State of the art for Open Source. This is a nice improvement, but far out I cannot wait for a Sparc3D equivalent for local use. Its a step change in quality. I really hope Hunyuan3D-3 is the one to level up to that quality now
What a disaster this will be. The end of any really open phones. By the time I cannot sideload apps or torrent onto my device, I might as well move to an iPhone and at least get less data tracking and better security.
Consider trying Ubuntu Touch, very active community and fun if you're interested to be a developer.
Jumping from a shark to another is maybe not the solution we should aim for.
I released an app on the Ubuntu Touch store: took a minute to fill in the form and then you get people giving you feedback/help if anything doesn't work (since you can link your source code too).
What's the current state of hardware? Is there a phone that's decent at being a phone, with an OK camera and a battery that last through the day running Ubuntu?
What's the current state of Waydroid? Any chance to get my banking apps running, or at least standard fare like public transit apps?
I recently got a FairPhone 5 and it is working pretty well, especially for the price.
UbuntuTouch as an OS is quite refreshing as it's not just a copy of Google/Samsung/Apple UIs. I like how they use the sidebars.
Definitely it still needs more work on getting more devices fully supported but that's an ever going effort, since OEM do not provide any help here (for now).
Did you try using waydroid with it? I assume banking apps are still a problem, but can I just take the apk of a map app like OSMand and it will give me offline maps, including my GPS position and compass heading? Because I think openstreetmaps is still lacking a native Linux app, but the Android apks are decent.
I don't understand, what's the point of reinventing UI and apps from scratch when there is Android Open Source, with GUI and millions of apps? Wouldn't it be better to cut away all the telemetry from AOSP, add a custom wallpaper and call it a day?
Look at it from both sides. Ubuntu has a vibrant ecosystem of software (commonly known as the Debian repositories, with some attempts at launching their on on top like PPA and Snap)
Launching a mobile OS with all that software already available was miles better than what Android can offer today: loads of things exist open source for Debian that haven't been recreated as an Android app (closed or open) because the OS doesn't allow it anyway. Let alone when the project was started in 2011!
Conversely, in the 14 years that Ubuntu Touch now exists, Android developers have been busy and you'll now find mobile software that can do things that laptops can't, e.g. because they're not normally put in a car as a navigation device and don't normally have GNSS built in. So now we're in a state where you'd think: why not take AOSP and run with it? But fourteen years ago you'd think: wouldn't it be amazing if we could just run all of our tried and true software on a phone? (Fwiw, that's exactly what I did when I got my first Android (and still do today): get root and install a Debian userspace to run tools within, such as Restic for backups. I compiled a Bitcoin miner for ARM back in the day just because that would be fun and cool. There's so much you can do when you have a Linux distribution in your pocket!)
So I see your point, but consider the history. My understanding is that this project comes from a time when it made perfect sense. By now, though, I wonder the same. But I haven't tried Ubuntu Touch yet so I can't really speak ill of it and say we should use AOSP instead of them
> Ubuntu has a vibrant ecosystem of software (commonly known as the Debian repositories, with some attempts at launching their on on top like PPA and Snap)
Yes but the most of the packages are either CLI tools (not really usable on a phone) or tools with desktop GUI (with tiny elements, not usable on a phone). And probably there is a way to port Wayland/Pipewire to Android, which seems an easier task that writing full OS.
For example, take GIMP, or Qucs (electric circuit simulator), or Kdenlive (video editor), or LMMS (audio editor), in their current form they would be unusable due to tiny UI elements. One needs completely new UI for small screens.
> There's so much you can do when you have a Linux distribution in your pocket!)
Maybe but I am not really interested in compiling anything, I have a laptop for that, I am interested in having an open source OS without restrictions, telemetry and backdoors.
I do that. F-Droid also requires that applications do not depend on any GMS component, but if you need anything from GMS, you can install https://microg.org/ and selectively enable the features you need.
