Especially if this platform was bootstrapped in a smart way, for example with an emulation layer to be able to run applications from Android.
Or perhaps WebAssembly will make it viable to do more things from a (mobile) browser.
I really miss the N700-N9 series with Maemo and Meego. It was so elegant and simple.
But frankly, many users only want messaging, maps, banking and a few other things.
WebAssembly could solve that.
Even Microsoft couldn't make it work with barrels of cash. Granted they did make some huge mis-steps.
Or emulate Android apps, like you said. That solves the initial issue of having no apps. It seems like Google Fuchsia will likely take this approach. Although it isn't clear if another platform could do this, without a lot of goodwill from Google - and good luck with that.
I distinctly remember Google making it a right pain to use Google's products on the phone, namely Youtube and Google Maps. In addition I remember a bunch of articles talking about how Google prevented Microsoft from developing a native youtube app and doing shady nonsense regarding User Agent filtering.
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2013/01/google-maps-windows-...
https://geekinsider.com/google-blocks-youtube-on-windows-pho...
How Google got away with that is beyond me.
Certainly makes me somewhat glad that Microsoft just chose to yoink chromium for edge. At least now Google can't do any more shady nonsense with the browser to filter them out.
It was on my short list for my next phone at one point, but the platform imploded before that happened.
If Google makes a misstep, it wouldn't take too much effort for Microsoft to run a hostile fork and capture a massive user base. They already are the 2nd most popular browser.
As it is, they have nullified Google's anti-competitive nonsense of using the browser as a way to manipulate markets.
Granted as a Firefox user, I conceded your point to how to affects open standards. Frankly though, that has already been long tarnished by Google anyway.
And it already exists: GNU/Linux phones running desktop OSes, Librem 5 [0] and Pinephone [1].
Instead, they spent billions and billions of dollars trying to attract developers to their platform before eventually shuttering it.
There was a phone with awesome hardware, an awesome mobile-first operating system, and practically no apps. Bill admitted his biggest mistake was being too preoccupied with the antitrust activity in Europe, and missing the shift to mobile computing cost him ~400 billion.
Does google have enthusiasm for anything anymore other than ads?
Fixed that for you. More info: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31094407.
Their application Model was web technologies based, which is quite popular now, between React-Native and PWAs.
I’m doubtful though that someone could pull out off now. Mostly because you need access to the services that people already use and Google/Amazon/Apple already wall their gardens to their own liking.
AFAIK KaiOS (the operating system for some T9-keyboard-only phones like the rebooted Nokia 8110) is Firefox OS with a new coat of paint, but it also seems kinda dead. And no touchscreen in those devices, so not really comparable to "normal" smartphones anymore... :/
Since the drivers for the wifi were non free he used some USB device instead.
Last I read that lasted a few months because he got sick of it.
I can't imagine adding all those steps to use a smartphone is any less annoying.
The only real problem right now is just lack of apps. Devs build against Android/iOS-only SDKs and use native features that aren't cross platform, so running those apps is mostly out of the question (although I have seen some people running Android apps on their Pinephones!! Need to look into that more).
So GP is saying for apps like that they'd keep an android around but do everything else in a browser.
People don't care about this stuff if it's going to waste a ton of their time.
Theres a reason people buy closed source oems and don't care. It's because it works and doesn't waste their time.
Imagine buying an open source car where you can to periodically rebuilt parts of the engine because it was "free". That's absurd, people aren't buying a philosophical journey. they're buying a car.
I'm sure if pinephone or OLPC used entirely free drivers and didn't waste your time to do the same asks people would find it much more agreeable.
I had a conversation with two people recently who got defensive at the idea that controlling the software in your phone should be the norm. As if criticizing Apple's approach to free/libre software is an attack on them as an identity.
