Google is systematically dismantling the open Android ecosystem: forcing all developers to register with Google, slowing AOSP releases, and effectively turning Android into a walled garden. Here is what is at stake.
“Reduced functionality” is subjective, for the average non-tech user you’re right that they’d see it as reduced functionality, but there’s also plenty of people who want a phone that they can choose what apps they can install on it and remove tracking and bloat and ads for a large number of reasons. If Google starts doing what they say they’ll do, then using a web client/wrapper for a single app on a personal phone is a minor hoop to gain much more functionality out of their device, and if organizations use a user-respecting platform like Matrix instead they don’t have to jump through any hoops. Even among non-tech users there seems to be at least some interest in free platforms, so making them more user friendly is important but proprietary apps aren’t going to make that easy so the options to focus on are mods/wrappers or freer platforms, I find it unlikely that they will support such an OS seeing how Windows phones went and defeatism isn’t going to change anything. And if the non-tech users don’t care then they don’t care.
Facebook and Twitter
For social media those sites are such shitholes that I’m actually kindof happy their users aren’t on the fediverse
I think you might be vastly overstating the number of people who want that or even understand why it’s desirable in the first place. We do, because we’re in tech and we already use a niche social media platform because we want to get off corporate ones. There’s a lot of selection bias to be aware of. The vast majority of people aren’t technical, and they don’t even think about these issues.
And I’m not arguing against trying to make things like wrappers to bridge the gap. I’m just saying that we have to keep our expectations realistic here. Look how much use Windows still gets despite being complete dog shit, and Linux being an objectively a better operating system at this point.
I think with Windows the main situation is that there’s barely any laptops that come with Linux and most people are going to use the OS their device came with until it becomes a problem for them. Unless you’re doing software development or want to mess with the internals, Windows isn’t that restrictive either in its current state. A counterpoint is iOS vs Android, where iOS is extremely restrictive making it one of two main reasons people will choose Android. I’ve met quite a few not-very-technical users who despite using proprietary OSes hate ads enough download modded apps, or even on iOS found ways to get them. If Android becomes like iOS then that will boost interest in alternatives for these people. If Motorola starts shipping devices with a freer OS option then that would also help. There’s also the type of people who are so confused by technology that you could give them a laptop with Linux and KDE and they wouldn’t realize it’s not Windows.
No not at all. If you mean any vendor at all, we already have smaller but increasingly popular venders selling devices with Linux and degoogled Android preinstalled. Even Lenovo/Dell sell some devices with Linux even though it’s more niche. In the past, Windows phones were being sold in mainstream shops even though you could barely do anything with them. There will always be an audience of people who want to freely install apps, and even among less technically proficient people a lot want to save money through mods and unpaywalled content and are willing to learn. And Slack/Discord are poor examples anyways because most people don’t even use Slack and as for Discord, it’s usable right now and if it becomes unusable it’s popular enough that someone will find a way to get it to work.
Sure, there are Linux phones being sold, practically nobody would honestly suggest they work as a daily driver. And Windows phones were being sold because MS is a giant company that was willing to burn money trying to make them popular, however even with all their resources, they failed to make them succeed. But you appear to be suggesting that some small hobby vendor will?
Slack and Discord are actually very good examples because they represent communication tools. Slack in particular is extremely popular with software dev shops. You can use WhatsApp as an even more mainstream example and it has the exact same problem. It’s much easier to find apps you need to use for yourself, and make that work. But if you need to communicate with other people who are on a different platform then you have very little control over that.
Sure, there are Linux phones being sold, practically nobody would honestly suggest they work as a daily driver. And Windows phones were being sold because MS is a giant company that was willing to burn money trying to make them popular, however even with all their resources, they failed to make them succeed. But you appear to be suggesting that some small hobby vendor will?
I was talking more about Linux devices in general but even for phone use it isn’t that far off, the Pinephone is more capable than the Windows phone that I daily drove for 2 years and ARM hardware support in general is improving. Right this very moment I wouldn’t recommend it to people since GrapheneOS works a lot better, but once AOSP completely enshittifies to the point where people have no choice but to hard fork it or use Linux, I expect that Linux will gain a lot more traction.
