, when I looked into it, the answer was a
| clear: no. And there were not many things that did work
| reliable, without frequent freezes and crashes.
|
| I doubt that fundamentally changed, so if you are looking for
| stability and reliability right now, than better look
| somewhere else. This project is about to get to such a state.
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| That's part of why it's so infuriating. I wish they'd not
| install anything that wasn't working reliably. If only
| three features currently work, fine. Build from there.
|
| But a crashy mess that can't do 100 things while it
| overheats? I have no use for that.
|
| Fred Brooks, 1987:
|
| Some years ago Harlan Mills proposed that any software
| system should be grown by incremental development. That is,
| the system should first be made to run, even if it does
| nothing useful except call the proper set of dummy
| subprograms. Then, bit by bit, it should be fleshed out,
| with the subprograms in turn being developed--into actions
| or calls to empty stubs in the level below.
|
| I have seen most dramatic results since I began urging this
| technique on the project builders in my Software
| Engineering Laboratory class. Nothing in the past decade
| has so radically changed my own practice, or its
| effectiveness. ... The morale effects are startling.
| Enthusiasm jumps when there is a running system, even a
| simple one. Efforts redouble when the first picture from a
| new graphics software system appears on the screen, even if
| it is only a rectangle. One always has, at every stage in
| the process, a working system.
| justinclift wrote:
| You've got to be frigging kidding. Literally just received a
| PinePhone earlier this week.
|
| And now it's obsolete?
|
| Not happy at all. :(
| rjsw wrote:
| I don't consider the original PinePhone obsolete, I'm still
| planning to get one at some point even after the announcement
| today.
|
| Suspect you can sell your one on to someone if you want.
| megous wrote:
| Pinephone is supposed to be manufactured for 5 years since the
| initial release. Hardly obsolete.
| kop316 wrote:
| If you want to read more about it, I would recommend reading
| Pine64's Monthly update:
|
| https://www.pine64.org/2021/10/15/october-update-introducing...
| billyjobob wrote:
| I put my Pinephone back in its box about 6 months ago. Have they
| fixed the massive lag between touching the screen and it
| responding yet? That was the main reason it wasn't usable for me.
| dbeley wrote:
| In 6 months there have been tons of progress yes. Though I
| didn't have any issue with the touchscreen 6 months ago so your
| issue might lies elsewhere. You should try reflashing
| completely yours with Mobian or another well-supported OS.
| opan wrote:
| Things are properly 60fps and hardware accelerated now if
| that's what you mean. postmarketOS is a lot smoother now than
| it was at first.
| [deleted]
| liendolucas wrote:
| I've recently ordered a PinePhone. At 200 bucks I consider it a
| donation. I encourage other people to also buy one, even if it is
| not what you expect. This along the Framework laptops is
| definitely the way to think about consumer products. I wish
| appliances were also manufactured open source. Imagine fridges,
| microwaves, toasters, etc. Things that you can open, understand
| and learn from and maybe eventually build your own thing if you
| have the will and time to do so.
| megous wrote:
| I don't think Pine64 donates part of the profit anymore from
| the Beta sales. I think this change was announced in one of the
| previous community updates.
|
| I guess you mean "donation" to Pine64 to encourage them to do
| more fun HW development? :)
| jokoon wrote:
| I will ask this question again: why not use android instead,
| since android is open source? Building another mobile OS from
| scratch seems ill advised, or what am I missing?
|
| If android is open source, it's not google-dependent. I think
| there's something that I don't understand, but I bet that the
| core of android can still be used by any phone manufacturer, so I
| don't really see why pinephone is making their own OS.
|
| Does that mean that android, despite being open source, is hardly
| usable/customizable by developers, or too complex/bloated?
| jt_thurs_82 wrote:
| There's a couple of big reasons, as I see it:
|
| - licensing: some people, myself included, think a FOSS/Libre
| license such as LGPL/GPL3 is better for people and society.
| Android is mostly apache, which means it's not resistant at all
| to a company "stealing" it without giving back to the
| community.
|
| - dependency on google: like it or not, key components of
| android are completely maintained by google. That means that
| the future of an open platform is at the whims of one
| organization. Sure, you could fork, but android is a massive
| project and a small team could hardly keep up.
|
| - "the core of android can still be used by any phone
| manufacturer": android, and the related IPs, is pretty firmly
| in the control of the US government. A lot of funding for non-
| android mobile OSes comes from other governments interested in
| a platform and support that is unencumbered from five eyes
| states
|
| My personal opinion? Having more platforms is good, as are more
| compatibility layers. Android is more than just an OS or a
| platform, it's a set of ABIs for running apps that's used by
| over a billion people.
| luis8 wrote:
| I hope that someday a billionaire could donate a few hundred
| million to a product like this so we can finally have a true
| Linux phone that can compete with android and Linux.
|
| What about finding 1 million nerds like me that would like to
| donate 100 to a crowdfunding campaign just to the software side
| of the phone?.
| djent wrote:
| It is frustrating to me that despite the blunt verbiage about it
| being a beta device for software and hardware developers, people
| even here are griping about it being not ready for everyday use.
