11-21-2023, 11:06 PM
Don't forget the "security" shenanigans, where banking apps and some other random apps can arbitrarily refuse to run on a custom Android fork (or even a rooted standard Android), at least unless that fork patches those "security" APIs to lie to the applications (which some forks such as LineageOS are unwilling to do).
The sad thing is that almost all people are going to happily put up with all the Google restrictions, just as they did or do with the ones from Microsoft and Apple. And even for those who do not, there is often no workable alternative. There are several reasons why the PinePhone (or PinePhone Pro, or even the Librem 5 for that matter) is not for everyone. (Everyone here knows them: software bugs, application compatibility, power consumption, in some countries also carrier compatibility.) I wish it were, but I doubt that is an expectation it can fulfill any time soon.
Can some people like you or me use the PinePhone instead of an Android phone? Sure. (At least as long as I can get away with not being able to run the apps everyone, from governments to public transport companies and supermarkets, keeps releasing. But I can be very stubborn there. E.g., I still use the paper forms for wire transfers.) Will everyone be able to do the same eventually? Sadly, I doubt it, as much as I would like it to be the case.
The sad thing is that almost all people are going to happily put up with all the Google restrictions, just as they did or do with the ones from Microsoft and Apple. And even for those who do not, there is often no workable alternative. There are several reasons why the PinePhone (or PinePhone Pro, or even the Librem 5 for that matter) is not for everyone. (Everyone here knows them: software bugs, application compatibility, power consumption, in some countries also carrier compatibility.) I wish it were, but I doubt that is an expectation it can fulfill any time soon.
Can some people like you or me use the PinePhone instead of an Android phone? Sure. (At least as long as I can get away with not being able to run the apps everyone, from governments to public transport companies and supermarkets, keeps releasing. But I can be very stubborn there. E.g., I still use the paper forms for wire transfers.) Will everyone be able to do the same eventually? Sadly, I doubt it, as much as I would like it to be the case.