As for why Windows phones died off, it’s because they were literally useless. Too restrictive for tech-savvy people (could get a OnePlus phone instead and put whatever open source Android distribution you wanted), and they couldn’t run anything except for Internet Explorer/Edge, Cortana, and Subway Surfers making them useless for normal people. And even through the web browser it wasn’t well-supported like desktop Chromium so even that wasn’t an option a lot of times. So nobody had a reason to buy one.
Linux already has much better app support, is the most powerful OS that’s currently functional in general, and has a solid community behind it. All hardware venders have to do is make it functional, and it’s already a better phone than the Windows phones with an audience that’s growing not dying.
As for Android phones, Fairphone is bigger than a “small hobby vendor” at this point.
Slack in particular is extremely popular with software dev shops.
Non-technical people don’t do software development though.
You can use WhatsApp as an even more mainstream example and it has the exact same problem.
That’s the point I’m making though, Windows phone failed because it could run apps people expect, and that’s the same blocker for Linux on mobile. Yes, there are more apps than Windows phone ever had, but usability is just not there. Last time I tried Linux on mobile UX was frankly atrocious. Unless things improved drastically, I really can’t see how it replaces GrapheneOS. I can imagine Android UI layer being ported to regular Linux though.
And Fairphone is promising, and hopefully it gets big enough for companies to pay attention to it. But if they end up just having their own store it’s not going to be terrible useful for people wanted to use stuff like GrapheneOS.
To be clear, I’d love it if Linux or GrapheneOS started getting more traction. My current daily driver is a Pixel 9 with GrapheneOS, and it’s the best experience I’ve had using a phone.
Windows phone failed because it could run apps people expect
That combined with being a locked-down platform, which is a big difference with the open source OSes to people who want to make the most use out of their phone, technical or not.
that’s the same blocker for Linux on mobile
Linux at least supports compatibility layers and VMs so it has more potential
Unless things improved drastically, I really can’t see how it replaces GrapheneOS.
Right now it doesn’t, but GrapheneOS is held hostage by Google until a group of people decide they want to hard fork AOSP even though Linux already exists. Google has become increasingly negligent with AOSP which is not a good sign for the future of either platform. Hard forking would involve maintaining most of an OS and fighting Google constantly if they want to maintain Android app compatibility, whereas the Linux ecosystem is already maintained and work for it improves both desktop and mobile so it just needs UX improvements to be a solid alternative.
My current daily driver is a Pixel 9 with GrapheneOS, and it’s the best experience I’ve had using a phone.
Right now I use a Pixel 6 Pro and it’s also my best experience but I’m pissed that it’s EOL now and I don’t want to spend $1000 on another mediocre Google-ecosystem phone with no expandable storage.
“Reduced functionality” is subjective, for the average non-tech user you’re right that they’d see it as reduced functionality, but there’s also plenty of people who want a phone that they can choose what apps they can install on it and remove tracking and bloat and ads for a large number of reasons. If Google starts doing what they say they’ll do, then using a web client/wrapper for a single app on a personal phone is a minor hoop to gain much more functionality out of their device, and if organizations use a user-respecting platform like Matrix instead they don’t have to jump through any hoops. Even among non-tech users there seems to be at least some interest in free platforms, so making them more user friendly is important but proprietary apps aren’t going to make that easy so the options to focus on are mods/wrappers or freer platforms, I find it unlikely that they will support such an OS seeing how Windows phones went and defeatism isn’t going to change anything. And if the non-tech users don’t care then they don’t care.
For social media those sites are such shitholes that I’m actually kindof happy their users aren’t on the fediverse
I think you might be vastly overstating the number of people who want that or even understand why it’s desirable in the first place. We do, because we’re in tech and we already use a niche social media platform because we want to get off corporate ones. There’s a lot of selection bias to be aware of. The vast majority of people aren’t technical, and they don’t even think about these issues.
And I’m not arguing against trying to make things like wrappers to bridge the gap. I’m just saying that we have to keep our expectations realistic here. Look how much use Windows still gets despite being complete dog shit, and Linux being an objectively a better operating system at this point.
I think with Windows the main situation is that there’s barely any laptops that come with Linux and most people are going to use the OS their device came with until it becomes a problem for them. Unless you’re doing software development or want to mess with the internals, Windows isn’t that restrictive either in its current state. A counterpoint is iOS vs Android, where iOS is extremely restrictive making it one of two main reasons people will choose Android. I’ve met quite a few not-very-technical users who despite using proprietary OSes hate ads enough download modded apps, or even on iOS found ways to get them. If Android becomes like iOS then that will boost interest in alternatives for these people. If Motorola starts shipping devices with a freer OS option then that would also help. There’s also the type of people who are so confused by technology that you could give them a laptop with Linux and KDE and they wouldn’t realize it’s not Windows.