| If a free and open-source mobile operating system is missing
| software support for a feature you want, please contribute to its
| development.
| loser777 wrote:
| I bought a "beta edition" regular PinePhone and it seemed
| anything but "beta." Random crashes after boot every 30
| seconds, even with "workarounds" such as patching the memory
| frequency (really?). This may have been a hardware defect but
| one of the nice things about calling everything a "beta" as an
| excuse for the flakiness I'll never know. It was essentially a
| paperweight, not something that would enable me to become a
| "contributor."
| spaetzleesser wrote:
| From my experience a "beta" should be ready for daily use but
| some bugs should be expected. If it's really unstable call it
| "alpha".
| 542458 wrote:
| Part of the problem is that the meaning of "beta" has gotten
| extremely diluted, and is often used as a CYA rather than an
| actual indicator of where the software is in the dev cycle.
| Gmail was in "public beta" for what, five years? Game companies
| routinely give out "alpha" access that's really more of a pre-
| release test and hype tool.
| turtlebits wrote:
| The product page doesn't include the word "beta" anywhere.
|
| I wouldn't even call it a phone if it can't act as a phone out
| of the box, let alone use the "pro" moniker.
|
| Why is it not labeled as a development board with a touchscreen
| and cell modem?
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Unfortunately I'm fully booked, and would gladly pay an extra
| hundred or two for someone else to do it. Not clear on who that
| is yet.
| bluGill wrote:
| Unless you are talking about hundreds of thousands of dollars
| though your money isn't really useful. Developers are on the
| higher end of the income curve and so few people alone can
| afford to hire them like that. You can donate a few hundred
| so several projects, it will make a difference, but thousands
| of other people need to do the same before they can hire even
| one person (and the first people hired will do more IT or
| administrative work that needs to be done)
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| It's done by purchasing the device, many folks purchasing
| it, which I already did. In fact someone might consider
| starting a company (haha), or funneling the money to a
| single engineering source.
| officeplant wrote:
| As a owner of many pine64 products I wish there was a clear
| path to learning how to contribute. My last time coding was C++
| class over 16 years ago and I wish I had some sort of idea on
| how to get started with hobby programming in my spare time as
| an adult.
|
| Edit// Especially since I've jumped on the ARM bandwagon and
| replaced my desktop with an M1 mac and my laptop with a
| Pinebook Pro.
| ognarb wrote:
| Create apps! This is the most needed. We created a tutorial
| for Kirigami here: https://develop.kde.org/docs/kirigami/.
| There are also a few tutorials for GTK/libhandy with e.g.
| https://tuxphones.com/tutorial-developing-responsive-
| linux-s...
|
| Also join the developer channels on matrix:
| #plasmamobile:kde.org (not sure that the address for the
| GNOME one)
| pseudoramble wrote:
| Cool! This is the kind of thing I've wondered about for a
| while. This looks like some handy info.
|
| Is there an option to use a higher level language like
| Python and these QT libraries still? I don't have a ton of
| time to contribute, but this might be a way forward for me
| someday.
|
| EDIT: Your 2nd link is literally what I was asking about,
| although it's using Gtk3. I'm not familiar with either in
| depth, so I'm not picky there. That's really useful. Thanks
| for this!
| bluGill wrote:
| Mostly it is you just need to dig in and make false starts
| until you figure it out.
| TobTobXX wrote:
| btw, being on arm makes Pinephone development easier, since
| you don't have to cross compile.
| djent wrote:
| It certainly depends on what feature or what app you would
| like to work on. Mobian and Manjaro are both on GitLab, and
| the public is able to create an account. Issues there may be
| marked Help Wanted or similar.
|
| In regard to motivation to continue programming, that can be
| the most difficult. Overall if you are proud of your work and
| find it useful yourself, you will probably continue the habit
| of contributing and supporting your code.
| seniorivn wrote:
| go smaller, if u use some open source software check it's
| repositories and community forums and find something that
| people don't like to do
|
| documentation is definitely a candidate also automated tests
| kop316 wrote:
| Heh. Contributing to open source is....interesting. Pine64
| really seems to only do the hardware aspect, everything else
| is up to others.
|
| I guess I would ask: how do you want to contribute? Is there
| a specific niche you want to help fix? That's how I got
| involved, I wanted MMS (and later visual voicemail) for my
| Pinephone.. Or perhaps there's a specific project you like
| that needs help, or theres a particular bug that annoys you
| in a FOSS project. Those may be the best ways to get involved
| to help.
| blihp wrote:
| Just pick something that bothers you or you think is missing
| and start working on it. I'd recommend something application,
| as opposed to system, level to get started. That way you can
| develop using something like Python and not worry about lots
| of other dependencies on whatever you're working on.
|
| There generally isn't much in the way of formal organization
| in the open source world... just scratch an itch that you
| have. There are relatively few people working on things
| specific to Linux on mobile so even a modest contribution can
| have a big impact. For example, the developer of the
| Megapixels camera app, which is a vast improvement over what
| existed previously but still needs much work, just wanted a
| better camera app.