Google Play Services are mainly ads and telemetry, why would anyone need them? Do you have not enough ads and want more? Also I install apps mostly from F-Droid, and as I am aware, there are Play Services emulators.
i guess it would be 'trying' indeed, as per usual it would mean that i'd need multiple devices. 2FA, e-Banking, messaging, instant payment apps and more would probably be missing, right?
Anything that is not native and Android-based can be run with Waydroid. Of course it depends on how intertwined with the OS but it would be interesting to try.
If you were to pick 3 apps which you needed to have running to switch, what would they be? (if too personal, pick from your top 10)
all the apps related to e-Banking and 2FA, including government apps. and signal non-desktop. can live without the rest. _could_ live without e-Banking and 2FA etc., but don't really feel like it's worth the pain of not having those.
Its not that these things are missing, it's that it's physically impossible to implement them. That's done on purpose, so you're forced onto your current phone for the foreseeable future.
I'll never reward Apple with another dime. They started and normalized this. Plus whatever rights Apple takes away next, Android will likely continue to lag behind in implementing for years.
I don't believe for one second that Google is doing this because Apple does so too. They would have done so long ago. I would rather bet this has to do with recent political shifts that are also pushing for mandatory digital IDs and spying on encrypted messages (see UK and EU). This and Windows 11 depending on certain hardware are all pointing in one direction: a war on general computing.
Why single out one company? Microsoft's mobile platform was just as locked down. Microsoft's hold over boot keys is a lock down that even spreads to other OSes and will be very relevant in the future I foresee. All pieces are falling into place for the final rag pull.
And like I said, I do not believe this move is because Apple paved the way. If they hadn't, Apple would make a similar announcement to Google now in 2025.
It is strange that this is happening all at once. Pretty much no major advances in the war on general purpose computing for the past decade, but in 2025 there are a number of major attempts to lock everything down.
Do you really believe it's Trump's fault that politicians in the EU are pushing for the end of encryption, mandatory digital ID, and age verifications?
One could argue whether Phones with the Google android were ever really open.
As for the really really open phone with alternative OS or Linux based OS, they will continue to exist as before.
Perhaps even become more popular after this?
> One could argue whether Phones with the Google android were ever really open.
In recent years, you can argue that android has no longer been open. In the early years of Android that argument would be much harder to make. To be clear, I am not talking hardcore FOSS libre open. But meaningfully open for the end user to do what they want on their device without much restriction. Early android didn't have sandboxing, had no permission system, was easy to root, etc.
Certainly with Nexus devices you had pretty much the freedom to what you wanted.
Could it have been more open? Sure, but I feel like it is almost disingenuous to say it was never if we are comparing it to the real world situation we find ourselves in today.
Early android did have sandboxing and a permission system. It's just that you had to accept all permissions on app install. (Which is still a lot better than common practice on the contemporary desktop.)
That didn't make the system less open though. The user gets to make an informed (or not) choice.
What was different is that the Play store back then was basically a free-for-all. There was no meaningful approval process. This did contribute to making the system as a whole more open, but at a cost...
Doubling the number of people on a custom ROM dose not nearly balance the loss of options for those that remain on a stock ROM.
I do not want my less technical family to have to give away all the genuine (though imperfect) safety the Play Store currently provides.
tbc I think F-Droid is much _more_ secure than Play. What I am saying is I have many family members who can just about follow the rule "First search F-Droid then search Play". No, they are not going to use a phone with only F-Droid software*. Most will probably take the deal with the Devil; and those that won't, even if they chose a great ROM, will end up using apkpure.com and be substantially less secure.
* Guessing you have to search for Fennec to get a relatively respectful Browser is one thing; no banking, doctors, taxi apps rules out anyone who has ever run stock.
But then you will have to deal with lots of shit from Apple, because they do everything they can to prevent their ecosystem to interact with open source solutions and to make it difficult for normis to get data off their phone, so that after a couple of years the phones are always full and a new one "needs to be bought".
iPhones are terrible with their link to an icloud account and their terrible repair situation with hardware component pairing.
