Google: 'Your $1000 phone needs our permission to install apps now'". Android users are screwed - Louis Rossmann
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In all fairness to smart watches, mine is what turned me on to regularly checking the UV index. That's an important thing for all people, but especially me because I have an increased skin cancer risk due to unrelated medical stuff. And it was extra-extra important this year because I have done a ton of good work outside this summer.
And to be more specific about my watch situation, there's more going on than just avoiding notifications. I have been minimizing the amount of stuff I keep on my person in general, right down to finally getting my wedding ring tattooed on this year. There are various reasons ranging from abstract introspective life improvement stuff to the practical where that outside work I mentioned was constant and pretty rough on anything on my hands/arms.
So even if I wore a nice mechanical watch, I'd probably still be going with the double bare wrists right now.
In all fairness to smart watches, mine is what turned me on to regularly checking the UV index.
Can't you just do that on your phone? Surely if the UV is high, you just plan accordingly for the day? Sunscreen, wide brim hat, stick to the shade where possible, etc. I can't imagine what benefit constantly checking the UV on your watch gives you. Even if it did happen to fluctuate for some reason, you would be wasting so much time constantly ducking in and out depending on what your watch says at any given moment.
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Can someone explain how this affects graphene os users?
I use GrapheneOS on a Pixel tablet without any Google Play so that doesn't affect me. On my Pixel phone Google Play is sandboxed.
I expect however that Google will disable bootloader unlocking on future Pixel hardware. -
Will this kill FDroid ? I imagine yes since you have to install it from a download.
You can use F-Droid and other install sources on alternative ROMs.
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I find it very strange how many people in the comments here think the solution is to buy an iPhone. Maybe you are all just rich and can afford to spend $1000+ based on vibes, but considering the Android market still has a massive value advantage I'm not really sure what the point of switching is. This all feels very similar to how some Westerners decided Chinese tech and even the Chinese government were suddenly problem-free just because Americans elected Trump for a second time.
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I bought a Pixel recently and for 2 days I tried to make it work. 2 whole days of fumbling pain! And I felt fucking horrible. Almost nothing is customizable and everything coated in a thick layer of AI. Every google app has dark patterns. Don't like it? Well too bad, apps like goog photos keep on asking if you want to upload your life with a recurring popup that tries to trick you. Don't want Google Search Bar? Well... you don't get to say no bitch, don't make me hurt you. It is not a healthy relationship.
So. I just took the plunge and flashed GrapheneOS. Graphene will take a bit of work getting replacements for some of my needed apps like mail and map. But there are lots of neat options and I'm having fun with it. Problem fixed.
I used the graphene web install. I booted up my Pi 4B+ and used gnome-disks to flash a MicroSD with Ubuntu 24.10 then installed the two packages in the web install instructions then I got Brave (I went to the Brave homepage and they have some curl option to download. I needed to install curl, did that then got Brave installed. Once brave is installed you have to disable browser fingerprinting memory reduction and disable the "brave shield" (the little shield near the address bar) for the web installer GrapheneOS page. (It's a fresh install, on a Pi, and I know the site, no real risk)
After this you can just press the big buttons on the page and follow the instructions on the page.
There are many ways to do this. They have lists of compatible browsers and operating systems. I picked (eww) Ubuntu and (eww) Brave because they seemed easiest on the list and I did not virtualize or use containers in any way cause it messes up the webUSB magic the website uses. I like to play it safe as possible when firmware is involved so I didnt speed up the instructions. And also when you buy a Pixel, big thing! Turn on dev tools and toggle your oem bootloader setting off and on again. If it can't do that you need to return the phone because it's locked down by carrier.
Well... I hope my long sleep deprived ramblings help someone else break their chains. Read a bunch about it before starting! Good Luck!
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Easy. Refurbed phone. Google didn't get a penny.
That’s keeps the used price for pixels high, which encourages people to buy new pixels cause they know it has a good resale market.
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Fairphone is contributing directly to the linux kernel so they have my vote!
Plus their mission to try to make a phone with fair materials and compensation in their entire production chain. Is it perfect, of course not, but a lot better than all other brands.