For the vast majority, it probably isn't. Also, I'm not full RMS since I would consider using an iPhone which definitely has closed-source components :)
I don't think it would be that much of a hassle to me, since I already don't use a lot of the "nice" apps etc. The way most people use their phone is quite alien to me. E.g. I much prefer old.reddit.com over a reddit app and/or constantly getting harassed with banners to use the app.
I'm pretty sure it would remove extra steps for me, instead of add them, by letting me compute how I like to (GNU/Linux) instead of trying to compute like GNU/Linux on Android.
no. i don't want an app. thanks. i want your desktop website, yes on mobile with a touch screen. yes i'm weird, i know.
- DriveDroid to boot a PC, I haven't used a USB stick to boot off in... years?
- /etc/hosts
- Viper4Android for system wide EQ
- Messing with user hostile apps such a firefox when they disable your addons although they still work, proven by the fact that I was able to make them work again as root
Edit: more things
- Wireguard kernel module
- Adding a CA to the trust store to MITM yourself
you can add as many of these as you want, i'm not giving up root. The crippled API model that's in fashion these days kills innovation.
The Mini has a better screen for switching between ISOs and virtual disks.
This is possible on iPhones isn't it? I definitely remember Fiddlering my self a few years back on my iPhone.
Root is an insurance (to a degree) against apple changing their mind, like google did.
Here's how niche indie software handles this: https://i.imgur.com/6m809SB.png (excuse the sarcasm)
I don't care anymore though. I've switched browsers since, Mozilla is beyond help. Still, in that moment i was very glad to have root to override their bullshit.
- GravityBox for various UI tweaks and making volume control a little more fine-grained
- UMS Enabler to expose your external SD card as an USB drive (accessing it via MTP isn't really fun and doesn't work everywhere [1])
- proper local backups and therefore the ability to e.g. relatively painlessly revert borked app updates
- sometimes due to bugs cruft accumulates in data directories that as a regular user can only be cleaned by – depending on the nature of the bug – clearing the whole application data [2] (which is already annoying enough as it of course also means wiping all your settings and other stuff you might actually want to keep), completely uninstalling and reinstalling the app [3], or even wiping the whole phone [4].
[1] E.g. the local state library has a nice book scanner available for public use. You can either e-mail yourself the results (but that only works reliably up to a certain file size), or else save them on an USB drive. I didn't have an USB drive with me, but thanks to UMS Enable I could just plug in my phone, switch my external SD card to USB mode and voila.
[2] It seems that e.g. possibly as a result of /etc/hosts blocking via AdAway some apps accumulate telemetry data that they cannot send (Fabric / Crashlytics seems to be the particular culprit here) and after a few weeks that amount of data can reach a notable size.
Another example was that due to some sort of bug Google's TTS app (Speech Services) kept accumulating TTS voice packs after updates and wouldn't delete the old versions, and by the time I noticed they were occupying a few hundred MB.
[3] Don't know of a current example, but during the days of Android 4.1.2, Android had a bug whereby if a native library was removed from a future APK version (respectively renamed), then Android wouldn't remove the old copy of the library when installing an update. Skype was a particular culprit there, because their native library was around 25 MB and included a version number in its filename, so each time that library was upgraded an additional 25 MB file was plonked onto the file system, with the old file remaining behind. Without root, the only way to remove those superfluous files was by completely uninstalling the app.
[4] I occasionally find system RAM dumps appearing under /data/ss-ram-dumps. I've got no idea whether they eventually get cleaned up automatically, or if they would just accumulate and take up more and more space until you're forced to wipe the whole phone.
What do you use for your backups?
I've used Titanium Backup in the past, but it has some issues in Android 11 and seems to no longer be maintained.
Trying OAndBackupX (recently rebranded as NeoBackup) but the results are not great. Hoping the next major version cleans it up.
So while it's a bit clunky, for now I'm relying on a combination of Titanium Backup (at least on my phone it's still working fine except for split APKs) + SAI to do an extra backup of split APKs.