I had an iPhone 7 for testing I bought on eBay. I had my icloud account logged into it. One day, I couldn't log in to the account despite having a correct password - "account is locked and cannot be used". It won't let me log off from the account on the device. So now I have an icloud-locked e-waste paperweight. It was an old device so I don't care much but purely on this experience I am not buying an apple device ever again.
I hope there will be more truly open devices in the future eventually... otherwise I will just start considering smartphones being 2FA/banking bullshit proprietary tracking/spying devices and avoid use them sporadically..
They say they use Convex for the backend, which means you could in principle run it on your own account or go through the hoops of self hosting convex infra
Fantastic. This is far overdue and looks like a solid start.
I have been particularly surprised by how few options there are in the CS space that are open source and options like Zendesk are SO expensive and the pricing tiers and cost structures are prohibitive for many small organizations.
I adore Timeshift. It has made my time on Linux so much more trouble free.
I have used Linux for 10+ years but over the I have spent hours, days and weeks trying to undo or fix little issues I introduce by tinkering around with things. Often I seem to break things at the worst times, right as I am starting to work on some new project or something that is time sensitive.
Now, I can just roll back to an earlier stable version if I don't want to spend the time right then on troubleshooting.
I've enabled this on all my family members machines and teach them to just roll back when Linux goes funky.
I enabled this four months ago and I have had the same experience.
It’s not that I couldn’t retype the config file I accidentally wrote over while tinkering, but I like the safety that comes with Timeshift to try and fail a few times.
Hard lessons come hard. This softens those lessons a little while maintaining the learning.
While it's not quite average-user-friendly (YET), one of the reasons I switched to NixOS is because it provides this out-of-the-box. I was frustrated with every other Linux for the reasons you cite, but NixOS I can deal with, since 1) screwing up the integrity of a system install is hard to begin with, 2) if you DO manage to do it, you can reboot into any of N previous system updates (where you set N).
Linux is simultaneously the most configurable and the most brittle OS IMHO. NixOS takes away all the brittleness and leaves all the configurability, with the caveat that you have to declaratively configure it using the Nix DSL.
NixOS also has out of the box support for zfs auto snapshots, where you can tell it to keep 3 months, four weeks, 24 hourly, and frequent snapshots evert fifteen minutes so you can time shift your home directory, too
I am curious how long it will take for Sam to go from being perceived as a hero to a villain and then on to supervillain.
Even if they had a massive, successful and public safety team, and got alignment right (which I am highly doubtful about being possible) it is still going to happen as massive portions of white collar workers loose their jobs.
Mass protests are coming and he will be an obvious focus point for their ire.
> I am curious how long it will take for Sam to go from being perceived as a hero to a villain and then on to supervillain.
He's already perceived by some as a bit of a scoundrel, if not yet a villain, because of World Coin. I bet he'll hit supervillain status right around the time that ChatGPT BattleBots storm Europe.
When he was fired there was a short window where the prevailing reaction here was "He must have done something /really/ bad." Then opinion changed to "Sam walks on water and the board are the bad guys". Maybe that line of thinking was a mistake.
> I am curious how long it will take for Sam to go from being perceived as a hero to a villain and then on to supervillain.
He probably already knows that, but doesn't care as long as OpenAI has captured the world's attention with ChatGPT generating them billions and their high interest in destroying Google.
> Mass protests are coming and he will be an obvious focus point for their ire.
This is going to age well.
Given that no-one knows the definition of AGI, then AGI can mean anything; even if it means 'steam-rolling' any startup, job, etc in OpenAI's path.
Agreed. I remember the town hall meeting where they announced the transition to being Alphabet. My manager was flying home from the US at the time. He left a Google employee and landed an Alphabet employee.
I know it was probably meaningless in any real sense, but when they dropped the Dont Be Evil motto, it was a sign that the fun times were drawing to an end.
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