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blfr
jacquesm
It's not side loading. It is just installing and running. I swear all this 'for your benefit' crap is going to relegate all of our computing hardware to the status of dumb terminal before long.
Note how the term 'side loading' is already weighted against you doing it, it is supposed to make you feel you're doing something that is borderline illegal even if it is still possible and that you are bypassing safeguards that would stop you from doing this stupid thing if you only took the proper route.
m463
Kind of like "jailbreaking" as a term. It makes it seem like you're a criminal escaping from confinement enforced by good and decent society.
disruptiveink
Agreed. I refuse to use the terms "rooting" and "jailbreaking" in professional environments, I always use terms like "admin access to the mobile device".
Because that's what it is, despite the extremely successful campaign to paint people who want admin access on their mobile computers to be painted in the same light as pirates.
pohuing
To jailbreak you need to be imprisoned. Since your only crime was buying an iPhone it presents apple as the tyrant. I think the term fits
jacquesm
Yes, good one that is another one.
wilsonnb3
It’s called that because you used to download the apks on a separate computer and then load them onto the phone, it has nothing to do with sounding illegal
jacquesm
No, that's not necessary. You can download them straight to your phone. The 'side' is clearly in reference to the fact that you bypass the app store.
ekianjo
You could always download apks directly from your phone...
necovek
With phones becoming our main computing platform, I wonder why do we look at it any different from our personal computers?
On my computer, I can choose to containerize applications I run with something like docker, flatpak or snaps; run them in a VM, under a separate user, in a chroot... or, not! I can get them from the Debian/Ubuntu/Fedora/... archive or... not! Or I might compile it from source and run it directly or... not!
Based on source of the app I decide how much I trust it and thus decide on the encapsulation strategy for it (sometimes, none).
Yes, I understand having full control of your system has some minor downsides (you can mess things up more easily), but you can usually do that anyway (just fill up your phone storage with photos and see how your phone behaves).
baranul
> With phones becoming our main computing platform, I wonder why do we look at it any different from our personal computers?
Especially after people paying so much money for the devices, it's ludicrous that they are not allowed to make their own decisions and install what they want. Ownership, user rights, and privacy have been kicked in the face. If you can not install whatever software that you want, then people should be signing only rental agreements.
It is also more the reason to push Linux smartphones[1]. Android is not doing anything special, that people could not get or create for Linux phones.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-source_mobile_pho...
jama211
I mean, personally I don’t feel like my user rights are being kicked in the face just because my smartphone is more locked down than I’d like. I’m all for more power to the user, but that seems a little strong.
undefined
fsflover
> With phones becoming our main computing platform, I wonder why do we look at it any different from our personal computers?
blehn
Not that Google needs any more cash, but ReVanced has to be the absolute worst defense for maintaining openness on Android. As in, you could have cited the thousands of legitimate apps that have nothing to do with circumventing a pretty reasonable subscription (compared to other media subscriptions out there) for Google's own app.
xethos
The deal with Youtube was always presented as "You watch a couple ads, we show you a couple videos"
Google has dramatically altered that deal, and now shows much longer, less-likely-to-be-skippable ads, with much higher frequency.
Calling it "a prety reasonable subscription" is only reasonable if we forget that this wasn't the deal originally offered
Furthermore, this is a massive corporation closing up a project that got it's start by selling itself to geeks as Open.
It is Google's OS, and it is Google's app, but closing up the Open project to advantage their own app sure as hell feels like poor form
devinprater
Also I didn't pay for Shorts to be force-fed to me.
lucyjojo
then don't watch youtube...
wpm
Not paying for Premium is pretty cheesy but Revanced also fixes a number of hostile UX changes to YouTube no subscription let you escape normally.
It also allows you to patch other apps to make them work the way you want.
moradiyashar8
[flagged]
account42
I disagree that it's a bad defense. It demonstrates well how reduced openness will allow Google to abuse its monopoly even more. It shouldn't be any business of the maker of my phone to support the business model of the most popular video sharing website.
pharrington
Why is it weird? You install software on your computer. You install software from your app repository. You install software with your package manager. You install software on your server. You install software on the computers you administrate. "Sideload" was always the weird, Orwellian term.
(editted to add repository and package manager points)
AJ007
This is what bothers me about the whole "App Store" stuff with the EU. This entire fight about Apple being required to allow third party "App Stores" -- how about simply the user can load whatever software they want to on the device which they are the owner of?
The amount of legalism that's been brought in by both sides, Apple/Google and the regulators, layered in lies (we need to approve the software, register the developers, to protect the user from software), is divorced from the reality of the hardware-software relationship. This has led us down a path where everyone is debating the topics that Google, Apple, and revolving door regulators choose rather than the underlying reality.
There is a simple solution to all of this: Google and Apple should no longer be allowed to operate any sort of "App Store" or software distribution channel.
jjav
> This entire fight about Apple being required to allow third party "App Stores" -- how about simply the user can load whatever software they want to on the device which they are the owner of?
The Atari 2600 was an immensely popular home computer for a decade(ish), but it didn't exactly spark the personal computer revolution. Why? Because it used the iphone software distribution model. You could only buy licensed software (in the form of cartridges) even though technically it was of course a programmable computer. So it was as open as an iphone.
All the actual progress happened on Apple ][, C64, the Radio Shack computers and later the IBM clones. Because, obviously, anyone could write and sell any software they wanted so the market growth went exponential.
A lesson to society, there.
wkat4242
> This is what bothers me about the whole "App Store" stuff with the EU. This entire fight about Apple being required to allow third party "App Stores" -- how about simply the user can load whatever software they want to on the device which they are the owner of?
