Comment on Google will block sideloading of unverified Android apps starting next year
mlg@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
I will pay hard cash money for some devs to bring postmarketos to quality hardware vendors.
I’m all for buying a pinephone, but man are we missing out on the full potential from some genuinely good OEM hardware stuff like razr flip.
Aside from google doing google things, android has been a bloated java pos toy OS for nearly a decade now. It completely wastes the full potential of superior hardware by running everything on a shitty JVM known as the ART that was designed for when devices had <512mb of RAM. A Nintendo 3DS can do better multi process tasking than modern android which regularly kills app threads for no reason other than to screw with you because you dared to switch to a different app for 5 seconds.
Android was supposed to be the big apple killer because of its closeness to a desktop OS with heavy emphasis on widespread features and functionality. Even technically speaking, rooting got you there if you wanted to run whatever straight on the linux environment or swap kernels.
Its nothing but a ripoff iOS clone now. Android 7/8 was probably the peak of development and usability, and even back then people were complaining it didn’t have groundbreaking improvements like 6 or lollipop.
ominousdiffusion@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
I don’t think that it’s the lack of quality hardware what is stopping adoption of Linux on phones. There are many resons why I don’t consider someting like PostmarketOS viable as a daily driver for most.
First of all some apps are just not available on Linux. Banking apps are a prime example. Most banks are now requiring some form of app where I live and they don’t even consider Linux. But that’s also another problem in it self.
Secondly: driver support. Drivers aren’t something one thinks about when talking about phones. But they are needed and mobile phones being what they are, most manufacturers aren’t really open to do anything in that regard.
As an Android developer I’m also annoyed by the restrictive power management of Android. But it’s there for a reason. On PostmarketOS my phone would be dead after sitting around all day doing noting. On Android I can maybe squeeze two to three days of use out of the same phone. And that’s not even with the OEM rom.
That being said, I hope for a future were all of the current issues can be solved and we finally have a viable alternative to Apple and Google.
To be clear, I’m in no way trying to defend what Google is doing.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 3 hours ago
I honestly don’t care about apps. I switched to GrapheneOS and opted to not use Google Play Services, so my app selection is very limited, especially for things like banking apps. It turns out I can just use the website for the vast majority of them, and I can fill in the gaps with FDroid apps.
The main things stopping me from using a Linux phone (eg PostmarketOS) are:
I don’t need a flagship with top tier driver support, I just need basic phone things to work. I’m even okay with poor camera quality, provided I can take pictures of things and clearly read the text later. I don’t need much in terms of app support, and I’m willing to help port things I need. But my phone needs to work as a phone, and it needs to do so all day without needing to charge until night.
ominousdiffusion@lemmy.world 1 hour ago
Yeah, I tried to use it as my daily driver a while back and what bugged me most was the terrible battery efficiency. Running the full desktop version of Firefox certainly didn’t help. At that point the camera also didn’t have any drivers. Since theres been some progress and we now have a work in progress driver for that model. Frankly it’s amazing that this works at all and I’m incredibly grateful for anyone working on this.
I’ve actually been rather lucky and managed to convince most of my friends to join me on Signal so we barely need to rely on SMS anymore. But last time I checked there weren’t any real Signal clients availabe for Linux phones. Of course, one could always use the desktop version but that still requires a phone to be linked to. Someone has managed to get the Matrix/Signal bridge working and rely on Matrix for the final delivery but that seems like too much tinkering for me :D
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 hour ago
Don’t get me wrong, I think the work that’s been done is amazing, my point is that it’s still not daily driver ready. I want to help out, I just don’t have the time anymore with a full-time job and kids. If it was daily drive-able, I could probably spare a few hours here and there to improve things (port apps, track down bugs, etc).
I hope it gets there before I need a new phone. Last year I switched to a Pixel 8 for GrapheneOS and cut out most of my Google Play apps, so I should be good for a few years, but I’d very much like to ditch Android entirely next time.
For now, I got my SO to use Signal, but that’s it.
Lifter@discuss.tchncs.de 2 hours ago
The only way to log into my bank on the website is to use the phone two factor authentication app, which only works with Google Play Services… 💩
I’m considering getting a dedicated login device which can sit on my desk all day doing nothing else.
sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 hours ago