Provably never, as it’s the chicken-and-egg app availability problem that killed Nokia and Windows phone. Everything is developed for Android, at this point if you launch a new phone OS it’s just going to sit at 0.01% marketshare of weird nerds buying it until you go bankrupt because you can’t afford to buy the hardware anymore.
Should be possible to make a compatibility layer. You can run android apps on PC now, according to constant banners on Play Store.
The biggest issue is hardware support. Mobile hardware still uses custom drivers for everything, so you wouldn’t be able to ramp up a new OS on existing hardware. You’d need to invest in making both a phone and an OS, and that’s a big risk considering only a small amount of turbo nerds will care.
There’s already a compatibility layer and it works really well. Most android apps run fine on Linux. The big problem is Googles security layer which is also what causes problems for alternative Android builds like GrapheneOS or PostmarketOS. That prevents you from running certain apps (mostly banking but notably also includes Google Wallet preventing tap to pay) on devices with unlocked bootloaders as well as Linux. Any non-official version of Android, or even an official version running on a device with an unlocked bootloader is going to have a problem.
Beyond that having tried a Linux phone as of a couple years ago it had significant usability problems such as unacceptably high battery drain and the inability to receive push notifications when the screen was locked. Some of these issues may have been solved since the last time I tried it, but at the time the experience wasn’t one I would recommend to anyone nevermind the average person.
Even if there was a Proton-like way to reliably emulate Android software, you’ve still got the device attestation problem that means most major banking and security apps won’t work. And hardly anyone is going to either want to give up those apps or have to carry around a separate dedicated phone just for them.
I always hear people say stuff like this but realistically how often are you guys using these banking apps on your phone when that is your only option? I don’t even have any banking apps installed because it’s just not something I ever need to look at on the go. Anything I need to do gets done on a different device when I’m at home or I go to the actual bank building (I almost never do that either).
I’m not saying there’s no functionality problems with alternative mobile OS’s but this one in particular just seems overblown to me.
I couldn’t agree more. People are like, “Oh I would totally use an alternative phone/OS and/or degoogle… but mah baaanking app!! I shall give up all security, privacy and lick corporate boots for my baaanking app!”
I have accounts with nearly a dozen banks. I have zero banking apps on my phone. It’s had zero impact on my life. Chase Bank needed a phone call to switch 2FA to another method. That was it. My phone’s browser works fine.
The idea is that there is already a bunch of shit developed for Linux so you aren’t really starting from zero. But yeah, I agree with your overall assessment. No one is going to be making hardware for this.
The idea is that there is already a bunch of shit developed for Linux
Yes, this is true, but much of what’s developed for Linux is not intended to be mobile touchscreen friendly- nor is the “normie suite” of typical daily driver apps developed for Linux alone. very few these days even have web frontends that could run in an electron container outside of the linux apk, so it would be difficult to drive software adoption without a huge paradigm shift in consumers.
Agreed. I still have to get into the terminal pretty routinely to do things that don’t have an effective GUI (let alone a touch capable GUI) and that would just be a deal killer for any kind of mass market handheld device. The steam deck is the closest thing that I can think of to something that could sorta be considered a proof of concept for Linux consumer devices and that took a LOT of money to develop and a massive built in revenue stream to support.
If I got a free wish for a new valve product it would probably be for a vertical Gameboy pocket (or even folding Gameboy advanced) sized hand-held steam deck with a sim card, radios, and a mic. Probably only about a hundred people would buy it, but I would be one of them.
when will we get a linux based phone that is not android?
Cross your fingers for https://mecha.so/comet
Nokia N900 from 2009. Question is when we’ll get a new one.
librem 5? pine phone?
just dont expect either to be very performant or popular
Considering the Pine Phone’s price, poor performance is an understandable trade-off.
Provably never, as it’s the chicken-and-egg app availability problem that killed Nokia and Windows phone. Everything is developed for Android, at this point if you launch a new phone OS it’s just going to sit at 0.01% marketshare of weird nerds buying it until you go bankrupt because you can’t afford to buy the hardware anymore.
Should be possible to make a compatibility layer. You can run android apps on PC now, according to constant banners on Play Store.
The biggest issue is hardware support. Mobile hardware still uses custom drivers for everything, so you wouldn’t be able to ramp up a new OS on existing hardware. You’d need to invest in making both a phone and an OS, and that’s a big risk considering only a small amount of turbo nerds will care.
There’s already a compatibility layer and it works really well. Most android apps run fine on Linux. The big problem is Googles security layer which is also what causes problems for alternative Android builds like GrapheneOS or PostmarketOS. That prevents you from running certain apps (mostly banking but notably also includes Google Wallet preventing tap to pay) on devices with unlocked bootloaders as well as Linux. Any non-official version of Android, or even an official version running on a device with an unlocked bootloader is going to have a problem.
Beyond that having tried a Linux phone as of a couple years ago it had significant usability problems such as unacceptably high battery drain and the inability to receive push notifications when the screen was locked. Some of these issues may have been solved since the last time I tried it, but at the time the experience wasn’t one I would recommend to anyone nevermind the average person.
Even if there was a Proton-like way to reliably emulate Android software, you’ve still got the device attestation problem that means most major banking and security apps won’t work. And hardly anyone is going to either want to give up those apps or have to carry around a separate dedicated phone just for them.
I always hear people say stuff like this but realistically how often are you guys using these banking apps on your phone when that is your only option? I don’t even have any banking apps installed because it’s just not something I ever need to look at on the go. Anything I need to do gets done on a different device when I’m at home or I go to the actual bank building (I almost never do that either).
I’m not saying there’s no functionality problems with alternative mobile OS’s but this one in particular just seems overblown to me.
I couldn’t agree more. People are like, “Oh I would totally use an alternative phone/OS and/or degoogle… but mah baaanking app!! I shall give up all security, privacy and lick corporate boots for my baaanking app!”
I have accounts with nearly a dozen banks. I have zero banking apps on my phone. It’s had zero impact on my life. Chase Bank needed a phone call to switch 2FA to another method. That was it. My phone’s browser works fine.
YMMV in other countries.
The idea is that there is already a bunch of shit developed for Linux so you aren’t really starting from zero. But yeah, I agree with your overall assessment. No one is going to be making hardware for this.
Yes, this is true, but much of what’s developed for Linux is not intended to be mobile touchscreen friendly- nor is the “normie suite” of typical daily driver apps developed for Linux alone. very few these days even have web frontends that could run in an electron container outside of the linux apk, so it would be difficult to drive software adoption without a huge paradigm shift in consumers.
Agreed. I still have to get into the terminal pretty routinely to do things that don’t have an effective GUI (let alone a touch capable GUI) and that would just be a deal killer for any kind of mass market handheld device. The steam deck is the closest thing that I can think of to something that could sorta be considered a proof of concept for Linux consumer devices and that took a LOT of money to develop and a massive built in revenue stream to support.
If I got a free wish for a new valve product it would probably be for a vertical Gameboy pocket (or even folding Gameboy advanced) sized hand-held steam deck with a sim card, radios, and a mic. Probably only about a hundred people would buy it, but I would be one of them.
Maybe Jolla phone? Dont know if its good enough for daily driving but seems like it has some potential.
Brax3
Fairphone has a linux based os option, /e/ OS/e/ OS is not a Linux based OS. It is a fork of LineageOS, which is a fork of AOSP. I run /e/ on a FairPhone 3+.
I read wrong as my source was about the EU OS, not /e/ OS. Thanks for correcting.