[HN Gopher] I give up on free software phones (2019)
___________________________________________________________________
I give up on free software phones (2019)
Author : luu
Score : 93 points
Date : 2023-06-20 08:53 UTC (14 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (yotam.net)
(TXT) w3m dump (yotam.net)
| [deleted]
| superkuh wrote:
| Giving up on free software phones is the first step. Now give up
| on software phones and just use a tiny non-computer cell phone
| that does text and voice. The removable battery will last a week
| and you won't even notice it in your pocket. The firmware will
| last the entire life of the phone, never needing to be updated.
|
| Replace the car GPS navigation functionality with a dedicated car
| GPS and you have most of the same functionality but with better
| longer lasting devices.
| NotYourLawyer wrote:
| I don't even want a "phone." The number of actual phone calls I
| make is minuscule compared to internet usage, texting,
| videoconferencing, navigating, etc.
| rationalist wrote:
| And miss out on, or pay for, GPS updates and lose out on real-
| time traffic reports.
| hsishzixgsi wrote:
| traffic is pretty consistent everywhere.
|
| you also "miss" being sent to a known slow and long rout just
| because the buggy algorithm wants to bucket test some random
| path close to the daily rush hour.
| rationalist wrote:
| > traffic is pretty consistent everywhere.
|
| Yes, accidents always happen in the same spot at the same
| time on the same days, and new people visiting new places
| always know about those things.
|
| I have had Google try to send me on slower routes, but I
| use my brain and drive the more logical way and it updates
| the map accordingly. Though most people are not logical,
| and such practices theoretically help everyone overall
| including the petson who is sent on a different route that
| time.
| dmm wrote:
| > GPS updates
|
| I load free OSM maps on my GPS.
| Marsymars wrote:
| My Garmin GPS has been getting free map updates for years and
| gives real-time traffic reports.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| > a constant notification just so it will be able to send me push
| notifications
|
| That's because stuff running in the background in a way that
| cannot be optimized by the system must inform the user it's doing
| background operations.
|
| I think that's a good idea. Hiding the notification is easy (hold
| it to enter the notification settings and disable that specific
| notification category) and it clearly shows which apps are
| killing your battery life, hopefully making the entire platform
| less dependent on aggressive task killers.
| AndyKelley wrote:
| I got my librem in the mail last week after waiting several
| years(!!) for shipping. It's complete trash. The software is
| shit, the battery is shit, it's expensive, low specs, completely
| unusable.
|
| I'm willing to compromise a lot in order to go with the free
| software approach, but my god, just do better. There's no excuse
| for how un-functional this thing is. Try harder.
|
| I had the same reaction with the pine phone a couple years ago.
| At least that one shipped sooner though.
| BSEdlMMldESB wrote:
| no excuse, merely a conspiracy explanation:
|
| it simply cannot be permitted. somebody realized PC
| market/platform made a huge "mistake", letting anybody make
| software for them and permitting random hardware. this
| 'mistake' was avoided on smartphones for very pointed, clear,
| intentions of social control.
|
| there exists NO homebrew smartphone hardware like for PCs.
| chongli wrote:
| Your conspiracy explanation doesn't pass the sniff test.
| There's a much much simpler explanation: lack of demand.
|
| Heck, you'd think people on hacker news would be all over
| open source alternatives to proprietary hardware, software,
| and services. Yet take a brief wander over to one of the many
| (many) recent Reddit crisis threads and you'll find countless
| naysayers talking about how lemmy and the like will never
| succeed, despite gaining hundreds of thousands of users in a
| week and a half.
| BSEdlMMldESB wrote:
| it is really incredible,
|
| how could lack of demand be made to happen?
|
| but I'm not trying to imply anything. I merely wonder if
| such a thing (to create or destroy demand of something) is
| possible; and if it were, how would you do it?
|
| surely it involves marketing? but I also want to reflect on
| the market cap of convenience...
