falling further behind in creating a real-world usable [libre] phone that can do everything a phone is supposed to do.
Tis a cost analysis:
Raise your hands if you want a libre phone. Raise your hands if you’ll loan out Billions of Euros without expectations of returns.
Our planet is too illiterate to loan out billions of euros to R&D a phone design with the hellish logistics of sourcing parts, assembly & shipments, even if we gift the phone schematics on a radicle instance. I say this as someone experienced on lots of failed investments. Even as I await this plausibility. There are others like these.
EFF should have
Designed and spearheaded their own. Detailing risks, dangers, and threat models.
skribe@piefed.social 12 hours ago
Jump where? The alternatives currently require a small selection of hardware; are expensive; don’t offer the same level of service; or all the above.
hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 10 hours ago
Yeah, probably jump ship to a life without a mobile phone, online banking and train tickets. 🙁
tal@lemmy.today 8 hours ago
I don’t intend to get rid of my smartphone, but I do carry a larger device with me, and try to use the phone increasingly as just a cell modem for that device to tether to.
That may not be viable for everyone — it’s not a great solution to “I’m standing in line and want to use a small device one-handed”. And iOS/Android smartphones are heavily optimized to use very little power, and any other devices mean more power.
However, it doesn’t require shifting to a new phone ecosystem. It also makes any such future transition easier — if I have a lot of experience tied up in smartphone software, then there’s a fair bit of lock-in in, since shifting to another platform means throwing out a lot of experience in that phone software. If my phone is just a phone and a cell modem, then it’s pretty easy to switch.
And it’s got some other pleasant perks. Phone OSes tend to be relatively-limited environments. They’re fine for content consumption, like watching YouTube or something, but they’re considerably less-capable in a wide range of software areas. A smartphone has limited cooling; laptops are significantly more-able to deal with heat. Due to very limited physical space, smartphones usually have very few external connectors — you probably get only a single USB-C connector, and no on-phone headphones jack. You’re probably looking at a USB hub or adapters and rigging up pass-through power if you want anything else. Laptops normally have a variety of USB connectors, a headphones jack, maybe a wired Ethernet connector, maybe an external display jack. Laptops tend to have a larger battery, and it’s reasonable to use the laptop to power external devices like trackballs/larger trackpads, keyboards, etc.
hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 8 hours ago
Yes. My question is just, how do you participate in modern life with that? For example if you commute by train, you need a ticket. And the Deutsche Bahn tries to get rid of paper tickets. Their monthly subscription is an App now, available for Android and Apple. Do you install Waydroid and whip out your laptop once the conductor asks for your ticket? Do you also pull it out of your backpack 3 times on the platform to look up all the delays, changed platforms, trains you have to transfer to? What’s with the pkpass file for the concert, cinema, exhibition? I mean we can still print the QR codes. I do that, I have a printer at home and sometimes do the extra effort. I can’t take my laptops and tablets to a concerts. And some other things will get more complicated as well. For example Shop & Go is almost impossible without a phone. You’re guaranteed to wait in line at the few cash registers left and waste an extra 10min…
schwim@piefed.zip 6 hours ago
That was literally my point. The reason there’s no linux phone is because everyone keeps trying to work within Google’s ever-shittier restrictions instead of having made real progress on a linux phone alternative. Now everyone is staring down the barrel of a scenario where they lose their non-Google android phone and still the entities that are supposedly working for our privacy are writing letters to Google asking them to please not be such a corporate giant intent on serving ads and knowing the location of 100% of their OS users.
The linux phone landscape is so terrible because developers keep wasting their time trying to work with Google instead of offering an alternative that works.
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 11 hours ago
Welcome to Linux on desktop a few decades ago!
leftascenter@jlai.lu 7 hours ago
Not for the expensive part though