How I daily-drive [updated]

[lacriz]

Hello,

I received my first PinePhone a couple of weeks ago. I transplanted my only SIM card from my iPhone SE (2nd gen) to the PP a couple of days ago and there is no way back for me. After the last Apple announcements I am pretty much done with them and Google is a no-go for me as well.
I am very happy with how useable and stable the PP is - at least for my kinda modest requirements.
I just felt like writing up the setup I currently arrived at; I somewhat doubt I will try many more other distros any time soon.

Here is my setup:
PinePhone model: Beta Edition 3 GB / 32 GB
Distro: Arch (Gnome v. 40.4)
DE: phosh (Wayland)
I installed Arch (build 2021/09/08 from here) on the eMMC via JumpDrive (see here)

Calling someone: Works.
Caveat: Surrounding noises can be (very) annoying for the person being called -- will try a cable headset soon.

Getting called: Works.
Caveat: When the PP is in deep sleep, the caller hears 6 rings while the PP wakes up. Then my provider informs the caller I am not available and that I will receive an SMS / text messages about the call.
My thoughts: I consider this a feature - I do not have to answer the phone when it sleeps which will be the case when a) I am on the road and am not using the phone or b) I am sleeping myself.
In any case I get the SMS and can then call back when/if it suits me - works for me

Receiving SMS / text messages: Works.

Sending SMS / text messages: Works.
Caveat: I manually set mobile to '2G only' beforehand. This may be an issue when 2G gets obsolete.

Battery duration: Should be ok - for me.
It lasts for at least 2 hours of normal use. I will better bring my charger/ power bank/ replacement battery for longer trips..

Camera: Not useful for taking pictures of important memories.
The image quality is just a joke to me. I disabled the front camera via the kill switch. I keep the rear camera for documentation purposes.
Workaround: I will carry my real camera more often now - works for me.


Apps

I regularly use these apps, sorted from hard-to-setup to alread-installed:


Spot (for Spotify)
- see https://flathub.org/apps/details/dev.alextren.Spot

Signal Desktop client
- see https://privacyshark.zero-credibility.net/#packages
- I gave up on Axolotl for now

Lollypop (mp3 player)
- came pre-installed; the work here was to copy music files onto the PinePhone. I did that by connecting my usb disk to the PP via the usb-c dock that came with it. The copying I did using the good old Midnight commander:
sudo pacman -S mc

PureMaps + OSM Scout Server (GPS Navigation)
- Performance + UX is 10 times as good as with the pre-installed 'Maps'
- Offline map data for my region only ate up about 2 GB of disk space
- In-car test: A complete failure. Short version: GPS on the PinePhone is not yet working in real life.
- see https://wiki.mobian-project.org/doku.php?id=puremaps
- see https://wiki.mobian-project.org/doku.php...coutserver

Shortwave (Internet radio)
- see https://wiki.mobian-project.org/doku.php?id=shortwave
- best internet radio app on any platform (fast + no ads ...)
- Caveat: when adding a station be careful not to freeze all of phosh (requires a phone restart for me - but the station gets added)

Weather
- Came pre-installed (I think); otherwise see https://wiki.mobian-project.org/doku.php?id=weather

KTrip (Public transport)
- Came pre-installed; otherwise see https://wiki.mobian-project.org/doku.php?id=ktrip
- Does the job, also tested it on-the-go, shows slightly less information than similar iOS/Android apps

Calendar.
- Instead of using 'evolution' (I prefer a calender-only app) I installed 'Calendar for GNOME': https://flathub.org/apps/details/org.gnome.Calendar
- I only had to do this:

Code:

scale-tofit gnome-calendar on

as per https://wiki.mobian-project.org/doku.php...ted-tweaks

E-Mail
- I use the pre-installed Geary
- as a bonus, this app asks me to unlock my keyring which I need to do anyway for Spotify: this results in me checking my emails everytime before starting spotify, nice

Video Player with hardware acceleration
I use Clapper to play up-to-1080p videos from a 200 GB microSD card perfectly. This guide helped me to have the sd card auto-mounted always: https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/fstab#External_devices


Apps I will never get (I think):

Slack
- Flathub failed me here so far.

Spotify client that can remote-control my stereo. The official iOS Spotify app can do that.

Threema. (rather unimportant)

WhatsApp. (good riddance - finally!)

A Browser that supports e.g. the spotify web player (seems to require proprietary codecs / DRM) -- any chance here sooner or later?


Thanks for reading!

[nelstomlinson]

Wow! you are using your phone way harder than I do. Calls and texts and occasional web browsing only, here.
I agree about the camera. It just isn't useful yet. @megi, could we maybe get a manual slider for focus, while we wait patiently for autofocus? I believe I'm using your megapixels 1.3

[Zebulon Walton]

Last time I checked you could invoke autofocus in Megapixels by tapping the screen image.

[lacriz]

Last time I checked you could invoke autofocus in Megapixels by tapping the screen image.

The other day I saw a picture taken with v 1.3 that looked really good.
But to me - sorry megi! - improving the software no matter how much will make no difference.
I am used to the image quality of the 16 MP cameras of Pixel 1 / iPhone SE 2nd. gen which sadly can never be achieved by the PP's 5 MP camera.
Also in my mind 16 MP has been the industry standard (or minimum) for at least a decade

---

Wow! you are using your phone way harder than I do. Calls and texts and occasional web browsing only, here.

My goal is to never take an iOS or Android device on the road again.
Being a developer myself I - better late than never - recently decided that I cannot trust either company with e.g. my private photos. In Apple's case it is especially bad: I have to assume from now on that they will look at any data on -my- iOS device whenever they please and this is unacceptable. If I want someone to do that, I would just install some malware.

[nelstomlinson]

Zeb is right! Autofocus does work. Last time I tried to use it was outside, with the wrong glasses and way too bright, so I guess I just couldn't tell.

Thanks, @megi. It would still be nice to have a manual focus slider, if that's not going to hold up serious stuff.