Comment on Google Keeps Making Smartphones Worse

Canuck@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

• douglasg14b@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  It’s a bit of a catch honestly.

  OSS/community Linux graphical environments have kind of always been ~5 years out from what’s needed. 15 years ago they were behind ~5 years, 5 years ago they where behind ~5 years.

  The only difference is today. I think they’re only behind by ~3-4 years thanks to the backwards movement of things like Windows.

  Mobile operating systems are in a worse place.

  source
• seralth@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  [deleted]

  source

  • piyuv@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    What’s wrong with tapless payment with cards?

    source

    • StupidBrotherInLaw@lemmy.world ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Nothing, but many users have already migrated to using stored payment information on their phones.

      source
    • sexybenfranklin@ttrpg.network ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      When you use apple or android pay, it generates a temporary card number etc and uses that, which means if that payment terminal gets compromised, your card number etc isn’t exposed. Your bank could probably do something similar without Google or Apple as the middleman, but until they do, mobile pay will remain a killer app.

      source
  • Canuck@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    There are Google Play Android bank apps (mine works fine), and you can use mobile sites as dedicated app drawer icons.

    NFC payments won’t come anytime soon to native GNU/Linux, but I don’t use them. Maybe Google Wallet works, I haven’t tried and don’t know if NFC can be passed through to Waydroid. OnePlus 6 is the best supported originally Android phone for GNU/Linux, someone with that would need to test.

    I just have my card in a silicon sleeve on the back of the phone and I get the same effect. I’d rather Google not have my purchase history anyways. Haven’t had issues with my banking app via Android, and their mobile site is top notch.

    source
• NikkiDimes@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  you can install Android apps including Google Play on it natively

  What whaaaat? I didn’t know this! Thanks for the tip

  source

  • LodeMike@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

    Yeah how the hell do you do this?

    source

    • Canuck@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Waydroid, Anbox, etc

      source

      • LodeMike@lemmy.today ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

        Which do you recommend? How well does it work? :)

        source

        • -> View More Comments
• TeddE@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨month⁩ ago

  I just saw KDE Bigscreen got reboot. While it’s not exactly the same (its for TVs, like Android TV and Steam Big Picture mode), it’s nice to see major desktop environments(DE) adopt new UI features for small and large devices. This compliments work done by groups like PinePhone, who laid the groundwork for Linux phones.

  source
• jabjoe@feddit.uk ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

  My big problem is banks and satnav.

  SatNav need traffic info and there is none, so their routes are bad.

  Banks require apps to even use their website for “secure codes”. Those apps try to detect ROMs and refuse to run, not even really being Android is going to make passing that harder.

  Let alone random things like parking apps where the app is the only way to pay.

  This is a political problem as much as technical. Competition is basically dead. We need government to step in and make competition possible. But they are in big tech’s pocket and the status quo suits them too. Voters either don’t care or believe what big tech says. It’s a mess.

  source

  • Canuck@sh.itjust.works ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

    Satnav there is Pure Maps (OSM client), which can connect to sources like HERE to get traffic data to provide voiced guided turn-by-turn instructions. Of course there is also all the Android apps like Google Maps available, and their mobile site works fine.

    On the topic of mobile sites, you can also install them as dedicated app drawer icons via Gnome Web & Firefox PWA for any site.

    This means if your bank app doesn’t like vanilla Android, GApps, you can use a comparable dedicated web app.

    For parking, I’ve found a surprising amount have mobile sites, so I don’t need to install their bloaty Android app onto my GNU/Linux phone.

    source

    • jabjoe@feddit.uk ⁨5⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago

      Good to know. I’d really like to try a proper Linux phone as a daily driver.

      source