Nowadays, you can no longer exist in society without a phone. Most things will work but it takes one critical service that doesn't have a viable workaround, and you're forced to buy (and possibly carry) a "mainstream" phone just for that.
Banking, government, authentication, postal service and public transit apps are just some of the common categories that will, in the end, force you to use one of those systems, unless governments mandate viable alternatives. The QR-code based recaptcha that's being introduced will be another brick in the wall.
As an individual, it feels like my options are to either submit or try to live a hermit's life, bringing endless suffering and exclusion to myself.
The kindest was that the store's staff advised against buying the device as it's quite painful to use it with Google's apk & blobs, because it drains more battery than when it's integrated with your system services directly. I told him, that maybe rare, but I'm actually happy to not use Google apps as much as possible and especially not within my operating system. Another point he made was that 5G'A is blocked by Google, about that I know nothing to be honest.
Some Android forks are indeed quite nice, but the issue has always been the updating model, upstream maintenance and compatibility. With Harmony OS a large cooperation with the consumers in focus and the one developing the entire hardware stack is behind the OS development and maintenance making it safer against supply-chain hacks and a deeper integration possible than any other OS.
The article starts with Murena, Punkt, Volla which are all based on Android. If you do this, then imho you must mention GrapheneOS, the by far better option (updates, privacy, security, organisation).
Google Pixel with GrapheneOS is the best non-Google phone... ;-)
(Murena /e/OS is similar. No, slamming the downvote button won't make either of them any less Google dependant OSes.)
From Wikipedia: "GrapheneOS[b] (/ˈɡræfiːn.oʊˈɛs/) is a free and open-source, privacy- and security-focused, Android-based operating system"
So still Android.
Enjoy your freedom, break free from Google and Apple.
Have a full Linux computer in your pocket that you can also use for calling.
See also the discussion on this post: https://mastodon.social/@janvlug/116504044251287290
You can't escape it.
Your friends and employers and banks use it. The state will soon mandate it for ID. It's the accepted worldwide compute platform, and you're being the nail that sticks out.
Your usage is subject to breaking randomly, being unsupported, losing access or being banned by stepping outside the traffic lines, etc.
They'll use attestation, certs and signing, proprietary APIs, and the scale and might of trillions of dollars to force this.
The only way to "break free" and "enjoy your freedom" is via regulation and -- the better option -- trust busting.
The EU and ASEAN are the best bets for regulation. Getting another Lina Khan that works faster next time is the next best bet for regulation, and possibly a superior outcome that could result in a breakup opening up mobile for true competition.
Being weird in the 0.0001% will not last, nor does it help anyone else escape this monopolistic tyranny.
We need the government to pave the way for dozens of Apple/Google competitors. Or to horizontally split these two companies into dozens of "Baby Bells" that are forced to fight one another.
If a country can provide housing, roads, fire departments, public transit, etc. that might cover 98% of most people's use cases.
But perhaps that country is also fighting wars, committing genocide, perpetrating mass surveillance, propping up an oligarchy, manipulating currency, practicing authoritarianism, etc. ?
There might be points that need to be made and changes that need to be implemented, even if the average citizen or user doesn't directly see the impact or feel immediate exposure.
One of the reasons this is hard is that the general public doesn't understand the greater second and third order effects. And even if they do, they are typically inarticulate at expressing how this is dysregulated and dysfunctional to the broader economy and capitalism.
Luckily, there are plenty of very wealthy people that are disenfranchised by this that will loudly take up arms. Domestic competitors, business leaders, other impacted industries, etc. That's how and why this will change.
Tim Sweeney isn't the only one interested in this.
Use some banking apps. In fact I cannot use one banking app I otherwise would because it will only work if you have no non-store apps installed at all.
A regulatory requirement to prove my ID without using the mobile app would be a 20 min+ each way drive (plus walking, time doing it etc.) to another town.
> The EU and ASEAN are the best bets for regulation.
Did you read the recent HN stories about the EU's age verification app that will only work on attested phones? Lots of other governments (EU and non-EU) doping similar things.
> We need the government to pave the way for dozens of Apple/Google competitors. Or to horizontally split these two companies into dozens of "Baby Bells" that are forced to fight one another.
I have very little confidence that is likely. Politically governments are far more pro-big business and anti-competition than they have been in a long time.
> Being weird in the 0.0001% will not last, nor does it help anyone else escape this monopolistic tyranny.
Every single person who does not go along, is a a political and commercial argument not to remove alternatives. If I use a website and an app to bank or buy something, it pushes up the stats for the web app vs the mobile app.
This is not a single unified front. Multiple battles are ongoing simultaneously.
There are strong proponents of anti-monopoly and digital sovereignty in government, just as there are those that want to push for a surveillance state.