| TheAceOfHearts wrote:
| Also received my librem 5 recently, and it's incredibly
| disappointing. The software in particular is incredibly buggy
| and janky. When I open the app store it just fails to load
| things sometimes. Even the FirefoxOS device I tried a few years
| ago was better.
| Arnavion wrote:
| >The software is shit, the battery is shit, it's expensive, low
| specs, completely unusable.
|
| >I had the same reaction with the pine phone a couple years
| ago.
|
| Anyone who writes " _the_ software " like you and
| TheAceOfHearts did, as if it's an iPhone or Android, doesn't
| understand the first thing about a Linux phone. Please resell
| them to someone that's less PEBKAC than you. Thanks. They'll
| appreciate it.
|
| And in the future I recommend asking people before you buy
| them, so that you know ahead of time not to keep these phones
| from going to people who will make better use of them.
| OldManRyan wrote:
| They shouldn't need to understand it. I don't understand the
| first thing about how my phone works or mobile development in
| general. It just works and does what I need it to do.
| Arnavion wrote:
| Yes they do need to understand it. If you believe you don't
| need or want to understand it, then Linux phones are not
| for you.
|
| It's okay. Really. Not everything has to be for everyone,
| and evidently Linux phones are not for you. Please don't
| buy them. Thanks.
| OldManRyan wrote:
| You don't need to understand it according to Librem. They
| are marketing a "user-friendly"(their words) replacement
| for iPhone and Android. If this was a product sold for
| the most hardcore Linux users who dream about bash
| scripts then yeah this isn't a product for me and that's
| fine. But, that isn't what they are trying to sell and
| that is the problem.
| StingyJelly wrote:
| Since 2019 the landscape has deffinitely changed. "Hardcore" Free
| Software phones like Pinephone, Librem or PostmarketOS are still
| difficult but if LineageOS is Free-Software-enough for you, don't
| give up now. There is grapheneOS that should be no-compromises
| solution with it's sandboxed google apps. (Haven't used it
| myself.) MicroG now passes safetynet once again and is pretty
| stable. (Altrough on some phones you may need root to make it
| believe that the phone is not rooted.) Clean LineageOS without
| gapps is more usable than ever due to the huawei-google breakup
| resulting in a lot more apps being published on huawei appgallery
| without google safetynet requirement. (Unlike their playstore
| version.) Downloading apk from Appgallery website requires just
| some url manipulation for which you can use following
| bookmarklet:
|
| javascript:(function() {window.location=window.location.href.repl
| ace(/^https:\/\/appgallery\\.huawei\\.com\/app/g,
| "https://appgallery.cloud.huawei.com/appdl" );})()
|
| Source: me. I daily-drive 7 year old phone running LineageOS with
| almost no issues. I also have a backup phone where I multi-boot
| LineageOS+MicroG and postmarketOS for fun and experimentation.
| sleepycatgirl wrote:
| Huh. My new phone doesn't have Google play services, so I kept
| old OP6 solely for the bank app... but the bank app is also on
| the huawei app store...
|
| So now I am almost tempted to see if I can get the bank app on
| my current phone, and then, finally try out postmarketOS on the
| OP6
| harwoodr wrote:
| I really wish there was a true and modern successor to the Nokia
| n900 I had ages ago... it was an awesome device.
| barbariangrunge wrote:
| I expected this to at least mention the pine phone, the librem,
| or the Ubuntu phone (which was charming). It's just about de-
| googled android and how it doesn't work very well due to how
| everything depends on google play services
| the_third_wave wrote:
| > ...de-googled android and how it doesn't work very well due
| to how everything depends on google play services
|
| Even that aspect is wildly overblown in my experience of using
| Google-free Android devices for the last 12 years. Yes, the
| thing will prompt you to install some Google-thing because it
| supposedly does not work without it - there are currently two
| such notifications on one of my devices telling me so. The
| thing is, nearly everything I throw at the device works even
| though some things complain about the supposed lack of Google
| services. I click away the warning if it appears and just use
| the software, this includes e.g. BankID - a Swedish electronic
| ID provider - and similar apps. I do not have microG installed
| on my main device either, I just forego on using Google
| services altogether.
