Google Keeps Making Smartphones Worse
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I bought a Garmin to accompany my Graphene Pixel, only to discover that my bank doesn't support Garmin Pay.
So, MagSafe wallet attached my phone it is then.
I just hope the new pebble supports a Sim card soon but I'm not holding my breath. I just want talk, text, and a calendar. Music or a matrix app could be cool too so I can run beeper or similar through it. Other than that I have a tablet or laptop and tbh I'm thinking my next tablet when this one finally dies or I maybe give it away would be a remarkable or other epaper device. My coworkers are starting to think I'm a Luddite but whatever.
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All phones that are sold in the EU now have to have 5 years of updates after the phone is no longer sold.
Basically, all phones have 6+ years of updates now.
You realize there's a whole rest of the world that's not the EU?
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i hard people use a answer watch to get nfc payments working
I'm trying to make my own smart watch as a hobby experiment at the moment, and one of my most important features is NFC payments. It's a nightmare, although I understand why. Currently my plan is to buy another smart watch or smart ring and take the NFC chip from it, which is maddening, but more or less my only option due to contactless payment security.
To do contactless payments, your bank must effectively permit the specific device, otherwise go through GPay or Apple Pay, who in turn just do the permitting themselves. Anything outside of the standard ecosystem just gets overlooked.
The best workaround while avoiding these companies is to find a smart watch or ring that has compatibility with a proxy card, such as Curve. But beyond halving the price of the accessory, this is pretty much an arbitrary decision.
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Can I get a rundown of the few non-flagship phonemakers that are currently out there? I have heard of The Nothing Phone. Are there more companies that put together Androids to operate within the US?
i have oneplus12r this my first non-pixel phone, you might want to visit the oneplus sub to look for other peoples experience. if you are looking for good deal on phones, online stores like swappa is a good start. i like the battery life of it. midsize cost, if your looking for budget , you can go motorola series, i did consider it at first.
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You get 2 or maybe 3 years of updates and then the device is trash.
Yeah, I've noticed this as well...
... which is why I was surprised when I read that Nothing Phone 3 will get 5 years of updates + 2 years of security updates.
Nothing Phone 3 will get the company's best software update promise to date
The Nothing Phone 3 is confirmed to get up to seven years of software updates, including five major Android versions.
Android Authority (www.androidauthority.com)
Nothing’s Co-Founder and Head of Marketing, Akis Evangelidis, has confirmed that the upcoming Nothing Phone 3 will ship with a “5+7” software update promise. ...likely means the phone will get five years of Android version updates and seven years of security patches...
Although, you can't install GrapheneOS on Nothing phones... so,
isnt graphene mostly pixels only.
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Google’s Android, the world’s most widely used mobile operating system, started life as open-source software. In its quest for ever-greater profits, the tech giant has been gradually eroding Android’s open-source nature over the last decade.
Originally published on The Lever, but that one asks you to sign up.
Still use my Windows Phones with Windows 10 Mobile as my daily drivers. Best OS to date.
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Yup. Motorola is Chinese Lenovo now sadly. Lenovo is absolute trash devices and support.
This is false. Lenovo has some of the highest marks for reliability, customer service, and upgradability; not to mention price.
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Still use my Windows Phones with Windows 10 Mobile as my daily drivers. Best OS to date.
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Unfortunately the Android experience is getting more and more bloated and users' freedom to tinker with their phones or sideload apps is getting more and more difficult. The Play Store is riddled with more ads than useful content. Just try searching for something, and oftentimes more than half of your screen is ads.
I've been with Android since the start and I hate what Google is reducing it to. It pains me that the only viable alternative is Apple and I feel trapped.
F-Droid is a decent replacement for the play store. Lots of FOSS and less-enshittified apps available.
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Can't speak for Ubuntu Touch but tried PostMarketOS on PinePhone and PinePhone Pro.
The PP works well, good support for most things included SIM, camera, BT, etc but it's big and bulky, also IMHO not powerful enough for Waydroid so no Android apps, "just" Linux. Relying on the browser to avoid using app is rarely practical as it's too slow.
The PPPro being more powerful should cover the gap... but some lack of support, specifically the camera, makes it tricky as daily driver.
Both PP and PPPro don't have great battery and/or power management so you can go through a day of usage, barely, and you might get stuck in a cycling loop if you depleted it entirely. That means also as daily driver, if you are not very cautious, it's tricky.
So... we are nearly there but unless you have a very VERY minimum usage of your phone, basically a dumb phone with a bit of CLI to remote connect to your own server from time to time, it's probably not practical for now.
Maybe the Liberux NEXX thanks to its power would have closed the gap but the failed crowd funding campaign shows that price point does not have a market fit right now.
So… we are nearly there but unless you have a very VERY minimum usage of your phone, basically a dumb phone with a bit of CLI to remote connect to your own server from time to time, it’s probably not practical for now.
....and, that's me.
I gave up on my phones. There's no way to remain connected to the modern world and my own without just keeping everything off of my phone and using it entirely in stock NPC mode. Trackers? Adware? Malware? Doesn't matter, I only use it for calls, banking apps and cash apps. How do I access my personal, more 1337 haxxor shit?
Laptop, although I can do a lot of work over ssh on phones and use things like syncthing and nextcloud to get around the ecosystem, still, but for the most part, I'm back in 2007, baby! We're carrying messenger bags! We don't care!
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Linux phones will hopefully fix that soon(ish)
the ecosystem is so weak at this time, So maybe in the future it will improve?
Ik you can run Android apps via a container or smth -
... and I want my headphone jack, back.
Yep, didn't use it much but I have studio headphones that I lliked to plug from time to time.
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Unfortunately for the EU only.EU only
Ebay it is. Bands are what matter. If it picks up Tmobile, Tello and the like, who cares who's market it's for?
But really, for me, it's still Android. It's just a band-aid on the bigger problem of reliance on Google.
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isnt graphene mostly pixels only.
it's not "mostly", it's only available for several latest Pixel generations.
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Google’s Android, the world’s most widely used mobile operating system, started life as open-source software. In its quest for ever-greater profits, the tech giant has been gradually eroding Android’s open-source nature over the last decade.
Originally published on The Lever, but that one asks you to sign up.
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Linux phones will hopefully fix that soon(ish)
It's the year of the Linux phone!
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Google’s Android, the world’s most widely used mobile operating system, started life as open-source software. In its quest for ever-greater profits, the tech giant has been gradually eroding Android’s open-source nature over the last decade.
Originally published on The Lever, but that one asks you to sign up.
MS keeps making Windows worse but that is not a problem because Linux is great on PCs. The reason is that PC is made out of standardized plug&play components that you can make generic OS image for.
There is no such thing in smartphone world. Each chipset is it's own Linux fork that gets only most crucial bug fixes while in warranty. Same is true for ARM SBCs where I believe the only board that supports generic image are new RPis.
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Still use my Windows Phones with Windows 10 Mobile as my daily drivers. Best OS to date.
I loved my Lumia 1520, but it just doesn't hold a candle to a modern Android phone with LineageOS installed. Both in functionality and in privacy.
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Spanish authorities*. Not really European-wide thing, but a local one.
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Linux phones will hopefully fix that soon(ish)
PostmarketOS using Waydroid for the neccessary apps, anyone has experience to share?
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