| unexpected wrote:
| I feel like programmers have become "soft". I bet the old guard
| is okay with something like this - a lot of C, C++, assembly
| skills - this is what it meant to mess around with computers!
|
| Now, you can just be modifying CSS and call yourself a
| programmer. You get one of these devices, and you're sorely
| disappointed!
| no_time wrote:
| As the complexity of our every day devices increase, less and
| less people are capable of contributing anything meaningful
| to an OS like Linux, let alone in their free time. It also
| doesn't help that the abundance of high level languages
| discourages learning about computer internals in younger
| generations.
|
| Or that we indeed became softies lol.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Those harder classes used to be referred to as weed out
| courses. Incoming class of 100+ students to Assembler.
| After 2 weeks, 60%+ drop the class.
| megous wrote:
| Language is very small part of it. For example me
| contributing a anx7688 driver for pinephone to make
| convergence work was C coding, yes, but also reading
| through type-c spec, battery charging 1.2 spec, usb-pd
| specs, alt-dp specs, and figuring out how it all works from
| 0 knowledge, to tie all that together on a quirky HW
| design, with several hardware bugs that I had to discover
| first, and non-cooperating PMIC/and type-c controller, on 3
| different pinephone HW variants.
|
| C coding is the easiest thing. Hard part is figuring out
| what needs to be done and getting quite detailed
| understanding of how everything works on HW level, lots of
| trying and testing with various USB devices in various
| scenarios. There's also a lot of reverse engineering,
| because no HW vendor cooperates with random fucks from the
| internet and gives them free support. :)
| twis wrote:
| The pool of programmers has grown. There are more good
| programmers than ever, but the barrier to entry is also
| lower. It isn't necessary to pass through that kind of trial
| by fire anymore.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| Yeah, the barrier is lower, many people can write Electron
| apps now.
| marcellus23 wrote:
| > a lot of C, C++, assembly skills - this is what it meant to
| mess around with computers!
|
| I can't believe this is getting upvoted on HN. What kind of
| gatekeeping elitist bullshit is this?
| DeathArrow wrote:
| What's elitist in learning a craft properly? Working with a
| higher level language doesn't mean that learning C, C++,
| algorithms, data structures and a bit of math isn't
| terrible useful.
| milbertson wrote:
| Though a bit elitist, his comment isn't discouraging
| anybody, and does hold some truth in that getting closer to
| the hardware allows you to do things you can't do
| otherwise.
|
| I feel like it's unfair to disparage him as harshly as
| that.
| ncmncm wrote:
| I don't see anything elitist. Anyone can learn assembly
| language, C, and even C++ and Rust with a bit more
| dedication.
|
| Anyway, much of the work getting these phones ready as
| daily drivers is in getting apps that run on them mature.
| There are lots of languages adequate for apps.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Or learn Swift or Kotlin, and target iOS or Android
| instead.
| djent wrote:
| I don't think the elitism here is necessary or even the root
| of the issue of code contributions. The apps currently
| present in these PinePhone operating systems were developed
| and are supported by knowledgeable and hardworking PinePhone
| users, but the fewer developers there are, the more limited
| the support is.
| robbedpeter wrote:
| How many hundreds or thousands of enthusiasts are needed before
| it's suitable to be a daily driver? I see the fragmented
| approach on the software side as a major hindrance to the goal
| of achieving a device that can be used by a normal person as a
| reasonable replacement for other smart phones.
|
| I check in on it every l every 6 months or so, update my
| pinephone and give it a few days. So far, it doesn't meet
| reliability or usability for serious use.
|
| It's a high caliber foot gun of a methodology - if they
| corralled all of the effort and enthusiasm currently scattered
| amongst a dozen (!) different os's and communities, they could
| establish a high quality functional baseline.
|
| The hardware is great. The mission is great. The software is
| fragmented and scattered and missing the force multipliers that
| focused collaborative development could bring. There's not
| enough to riff on, toomuch goes wrong in complicated ways, and
| so the device is an exercise in frustration instead of a
| passion project.
| amelius wrote:
| One problem is even governments support only the duopoly of
| smartphone makers. For example, try downloading a "Covid App"
| for a Linux phone.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_apps
| int_19h wrote:
| In my state, the "app" is actually a website
| (https://myirmobile.com/).
| bluGill wrote:
| > How many hundreds or thousands of enthusiasts are needed
| before it's suitable to be a daily driver?
|
| Zero. What is needed is a few hundred developers writing
| actually code to make it useful. The enthusiasts are at best
| nice to haves. You can blur the line if you write good bug
| reports, but right now the pinephone doesn't need end users.
|
| The above will change over time. Millions of users would be
| enough to force carriers to support activating it on their
| network, something that developers cannot do (at least not
| legally). Likewise large numbers of users would be enough to
| those banking apps written. However today millions of users
| wouldn't make any difference to the important parts of making
| it work (except in so far as users sometimes become
| developers)
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Enthusiasts with wallets are another story.