|
| All in all I think the current situation with de-Googled
| Android is quite useable. If ever some mobile thing comes along
| which more resembles the way software is installed on personal
| computers - i.e. install Linux or BSD of choice, add required
| software, configure accounts and you're in the game - I might
| move to that but until such a time I'll keep on using AOSP-
| derived Android distributions in combination with self-hosted
| services.
| Animats wrote:
| > All in all I think the current situation with de-Googled
| Android is quite useable.
|
| It is, mostly. So far, I've still been able to reject having
| a Google account on new phones. Then I delete the "first
| time" app Google sticks on there, disable Google services,
| install F-Droid, and use only F-Droid apps.
|
| Does that still work? It's been three years since I started a
| new phone?
| the_third_wave wrote:
| Yes, that seems to work still, I recently configured my
| wife's new Galaxy S21 FE and had no problems telling Google
| and Samsung to take their accounts to where the sun don't
| shine.
| fikama wrote:
| do not forget postmarketOS project :)
| novia wrote:
| It did mention the Librem.
| Un1corn wrote:
| When I wrote it, from the options you mentioned, only Ubuntu
| phone existed and it was after Canonical abandoned it. So in
| 2019 it really felt like Android was the only option.
| linmob wrote:
| Please add a [2019] to the title.
| MandieD wrote:
| Done, after seeing the author say it was written then.
| LatticeAnimal wrote:
| [meta-commentary] HN should require a date field on all
| submissions and then should only show the date if the article
| is older than a specified time (like 1yr) (or always show the
| date but not in the title)
| lolinder wrote:
| Some web pages don't have a date.
| wang_li wrote:
| Those web pages should be removed from the internet.
| LatticeAnimal wrote:
| Then make it opt-out, or make it default to today's date,
| or ... There are solutions to this problem that are better
| than the way it currently works.
| gnramires wrote:
| Any updates on the situation in 2023?
| zorrolovsky wrote:
| I use CalyxOS on a Pixel 6a and a LineageOS on a OnePlus 6. No
| micro G on any of them. Honestly, I have absolutely no issues
| with CalyxOS and I use mainstream apps like: UK Banking
| (Starling and HSBC), Whatsapp, Telegram, MyFitnessPal, some
| airlines and local bus apps...
|
| I guess your mileage might vary. If you're keen on a particular
| app and you can't make it work, that's a frustration. So far I
| haven't found any reason to come back to a standard OS, and I
| appreciate my phone not sending constant signals to Apple or
| Google to the tune of hundreds per day.
| nelblu wrote:
| I use calyxos as well and have microg disabled. WhatsApp
| works fine, signal, telgram works great, fairemail client for
| emails, davx5 for contact syncing etc. I don't use any google
| apps expects camera app (which I have disabled data access
| using firewall), but I have a feeling those may not work so
| well on calyxos.
|
| Only problem - which I actually think is a feature is that I
| don't get any notifications for a lot of apps, unless I
| actually open the app. I really think this is a great thing
| because most of these apps that use google services for
| notifications are just sending marketing modifications which
| I would have blocked anyway. I do sometimes miss WhatsApp
| call because the notification doesn't work properly but I
| have told all my friends and family that they can contact me
| on signal for fastest response.
| anonymousDan wrote:
| Is it possible to uninstall all browsers (including Chrome)
| in Calyxos? Most of the time I waste on my phone is in the
| browser and I would love to have a browserless but
| otherwise connected device.
| gigatexal wrote:
| GrapheneOS seems to be the winner these days.
| logicprog wrote:
| Been using it daily for almost a year now, and yeah. God it's
| clean. I love it.
| noman-land wrote:
| GrapheneOS is wonderful.
| Freak_NL wrote:
| It is, but limited to the (excellent) Google Pixel devices.
| rationalist wrote:
| Does anyone run CalyxOS, which is put together by the Calyx
| Institute?
