08-31-2023, 07:06 PM
You are really comparing apples and oranges there.
Android phone makers can rely on 1. a fully developed userspace from the tech giant Google, 2. drivers developed (as proprietary blobs that the phone maker can just ship as is) by the component chip manufacturers, and perhaps most crucially, 3. lots of profits from high-volume unit sales, which can be used to fund software development. That is what being part of the mainstream gains you. Mobile GNU/Linux is not a mainstream platform, so Pine64 gets none of all these.
There is only one competitor in this niche market, developing one comparable product. Yes, that competitor does invest money in software development. But as a result, their phone costs so much that you can get multiple PinePhones or even PinePhone Pros for the price of one of the competitor's phones. (Assuming that you can even get one of the competitor's units shipped at all. They have a long waiting list, apparently due to liquidity issues because they spent so much of their money on software development.)
Think what you want of Pine64's business model, but it appears to be the only way to produce affordable GNU/Linux smartphones.
Android phone makers can rely on 1. a fully developed userspace from the tech giant Google, 2. drivers developed (as proprietary blobs that the phone maker can just ship as is) by the component chip manufacturers, and perhaps most crucially, 3. lots of profits from high-volume unit sales, which can be used to fund software development. That is what being part of the mainstream gains you. Mobile GNU/Linux is not a mainstream platform, so Pine64 gets none of all these.
There is only one competitor in this niche market, developing one comparable product. Yes, that competitor does invest money in software development. But as a result, their phone costs so much that you can get multiple PinePhones or even PinePhone Pros for the price of one of the competitor's phones. (Assuming that you can even get one of the competitor's units shipped at all. They have a long waiting list, apparently due to liquidity issues because they spent so much of their money on software development.)
Think what you want of Pine64's business model, but it appears to be the only way to produce affordable GNU/Linux smartphones.