I never thought I would a Malayali meme template here!
Can’t stay on Android because Google is anti-privacy. Can’t get a GrapheneOS phone because they’re only compatible with non-repairable devices. Can’t get a FairPhone or Jolla because I live in America. Can’t get an HMD because the bootloader is locked.
Even e/os and LineageOS have security problems.
There is no good phone on the market, to my knowledge. You can’t have privacy, repairability, and security all at the same time.
Can’t get a GrapheneOS phone because they’re only compatible with non-repairable devices
Replaced the battery in my Pixel 7 in like 30 min with an iFixit kit, nowhere near as imposing as I’d thought. They have screens too, the rest is mainboard, but that’s nearly all phones.
The Pixel 7 requires a heat gun to get to the battery because it’s glued down, and step 31 in the process goes over what to do if your battery is stuck even after applying heat. It’s impressive that you were able to replace the battery without many problems, but companies shouldn’t be adding unnecessary complications like gluing down the battery in the first place.
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Google+Pixel+7+Battery+Replacement/154680
Sure, glue sucks, but I didn’t need a heat gun (or hair dryer), just the microwave heated tube thingy and the slicer tab. Admittedly the old battery was a bit spicy pillow which may have helped, dunno. If it’s too imposing, just get a pro to do it.
Afterwards I got a ‘chargie’ which connects between the wall charger and the phone and lets you choose how much to charge it to, e.g. 80%. More importantly it lets you cut off charging when the device is over a certain temperature, e.g. 33C. Pretty sure the old battery cooked itself during summer, it was happily charging at 50+C, which is definitely not good. 2 years later and it still reports 99% health (although it mostly stays in it’s wireless charging dock, so YMMV). Like that you may not need to replace the battery more than once during the 7 years of security updates the more modern Pixels have.
I’m looking forward to the Motorola and Graphene partnership. I may finally upgrade the S10 in still using.
I’m cautiously optimistic for that but need to see the specs and disassembly. Either way, it’s an important step forward for the phone industry.
Why cant you repair the google phones? Most of the common repairs are not that hard to do. I recently did a battery swap on a “non repairable phone” cost $30 and was pretty easy. Going to replace the usb c port next.
Which model do you have? A lot of them have low scores of ifixit.
Samsung S10. It wasnt repair friendly but taking it apart was just applying some heat and unscrewing some things and once you got it open it was just like a computer but smaller.
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The new Pixel 10a is very much repairable. It also doesn’t have this fucking horrible camera bulge that other Pixels have.
Letting my phone bill lapse just to see if I miss it.
I really feel like I should have bought a phone 2 years ago… Mine is now 6 years old and I hate everything that is happening to android sine version 11(i’m on 10)
tbh, I’m tempted to get a feature phone :/
Well yes. But gotta say, my last three phones lasted me 13 years and counting without requiring any repair. Unless you drop your phone regularly or sometging like that, I am not sure how important repairability really is.
Personally, every modern phone I’ve owned post-Blackberry has battery problems within the first year. I’d like to be able to swap out the battery when that instead of getting a new phone or dealing with bad battery life.
Understandable, though I don’t share your issue. Or rather, it has usually been a software problem (app wasting battery) rather than HW one.
So I already have apps downloaded from f-droid including encrypted folder. What happens to this from September. Do i get to keep them?
If i do get to keep them are there any apps I should download while I still can?
Also if f droid is going to stop working but I already have it what does that mean? Are google going to outright takeover my phone like some IT department in a big company and delete and install everything they want on there?
Once this rolls out, the apps stop working. Google have said there’ll be a process you can go through to allow other apps on your phone, but it doesn’t seem to be available yet. Presumably you’ll need to go through this if you want to use f-droid after the change too.
Man this is all horseshit of the highest degree.
Fuck the internet changed so much from when i was a kid. I was some fucking catholic school boy on the internet anonymously having debates and learning things I couldn’t have access to at home or in school. I seen the wonders of the internet and the huge potential enlightenment and community it could bring now we have this shit.
We all going to get arrested in 2030 for having Linux and a VPN aren’t we?
Wish EU kept Nokia going, and invested in Linux too I guess. I’d rather get shafted by the Fins than the Americans
Welcome to Apple Inc
I paid off my old phone early and got a grapheneOS phone ASAP just because of these motherfuckers.
