I think a Pixel running Graphene is the closest viable option. Out of the pool of bespoke built to run GNU/Linux phones, it might just be the PinePhone Pro. It’s the one suffering the least from critical existence failure.
It is indeed quite dire. My hope lies in that the recent attempts have been more upstream first oriented where lots of distros run on phones. They do not work well yet but that approach might just get us there eventually.
Another thing that gives me hope is that phones do not change much any more. Much easier to catch up to a stagnated market.
Plus it looked like Web Apps were gonna become huge.
I know the words “web app” send some on Lemmy into a frenzied rage, but they’d be amazing from a platform agnostic perspective.
Imagine if the biggest barrier to entry for new smartphone OSes (app support) was gone. It’d be huge.
But seeing it as a threat to their business models (don’t get that 30% cut if it’s not through the App/Play stores), Apple and Google have had pretty shitty support for them.
If a Linux phone was out today and had good hardware and software, it’d still fail just like Windows Phone and BlackBerry OS did. WebApps would give it a strong chance though.
Agreed. I’d like to add that web apps are much better today than they were 10 years ago. We have notification support, touch support, etc. A well-made progressive web app is basically the same as a native app now — or it would be with halfway-decent OS support, anyway.
The fact is, a ton of common apps are just web wrappers anyway, even on desktop. Like Discord, Slack, and Steam. Even Outlook is moving in that direction.
Linux is often used to refer to a family of operating systems including Ubuntu, Debian, fedora, red hat, ect., which all use the Linux kernel.
However, GNU/Linux may be a better name for this family of operating systems, since they all use GNU components and (to varying extents) embrace the philosophy of the free software foundation.
Android uses the Linux kernel, but not GNU components, and do not embrace the philosophy of the Free software foundation.
Stalman, the man who founded GNU and the free software foundation published his thoughts on this:
Yeah, but it’s not like a typical Linux installation on a PC would be. You can’t just install a Flatpak application or anything like that. It doesn’t use many of the GNU core utilities that most other Linux distros use, and doesn’t use a mainline kernel.
People that ask for Linux phones know Android is Linux.
It’s just a lot more concise to say than “I want a phone with an open bootloader and hardware fully compatible with a mainline Linux kernel. I want to have a phone that can run a Phosh/Gnome Mobile/Plasma Mobile UI and on the backend work in a similar way to how desktop Linux would.”
It is. My guess is they’re referring to one of the other Linux OS initiatives. I have no idea what’s currently being made though, as historically if it hasn’t been Android or iOS it tends to fail.
I just use foldable phones now. The outer screen width of a Galaxy Fold is the same as an Xperia Z3 Compact and when I use the phone two handed I get the benefit of having a big-ass screen. You just get used to the weight after a while.
Okay but I’d rather hear this from someone who is actually using a 5+ year old phone, not a guy who has a 1 year old work phone that he “plans” to keep for an undefined amount of time. Everyone says this and then they break it and decide the cost of a repair isn’t worth it, or just cave to the first trade in deal they receive in their inbox. There is a lot of virtue signalling about e-waste and the environment from these tech reviewers and influencers on YouTube but very few of them actually follow their own guidelines.
My anecdote…I used my last phone until it died. It was around 4 years old and the eMMC storage failed from age, making the device a suddenly totally unusable brick. Before then, it had gotten very slow and laggy over time and the battery life degraded to be pretty sucky…barely surviving the workday on standby in my pocket.
From my experience, I don’t know that I would necessarily advise using a device for that long. The battery just gets too shitty and its sudden death made it a bit of a scramble to buy a new phone. Granted, my previous phone was fairly low end, but even with a high end device, batteries degrade to almost unusable levels after a few years. I know it sucks for the environment, but it seems like less of a headache to keep a phone for only like 2-3ish years and then upgrade it while it’s still working as opposed to waiting for it to irreparably bork itself.
Edit: If you’re able to do a battery replacement, I will say that it does change the conversation somewhat. But long gone are the days of easily user serviceable battery replacements for most phones. Yes, there are obscure phones out there that make it easier to swap out the battery, but these phones aren’t exactly prominent.
I have a Galaxy S10e, purchased the day it launched, 6 March 2019. Today, March 25 2024, it is 5 years old.