| zorrolovsky wrote:
| I have been running CalyxOS on a Pixel 6a for 6 months and
| I'm very happy with it. It does everything I need and found
| no big annoyances so far. A minor issue is MyFitnessPal not
| reading barcodes but that's it.
| throwaway22032 wrote:
| I've leaned harder into stuff like degoogled Android since app
| providers started to get obsessive about unrooted phones.
|
| I'm sorry, but no, you don't need to halt execution simply
| because I'm an admin on my own device. Particularly if I can do
| exactly the same thing by just using your web interface (90% of
| the time this is available).
| downWidOutaFite wrote:
| I hoped Amazon's non-Play devices would be enough to keep most
| developers from being fully captured by Google. Unfortunately
| they haven't been popular enough in many cases.
| reddisbad wrote:
| The hardware and software stacks of all of the components of a
| smartphone are at the pinnacle of modern engineering, requiring
| an uncountable number of engineers and consumers to maintain a
| mind-boggling supply chain.
|
| Of course there's a price for this.
|
| I gave up and got a Nokia 105.
| pacifika wrote:
| Thanks for mentioning a device
| reddisbad wrote:
| I'm lucky (?) to live somewhere where 2G isn't going to be
| turned off any time soon, due to legacy support requirements.
| Otherwise, I'd have to get one of Nokia's newer "dumb
| smartphone" devices.
| selectodude wrote:
| The more recent refresh of the Nokia 105 comes in 4G
| flavors and supports VoLTE so you're good to go worldwide.
| timthelion wrote:
| I use lineage on oneplus phones and have no problems. I can't do
| internet banking and a bunch of other non-free things, but
| really, who needs that? I have a web browser. The only thing that
| doesn't work is google meet and google docs and google drive
| because they intentionally break the mobile experience in the
| web. But there is a simple solution. Simply don't use google
| services. If/when my employer demands that of me (occasionally I
| hear murmurings) I just tell him I'm online 9-5 on my laptop and
| if he needs me he can call. I'm happy with my lineage.
| kelnos wrote:
| > _I can 't do internet banking and a bunch of other non-free
| things, but really, who needs that?_
|
| I do, and so do a majority of smartphone users. Good for you
| that you are fine doing without it, but most people will not
| accept that trade off.
|
| I ran CyanogenMod back when that was a thing, but at that time
| SafetyNet didn't exist, and it was a rare event when an app
| that ran on Google-approved Android didn't run on CM. Nowadays
| I can't run an alternative ROM without sacrificing things I
| care about using.
| Certhas wrote:
| If you're in the EU your web based online banking requires
| 2FA which is typically provided by phone biometry+app.
|
| No idea if these work on Lineage, etc...
| secondcoming wrote:
| I use two banks in the UK and both are pushing to use their app
| over their website.
|
| Even logging in to the websites is a chore.
| blendergeek wrote:
| Related (sort of): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36353960
| user_7832 wrote:
| On a similar note I've been wanting to buy and use a fully "free"
| phone - one where I have complete control over most if not all
| things. But it appears to me that unless you use a regular
| "phone", there is no way you can DIY your way into building a
| "modern" phone bit by bit like how a desktop could be made.*
|
| Calling/4g/5g require specific hardware that seems difficult to
| integrate at a hobbyist level (unlike say installing Linux which
| is possible in an afternoon even for some not familiar with it.)
| And even though you could get android to run on a raspberry pi,
| it appears impossible to use something like google pay (which
| likely requires safetynet) on it.
|
| I'm not sure if the reason is the "blobs" that ARM uses instead
| of drivers but it is disappointing that I can't take something
| like the Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 dev kit, dualboot linux and android
| and use it like a phone-laptop hybrid. /Disappointed rant over
|
| (Here's the kit -
| https://developer.qualcomm.com/hardware/snapdragon-8-gen-2-h...)
|
| * - technically even laptops like with an SBC or the framework
| board. I can make the hardware but the software challenges seem
| huge. If anyone familiar with ARM development has any
| info/suggestions, I'd love to know more.
