I respect people’s right to use apple products, but please stop asserting “privacy”, big corps doesn’t give a shit.
Comparatively they are better. Its a duopoly in terms of mobile OSs and one is made by a company who mines data and sells ads as its core. The other sells hardware and subscriptions.
I use linux and I wish for a full featured marketable linux phone someday that can compete but with privacy they absolutely beat google.
I have never owned an iphone amd I am currently debating on getting a pixel to move to gOS.
I’m all for linux, I miss the market before iPhone domination. Weird ass symbian phones, windows phones, nokia taco phones, there was all sorts of stuff. I wish we could have a market like that with lots of diverse phones that all run different operating systems. I also wish we could step away from app stores and we could just start building websites again, phones are fast enough now
It’s really funny seeing people who defend capitalism trying to avoid capitalism problems with individual actions instead of organizing themselves and fighting for the interest of their own class
Thia guy i know to a tee. He’ll defend capitalism to the death and say how the left is evil and anarchy capitalism is the only way.
Idiot. And he pitches about everything in life capitalism causes. I point this out and he says well yeah but thats just bad capitalism not good capitalism. Also he loves fElon, so there’s that.
Yeah, you can go with a Linux phone but forget about:
- controlling any IOT device
- using any smart watch/sport trakcer
- Android Auto or any remote car features
- mobile banking
- authenticating at work
- buying public transport tickets from your phone
- using apps for boarding pass when flying
- charging your car at most public chargers
- using any type of digital ID or documents
If you’re already a luddite that’s awesome, you’re free to move to Linux phones. If you like modern tech and the convenience it gave us it will be really fucking sad to lose all of it because or corporate greed.
Agreed, but is a chicken and egg problem. People won’t use Linux because the apps they want don’t support it and apps won’t support it because most people don’t use Linux. Someone will have to cave in if we want to break this stupid proprietary duopoly.
The best way is freeing Android. Android should be the “Mobile Linux”. What should happen is that EU should ensure that people are allowed to side load and unlock bootloaders and that all apps are compatible with alternative ROMs. All dependencies on google play services should simply be made illegal and all apps should be fully compatible with AOSP.
If we can’t get this we will spend the next 10-15 years in mobile dark ages. Mobile Linux may never get enough tracking to be supported the way desktop Linux is.
I don’t think it’ll play out that way. Manufacturers aren’t going to ditch Google. Play Store and Google certification are too valuable for them. And for small developers, most of them rely on Google’s infrastructure. If the EU decides to take that away, only big players with resources could handle their own systems, which ironically makes things less open because indies get squeezed out.
If we skip the Play Services part, the EU might push for sideloading and more openness, but realistically Play Services will remain dominant simply because it’s the easiest and most convenient option for developers. So we’ll probably end up with a halfway solution: technically more open, but practically still dependent on Google.
If we really want change, proper GNU/Linux phones need to catch up or at least run Android apps (APKs) reliably. That alone would solve 70% of the problem. The remaining 30% comes down to infrastructure and right now Google Play Services is just too polished and convenient (especially for indies who don’t care about FOSS ideals) for devs to walk away from.
I will admit I’m ignorant here. What do companies use Google Play Services for? I developed some Android app and I never had to rely on Google. I just used F-Droid. Other than play store for distribution, which services provided by Google would be so hard to replace?
I used to run an LTE-enabled nettop instead of a phone during the app-only craze, can’t get any worse than that. Recently removed bank apps, taxi, delivery, maps, youtube, email and all social media apps off my phone in favour of using websites instead. They’re still a bit of an afterthought compared to apps so the experience is a bit clunky, but the option is available for most things nowadays.
Some things yes. I don’t have any social media apps (not even lemmy) or YT but my car charger requires an app, my AC has an app I use from time to time, my Garmin GPS has an app, I have to use MS Authenticator at work, my car has an app and Android Auto and 90% of public car charges require an app. None of this has website alternative. Can I live without them? Well, not without work obviously and where I live electric car infrastructure is so tied to mobile phones I’m seriously considering just giving up and going back to a normal car.
Don’t they have functioning Android app support now?
In theory yes but most non open source apps require google play services. Hard to tell how long those will work with waydroid and similar. Also running android apps this ways destroys battery apparently.
Most of this i don’t use my phone for anyway. I’ll use my current android phone for the rest, if needed.
Still going to wait and see if the Eu makes a move, but i won’t go back to fascist enabling corps.