Hell, I was firmly in the Android camp specifically because of the open source nature of their software. I never made the apps I wanted to make, but I like having the option to do so.
So you can go fuck yourself, google. Yes my phone is a Googlepixel 10 because they work best with grapheneOS. In a few years if I can I will get a Linux phone.
I’m really hoping we get a hard fork of AOSP that gets really popular.
it’s called GrapheneOS.
it gets popular by you installing it and telling your friends
Im already doing that but we don’t have big players selling it in stores.
yeah, the problem with a pre-installed OS is that you don’t know what’s in it, the carrier could have installed a fork or spyware that defeats the purpose of GrapheneOS.
it’s much more secure to download, verify, and install the OS to your phone yourself.
hopefully people wake up to all the bad-faith surveillance happening and become willing to take that step, which is much easier than it sound
Why graphene? Lineage os much more popular and supports many more devices.
U can’t trust Google hardware
Don’t let the grapheme crowd hear you. Maybe Motorola will work it out.
Would a hard fork not splinter the software support, killing the ecosystem? E.g. some devs only support that hard fork, others only the android compatible version.
I would be fine with that split. That would be an almost ideal situation even, and a thin compatibility layer like proton or even just an invisible container system similar to docker or flatpak could handle getting more of android onto the fork when it all stops being completely compatible. More effort but hopefully only needed short term.
Hardware compatibility is the major problem with alternative android. Basically I have to buy a 10 year old used phone as is. Would this only make this worse?
Anyway, maybe AI code generation could actually help with things like hardware compatibility. Things like an AI agent could iterate on reading about a smartphone model and testing various configurations and patch drivers to make it compatible for many more devices. Not sure if AI is suitable for that, but you should be able to define stringent test cases for this.
AI can’t code around missing security chips and features in hardware.
Well if that’s what is holding up more hardware compatibility for open android.
They do make a small profit off those phones, while you could’ve simply hit them where it counts with ad-blocking and tracker protection.
Buy used.
Which helps contribute to resale value which contributes to initial sale value.
So I’ll keep using F-Droid then?
What in the Apple products are you trying to do Google? Guess we will just dump you like we did Windows when they put 11 out and the Linux draw became too great.
They are following what Apple is doing because its whats legal. Apple made their system closed and Google made theirs open. Both got sued multiple times in court and Apple kept winning because they were closed and Google kept losing because they were open. It doesnt take much to see what to do next. They will just copy the Apple model in Europe because its the the one most approved by world courts and governments.
There’s a thing called precedent.
Also, Apple has been.contested in Europe precisely because it’s closed. They’ve been forced to open up their app store more… which makes Google’s stance all the more strange.
it’s a nice incentive to double down on my degoogle efforts
Where u gonna go?
You also get AI features you never wanted. Now shut up and be happy
It was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me.
I switched to graphene OS just a month ago when I first heard about it.
I’m happy to report it was easy, everything works perfectly and the user experience is better. Full control, no bloat. Should have switched way sooner but I was intimidated by never having done any installs on a phone.
Yes, dear.
Convenience usually wins until it doesn’t.
Looking at the bigger picture, that convenience was manufactured from the start.
Isn’t all convenience manufactured?
Well literally speaking everything is manufactured.
No
Sure, but not all convenience comes with surveillance attached.
Fair point. People rarely ask what they traded away.
I lost some functionality with the Fairphone, but it was worth the tradeoff
I’m thinking flip phone and taking an old Microsoft surface and putting Linux on it. I don’t see any other way to be open source where Google can’t fuck around with you.
I would do GrapheneOS, but I figure Google will find a way to block it or wreck it
I switched to /e/OS and it’s glorious. Just ignore their cloud services. You don’t need them.
Does online banking work? I hate two factor authentication lol.
It does for my banks. It has microG, dunno how that affects it
Ah thanks, hadn’t heard of microG! Nice!
Elaborate? Surely there will still be some hidden option to allow me to sideload APK files?
There will be a hidden workflow but it will require a 24h cooldown period. Even worse, it relies on google services and can be changed whenever Google wants to cut out sideloading completely.
How does this not open them up to a billion dollar class action lawsuit?
Because they put the magic ‘can’t sue us’ words in the EULA, which, as we all know, is the highest law of the land.
I think there is a way to allow this - the way involves a 24h wait time
just look it up. google is rapidly enshittifying android.
btw devs that still develop outside of app store - going to start getting banned too.