| don-code wrote:
| > How many hundreds or thousands of enthusiasts are needed
| before it's suitable to be a daily driver?
|
| I know your question was rhetorical, but when I think about
| this, it took close to 20 years of Linux maturing on the
| desktop before I felt comfortable handing a family member a
| laptop running Linux. As an enthusiast, I started running it
| much earlier, but everyday tasks like "printing" or "using
| Wi-Fi" prevented it from being a daily driver.
|
| Personal computing, though, had a much deeper hacker culture,
| that encouraged pushing the hardware to its limits, and doing
| new and novel things with it. Progress stemmed from that
| (Windows including BSD sockets, for instance). I've never
| seen anything similar in the phone ecosystem - as soon as you
| play outside of the walled garden, you drop off into fringe
| territory. And the PinePhone, as much as I love it, is by
| definition outside of the walled garden.
|
| I'm not sure, given the culture around phones, we might ever
| get to the point of it being viable.
| deaddodo wrote:
| I don't know if fragmented is the right word. Just like
| desktop Linux, mobile Linux has pretty much settled on one
| major standard (Phosh a la Gnome) and slightly less popular
| alternative (Plasma Mobile a la KDE). Sure, you can go about
| customizing it to your whims, but fragmentation isn't nearly
| that bad, especially since the distribution options are so
| much lesser.
|
| The problem really is getting the commercial software people
| want on the phone. But if you just want to use it as a phone
| (e.g. no special apps or mobile games), it does most of that
| in a pretty streamlined manner (albeit, rougher than the
| commercial options).
| novok wrote:
| TBH I think having a flutter port for this operating mobile
| system is probably the most likely way for it to succeed.
| That way you can do a flutter app and it will work on this
| too, while still having mainline OS support.
|
| Then you would need to fill in some common services like push
| and such.
| int_19h wrote:
| The most likely way to succeed would be to jump on the PWA
| bandwagon, IMO.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| It's desktop Linux, so you can do this now! I know of at
| least one Flutter app available as a Flatpak on ARM Linux
| (FluffyChat).
| amelius wrote:
| Or run an Android or iOS emulator. (Note: like Wine runs
| Windows software on Linux in a fully legal way).
| [deleted]
| wetpaws wrote:
| >ctrl+f battery > 3000mAh
|
| sigh
| DerekBickerton wrote:
| I'd like this as a sort of _toy phone_ to play and tinker with,
| but wouldn 't use it as my daily driver. Always nice to have
| spare phones hanging around when you're bored to do casual
| surfing and maybe play a game or two.
| ulucs wrote:
| > Thus, the device cannot considered a consumer-ready product.
|
| Right off the store page. Why are people in the comments
| expecting to daily drive this? You buy this for the excitement
| and sense of accomplishment of actually managing to run things.
| int_19h wrote:
| In fact, it seems to be impossible to pre-order PinePhone Pro
| as a consumer right now. If you click on the button to pre-
| order, this is what you get:
|
| https://preorder.pine64.org/#/pinephone-pro-dev
| CameronNemo wrote:
| Perhaps because it is at a similar price point as a Fairphone
| 3, which you can daily drive.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| But the Fairphone 3 is running a hostile OS that has already
| done most of the work, and the PinePhone is still very much
| an early development platform.
| CameronNemo wrote:
| What is hostile about the OS?
|
| Early development or not, the rk3399 is a 5 year old SoC.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| An advertising company has a root-level backdoor to the
| device?
| CameronNemo wrote:
| You should be able to run degoogled android on the
| device.
| ocdtrekkie wrote:
| In theory, sure. However, having done that dance before,
| the limitations between a degoogled Android (basically
| open source apps only, since F-Droid doesn't allow
| proprietary apps, and nearly all proprietary apps depend
| on Play Services APIs anyways), you end up with something
| less useful than a PinePhone.
|
| And at the end of the day, Android was written by Google
| for Google to serve Google. Trying to use a phone as your
| daily driver running developed by your enemy is hardly a
| way to get through life. Just get a phone that doesn't
| hate you. Like a PinePhone. Or an iPhone, which has all
| sort of issues but at least gives you a reasonably
| private and secure device at the expense of gobs of
| money.
| Fnoord wrote:
| You can install another OS if you want. LineageOS, for
| example (with or without OpenGApps). Or /e/. You can even
| buy a FP3(+) with /e/. They sell it. Or other OSes. Or you
| wait for FP4 which is out 25 October.
|
| Fairphone 3(+)/4 don't have killswitches though.
| blunte wrote:
| It was a joy to read their website, particularly where they
| describe "who is it for" and "who is it not for". Clear and
| honest. No excuses, presumably no lies.
|
| I wish all product websites were like this.
| buildbot wrote:
| I can't wait for pinephone to succeed- hopefully this more
| powerful hardware + faster ram will help to address latency
| issues in the UI. Right now it feels like your brain is literally
| slowing down when interacting with a normal pinephone compared to
| an iPhone. Not a fair comparison at all I know.