| gigel82 wrote:
| Are you saying you can build a modern desktop without any
| binary blobs? Full control of all firmware (including the CPU
| microcode and things like Intel ME)? What about WiFi cards? I'd
| say that hasn't been true for at least 20 years.
| user_7832 wrote:
| > Are you saying you can build a modern desktop without any
| binary blobs? Full control of all firmware (including the CPU
| microcode and things like Intel ME)? What about WiFi cards?
| I'd say that hasn't been true for at least 20 years.
|
| Not exactly.
|
| What I mean is the average x64 Intel/AMD device is relatively
| much more "controllable" than an equivalent smartphone,
| assuming decent BIOS/UEFI options are provided. If I want to
| customize the looks with rainmeter, or even system-level
| tweaks (eg mactype), it's relatively trivial on desktop OSes
| (possibly excluding recent locked-down MacOs versions). I can
| even jump between Windows and Linux and Hackintosh/MacOs and
| BSD as I have a "pretty decent" level of control.
|
| A rooted android phone is also quite decent, however issues
| start creeping in the further you stray from what your
| manufacturer provided. It starts of with things like
| Widevine/DRM not playing nice (unless you have a Titan M chip
| or something similar), and the further you go (stock rom ->
| custom rom with gapps/microG -> deGoogled rom), the more
| painful it becomes to even use ""basics" like whatsapp.
|
| I guess all this is a very roundabout way of saying that
| desktop OS is a first class citizen (mostly), while mobile
| OSes (which are necessary for booking an Uber/paying at the
| checkout POS/navigating with Google Maps with turn-by-turn
| nav) do not have other freedoms. And while the hardware
| absolutely exists for an arm board to do it all with the
| right daughterboards, doing mobile stuff on a desktop is
| impossible, and doing desktop stuff on mobile is limiting
| thanks to software.
| salawat wrote:
| Baseband and cryptographic shenanigans are a pox to FLOSS/H.
|
| Particularly on the hardware front, since there is a vested
| interest/requirement for operating Telco's to maintain backdoor
| functionality/capabilities for the local government. It's just
| like payment processing.
|
| Everyone having their own stack is such a great sounding idea,
| but the Establishment/System is tuned such that it can never
| happen, and in the event it does, it's guaranteed to be
| dismantled because every ne'er- do-well will start exploiting
| it, and the vast majority of people are not interested in
| protecting themselves... They want someone else to do it for
| them.
|
| It's one of those nice things we just can't seem to get our
| shit straight enough as a society to have.
| oneplane wrote:
| I strongly depends on what you mean by 'control' and 'made'. In
| a sense it all depends on the depth of control and making your
| own; nearly all modern silicon requires proprietary software to
| initialise it to a usable state, and almost all hardware can't
| really run on its own and needs supporting devices which can
| cause an otherwise open design to end up closed anyway (even if
| it is something tangentially adjacent like a required PMIC).
|
| Some CPUs and SoC can be operated to their fullest capabilities
| with pure open hardware and software designs where you have all
| the control in the world (if we draw the line at silicon
| diffusion and packaging), but those usually lack one thing or
| another making them less feasible for common modern use. Often
| these are things like memory controllers and I/O where internal
| SoC peripherals need special initialisation before they are
| usable. Even in cases where the driver side of things is
| reverse-engineered a bunch of Real-Time OS code needs to be
| loaded at boot time to get things like GPUs, Basebands and
| storage to work at all. So far, there are practically no cases
| where those have been reverse-engineered and replaced.
|
| For a lot of internet-commenting-people, 'open' means something
| specific to them, like changing some design aspects like
| colours and fonts, or installing cracked software. Those are
| mostly just end-user features and have little to do with
| openness. This has a sad side-effect making searching for
| 'open' information get littered with what essentially boils
| down to appearance and recompositions of existing software.
