To be fair, the bezels were huge by today’s standards, and one of the main (non-Apple) competitors had a hardware keyboard below the screen. Just think how much more usable these old smaller phones would be, if we had the screen to body ratio of the Pixel 9a.
Yes. Make sure you’re installing the beta, they never really release stable anymore from what I can tall.
In my experience, it’s usually power users or basic users with very specific application requirements, who have trouble moving between operating systems. There’s usually a FOSS alternative to those applications, but often requires reworking a workflow or upskilling more than they want to. But they’re still basic users so it’s more a speed bump than a road block.
So yeah, most people can switch to MacOS without an issue, and the vast majority of those can switch to a distro like Fedora or Ubuntu and quickly feel comfortable.
Power users get stuck in this situation where they’ve learned how to do advanced things in Windows, have things tweaked to support more complex and peculiar workflows, but often don’t understand the actual concepts behind them. And even if they do understand the concepts, they still have to learn the alternatives in a new OS, and rebuild their workflows. Now, there’s a lot more ability to learn behind the scenes about the why and how with Linux and BSD, so I’d argue they’d be better off to just suck it up and get started, and they’ll be better off before long.
I did a stint on Mint Mobile for 2 months while I was experimenting with jmp.chat, ported back to US Mobile on Verizon last week. As a bonus, Graphene got Verizon’s visual voicemail working while I was away, still can’t get T-Mobile’s working without their crappy app.
There are huuuuuuge gaps in T-Mobile in the north woods, which honestly, I’m kind of ok with since I’m looking to start using my phone mostly through KDE Connect. But visual voicemail has been a sticking point for me for awhile. Satellite is interesting to be sure, but it’s going to double my US Mobile bill at $10 for 2GB if I remember their pricing correctly. That’s not a huge deal, but for something with very limited capabilities at the moment… eh. Also, fuck Elon Musk.
I’ll see what happens with Graphene’s phone, or if I give in and buy a Fairphone. I really want an SD card for music. I’m less than thrilled with DAPs, and might just get a Fairphone with a dongle running Lineage for that, while I continue using my Pixel 8 on Graphene as my phone for now. I’d love to merge the two, though.
Also considering an Xperia to run Sailfish, but I’d have to go back to I think an Xperia 10 OG version to get band 13 and Verizon support. That’s a 6 year old phone, and only supports 512GB SD cards. Might actually be able to mount larger, especially in Sailfish, but… I’ll see if I can get one cheap maybe.
Man, I really hope they’re the manufacturing partner GrapheneOS is talking about, or they at least include Verizon support on future models. T-mobile just doesn’t do it for me out in the middle of the forest.
I know, but it’s looking more and more like there won’t be an alternative for long. I’d rather have a consortium of interests united in moving a fork forward as the core for all of their own OS’s.
I really wish Sony would come back to the US market. I’m tempted to get an older Xperia device to run Sailfish, but it would be like 4-5 years old, and it’s time on the Verizon network would be limited.
It’s on the N350, and is going to be pretty limited, though well supported in mainline.
Honestly, I don’t know if having play services running in a profile that can be deleted would pass that standard for certification. Probably not, I guess.
As for being a fork, I mean the larger community of Graphene, Lineage, Calyx if it continues to exist, and probably a couple Chinese manufacturers who rely on AOSP to manage a fork that is collaboratively developed going forward, that no longer relies on Google’s maintenance of the project.
That’s definitely one way I’ve been looking, the hinge makes it enough tablet for me probably. Though the Starlite is passively cooled, which I really like. Right now I just have two laptops, a Thinkpad P14s and an M1 Macbook Air running Asahi. My ideal would probably be to go back to a desktop, and then have something like a passively cooled ARM or RISC V (obviously anticipating the future on both of those) Framework 12. Or even an N350 in a passive Framework 12, like in the Starlite. This would be more of a writing/browsing/video machine for when I’m lazing around or out at a coffee shop or whatever.
Ah well, the P14s is fine for now, and RAM is too damned expensive to buy anything right now anyway.
Last I checked, they’ll pre-install any number of distros. I just… I don’t know what I’d use it for that justified a separate device from a laptop. Maybe once I get home assistant setup in my new place, but even then… what I’m really wanting is a Linux phone that I can use on Verizon’s network. But even there, I’m tending towards moving to my cell phone sitting on the charger 95% of the time, and using kdeconnect.
That seems to be their mid-term strategy, release their own certified device. That should have some interesting implications on safetynet attestation, too.
I still think we need a fork of AOSP, before the community atrophies any further.
I keep looking at the Starlite, it’s recently upgraded to an N350. But every time I’m about to pull the trigger, I can’t come up with enough use case.
You’re a lot more likely to find something at a local second hand store or garage sale, at least you would be in the US. Things online will usually have a markup, whereas locally you’re likely to find something someone just doesn’t know it’s worth a damn.
This really puts some perspective on things. He’s clearly a goa’uld.
Is it offering SMS? I ported to jmp.chat recently, using their XMPP gateway for voice and SMS. They offer a VOIP option, but don’t support SMS.
I like being able to SMS, and I guess call, from my laptop. But there aren’t any Linux XMPP clients that I’m particularly happy with, so I’m just using Cheogram in Waydroid. It’s not exactly optimal.
I imagine it would be the likes of Graphene, Lineage, Calyx, and some others at the core. Probably some hardware vendors like Fairphone, Shiftphone, and probably a Xiaomi or Huawei.
Edit: ROMs maintain their own code base, but I’m pretty sure OP was talking about a larger fork of AOSP. That’s what I’ve suggested recently, anyway.
I know, but this stuff is adding up where Pixels might stop being the golden child of the custom OS market.
And massive propaganda campaigns are turning people’s civic energy back on themselves, and their own communities. Ain’t life grand?
Give me a Nexus S or Moto X 2013, but I’d probably be happier with a Nexus 5 for the extra screen size. But man, the Nexus S and Moto X (also the Palm Pre) were just so nice in the hand.