You do realize that no vendor is going to sell a phone with an OS that can’t run popular apps most people expect right?
No not at all. If you mean any vendor at all, we already have smaller but increasingly popular venders selling devices with Linux and degoogled Android preinstalled. Even Lenovo/Dell sell some devices with Linux even though it’s more niche. In the past, Windows phones were being sold in mainstream shops even though you could barely do anything with them. There will always be an audience of people who want to freely install apps, and even among less technically proficient people a lot want to save money through mods and unpaywalled content and are willing to learn. And Slack/Discord are poor examples anyways because most people don’t even use Slack and as for Discord, it’s usable right now and if it becomes unusable it’s popular enough that someone will find a way to get it to work.
Sure, there are Linux phones being sold, practically nobody would honestly suggest they work as a daily driver. And Windows phones were being sold because MS is a giant company that was willing to burn money trying to make them popular, however even with all their resources, they failed to make them succeed. But you appear to be suggesting that some small hobby vendor will?
Slack and Discord are actually very good examples because they represent communication tools. Slack in particular is extremely popular with software dev shops. You can use WhatsApp as an even more mainstream example and it has the exact same problem. It’s much easier to find apps you need to use for yourself, and make that work. But if you need to communicate with other people who are on a different platform then you have very little control over that.
I was talking more about Linux devices in general but even for phone use it isn’t that far off, the Pinephone is more capable than the Windows phone that I daily drove for 2 years and ARM hardware support in general is improving. Right this very moment I wouldn’t recommend it to people since GrapheneOS works a lot better, but once AOSP completely enshittifies to the point where people have no choice but to hard fork it or use Linux, I expect that Linux will gain a lot more traction.
As for why Windows phones died off, it’s because they were literally useless. Too restrictive for tech-savvy people (could get a OnePlus phone instead and put whatever open source Android distribution you wanted), and they couldn’t run anything except for Internet Explorer/Edge, Cortana, and Subway Surfers making them useless for normal people. And even through the web browser it wasn’t well-supported like desktop Chromium so even that wasn’t an option a lot of times. So nobody had a reason to buy one.
Linux already has much better app support, is the most powerful OS that’s currently functional in general, and has a solid community behind it. All hardware venders have to do is make it functional, and it’s already a better phone than the Windows phones with an audience that’s growing not dying.
As for Android phones, Fairphone is bigger than a “small hobby vendor” at this point.
Non-technical people don’t do software development though.
WhatsApp is a bigger issue, agreed.
That’s the point I’m making though, Windows phone failed because it could run apps people expect, and that’s the same blocker for Linux on mobile. Yes, there are more apps than Windows phone ever had, but usability is just not there. Last time I tried Linux on mobile UX was frankly atrocious. Unless things improved drastically, I really can’t see how it replaces GrapheneOS. I can imagine Android UI layer being ported to regular Linux though.
And Fairphone is promising, and hopefully it gets big enough for companies to pay attention to it. But if they end up just having their own store it’s not going to be terrible useful for people wanted to use stuff like GrapheneOS.
To be clear, I’d love it if Linux or GrapheneOS started getting more traction. My current daily driver is a Pixel 9 with GrapheneOS, and it’s the best experience I’ve had using a phone.
That combined with being a locked-down platform, which is a big difference with the open source OSes to people who want to make the most use out of their phone, technical or not.
Linux at least supports compatibility layers and VMs so it has more potential
Right now it doesn’t, but GrapheneOS is held hostage by Google until a group of people decide they want to hard fork AOSP even though Linux already exists. Google has become increasingly negligent with AOSP which is not a good sign for the future of either platform. Hard forking would involve maintaining most of an OS and fighting Google constantly if they want to maintain Android app compatibility, whereas the Linux ecosystem is already maintained and work for it improves both desktop and mobile so it just needs UX improvements to be a solid alternative.
Right now I use a Pixel 6 Pro and it’s also my best experience but I’m pissed that it’s EOL now and I don’t want to spend $1000 on another mediocre Google-ecosystem phone with no expandable storage.