| thepete2 wrote:
| Yes. It seems a more powerful cpu was the most requested
| improvement to the original Pinephone. I'm glad they listened.
| Aeolun wrote:
| Isn't that silly? I could run linux (with GUI) just fine on my
| Pentium 3. This phone is like 8 times faster just based on
| clock speed, not to mention memory. How can it not drive a UI
| without lag?
| TheUnelisted wrote:
| The problem is that it's not 1-1 with X86, especially in
| regards to graphics capability (The GPU is really the weak
| link on the current PinePhone). The GPU for example uses
| Tile-based rendering, which requires software optimizations
| to work best... Plus the GPU is just plain slow. It's a first
| generation ARM Mali graphics core intended for OpenGL ES 2.0
| afterall.
| buildbot wrote:
| It's certainly interesting that input latency seems to have
| taken a back seat in almost all modern systems. I have a
| touchscreen windows NT computer with PS2 ports, both the
| keyboard and touchscreen have noticeably less latency than
| any other device I have. However, it's really slow when
| actually opening a program!
| Arch-TK wrote:
| Because your pentium 3 GUI linux had a GUI designed around
| pentium 3 era hardware. All the linux phone GUIs seem to be
| designed around the latest in special GUI effects and
| animations and transparency. For some reason all the people
| who know how to design UIs for linux are incapable of
| understanding hardware requirements.
| zozbot234 wrote:
| Check out sxmo.org if you're going for a minimalist UI. But
| the big feature that's missing on these old-style UI's
| (while it is in, e.g. Phosh) is smooth animations w/ direct
| 1-to-1 feedback, which is critical for usability w/ modern
| capacitive touchscreens and quite hard to achieve without
| GPU acceleration.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| It has a Quectel EG25-G modem.
|
| I've not used this particular device, but I have used Quectel
| GNSS modules, and they've been a surprisingly helpful company to
| work with. I'm a nobody, and working with Sony, Trimble, or ublox
| has been an exercise in frustration; you have to convince a
| salesperson that you're a big company and you can sell thousands
| of devices in order to just read the datasheet. This one does
| have some of the documents locked behind an access request, but
| in my experience, they've been very generous with those grants.
|
| The modem supports the following bands: LTE-
| FDD: B1/B2/B3/B4/B5/B7/B8/B12/B13/B18/B19/B20/B25/B26/B28
| LTE-TDD: B38/B39/B40/B41 WCDMA: B1/B2/B4/B5/B6/B8/B19
| GSM: B2/B3/B5/B8
|
| which is pretty good. Americans will want 4G bands B2, 4, 5, 12,
| 13, 14, 17, 20, 25, 26, 29, 30, 41, 66, and 71; this implements
| 9/15, it's missing bands 14, 17, 29, 30, 66, and 71. Those
| missing bands are either subsets or supersets of other bands
| (which could be interesting from a firmware perspective - will a
| tower with a band 66 antenna give this modem some of the central
| band 4 subset, or will it try to negotiate a channel that this
| can't access?), little-used ATT bands, or the 600 MHz T-mobile
| band 71, which has a wide rollout but poor device support.
| gorgoiler wrote:
| Is an LTE band the same as a category? (As in the iPhone X was
| the first cat16 capable device, for example.)
| opencl wrote:
| No, the category is a performance specification (higher
| category is faster), the band is the frequency of the radio
| signal.
| [deleted]
| username190 wrote:
| > will a tower with a band 66 antenna give this modem some of
| the central band 4 subset, or will it try to negotiate a
| channel that this can't access?
|
| Here in the US (and likely in other places), carriers use
| MFBI[0] to solve this issue - it lets them broadcast both AWS-1
| (as B4 and B66) and AWS-3 (as B66 only).
|
| This first came into use when AT&T wanted to use B17 (Lower
| 700MHz blocks B-C) for their LTE network, rather than B12
| (Lower 700MHz A-C). This prevented users from bringing their
| phones to smaller carriers (T-Mobile and US Cellular), who had
| significant 700A holdings. The FCC eventually pushed ATT to use
| both B12 and B17.
|
| > little-used ATT bands
|
| This phone likely wouldn't work on AT&T anyway - despite
| California's SB822 [1] forbidding it, they whitelist only
| specific devices on their network, and can go as far as soft
| blocking your account if you have one that is incompatible.
| I've linked the compatible phone list[2] below.
|
| SB822's net neutrality provision has already been upheld in
| court (AT&T subscribers lost "data-free TV" on AT&T owned
| platforms because of it), but it remains to be seen whether
| other provisions (bans on tethering restrictions or device
| whitelisting, for instance) will be upheld as well.
|
| That said, one nitpick I'd have is that these bands aren't
| necessarily "little-used" - B14 is FirstNet spectrum, and AT&T
| is currently rolling it out to a point where it reaches 99% of
| the population indoors. That's a strong commitment, and the
| band's support for HPUE means it can support coverage further
| than others at a similar frequency. B30 is WCS, which AT&T uses
| for capacity in a lot of places - but at 2300MHz it's not
| particularly useful for coverage. B17 is irrelevant due to MFBI
| and B29 is supplemental downlink (only useful for capacity).