Yeah, sadly I don’t see a way around it other than having spare Android/iOS phone.
For some time GrapheneOS should work just fine but when Google kills it we’re fucked.
The fact that there are only two operating systems and both are locked down is a major problem. Unless a company like Valve invests heavily in a linux phone it is unlikely to ever go mainstream enough for developer or device support.
We need governments and legislators to force these systems open. To enshrine the right to control the things you own and criminalize any attempt to curb people’s ownership or control. That is the first step. Once that’s in place, the environment for a third option to exist will be in place.
There are more than these 2, they are just ubiquitous.
Sailfish is another one, UBPorts, Danctnix, … They have no marketshare worth considering for companies so they lock their services down to the 2 big ones and everything else in their eyes is “unsupported” at best and “not secure” at worst.
Yeah, I use lineage with microg…and it’s been tough… I had to deal with several government apps in order to start a new job and guess what? None of them work…I had to use my wife’s phone to get my new ID… I’m a teacher and I have to use government apps to deal with student’s absences…that Does not work either…basically anything that relys on Brazilian government app to authenticate something is not going to work. I tried to use the website…guess again…it does not work! One can’t export an ID from the website…I had been dealing with banking apps without much trouble…but this ID thing is terrible! How come you can only do stuff using an app and not using the website!?
Apple is kicking and screaming all the way on this side loading path.
As soon as Google got away with it, Apple will refer to Google and happily claim an even playfield and everyone is left holding the shortest stick.
I use an iPhone simply because I refuse to use google services any longer, not because I’m delusional about apple caring about privacy.
Just use the device mobile security researchers use.
You’re gonna hate it when you discover which one it is.
Yeah, just hating on iPhones because they’re iPhones is stupid. I use GrapheneOS, and their official statement is “Graphene is your best option for security, but if you don’t want to fiddle with things and be in an open source ecosystem, your #2 best choice is an iPhone”
I’d love to use graphene if it didn’t require me to buy a Pixel
Excuse me Sir/Ma’am is it socially acceptable to dislike walled gardens and horrendous UI design at the price of more than a new laptop computer
I’ll never use an android device again knowing what I know about them.
I begrudgingly use an iPhone, knowing what I know about them.
Baseband will always be against you, no matter what choice you make.
Week 4 on GrapheneOS:
This is the best. I should have done this years ago.
Even IF all you care about is performance, this is the option. Fastest pocket derputer I’ve used in my life.
I’ve been planning to switch to GrapheneOS soon, though my carrier (Verizon) makes it kinda difficult.
How so? I’m on Verizon. Swapped my sim and off I went. Upgrade credit issue with them or something?
They told me they couldn’t get the 256GB model so I said @#^ them and bought myself one
I have an eSIM which my research showed is a little difficult to get working on GrapheneOS. Also the fact that Verizon sells them locked and doesn’t provide support for non stock OSes. I would have to switch out for a regular SIM, though I simply haven’t found the time. Also I haven’t fully paid off my current phone.
if you already have an esim on the phone it will not be wiped during installation - esims reside on a completely separate chip.
all “difficult to set up” information is exactly about that - setting up, that, in any case, is just about enabling specific google services that you can disable afterwards.
my phone has about 5 esims installed, I regularly wipe my phone, they are unaffected.
My current phone is a Samsung. Got it before i knew about all this. To get GrapheneOS I’d need to get a Pixel
Once my GrapheneOS phone goes out of service, I may just go back to flip phones. I actually kind of hate smartphones and their corrosive effect on the world. The convenience isn’t worth the loss of privacy, empowerment of bad actors, and psychological/societal damage. I can live without it. I’ll just do computery stuff on real computers on my own schedule.
I’m just saying that you can uninstall stuff from your smart phone.
Use it for phone stuff, not computer stuff.
But hey, don’t let me tell you what to do. Have fun.
ITT
“I give up”
Without defending one or the other, as long as you have proprietary closed software running on the device itself or on the backend of the services it syncs with, all you can have is assumptions and reasonable doubt about how the data is used. We’re trading convenience for someone knowing something about us.
I wanna run away to live with dogs like Diogenes. I’ll live in a basket and piss and shit in the streets. No spyware phone required.
The dropped Chromecast for a new device. I was sideloading apps on that. I wonder how long before we have a “fix”
Wow, that’s so cool OP that you think we should be allowed to use apple products