My phone is in good physical shape and running fine. The battery isn’t quite what it used to be, but it loads web pages and apps well, the UI is responsive, I look at new phones and there’s not a single thing there I want. When my previous phone, an S4 Mini, was this old (yes I had an S4 Mini in service for 5 years) it was getting kind of slow, there were apps in the app store that wouldn’t run, I had replaced the battery…I still wasn’t really looking forward to upgrading. My S10e is…fine. If it kept getting updates, I’d gladly keep it in service.
What’s more, I look out at what they’re advertising on phones now and I’m like “don’t need that. Actively don’t want that. Want to not have that. Okay the anti-glare coating would be nice. Don’t need AI. Don’t need titanium. I don’t game on my phone…”
What’s more, I look out at what they’re advertising on phones now and I’m like “don’t need that. Actively don’t want that. Want to not have that. Okay the anti-glare coating would be nice. Don’t need AI. Don’t need titanium. I don’t game on my phone…”
Yeah I know what you mean. Somewhere in that 2017/18/19 period phones suddenly began losing a lot of what I would consider important features like the option for a truly small size, headphone jacks, SD card slots and 16:9, uninterrupted displays and I don’t feel like any of the improvements since have justified that. I think the only thing that may force me to switch permanently to a newer device is if the 3G shutdown in Australia renders my older phones unusable. At the moment I’m using an XZ1 Compact and it’s still enjoyable to use because it nails so many of those features that I just can’t get in a newer device. I bought a secondhand razr 2023 at the start of the year but found I just preferred using older phones.
Are you really getting updates though? Samsung latest phones are expected to be getting updates for 7 years but as far as I know the s10 range isn’t officially supported anymore. Samsung don’t need to provide security updates to your phone anymore. I think the last one was Q4 of 2023 and it made the news because it was unexpected.
Yesterday I returned to redmi 4x after mi11 lite’s quality had been proven (motherboard issues, modem) plus my “professional” repairs not working well. It is somehow working very well. Xiaomi phones until 9-10th series were great.
I bought my LG V30 July 30, 2018. Still using it. The battery is of course not awesome but I’m not really a hard user so I get by. I installed a custom ROM around 2020. I’m on Lineage os 21 now. It’s perfectly fine. I guess I’ll upgrade somewhere this year cause the back cover seems to be coming off. I’m in no hurry though.
I mean, makes sense that people would rather get a new phone that costs the same as a repair.
That said, had been using a S5 myself for five years before the phone died. As I ain’t that big on mobile gaming (and the ones I play don’t demand much), the phone did all I needed to. Currently using a S10+, because that’s the last Galaxy S model with both headphones and SD support.
I’ve got a friend whose earpiece on their iPhone stopped working. They could repair it, or upgrade for basically the same price. Their iPhone is a few years old at this point (3 years I think, maybe older), which is crazy to me. But it’s true. When something breaks the cost of replacement is often on par with the cost of repair for small tech like phones. Th system is basically rigged to make you upgrade. Also, with a work phone, the upgrade schedule isn’t up to him. It’s up to the IT department and the corporate office. They may decide to buy new phones next year or something.
Using a pixel 4a still. OS is unsupported and battery life has gone down the drain. I’m holding out for the Pixel 8a because Google has pledged 8 years of support. I really wish decent phones came in sub-6.1" size, but days just what I’m working with. Losing the headphone jack will suck.
I’ve upgraded to Pixel 7 last year to run GrapheneOS. Honestly it was a very underwhelming upgrade. My 2019 Oneplus 7T is still kicking running LineageOS, could go back any second and not notice.
I sadly became one of those people last year. I had every intention of keeping my Pixel 5A for a long time but when faced with a $250 repair bill I bought a used pixel 6 for $240 instead of fixing it. I do regret it because the battery life and antenna on the 6 is awful compared to the 5a.
You’re already unpopular, Linus. You swept a workplace sexual harrassment scandal under the rug, were called out for your lack of proper testing, and your data is constantly incorrect.
By "sweeping it under the rug" what you meant was "ARE NOT PUBLICLY COMMENTING ON POTENTIAL FUTURE LEGAL ACTIONS AGAINST THE COMPANY."
It really seems like a lot of the anti-Linus crowd gives way more of a shit about it than the actual victim, which is about par for the course with anything involving LTT.
Wish people had the kind of energy for shitting on actual horrid companies that they do for this one.
You’re down-voted quite a bit, but I agree, and I’ll die on this hill with you.
I noticed the decline in quality and usefulness of his videos for me, personally. I was very disappointed at the path he took when Gamers Nexus called him out for shitty testing.