|
| It's important to think about the carrier aggregation combos
| that this device supports too - for folks who live in cities,
| carrier aggregation means a significantly more usable
| experience when the networks are congested. I don't see a
| supported list for that modem online, but it would depend on
| which are enabled in firmware anyway.
|
| > 600 MHz T-mobile band 71, which has a wide rollout but poor
| device support.
|
| As for T-Mobile; Band 71 is necessary in a lot of places,
| because they've been spectrum constrained for a long time.
| Until the 2017 auction for this 600MHz spectrum (which was
| rebanded from Digital TV service), they had no nationwide low-
| band holdings (unlike AT&T, who held many 850MHz Cellular
| licenses from decades ago, and Verizon, who won nationwide
| licenses to the 700MHz Upper C block in 2008). In 2015, they
| picked up licenses in the the Lower 700MHz range, mostly
| exclusive to A block - but they acquired almost none in US
| Cellular markets (much of the midwest, and parts of the
| northeast/northwest).
|
| It's difficult to build out a network on midband alone - cell
| sites must be spaced far closer, and in-building coverage is
| very poor. This was one of T-Mobile's main limiting factors for
| a long time, and they didn't truly resolve it until that 2017
| auction.
|
| T-Mobile had a reputation for a long time for dropping service
| as soon as you entered a large building - this is why. Physics
| mean that lower frequencies are useful to telcos because they
| travel further, while higher frequencies are useful because
| they can carry more data.
|
| The post-auction DTV transition wasn't short - it happened over
| 9 or 10 phases, which extended from 2018 until early 2020 (and
| were then extended again, due to the pandemic). This is part of
| why phones seem to have poor support - the 600MHz band is not
| widely used for cellular outside of the US and Canada even
| today, so it's common on popular phones made for those
| markets[3], but not in more niche devices like the PinePhone.
|
| [0] Multiple Frequency Band Indicator
| (https://www.phonescoop.com/glossary/term.php?gid=551) [1]
| https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml...
| [2]
| https://www.att.com/idpassets/images/support/wireless/Device...
| [3] https://www.tmoband71.com/
| zeta0134 wrote:
| My biggest question is, if I buy this phone today, with AT&T
| allow it on their network? My gut says no, they've been
| brandishing an ugly whitelist around for their big LTE push in
| February...
| barbacoa wrote:
| Question
|
| Why are projects like this starting from scratch and not forking
| from the abandoned Ubuntu phone OS?
| CameronNemo wrote:
| I suspect Pine ships Manjaro ARM because that distro will apply
| nearly any patch to the kernel if it makes something work, no
| matter how hacky or unsustainable the patch is. Right now their
| kernel has 43 patches, and they are not even organized or
| annotated well.
|
| https://gitlab.manjaro.org/manjaro-arm/packages/core/linux
| TheUnelisted wrote:
| They ship Manjaro ARM because the people behind PINE64 are
| manjaro fans and they think that Manjaro has a good business
| setup. It would have been much nicer to have PostmarketOS
| shipped stock.
| mulflav wrote:
| I had wondered why they ended up on Manjaro of all things.
| Did Pine64 make an explicit statement on the matter?
| RealStickman_ wrote:
| Afaik Manjaro have their own company, so it's easier to
| make contracts about software support.
|
| Additionally, pine64 have already worked with them on the
| pinebook and pinebook pro as default distro.
|
| Personally, I don't like Manjaro either, but it's easy
| enough to use a different distro and is probably good
| enough for most.
| opan wrote:
| I got the UB Ports Community Edition of the PinePhone and found
| Ubuntu Touch to be a very unpleasant experience and not at all
| what I signed up for. Luckily postmarketOS was exactly what I
| wanted and I moved to that within a week or so of owning the
| device.
|
| Ubuntu Touch mounts stuff read-only, pushes you into using
| webapps, discourages using normal shell stuff like you would on
| a desktop GNU/Linux system, and has some poorly-working
| container system for if you wanna use shell stuff. It honestly
| felt worse than using Termux on an Android phone.
|
| With pmOS you can install nvim, firefox, mpv, minetest...
| Things just work how you'd expect. It's like a single board
| computer (raspberry pi, etc.) that comes with a screen and
| other things already attached. You can ssh into it and update
| your packages all at once. It's really nice.
|
| I think it's a stretch to say they're starting from scratch,
| but if you just mean the UI, Manjaro supports Lomiri (the UI
| from Ubuntu Touch) while also giving you a more normal OS
| experience. I'm glad to have some diversity in the desktop
| environment. Phosh is one of the more polished options, but has
| the issue of being GNOME-flavored and having all the issues
| you'd see with regular GNOME. Plasma Mobile feels more Android-
| like and familiar, but is still rough around the edges.
| Eventually it will hopefully be as good as Phosh and people can
| choose whatever they like the look and feel of more.