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This is about Revanced, isn't it? They failed to kill it via the YouTube backend so now it's down to lock down the os and browsers as much as possible to keep feeding people the juicy ads.
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So ,i install graphene OS on a pixel phone ,problem solved
wrote last edited by [email protected]The delictable irony that if you don't want to use their os, you need to use their phone
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The delictable irony that if you don't want to use their os, you need to use their phone
Yep ,thats is the way
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Can you just refuse to upgrade your 2021 or previous (nothing on their device list applies to models released after 2021) to not be affected by this policy change? I have never noticed a useful feature in android version upgrades for quite a while now.
Yes but you will also stop getting security fixes. After some time it gets risky.
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Removable batteries are coming back, as they become mandatory in the EU in 2027.
Or you can already get one with a Fairphone (which also has SD card slot).
As for the headphone jack, I'm afraid it won't come back. Bluetooth alternatives are far better these days (I got both, so I know from experience), and good adapters (like Apple one) are barely more than $10.wrote last edited by [email protected]No, bluetooth is not better. Bluetooth has latency which is bad for anything that needs realtime audio, like video games or any kind of live performance. It also runs on 2.4 like every other electronic Wireless devices making it prone to interference. And it's yet another device to keep charged all the time.
USB C is also inferior because you need dongles which increase complexity of your setup, it's more prone to failures. Like audio cutting off every x minutes because connection is just slightly loose or other electronic gremlins. I'm saying this having just had a gig and the MD's phone we relied on for the metronome started acting up during the performance not recognizing the dongle until a reboot.
Audio jacks were simple, analog, worked perfectly fine and delivered high quality audio. What we have now is overengineered slop that is less reliable and more expensive.
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citing bose and sony vs sennheiser audeze and beyerdynamics, dude, you don't know headphones
I trust in independent reviews, reproducible tests and hard numbers, not in brand cultivated images and subjective choices.
I don't care if it comes for Audeze, Sony, or a Chinese Knockoff, numbers doesn't lie. -
The EU is no longer an ally in such matters but a bad actor.
Why? Because of the chat control stuff?
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The EU is no longer an ally in such matters but a bad actor.
Forgive my ignorance since I've been out if the loop, how have EU switched from being good to bad?
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Banking Apps in my country doesn't even install on Android version of previous 2 version, because "security" reasons...not because of their incompetence to make their app more secure. I had to buy new phone to use my own money.
wrote last edited by [email protected]I just changed banks, fuck those apps
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I'd love for that to be the case, but without a lot more polish and the ability to run Android apps in some kind of sandbox I don't see it happening.
need more ppl to adopt it while its shitty for that point to ever come
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That’s not how you spell UBports.
I do support the PostmarketOS project, but it has much further to go before it’s friendly enough for regular people. Short of Valve releasing a Steam phone, I think UBports is better positioned to bring genuine linux to mobile.
No one here is talking about regular people. Regular people will keep using stock Android.
UBports still relies on Android kernel and services. Custom ROMs are such a small part of the Android ecosystem that I didn't think Google will go after them yet they did. Can we be sure in a couple of years they will not try to destroy Android based distros like UBports?
I also don't really like the entire idea behind UBports. It's so heavily modified you can't even easily run native Linux apps so you're limited to Ubuntu Touch apps. As a developer I'm not really interested in learning completely new framework that supports only one platform. We have solutions to create cross platform Linux-Android apps so I can move my apps from Android phone to PostmarketOS without any work, they already work there.
So I'm supporting PostmarketOS and I really hope it will be usable when my Pixel phone dies. If not I will switch to something Halium based. What else is there to do?
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Apple now allows sideloading of apps and Google is trying to get rid of sideloading.
What... the Fuck?
wrote last edited by [email protected]Apple now allows sideloading of apps
Apple allows as much sideloading as google wants to next near.
Yes, you can install from .iPa files, but you still need to pay 100€ a year to be able to sign the IPA files, otherwise you cant run them. as much as with googles new policy you now need to pay 25€ + your full name to get a signature, to sign the Apks with
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This is about Revanced, isn't it? They failed to kill it via the YouTube backend so now it's down to lock down the os and browsers as much as possible to keep feeding people the juicy ads.
This is about preparing for DMA and the likes in other countries.
