It’s true, this phone could save the human race.
Fun fact - When Andy Weir was writing Project Hail Mary, the first draft wasn’t about the sun dying and threatening humanity’s existence. It was originally about needing a spudger to open an iPhone.
Apple and Google won’t like this... [Free Software Foundation just gave humanity a final shot at salvation by announcing the Librephone] | Fireship [4:10]
Submitted 13 hours ago by TehBamski@lemmy.world to videos@lemmy.world
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJle6Bki4Og
Comments
simplejack@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
janonymous@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Yes, sure. An open source mobile phone is the only thing that can save humanity from… too much time on mobile phones? “Silicon valley algorithms”? Here a a couple of random facts, now go check out my sponsor.
ExtremeDullard@piefed.social 13 hours ago
As an actual person who owns and operates an actual Linux phone that actually works as one of the best Linux phones you can get (Fairphone 5 running Ubuntu Touch), I can guarantee you that neither Apple nor Google are losing a single second of sleep over this - much as I’d love that they quaked in their monopolistic corporate boots…
unexposedhazard@discuss.tchncs.de 10 hours ago
Can you give me a small list of goods and bads youve seen so far with ubuntutouch? Im not talking about “its missing [insert google specific feature]” but more general. Whats the UX like? Any glitchyness or crashes? How is the desktop mode when connecting external displays? Things like that.
ExtremeDullard@piefed.social 9 hours ago
Sure why not:
There are weird quirk that you simply don’t encounter in Android, like the UI not really tailored for displays with rounded corners or with a camera in the top-middle blocking icons, or the side drag areas being too small for my taste. Or the keyboard’s haptic feedback seemingly not going away when you disable it, because there’s also a general touch haptic feedback that’s well-hidden in the settings menus, that you didn’t know about.
All this is fixable with enough time and minor hackery, but it still requires time and hackery you don’t need in Android.
I haven’t tried an external display. I have a computer for that.
Waydroid - the Android emulation - is very slick and quite stable. Integration is quite good: when you install an Android app, it shows up in the UT menu immediately. Sometimes they show up twice: just refresh the menu by pulling down and the extra instance disappears. At least in my extremely well-supported Fairphone 5, there’s no issues with access to camera, networking, NFC… But the camera has a quirk: you have to open the native UT camera first, otherwise Android apps won’t be able to use the camera for some reason.
Sharing files between UT and Android apps isn’t a thing natively, but you can download Waydroid helper apps to do that in the Openstore.
If you want long-winded Android apps, you have to leave the window open. If you close it, the app stops if it was the only one running in Waydroid.
There’s a thing called Libertine to run native desktop Linux apps in UT: I find it crashy at best. But it’s there.
Most important apps like calls, SMS, browsing, emails are handled quite well by native UT apps. Other things like maps are handled by web apps, and while I intensely dislike web apps, I must say they work really well.
All of this is easy to live with if you’re willing and persistent enough. But if you want a phone that Just Works™ like most people do, This won’t cut it. That’s why I’m saying, Apple and Google have absolutely nothing to fear from Linux phones: most people aren’t willing to spend a tenth of the time I’m willing to spend on a quirky phone for the sake of principles.
andrewta@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Exactly, people will still buy an iPhone. People will still buy the android. It’s just the way it is.