For example, I see no reason why a calculator app needs access to my contacts, phone, or microphone, and X-Privacy will let me disable permissions to those specific resources for the calculator app while still letting me use it. As a bonus, it'll also put in fake data in to these apps when needed, so the apps continue working, thinking they have access to my data but they don't.
Something like this should be standard in every smartphone, but obviously phone OS makers don't value privacy enough, and even require root in order to allow you to do this.
I'm not paranoid, but it's not the direction I want to see computing evolve in.
The main point of it is that if you don't have the control over your computing, someone else has and they can use this power for their own advantage against you. Examples are numerous: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-software-even-more-impor....
Oh, and some scripts to fake input events so I can automate apps.
- macros and scripts- it's nice not having to enable, disable etc stuff and just scan qr codes, nfc tags or use ble tags as markers to enable something
- chroot
- faking permisions and data for apps is a must
- sim links to app data folders for easy backup/restore
I tap an NFC tag to open/close my garage door (the tag is outside, next to the door)
You forgot reasonable support time: Proprietary drivers prevent you from upgrading the Linux kernel, and the device becomes very insecure and outdated within few years.
Meanwhile I have a phone that is based on free software (for all the aspects where it matters) and that works. Today. And which has future potential to be just as free as the librem/pinephone - after all, if the code being developed by Purism is free, it can be adopted by other vendors.
A laptop from 12 years ago more likely than not has less memory than a mid-range phone from today, and unless such laptop is your only device for all this time, it has no point in this conversation.
I do use it as a daily driver.
> unless such laptop is your only device for all this time, it has no point in this conversation
It's the only device used by my non-technical relative. But even if it wasn't, the device would serve a purpose and not be another piece of e-waste.
> And which has future potential to be just as free
You can't upgrade Linux on your phone due to the proprietary drivers. You're stuck with the ancient version. When it's not supported, your device effectively becomes a brick, unless you are going to recompile everything yourself or fine with being hacked.
> You can't upgrade Linux on your phone due to the proprietary drivers.
Hardware-specific binary blobs don't stop the UBPorts devs to make constant updates to my old BenQ phone. The software part is still up-to-date, but the application catalog is almost non-existent, the hardware is limited (1GB RAM) and the camera is shit. Eventually I want to turn that device into a networked music player, but as a smartphone it didn't last two years.
If I manage to get 7 years out of this Fairphone, its ROI will have been unbelievably great, I will gladly buy whatever comes from Fairphone in 2027, and I will try to find another use for this device.
Hopefully by then Linux on mobile will have matured, but I don't need to compromise on my actual needs just to please the FOSS-purists.
This is an outdated information. The development pace of Pinephone is unprecedented. Even here on HN I saw many recent posts saying that calls and MMS work fine already.
Update: reading through https://www.reddit.com/r/pinephone/comments/u6zzyc/how_pinep... (from 6 days ago) it seems like you are not just overselling hard, you are trying to convince people to switch to something that is absolutely not ready for general consumption.
You do realize that if your goal is to get more people to adopt FOSS, your approach is more harmful than beneficial? Don't make promises that you can not keep, it will burn whatever goodwill people might have and it ends up convincing them Linux is never going to be for them.
Note that we are not on Reddit but on HN. Is its audience ordinary people? My goal is to bring more technical people to GNU/Linux phones.
Also, is your goal to get people to use GNU/Linux phones or is it to maximize the overall adoption of Free Software? The former requires a radical shift in consumer behavior and will be unlikely to happen, the latter can be done in gradual steps with a much higher chance of success.
Think of it this way: if you manage to upset me, who is pretty much in favor of F/LOSS, imagine how many bridges you burned with those "on the other side"?
Where did I make this claim? I said that I use it as a daily driver. It's possible, though not for everyone yet.
> Also, is your goal to get people to use GNU/Linux phones or is it to maximize the overall adoption of Free Software?