In the grand scheme of things, there’re way worse people and companies in the world, and I don’t think he should be cancelled after that fiasco.
The vitriol against LTT is beyond ridiculous, and from what I’ve seen, there’s no substance in the alleged sexual harassment. I’m open to any links showing otherwise, but I’ve seen precisely zilch that’s concrete.
He’s had some horrible takes and I don’t watch a lot of his videos anymore. But he and his employees are not the SS.
The improper testing has plenty of sources. They were trying to speed rush through testing and missed details.
The sexual harassment doesn’t have hard sources. It got tossed in there as an afterthought as everyone dog piled him for being popular and the botched testing. No idea if it was really true or not.
Every single phone upgrade since 2012 was because the battery would get so bad, it lasts less than an hour.
And before someone goes, “Ah try ifixit”, the cost of the replacement parts was as much or more than just getting another used phone from like swappa. I’ve done the financial math countless times.
I miss buying batteries for like $20 and watching the phone become new again.
Which phones are you buying that have batteries that cost hundreds of dollars? Every battery replacement I’ve ever done cost waaaaaay less than the cost of a replacement phone.
Also replacement OEM batteries have always been stupid expensive. User replaceable or not. And 3rd party ones have always been garbage with very few exceptions (RIP zero lemon 10,000mah battery for my note 3).
I as well. At the very least, we need some fucking differences in the market. Every phone doesn’t have to be the same. Imagine the car market if all we could buy were Chrysler 300s. It looks sleek and nice but will crap out on you in a couple years and doesn’t really fit in well with your career as a general contractor. When it dies, you have to go buy another one and start the cycle over.
My Fairphone does, and I have already purchased a batter for 35 euros, which I keep in my drawer. The phone is now just over 3 years old, probably in a year or so I will replace it. I am aiming for at least 6-7 years lifespan.
Yo, write better titles. I thought this was a video about how they didn’t want to upgrade to Android 15 or something. But it’s not. It’s just about not buying a new phone every two years 😆 In my opinion buying a new replacement isn’t ‘upgrading’.
10+ years ago, it was very common to get an upgrade to your phone ever two years (or less). And at the time, there was a lot more variability in phones. And I mean in more than just battery life, storage capacity, camera quality, processor, etc. There used to be a variety of form factors to consider, sizes, genuinely different features and functionalities. The iPhone came about in 2009, and other smart phones soon followed, but even then there were still phones with physical keyboards, digital keyboards with stylus typing, flip phones, etc. Once smart phones completely dominated the market and all the manufacturers started just copying each other’s features and designs, eventually we got to the status quo of today where they’re all essentially the same. The only major difference now is the OS, and that’s largely just down to iOS vs Android.
That’s kind of the point. There was a time in the 2010s when each new device could do something that they couldn’t previously do. But it seems like the market has figured out what people want from their phones and that’s what they are getting now.
I mean, I don’t see the point in not upgrading when your device supports it. The interface pretty much stays the same at this point, and they usually do improve on security, and other background stuff.
Personally, although the terms have become increasingly blurred over the years, I refer to changing to a new version of software (including an OS, and both ideally with some improvements) as updating it rather than upgrading.
I reserve upgrade more for changes of hardware with some form of improvement over its predecessor. I’d suspect I may not be alone in this, but I dunno how common it may be. When switching to a mix of both, I simply say I’m getting a new [insert specific device depending on which].
Although I’d hesitate to call many new phones an all-around upgrade when they’re either removing features (headphone jack/expandable storage) or getting more cumbersome to hold (can you even call some modern phones a handset anymore?).
The video’s not that long and the thumbnail is fine, dude. The content is clear and uses Jesse Lyu’s own words, his own voice even, to spotlight how stupid this whole thing is.
You mad your Rabbit purchase turned out to be shit or something? What’s your angle here?
17min really isn’t that much time and not every minute needs to be fully optimized. I mean, you found the time to bitch about a YouTuber not making an article which is far less time but infinitely more worthless.
And yes, I do I hope I find a job soon. It’s rough out there.
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If you really want someone to make it easy for you, basically Lyu has made some absolutely bonkers promises under the old company name from making a carbon negative crypto-currency attached to real-world solar grids using NFTs as a sort of stock option all the way to promising that they’d invent an AI powered digital universe that would be so advanced that it would basically mirror real life. He said all that and declared not only a roughly two year timeline but also that ten years wouldn’t be necessary.