| djent wrote:
| Pine64 itself is a hardware company. The software side is
| community-driven, and UBports (the old Ubuntu phone OS) is one
| of the operating systems you can install on your PinePhone.
| systemvoltage wrote:
| I want to see a radically different approach to Phone user
| interfaces. It's just the same cookie cutter trends from Apple
| and Google.
| TobTobXX wrote:
| Take a look at sxmo[0]. It is inspired by the niche of tiling
| window managers and shortcut-driven workflow. I don't know if
| it is your style, but it qualifies as radiaclly different.
|
| [0]: https://sxmo.org/
| systemvoltage wrote:
| This is awesome, thanks for sharing. I am a huge fan of
| suckless tools and despite of the fact that it is niche, I
| agree, it is radically different.
| CubsFan1060 wrote:
| "If you depend on proprietary mainstream mobile messenger
| applications, banking applications, use loyalty or travel apps,
| consume DRM media, or play mobile video games on your fruit or
| Android smartphone, then the PinePhone Pro is likely not for
| you."
|
| Yikes. I appreciate they are up front about it, but that
| eliminates literally everyone I know.
| ryukafalz wrote:
| Then literally everyone you know is dependent on either Apple
| or Google.
| CubsFan1060 wrote:
| Probably. But I don't think those requirements are
| unreasonable. It feels like it largely boils down to "I buy a
| smartphone to accomplish certain tasks easily". If you
| eliminate many of those tasks, is it a useful device for
| those people anymore?
| EastOfTruth wrote:
| > banking applications
|
| I'd rather use the web app, it gives them less information
| about me
| wbsss4412 wrote:
| I don't think you're incorrect in making your point here,
| yet your framing is a bit unreasonable. Pine phone isn't
| supposed to be the equivalent to a modern smartphone. It's
| a small project that has an entirely new platform with no
| major corporate backing. What you're asking of it isn't
| realistic until it has significant enough time and traction
| to fully mature.
| CubsFan1060 wrote:
| That's probably a very fair point.
|
| I wonder what the minimum modern requirements would be
| for a viable "mainstream" phone.
|
| Common messaging apps (SMS, WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram,
| Slack). Social media apps (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok).
| email (Though an average stock email app is probably
| sufficient). Google Apps (gmail, google maps, etc..).
| Navigation (google maps is sufficient for most) Probably
| some set of games.
|
| I suspect the real viable option is being able to run
| Android apps natively without any special configuration.
| 29083011397778 wrote:
| If that's the bar, then mobile Linux is simultaneously
| very fucking far, and dramatically closer than most
| people might think.
|
| As far as messaging apps, they're all technically there -
| the best kind of there for the crowd that this would
| interest. Spinning up a Matrix server means maybe a days
| work for this crowd, which allows (and I currently use it
| for) Whatsapp, Signal, Telegram, and more. Even better,
| due to constant improvements by Matrix, the server is
| only getting lighter and your options more varied with
| things like Construct [0].
|
| Email is there - one only really needs to ensure geary is
| set to scale to the phone screen. As far as gMail, I'd
| question what the overlap is between "Privacy conscious
| enough to use a Pinephone" and "Uses gMail instead of
| anything IMAP".
|
| That only leaves navigation and social media. For the
| former, I've used the mobile site in-browser on my
| Android phone that the Google Maps app was too heavy for.
| And for both on the Pinephone, especially the pro,
| Waydroid [1] is getting closer to closing the gap.
|
| To be honest, I could see it being mainstream for geeks
| within two years. Though that's unlikely what you meant
| by mainstream - which I think we can agree is several
| more years away, if ever.
|
| [0] https://github.com/matrix-construct/construct
|
| [1] https://github.com/waydroid/waydroid
| RDaneel0livaw wrote:
| For some reason it won't let me reply to your newer
| message, there just is no reply button at all, very
| strange, anyway, putting my reply to your second message
| here.
|
| Thanks so much for the info! I don't ever do calls on
| whatsapp, so this sounds absolutely amazing for me! I
| also see that I can bridge in slack as well so now all
| the sudden I may be able to bridge all my work stuff into
| one matrix instance and remove those apps I hate from my
| phone?!?!?!?! At least from an initial thought process
| this sounds amazing.
|
| I don't run any linux servers at home, so I suppose if I
| got a hosted instance of a matrix server I could see if I
| could successfully bridge in these other things and give
| it a try. Thank you so much!
| db579 wrote:
| Element.io also offer paid managed servers where they do
| the bridging for you if you'd rather not deal with it
| yourself. Starts at around $10 a month for a home server
| plus some light WhatsApp bridging and works surprisingly
| well, with the caveats already mentioned above about
| calling.
| 29083011397778 wrote:
| No worries! Feel free to drop me a line if you want /
| need any help with the bridges @xethos:xethos.net - I'd
| be happy to help another person (potentially) switch over
| to Matrix + bridges.
| RDaneel0livaw wrote:
| Wait a sec, are you telling me there's a way for me to
| participate in whatsapp conversations without actually
| having whatsapp installed on my phone? I am currently
| forced to use whatsapp by my work for supporting overseas
| live events, but I absolutely hate having anything
| related to facebook installed on my phone. Until now I
| just put up with it because I didn't know there was an
| alternative. Can you help me understand how this works?
