Many are going even further. Both my friend and I are planning to get dumb flip phones next. Forget also this smartphone always online stuff

this is honestly my ideology at the moment... like freedom was the main reason I'm on android. Price wise it's already getting close, and most flagships have removed microSD card support by now. I'm seriously debating my next phone being an iphone just because most of my family uses them, and my convenience being on android is being actively removed anyway.

I can't even imagine that transfer, I've been android my entire life but, every time I talk to my family I list what I want in a phone, and every time I talk to them it seems apple has marked another issue off the list with an update.

Take the one thing Android has over Apple away. Why go Android then

They've passed the critical mass wherein they can dictate anything they want without losing any significant userbase. The only people that this is going to affect is a tiny minority of people who even know what sideloading is. If you don't think so, you're in a bubble.

These fuckers never wanted to be user centric opposite to apple, they wanted to be alongside apple in telling users what they can or cannot do. They're worse because of the whole advertising monopoly but most people don't even know what any of the above matters. They'll continue on like everyday.

Guess we are going back to the days when only nerds that knew how to flash better roms will be using Android.

Will we even have that? IIRC, Google's changing the open source model for Android so its going to be a lot harder from ROM devs to keep up to date with security patches, and then more importantly, have access to device drivers

I was wishy washy on whether my next phone would be android or iOS for years, but with this change my decision got a lot easier. Was fun while it lasted, Android - but if you're going to become a walled garden I'd rather be in the better one.

It's nearly impossible to even flash a rom these days, they made sure to cover that first. They want to make sure you are only allowed to watch or read what they approve of. That's what it's all about. Next time they get a democratic in, they won't even give trans people their rights back, they are just going to go after gun rights hard. Mark my words.

Yeah, this seems crazy to me. This is a big differentiator. I still hate apple's ui and several other things but now I can see myself being convinced to get an iPhone. There was zero chance before this decision. If apple ever allows real third party launchers and browsers that aren't just safari skins (or if android ever disallows launchers and makes all browsers chrome skins), I'd be pretty close to 50-50.

That Liberux phone looks pretty cool, though I'm not sure how Linux apps would work. Does it just use Android apps? I can't imagine too many Linux programs would work well on a phone, both because of the size as the screen as well as battery usage/background sleep.

Unfortunately for the US (possibly other countries?) we've shut down 2g/3g. 4g/5g here don't support calling only VoLTE and Vo5G and as far as I know Linux phones haven't figured those out meaning calling on Linux isn't currently a thing.

So any rumors on that major Android OEM?

I don't see that happening since the Linux foundation gets a bunch of funding from Google

Fairphone is already collaborating with a fork, /e/OS

Like lineoageOS?

Is it offering SMS? I ported to jmp.chat recently, using their XMPP gateway for voice and SMS. They offer a VOIP option, but don't support SMS.

I like being able to SMS, and I guess call, from my laptop. But there aren't any Linux XMPP clients that I'm particularly happy with, so I'm just using Cheogram in Waydroid. It's not exactly optimal.

Ubuntu touch works on pixel 3s. It was incredibly easy to install. I set aside an afternoon to make it work, and I was done in line 15 minutes. I was shocked. It has some rough edges but its usable. The biggest issue is the lack of apps. Also, i couldnt figure out the sandboxing thing that lets you run any limux app. I think maybe the UI had some bugs or something, it wasnt very intuitive.