E Foundation – deGoogled unGoogled smartphone OS and online services

Re:E Foundation – deGoogled unGoogled smartphone OS and onli... by ForHackernews on Monday November 30, 2020 @08:31AM (#25253487)

I've been using /e/ as my primary smartphone for a couple months now. It's certainly usable: The experience is more pleasant and integrated than stock LineageOS + MicroG, but there's still quite a few rough edges.

I hope they can make a go of it, but I think it'll take adoption by a deep-pocketed sponsor (Samsung? Huawei? The German government?) before it would be polished enough to be a real contender for non-technical users.

But I do think the idea of an Android fork that maintains some compatibility with existing apps is more likely to find success than something like Sailfish OS, that's entirely distinct.

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Re:E Foundation – deGoogled unGoogled smartphone OS and onli... by aspyct on Monday November 30, 2020 @08:39AM (#25253547)

Care to elaborate on the "rough edges"? Is it a reliable day to day phone?

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Re:E Foundation – deGoogled unGoogled smartphone OS and onli... by ForHackernews on Monday November 30, 2020 @08:42AM (#25253567)

It's mostly a reliable day to day phone. Rough edges I've seen:

- Occasional "X app stopped unexpectedly" messages.

- Font sizing is really weird on the built-in email app (a K9 Mail reskin)

- System webview sometimes (maybe once a week?) starts rendering blank white pages until I reboot the phone.

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Re:E Foundation – deGoogled unGoogled smartphone OS and onli... by severine on Monday November 30, 2020 @11:54AM (#25255856)

FWIW, I have experienced all those things with different Android versions, and mainline K9.

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Re:E Foundation – deGoogled unGoogled smartphone OS and onli... by veridies on Monday November 30, 2020 @10:05AM (#25254455)

I have been using it for I think over a year now as my only phone, on a Samsung Galaxy S9+. It's honestly not much different from Android (although a little out of date), and the only real issue I have is that installing software is a little inconvenient. (The built in app store doesn't work reliably.)

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Re:E Foundation – deGoogled unGoogled smartphone OS and onli... by Tijdreiziger on Monday November 30, 2020 @11:14AM (#25255284)

I assume in-app purchases are also a no go, right?

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Re:E Foundation – deGoogled unGoogled smartphone OS and onli... by veridies on Monday November 30, 2020 @12:07PM (#25256048)

Right. It's fine for me since I use free software as much as possible anyway. The only applications I've sideloaded are WeChat, Teams, Discord, Target, Instagram, and WhatsApp, all of which work fine.

Edit: and Google Maps. The built-in mapping software doesn't have good enough traffic estimation.

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Re:E Foundation – deGoogled unGoogled smartphone OS and onli... by artvark11 on Monday November 30, 2020 @08:34AM (#25253504)

How well does it work with Waze? That is the only app keeping me on stock Android.

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Re:E Foundation – deGoogled unGoogled smartphone OS and onli... by ForHackernews on Monday November 30, 2020 @08:40AM (#25253550)

I haven't tried Waze. The (nonfree) mapping app it ships with works pretty well, as does Maps.me (frontend to OSM data).

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Re:E Foundation – deGoogled unGoogled smartphone OS and onli... by artvark11 on Monday November 30, 2020 @08:55AM (#25253671)

I like Waze because it tells you where speed cameras and cops are. I've used osm+ and maps.me before. They are decent but google maps and Waze have much better routing and directions.

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Re:E Foundation – deGoogled unGoogled smartphone OS and onli... by javierseballos on Monday November 30, 2020 @12:04PM (#25255995)

well it doesn't work, like half of the apps on this OS :)

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