| 29083011397778 wrote:
| Sorry, I'm not sure I should have gotten your hopes up
| like that: First and foremost, calling does not work.
|
| Hosting a Matrix server [0], configuring the bridge [1],
| then running the client [2] anywhere you are will allow
| you to send and receive Whatsapp messages, status
| updates, pictures, videos, etc.
|
| It's currently limited to using the WebUI - this means
| one is limited to the functions available through
| Whatsapp Web. This may, someday, possibly, change with
| Whatsapps new multi-device implementation, but I'd advise
| taking it for what it is instead of hoping it'll happen
| any time soon.
|
| All that said, I've been using it for some time now. It's
| gotten much more stable, and I can recommend it for what
| it is.
|
| [0] https://matrix-
| org.github.io/synapse/latest/setup/installati...
|
| [1] https://matrix.org/bridges/
|
| [2] https://matrix.org/clients/
| [deleted]
| db579 wrote:
| Really depends how you define the task doesn't it? If it's
| "I have the ability to message other people" there's plenty
| of ways to accomplish that on this device. If you define
| the task as "I need to message other people specifically on
| a Google/Apple messenger application", well then it's
| always going to be out of Pine64s hands to some extent?
| CubsFan1060 wrote:
| How about "I need to message other people in a way that
| doesn't make everyone I know have to change the current
| way they do things".
|
| I wasn't necessarily referring to iMessage. But,
| WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Slack.
|
| To be fair, I've also failed to find a list of supported
| apps. The best I found was: https://www.reddit.com/r/PINE
| 64official/comments/okjeuk/apps...
| johnny53169 wrote:
| > How about "I need to message other people in a way that
| doesn't make everyone I know have to change the current
| way they do things".
|
| Isn't that the exact purpose of those walled gardens, so
| it'd be hard to change platforms?
| smallerfish wrote:
| Theoretically you can run those apps via anbox. I've tested
| whatsapp via anbox on my desktop ubuntu install at least, and
| it works fine. Remains to be seen how well it'll work on this
| upgraded hardware, and I'm sure they're being conservative
| because of that.
| betwixthewires wrote:
| There's also this somewhat new project called waydroid that
| runs android applications closer to the metal than an
| emulator would. https://waydro.id/
| reginold wrote:
| This is the reality today. The device is still developer-only.
| I just bought one thinking I could ditch my iPhone -- not yet.
| It's hard knowing that there are no good options besides
| Android and iOS. I'm aware of de-Googled Android versions but
| those are less appealing given the Google base. We need an open
| source solution.
| thepete2 wrote:
| I mean, couldn't you dual-boot android on this thing? Or is the
| SoC not supported?
| officeplant wrote:
| Android is supported on some Rockchip SBC's out there. I
| imagine the problem would be getting modem support working.
| djent wrote:
| That's the vendor lock-in to the walled garden app stores. It
| works, and if you want to break the cycle, you need something
| new.
| Matthias1 wrote:
| I think there's a difference between "depend on" and "use."
| Most everyone that currently has an iPhone or Android is going
| to use those features.
|
| But for every Youtube video that I watch on my phone, I watch
| many more on my computer. I use my phone for browsing HN and
| Twitter, taking pictures, checking my email, and of course
| getting texts. I have a banking app installed, but that's not
| the reason that I have a phone.
|
| I would have to post to Instagram from my computer, but other
| than that, I could use a PinePhone. Unfortunately, it looks
| like the only positive of the PinePhone right now is "free
| software." But my point is that it's possible for PinePhone to
| convince me by adding brand new features--they don't
| necessarily have to support every iPhone app to win users over.
| aiilns wrote:
| A bit irrelevant, but I don't think you can post to Instagram
| from your computer, got to use the app.
| KeeganS wrote:
| It used to be that you could use developer tools to emulate
| a smartphone and be redirected to the mobile site, which
| would let you post.
| James-Livesey wrote:
| It seems that you can still post from the web version of
| Instagram on mobile (just tested it now on Android
| Chrome) -- I should imagine that it still works in the
| DevTools mobile emulator (though you do have to refresh
| the page).
|
| Using the Instagram PWA may be a viable way of using
| Instagram on mobile Linux. Still can't seem to post
| stories on the PWA, though.
| [deleted]
| tromp wrote:
| A display resolution of 1440x720 feels a bit limited, especially
| for something labeled "Pro". Wonder why they didn't go for
| 2160x1080...
| MartijnBraam wrote:
| The resolution is absolutely fine.
| kop316 wrote:
| https://www.pine64.org/2021/10/15/october-update-introducing...
|
| They go into it there:
|
| "The decision to maintain the original PinePhone's screen
| resolution of 1440x720 was made early on; higher resolution
| panels consume more power and increase SoC's load, resulting in
| shorter battery life and higher average thermals. A few extra
| pixels aren't worth it."
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