Linux phones are still behind android and iPhone, but the gap shrank a surprising amount while I wasn’t looking. These are damn near usable day to day phones now! But there are still a few things that need done and I was wondering what everyone’s thoughts on these were:
1 - tap to pay. I don’t see how this can practically be done. Like, at all.
2 - android auto/apple CarPlay emulation. A Linux phones could theoretically emulate one of these protocols and display a separate session on the head unit of a car. But I dont see any kind of project out there that already does this in an open-source kind of way. The closest I can find are some shady dongles on amazon that give wireless CarPlay to head units that normally require USB cables. It can be done, but I don’t see it being done in our community.
3 - voice assistants. wether done on device or phoning into our home servers and having requests processed there, this should be doable and integrated with convenient shortcuts. Home assistant has some things like this, and there’s good-old Mycroft blowing around out there still. Siri is used every day by plenty of people and she sucks. If that’s the benchmark I think our community can easily meet that.
I started looking at Linux phones again because I loathe what apple is doing to this UI now and android has some interesting foldables but now that google is forcing Gemini into everything and you can’t turn it off, killing third party ROMS, and getting somehow even MORE invasive, that whole ecosystem seems like it’s about to march right off a cliff so its not an option anymore for me.
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google is forcing Gemini into everything and you can’t turn it off,
You can still shut off Gemini as of right now. I don’t know what it’ll be like in the future though.
Google said they are going to make it so you can turn off directly interacting with Gemini but it will always be running in the background, spying on you.
That’s North Korean levels of spyware, jfc
“No, it’s okay when we do it”
Source please
First thing I found: https://proton.me/blog/turn-off-gemini-on-android#fully-disable
Oh, I’ve seen that. I’ve had assistant turned off for like 2 years now. It became a security hazard when they took away the sound indicator that it was listening.
Yea they are making it a background process you can’t turn off now and replacing google assistant with it.
I switched to GrapheneOS like 4 years ago and at first I was bummed that I could no longer tap my phone to pay. But it’s fine. I still go out with my wallet in my pocket, so it’s no problem to just tap my bank card really… I’ll take privacy over convenience thanks
I havent taken my wallet with me in years. I prefer tap to pay as it is more secure than a physical card which can get lost or stolen.
Hahahahahaha. No.
Eh, both are about the same level of security, as long as you take the correct actions.
Lose a card? Freeze/Deactivate it and call your bank.
Lose your phone? Use Google/Apple/FindMyDevice (Degoogled) to either find it, or nuke whatever data you had on your phone (hopefully you made backups).
This is the most unhelpful kind of comment where you basically shame someone for having preferences. Why people feel the need to make their callousness public instead of just shutting up, I never know.
Security can be measured objectively. It’s important to call out misinformation.
Security is fundamentally subjective because whatever objective calculus you use will always depend on the threat model at hand, and everyone’s threat model is different, i.e. subjective. I’ve personally lost a physical credit card but never had my card details stolen in 10+ years of using payment apps.
How is a disposable token locked behind passwords and/or biometrics, remotely erasable, unique between each vendor a transaction takes place in inferior to……a string of unchanging digits in a physical card?
You didn’t “call out misinformation.” You laughed at a differing opinion. That’s not an argument. That’s a noise.
Seriously, the Linux community has tons of helpful, super smart people, but mixed in with them are these obnoxious snobs like you that just embarrass the rest of us.
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Don’t want or need any of those things you mention. I want a phone, I want to be able to send messages, I want GPS and a camera. Good battery life, wifi and enough memory and storage… And then privacy…
Missing those things would be a feature for me.
I’m much more worried about having a usable battery life and having basic phone functions like WiFi calling and MMS work.
Tap-to-pay and car assistance are must-have in today’s world. 10-15 years ago, no. Today, yes. Bank apps is the other thing that can’t be done either (because bank apps want a “certified” system to run on). Here in Greece, it’s required you have a bank app on your phone to go with your daily life.
Yes, we all want a simpler life, like it was in the past, so we can envision an OS system that “it’s good enough”. But reality is not on our side. Linux as an open source community phone OS, made by non-commercial/non-corporate entities, can’t be an OS for the masses. It just won’t tick any boxes for them in today’s world. The current Linux phone OSes could be contenders 15 years ago, but not today.
I’ve never used tap to pay. I don’t want any banking info on my phone. In the US, we don’t need any payment apps. Cash and cards work just fine and never run out of battery power.
There’s no way I would ever connect my phone to a modern car with anything other than an aux cable or a bluetooth adapter that plugs into the headphone jack. They gather up all the data they can an do who knows what with it.
The US is not the world though. That’s something Americans need to learn. And having a solution for a single country does not work in the long run for that project. Not in the domain of OSes and phones. Either it’s universal, or it’s doomed to be a niche thing.
Actually I don’t need any of those things you mention. It may be a mistake to assume that Linux phones should imitate Google/Apple phones.
It’s not that I want an imitation, but I do want certain functionalities to be available
Dunno. GPS and map apps seems pretty important for something more mobile than a laptop.
Obviously this is subjective, but I use android auto all the time and something similar for a linux phone would be really nice for me. Don’t dismiss them just cause you wouldn’t use them
Same. Never use these things on Android.
My thoughts exactly reading this list. I don’t use any of those as-is and have zero interest. I do agree Linux phones seem a bit behind at the moment, but as soon as they’re on par with say GrapheneOS, then we’re golden.
I already don’t have any of those things on my de-googled android. I’m used to it. Sure, they would be nice, but it’s not a dealbreaker that I have to tap a card instead of my phone, or use Bluetooth instead of carplay, or type on my phone instead of talking to it.
tap to pay, voice assistants, carplay…everything I hate about modern phones. Don’t threaten me with a good time, Linux.