|
| Perhaps we need 'levels' of openness or other words to describe
| what we mean. The Snapdragon example is a good one in that it
| essentially uses an openly available and targetable ISA, but
| closed system design which still makes it impossible to use as-
| is (thus needing the blobs you mentioned). On one hand it's all
| legal and NDA stuff, on the other hand it's also laziness and
| cheaping out on the long-term usability. If a company were to
| spend just a little of their marketing budget on finding out
| the parts of the hardware that doesn't need all that NDA
| coverage, making open software to run the hardware becomes much
| easier.
| user_7832 wrote:
| Good points, ideally I'd say the software should at least be
| non-proprietary or at least source-available, but in reality
| I would settle for anything where I can control at least the
| software (OS level) side of things.
| jancsika wrote:
| Someone should do a Linux phone that scales _way_ back:
|
| 1. you can dial phone numbers somehow
|
| 2. you can talk on the phone
|
| 3. you can hear the person on the other line
|
| 4. the cell reception on the phone is decent quality
|
| 5. antenna is properly placed for very good reception
|
| 6. basic SMS works, all the time
|
| 7. has been extensively tested to work with a _single_ carrier,
| any other carrier is no warranty
|
| 8. boot time and shutdown time are so small that it
| opportunistically shuts down instead of suspend
|
| 9. bonus goal: contacts, can maybe play snake
|
| Librem 5 fails #5 and #8 (and can't really succeed at #8 unless
| you just drop into a command line, but then you wouldn't be able
| to input phone numbers). I've read some reports that #1, #2, and
| #3 have improved enough to be usable. On #7, they offer a bundle
| with a simcard for a carrier that was tested with the phone.
| (Doubt it was extensively tested, though.)
|
| Of the little I've read about Pinephone and Pinephone Pro,
| they've had problems with #3, #6, and #7, and #8.
|
| Overall, however, both appear as a smartphone complete with
| messaging and browsers. But Librem 5 can't do hardware
| acceleration for Firefox ESR (because the etnaviv driver doesn't
| have recent enough OpenGL features for webrender to work).
|
| Pinephone is too slow to browse.
|
| I'm not sure about Pinephone Pro (though I'd be quite surprised
| if it passes the Firefox webrender tests).
|
| I'd much prefer a much more basic device that gets all the basics
| right, and then be pleasantly surprised that I can play mp3s on
| it, too.
| horeszko wrote:
| I've been daily driving a PinePhone running postmarketOS +
| phosh for the last month and here is what I've found:
|
| 1. Yes, has a dialpad. Works as you would expect
|
| 2, 3, 4. Yes, works well on my carrier
|
| 5. The antenna is along the side of the phone I believe and the
| reception seems good, I haven't had issues with this
|
| 6. I would say SMS only works about 95% percent of the time.
| The phone does randomly disconnect from the celluar network
| maybe once every day or two
|
| 7. Works well on my carrier, no issues here. I have a data plan
| and it works fine
|
| 8. It takes maybe a minute or two to boot, but to be fair my
| Samsung A52 Android takes longer to boot, maybe 2 minutes
|
| 9. Yes, there is a contact app, don't know about snake :)
|
| Other:
|
| 10. The phone is slow, firefox works and all the websites I
| visit (including google maps, uber, etc.) render and work
| correctly, but slowly. I wouldn't say too slow to browse, but
| 100% it is slow
|
| 11. Be CAREFUL inserting the SIM card, it is extremely easy to
| break the SIM pins and brick the phone if the SIM card is not
| inserted correctly (I learnt this the hard way)
|
| 12. Surprisingly a large amount of apps available via
| flatpak/flathub, including both foss apps for things like email
| and 3rd party clients for things like spotify and whatsapp
| (text only, no video or audio calls). All the core linux stuff
| and lots of the foss apps via apk
|
| 13. However not all apps on flathub are compatible with the
| PinePhone since PinePhones uses aarch64 architecture, not
| x86_64
|
| 14. Very poor battery life out of the box, about 4 hours tops.