And yet now he and his company can’t even produce this Rabbit thing in a way that can even barely function. Once again, tech bros are showing just how much “idea people” are kinda worthless when they have zero concept of how to execute literally anything with any depth. Venture Capitalists are also once again proving how stupid they are for believing this crap again.
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I’m not sure why the length of the video is upsetting you so much. I hope you find more time in your life for suboptimal things. Maybe you should by a vibrator and experience some pleasure.
Hear that everyone? If you listen or watch something 17 minutes long, that means you are unemployed. Ever watch a TV show or a movie? You are now instantly unemployed, congratulations.
I mean, this is just a flat out lie. Unless all of the media put out by the company is part of two medium posts? Was his correspondence with the CEO and company part of the medium posts? Don’t worry, your NFTs will be worth something any minute now.
We’ll get an AI to caption and then summarise the transcript of the video that’s 8 mins long because the user (understandably) wanted to monetize the video.
An AI that can turn YouTube videos into written articles? Take My Money! I have been wanting this for a long time, I far far prefer stuff in writing to videos, I dont take information from audio/video anything like as well
It seems like each new version of Android locks down the file system in some new way that breaks a core part of something I do, so I actively don’t want to upgrade.
I can’t root my phone because I need my banking apps readily avaliable right now.
This is why I’ve ended up keeping my Pixel 4 on Android 10. I’ve made backups and flashed the latest versions, only to come back because every time they’ve broken something I need the phone to do.
It makes me glad that this is a secondary phone because I can happily keep it on this ancient version of Android and not give a shit about the security.
I’m still bitter about USB mass storage being removed for only MTP. MTP sucks, any time I use it for more than a few small files it always ends up dying partway through.
Plus the M7 had a nicer aluminum unibody. The M8 had plastic on the front. Still handsome, but not the same level of gorgeous macbook-style design the M7 had. Fuck, I’d rock an M7 today if they trimmed the glass bezel down, removed the hardware nav buttons, and tossed in some new hardware.
The market simply isn’t there to be a viable option to manufacture both size screens. Unfortunately, you’re the minority and your needs aren’t important enough to change their manufacturing process.
It would require a lot to mass manufacture both sizes at the pace these factories pump these things out. It would effect their bottom line and there’s not enough ppl that want small phones to make it worth doing.
I hate that for you and others. But it’s just how it goes.
Nah, I have average hand size and can use that size phone with one hand easily. Though I do prefer smaller phones in general and would rather see more choice in that space.
I find for me it is half about the usability of thw phone one handed and the other half being pocketability. I don’t want to have to carry a man-purse just to be able to have my phone with me at all times. Front pocket of jeans is where i keep my phone and the pockets are not deep enough to contain the phone without pressing into my hips when i sit. Keeping the phone in the back pocket is just inviting theft.
I just want another Sony Xperia XZ1 Compact with updated specifications.
@BearOfaTime@warm at 6", even smaller hands like mine are able to reach within .5cm of the top of the screen. At that size, the weight distribution of the phone is what makes a difference in terms of manageability. For example, the weight distribution of the Pixel 6a (6.1") makes it a breeze to use with my right hand, but a tad more difficult with my left one. Using it in reverse (had to once) is impossible one-handed.
Yeah, that size is certainly the limit for usability tbh. Its diminishing returns past that, I dont need a wider or longer phone, everything can be displayed perfectly on a 6 inch.
That was my first thought. Then the video starts with, we got these phones last summer and they are prototypes…well, I don’t think I have to hear anything else. Maybe his integrity issues stalled the release of the video. If that’s the case, just throw away the review and wait until you can do a production unit.
You seem troubled, everything ok at home? Struggling with anything. If you need to talk dude I’m around. The way you are acting and responding to people is not a normal emotional response. If ya need to chat hit up my dms, don’t suffer alone.
You seem worked up. I’ll leave you be. Reach out to someone. You don’t sound well, take that first step to get help. I wish you well on your journey and I hope you find the peace you so obviously need.
It’s annoying but I get it. If you want to make it or stay big on YT you gotta play the game, and the majority of people eat up click-baity titles and obnoxious thumbnails.
I upgrade less than I used to, and I only do mid-range devices now, like the Pixel A series or Motorola G series. That kind of bracket. I’m just going to install Lineage OS on it anyway and it works fine so why pay more when I don’t need that.
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