Here are some recent and non-insignificant things that the EU and UK have required Google and Apple do:
- Support "side loaded" apps (as Google works to remove the ability)
- Standardize on USB-C
- Force alternative payments platforms
- Force Apple to stop requiring WebKit and WebKit runtimes
They're just getting started!
> I have very little confidence that is likely.
I have a great deal of confidence that the world is ready for this. Every non-US nation wants to break the stranglehold US tech has on their countries. The EU, UK, and ASEAN have a tremendous amount of power here.
We also have a huge reservoir of political support for breaking up tech monopolies inside the US. Lots of high profile politicians are ready to go to work on this, on both sides of the aisle.
Moreover, you have every single other company on the planet that wants this duopoly fractured. Entire industries that salivate over this.
It's just a matter of time and making sure we make these points articulate and loudly heard.
This is far more effective than trying to hack your device and proclaim "year of linux on android 2030". That doesn't work. It's a miserable experience and doesn't help a single other person.
>We need the government to
Since they'll never, any marketers scrolling by: this is your time to scheme your way into the Linux phone promotion/sales game.
They develop Sailfish, a non-Google Linux-based mobile OS that can apparently run Android apps decently in a sandbox.
I have been daily driving SFOS on a Sony Xperia 10 III for the past 3 years and it works well for me. I think the 10 III is the current "peak Sailfish" at least among the officially supported devices but this should change once the new phones roll out in early July. For new orders of the 2026 phone they are currently aiming for delivery in September in the supported markets (EU, UK, Norway and Switzerland).
A third ecosystem right now would have been amazing
Not many tech products exite me less than the concept of a Microsoft Windows 365 Copilot Cortana phone.
As I recall Microsoft threw quite a lot of resources into Windows Phone.
My then-employer had apps for Android and Apple, and Microsoft literally paid for us to port it to Windows Phone. Microsoft brought Nokia, who had dominated the industry in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
And Microsoft was early to the mobile party too - you could get an iPaq H3660 running Microsoft Pocket PC 2000, seven years before the first iPhone. Keyboardless Fujitsu and Compaq tablets ran Windows XP Tablet PC Edition in 2003, seven years before the iPad.
They weren't as good as what came later. Chunky, fragile devices, resistive touchscreens, stylus input with a tiny on-screen keyboard, worse batteries, worse wifi, barely any mobile data. And at the time, $500 seemed hugely expensive compared to a normal phone, even if these days there are plenty of $1000 smartphones.
But there's an alternate reality where Microsoft had a 'first mover advantage' and captured a big slice of the smartphone-and-tablet market.
Nadella's Azure play basically saved Microsoft in my opinion. They totally blew mobile and desktop Windows and Office were declining markets and XBox was a sideshow.
I loved my Windows phones (especially near the end when you were getting Pixel & Apple level hardware for pennies on the dollar), but is this really true? They had limited hardware partners (and the disaster with Nokia), lukewarm carrier deals, absolutely no apps, but who were these "influential people" who made fun of it? If anything it seemed more like no-one was even aware of it. I remember the little press they did get being quite positive on the devices & OS, while critical of the broader ecosystem, which seems fair.
Initially read this ending on … amazon
Please Universe, don’t give us the Amazon Phone as alternative.
Okay, no touch typing, maps apps don't start or don't find your location, WhatsApp probably doesn't work and I guess I don't have to start with banking apps.
But I haven't dared yet because I kind of expect it will not be able to replace my current phone.
But then it's just maintained by very few people nowadays and half abandoned.
You can buy a used Pixel 3a if you want to toy around with it, they cost nothing.
The OS experience is pretty impressive for not being made by an evil megacorp. The hardware is fairly midrange, but midrange today is last year's top end, and unless you're some expert photographer or needing phone VR or whatever, it's a great, normal smartphone experience.
I'm donating to the open source devs who make my apps, and they respond when I ask for useful features instead of always enshittifying it. For the corpo apps, it pulls from Google Play.
Yes, it is quite hard to get a non-duopoly smartphone..
They keep saying "If you don’t pay for the product, you are the product". Okay, all fine and well.
But what will my phone still actually be able to do if / when I stop my subscription? Not a single clear answer besides "[…] gradual feature deactivation, and ultimately reverting to a device running AOSP".
Doesn’t really inspire confidence.
What subscription?
Many many years ago, smarphone users had these choices:
Symbian, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, PalmOS... what else?
Also, it's only for fast charging, you can use any other charger or wire without an issue.
It was sold normally as any other cellphone.
> Well, probably, yes.
Even with "probably" as a qualifier, this is disingenuous.
Not even Android has caught up to the highest tier of apps available on iOS.
which apps do you mean?
Like for example, every crappy things like banks nowadays requires their own shitty app. It might be a pain in the ass to share between phones or to reinstall if you lose or change your phone. And all these useless app consume really a lot of storage resulting in my phone's being always full.
That would be perfect to access it in a kind of remote access for use once in a while.