| However, after installing tlp and irqbalance (via apk) and
| setting auto-suspend to 1 minute, the battery life is about 8
| to 12 hours of "normal" usage, so quite usuable
|
| 15. Camera is very basic
| seanp2k2 wrote:
| Pinephone Pro here, I wanted to use it as a home automation
| controller around the house, I think I bricked the keyboard
| case attachment by using the wrong charging port (why is that
| even a thing??) because it doesn't work, but to be fair, it
| never did work, and I've tried troubleshooting it for a few
| hours with no joy, so now I'm just kinda too frustrated with
| it to sink more time into it and it's sitting in a drawer.
|
| I should probably try postmarketOS on it and use it as a
| burner travel phone.
| BSEdlMMldESB wrote:
| 0. it must be able to use the internet; with this, the rest of
| the software should be able to be ported/emulated somehow.
|
| number 7 points at why this won't really work. providers can
| just say it's a security vulnerability and shut this kind of
| cellphone down.
|
| 8. would be awesome, it's even a good idea for typical locked
| down smartphones because the battery life!
| anonym29 wrote:
| https://www.punkt.ch/en/products/mp02-4g-mobile-phone/
|
| Not advocating for this, I do not own one, but I'm pretty sure
| this substantially covers all goals listed minus #8 (plus an
| unlisted one - Signal integration).
|
| I investigated and considered this option carefully. Ultimately
| ended up doing a Pixel running GrapheneOS (no microG) as a
| stop-gap until I buy either a Pinephone or Librem, once those
| are a little more usable.
| snvzz wrote:
| Genode[0] takes care of the software part. Microkernel
| multiserver with capabilities proper.
|
| 0. https://genodians.org/nfeske/2023-02-01-mobile-sculpt
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Doesn't #8's opportunistic shutdown prevent it from functioning
| as a phone and receiving calls?
| pengaru wrote:
| Not necessarily, if the cell modem stays powered on and can
| "wake" the application processor into booting when a call/sms
| is received.
| lytedev wrote:
| Yes. Additionally, why would you want this specifically? I
| think OP just wants better battery life?
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| If you're going as basic as OP wants you can get 10+ days
| on a typical phone battery regardless, just by implementing
| battery saver. I've done it with both smart and feature
| phones.
| jancsika wrote:
| Damn, I guess I unwittingly revealed my phonecall
| preferences. :)
|
| Edit: Isn't there some kind of wake-on-lan on arm chips that
| the Baseband OS could use?
| narag wrote:
| 1 .. 7 are must haves for me and also:
|
| * I can program the phone to block numbers and send http
| requests over the net.
|
| * Tethering, even if I need a USB cable for that.
|
| * I can record calls. Both sides.
|
| If I can't program it, I'd just buy a dumbphone. If I can
| tether, I can do without anything else, just carrying a tablet
| or small laptop.
|
| For me, all this is obvious, but it doesn't seem the same for
| others.
| [deleted]
| maratc wrote:
| The meaning of the word "phone" has shifted in the recent
| years, and your requirements are a good representation of what
| that word meant in circa 2007; recently however the
| requirements 1-8 have so little relevance that it's possible to
| operate a device without satisfying any of them [0]. The new
| meaning of the word is an expanded version of #9 whereas it's a
| connected gadget that runs apps from the well-stocked built-in
| store.
|
| Any newcomer, Linux or not, would immediately face the most
| obvious problem, which is a complete lack of a well-stocked
| store.
|
| [0] I sometimes take my smartphone abroad for a combination of
| offline Google Maps and WiFi hopping.
| LorenDB wrote:
| Android devices could push something like
| https://gitlab.com/AuroraOSS/AuroraStore or even F-Droid to
| get a preinstalled store that's not completely evil.
|
| For Linux devices, if you have a powerful enough phone
| (Pine64, can we please have a _really_ beefy PinePhone?), you
| could bundle Waydroid + Aurora /F-Droid.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| Exactly true.
|
| From the original list, I really don't care at all about
| 1/2/3 (phone calls) and only care vaguely about SMS.
|
| My requirements are for an excellent browser and an app store
| with support for messaging platforms
| (telegram/signal/skype/slack/teams/etc) and email support,
| everything else is either "extra" or an outright distraction
| I'd probably be better off without (twitter, reddit, etc).
