Technology

Most users want those installed, anyway.

you can install Android apps including Google Play on it natively

What whaaaat? I didn't know this! Thanks for the tip

It's a bit of a catch honestly.

OSS/community Linux graphical environments have kind of always been ~5 years out from what's needed. 15 years ago they were behind ~5 years, 5 years ago they where behind ~5 years.

The only difference is today. I think they're only behind by ~3-4 years thanks to the backwards movement of things like Windows and OSx staleness.

Mobile operating systems are in a worse place.

I just saw KDE Bigscreen got reboot. While it's not exactly the same (its for TVs, like Android TV and Steam Big Picture mode), it's nice to see major desktop environments(DE) adopt new UI features for small and large devices. This compliments work done by groups like PinePhone, who laid the groundwork for Linux phones.

Both ARM itself and Linux for ARM has been standardizing a fair bit recently. But not to the extent to be fully generic, mostly just enough for portable bootable kernels - and after that you still need all the same custom drivers and configurations to make proper use of a SoC, but it's not nothing.

https://linuxgizmos.com/ebbr-spec-to-bring-standardization-to-embedded-linux-boot-process/

Is there no Linux for mobile options currently available?

Play Store is truly vile to use. It just feels gross and scammy and like a mine field of low quality slop and scam apps.

iOS isn’t great either but it at least feels a whole lot better. The iOS store needs the ability to report fraid which it doesn’t sort until you install an app.

F-Droid is a decent replacement for the play store. Lots of FOSS and less-enshittified apps available.

Funny enough, having Microsoft making the Windows Phone again would make a 3rd player, and maybe some competition in the market.

I don't know many companies that have the resources to fight in this arena right now...

We're all trapped. If you're not using either Android or iOS, you're pretty much screwed.

Technically, you can use one of the alternate phones, but the software support still leaves a lot to be desired. You can get most basic things working, but when it comes to crucial deal breaker apps like anything involving payments or banks, it gets a lot trickier. The world has become increasingly dependent on mobile phones, and if your phone can't handle train tickets, mail deliveries, restaurant reservations or pay your bills, it suddenly becomes very difficult to live in the 2020s.

More and more hardware also depends on specific iOS or Android apps, and those apps may also require GAPPS or some OEM Android. At some point, it just isn't worth the hassle, and it becomes easier to pick either one of the toxic platforms everyone else is already using.

It's telling how incompetent they've become when their LLM AI is the absolute worst one, including mechahitler before that update.

Thanks for these, especially the "we're not going anywhere" link. I was hesitant to switch because I was worried about future support on my Pixel 7. Here's the full quote for anyone that didn't check the above link:

Many companies and individuals are trying to mislead people about the future of GrapheneOS to promote their insecure products and services. GrapheneOS is not going anywhere. We've made it clear we're shipping Android 16 soon and that the supported devices will remain supported.

European authoritarians and their enablers in the media are misrepresenting GrapheneOS and even Pixel phones as if they're something for criminals.

Spanish authorities*. Not really European-wide thing, but a local one.

You can't sideload on iOS at all.

But is it even slightly better? It's debatable. Both are completely awful, but I guess iOS is just terrible in different ways.