It's the same goal. Adoption of Free Software without using it on the phones will not help much. There are more people using smartphones than computers. I also don't see how one is a "radical shift" while the other is "gradual steps". It's the same to me. People are going to switch to new type of smartphones slowly: first developers, then early adopters, then theirs friends and then the rest. Same for Free Software.
> HN audience is large and diverse enough to the point that it makes no sense to think as some homogeneous group of people who are interested in tinkering with their phones.
This is true, but these people are "hackers", i.e. interested in though-provoking things and intellectually curious. I don't expect that they would just buy a new phone with a new OS without doing any research and believing a random comment on HN.
Your interjection came off as one that could provide the same level of usability and no compromises on the freedom aspect. It's only now that you are backing off on the claim by adding the caveat that you can use it as a daily driver.
> Adoption of Free Software without using it on the phones will not help anyone.
AOSP is free-software. F-Droid only distributes free-software. So why did you feel the need to interject about
> I also don't see how one is a "radical shift" while the other is "gradual steps".
The amount of people that could be interested in using /e/OS with F-Droid is orders of magnitude higher than the amount of people interested in tinkering with "Pure FOSS, GNU/Linux".
"Google Android -> AOSP + closed apps + f-droid" is a much easier adoption curve than "Google Android -> GNU/Linux"
There is no phone in the world which can run AOSP without proprietary software, at least drivers. (Well, technically, Pinehone and Librem 5 could do it, but it's not ported yet.) F-Droid is great, but it's running on top of a proprietary OS. It's probably a step in the right direction, but you can't just say "AOSP is FLOSS".
> The amount of people that could be interested in using /e/OS with F-Droid is orders of magnitude higher than the amount of people interested in tinkering with "Pure FOSS, GNU/Linux".
Every single change in the society starts like this. I don't see anything wrong or unexpected here. It doesn't mean that one should not promote the change. To me it even proves my point, because more technical people will get interested first anyway.
> The original comment I responded to was complaining about how the Google/Apple duopoly leads to a "pick your poison" situation and the user hostility. My recommendation was to into Google-free Android distros that can be used and do not require big compromises in terms of usability.
In this way you are still supporting Google with your money, it's not the best solution to the problem. Yes, the compromises are smaller and I did not disagree with it. I just noted in my original comment that anything Google-related will inevitably become e-waste, even if you use "AOSP" on it.
> Your interjection came off as one that could provide the same level of usability
You are probably right, and I could add a disclaimer that GNU/Linux phones can't do everything yet and are less reliable. But I don't see how those things were implied.
That's why I had my quip about "FOSS purists". In practical terms, people using AOSP (and boo-hoo closed drivers) have a lot more options of free software in applications and all other aspects that matters to them.
> It doesn't mean that one should not promote the change.
We have a quarter of a century of "This is the year of Linux on the desktop", and any adoption that Linux ever got could never be attributed to an increase "technical people" interested in a "pure" alternative. Valve's working on Proton and making gaming on Linux a reality is doing more for FOSS than any "activist" ever will.
The problem of FOSS is not a lack of education or promotion. The problem is that its activists miss the forest for the trees. To illustrate, instead of taking my comment about an alternative that would be miles better than iOS/Google Android and adding to it, to make the message stronger, you decided to "educate" them, and now all it's left is the two of us on a debate that does not help the others in any way.
> In this way you are still supporting Google with your money.
No, I am not. A Google-free Android, is as useful to Google as a GNU/Linux system. Google will only make money if people continue to use its search and see their ads.
But even without root I can side load an app via APK on Android. This way my Telegram messenger almost always a version ahead Google Play.
What about getting rid of the preinstalled "system" bloatware that may be present and outside of your control to remove without root?
Mobile phones and their user hostility is a cancer. I'm seriously considering using a full GNU/Linux handheld for mobile things i can do in a browser, and keep an android phone for app garbage that I only turn on if I need to use a banking app or something.