| coldpie wrote:
| You can still buy flip phones, seems like that meets all of
| your requirements?
| chongli wrote:
| What do #1-#8 have to do with Linux? As far as I can tell,
| nothing. A flip phone will cover your use case nicely.
|
| Personally, I have no interest in making phone calls. 99% of
| the time when my phone rings it's a spam call. The other 1% of
| the time it's one of my uncles or aunts, all of whom are in
| their 80's or thereabouts. After they pass on, I will have no
| reason at all to make a phone call, except perhaps to book a
| doctor's appointment with some doctor who hasn't switched over
| to online booking.
| TheCraiggers wrote:
| > Personally, I have no interest in making phone calls.
|
| You say that now, but wait until you need to dial 911.
| pwenzel wrote:
| Cops won't show up anyway
| chongli wrote:
| Cop showed up at my house 2 days ago at 2am. Roommate
| apparently sleep-dialed 911.
| anonymouskimmer wrote:
| > A flip phone will cover your use case nicely.
|
| Before switching to a smartphone in late 2020 various multi-
| message SMS texts dropped the middle message for some unknown
| reason.
|
| > After they pass on, I will have no reason at all to make a
| phone call
|
| You may think so, but things pop up. Moving states required
| calling my insurance company. I've made a couple of emergency
| calls.
| Mochsner wrote:
| Would muditaOS qualify?
| charukiewicz wrote:
| > Librem 5 fails #5
|
| Where's the Librem 5 antenna? Can you link to reports of
| reception issues stemming from this?
| awiesenhofer wrote:
| So basically KaiOS/FirefoxOS? Seems like every Nokia/HMD
| feature phone should fit all your points nowadays.
| recvonline wrote:
| Related: https://drewdevault.com/2023/06/16/Mobile-linux-
| retrospectiv...
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| > Remove the search engine setting. Hard-code the search engine
| to Google
|
| How is that not monopoly behavior? Why don't they just put an
| iMessage alternative in Android at that point?
| wombat-man wrote:
| isn't that just RCS?
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| No. I've read that Google is not allowed put iMessage-like
| features into the stock messaging app because it would run
| afoul of antitrust. Ironically, Apple can do this because
| they own everything.
| agloe_dreams wrote:
| This is silly and false. Google's default android Messaging
| app in the US on all carriers is Google Messages and it
| uses RCS to do exactly what you are saying they can't do.
| [deleted]
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Have you ever booted AOSP on a device or VM? There is a
| messaging app that is part of AOSP that is _not_ Google
| Messages
| kelnos wrote:
| What does that have to do with anything, though? Google
| Messages is available to any Android OEM that passes
| certification, assuming they want it. Certainly Messages
| wouldn't be a part of AOSP, as Messages isn't open
| source.
|
| Google Messages _is_ the stock messaging app, and
| contains iMessage-like features. AOSP is mostly
| irrelevant. It 's not clear why iMessage-like features
| would be an antitrust issue for Google anyway.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| https://android.googlesource.com/platform/packages/apps/M
| ess...
| muppetman wrote:
| Yes that Google haven't updated for years and is at this
| point abandoned[1].
|
| 1: https://twitter.com/MishaalRahman/status/1669026188399
| 112192
| subarctic wrote:
| It sounds like Google's way around this is what they've
| been doing for years at this point: slowly replacing AOSP
| builtins like the stock messaging app with separate,
| proprietary Google apps.
| richiebful1 wrote:
| I'm not sure what the stock messaging app is anymore, but
| "Messages by Google" accomplishes what we're talking about
| [1]
|
| 1. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.google
| .and...
| muppetman wrote:
| That's a closed source proprietary Google app that relies
| on Google Play Services to work.
| subarctic wrote:
| Just like the rest of android
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| Right, I don't believe that's part of AOSP but is a
| Google app. I don't believe all phones ship with that
| though my Pixel does. Do Samsung phones ship with that?
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