Comment on Fairphone 5 bricked by faulty Android 15 update
bus_factor@lemmy.world 7 hours agoShould be possible to make a compatibility layer. You can run android apps on PC now, according to constant banners on Play Store.
The biggest issue is hardware support. Mobile hardware still uses custom drivers for everything, so you wouldn’t be able to ramp up a new OS on existing hardware. You’d need to invest in making both a phone and an OS, and that’s a big risk considering only a small amount of turbo nerds will care.
orclev@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
There’s already a compatibility layer and it works really well. Most android apps run fine on Linux. The big problem is Googles security layer which is also what causes problems for alternative Android builds like GrapheneOS or PostmarketOS. That prevents you from running certain apps (mostly banking but notably also includes Google Wallet preventing tap to pay) on devices with unlocked bootloaders as well as Linux. Any non-official version of Android, or even an official version running on a device with an unlocked bootloader is going to have a problem.
Beyond that having tried a Linux phone as of a couple years ago it had significant usability problems such as unacceptably high battery drain and the inability to receive push notifications when the screen was locked. Some of these issues may have been solved since the last time I tried it, but at the time the experience wasn’t one I would recommend to anyone nevermind the average person.