This is because the EU is not a citizens advocacy platform. They're an economic platform mainly built to smooth the cost of doing business in Europe for multinationals. They don't have our best interests at heart. They care more about a big neoliberal common market.
The European project started well but mid 90s it got hijacked by hard neoliberal interests, especially the commission.
kcplate
> There is a simple solution to all of this: Google and Apple should no longer be allowed to operate any sort of "App Store" or software distribution channel.
“Simple” solutions can produce unintended outcomes.
You want to take a device that is targeted for “everyone” and not just tech savvy people and provide no control or standard to what can be loaded on it? The very idea of it is horrifying to me.
You have apparently never sat down on an elderly persons PC in the early ‘00s and tried to sort out all manner of shopping toolbars, coupon widgets, and crapware that has caused their pc to slow to a crawl. It’s literally bad enough with the poor performing apps in app stores but it could be so much worse without it
No thanks.
blfr
It's weird because "sideloading" accurately captures that you're doing something ad hoc outside of the main channel. You install software with your package manager, from the app repository, and you sideload it with `curl | bash` or manually moving an .exe/.msi/.apk.
This is a fine distinction. And it will happen and should happen because there are always gaps. Without a way to fill them, you're left with a subpar experience.
And while many people are fine with it on their iPhones, I can't really imagine not having ReVanced apps, Molly, or a dozen other little fixes.
gr4vityWall
> "sideloading" accurately captures that you're doing something ad hoc outside of the main channel.
Who gets to decide what the main channel is?
For a lot of people here, F-Droid is their main way of installing programs on phones.
superkuh
It's not a fine distinction. It's orwellian propaganda. Installation is the normal thing that is the status quo. Having a locked down corporation controlled system that only lets you install things they approve should be called some new word. But the only thing coming to mind personally is "dumb" or "willeventuallybackfireonyoustallation".
Fire-Dragon-DoL
On windows, you mostly download apps from websites and sideload them. And windows is by far the most common OS
isaacremuant
Politician and corporations want you to not have ownership or control over your devices. Either for money or control, but they absolutely would love for things like Linux to not be possible or illegal so they can force you to watch ads and pay their next version of enshitified shit, not consume the wrong kind of news and absolutely not assemble in political opposition to their corruption.
If you don't see the patterns of absolutely pathetic authoritianism, which most people cheered on during covid policies times, you're not going be very effective at opposing this crap.
fluidcruft
Oh is ReVanced that YouTube-without-ads thing? I'm about to install it out of pure spite to reciprocate Google's hostility.
nodja
It's much more than that. It's an app that patches apks and has a series of community patches for specific apps. For youtube it's the usual ad blocking and sponsorblock, etc. but it can apply patches for all apps, one of the universal patches is changing the package name, this allows you to install 2 of the same app. I use this on youtube and tiktok so I have both accounts logged in at the same time, each logged in to a separate app.
fluidcruft
FYI if you only need two instances of an app, you can use the built-in Work Profile.
I wish Android supported more profiles (for even better compartmentalization, like it would be nice to have a similar isolated profile for banking and such). But as-is Work Profile was a pretty great discovery on Android (for me) a year or so ago and a feature I think more people should play with.
There's an app called Shelter that builds off the Work profile plumbing to add support for even more profiles. I forget why I switched to using Work profile directly... I think I just wanted to see how the built-in stuff worked. There's other stuff about the Work Profile that I don't remember Shelter providing (with Work Profile you end up with copies of the app with briefcase icon to tell them apart and separate intent handlers, I remember liking that but I don't remember if Shelter supported that sort of thing)
horseradish7k
when lucky patcher did this, google flagged it as malware with play protect to the point where they had to make a separate installer to randomize the package name
thrance
Same here, being able to enjoy YouTube without ads is the only thing really blocking me from switching to ios. Silver lining is, maybe if using YouTube is made painful again it'll help me cure my last remaining internet addiction.
Jordan-117
I used to think jailbreaking was the only way to do this, and mourned my adblocker tweaks when Apple made jailbreaking practically impossible. But turns out sideloading on iOS is a pretty easy alternative: just install AltStore via your computer, sign in with your Apple ID, and then import and install the YTLitePlus .ipa from their GitHub[1]. This gets you a YouTube clone with adblocking, SponsorBlock, custom UI controls, and all sorts of other quality-of-life features. You can even sign into and sync with your existing YouTube account.
The only downside is that free Apple accounts must renew their certificate in AltStore (while connected to their computer's home network) once a week, or else it'll all be deactivated and you'll have to reinstall AltStore and YTLitePlus from scratch. But you can pay $99 for a year-long developer account, set a recurring reminder to renew, or worst case YTLitePlus makes it easy to export your settings so you can quickly restore it after reinstalling.
horseradish7k
youtube premium for a year is probably cheaper than an apple developer account though
Saline9515
Orion browser (from Kagi) and Brave block natively youtube adds on iphone.
thrance
The YouTube app still feels a bit nicer to use than the web mobile client. And with Revanced you can even play vids in the background + a few nice features like sponsorblock and removing shorts.
redwall_hp
I watch YouTube without ads on iOS. Any decent Safari ad blocker stops YouTube's ads. Google seems to make YouTube an intentionally subpar experience in a browser compared to a mobile app, but it works.
65
You can install iOS Safari ad blockers. AdGuard for example
blfr
ReVanced is so much more than an adblocker though.
Yes, it blocks ads but it also skips sponsored segments and other chaff with a SponsorBlock integration. Then it fixes all the little UI annoyances across apps, for example letting you filter out low-view videos and live streams from your TikTok feed.
It turns mass market apps into something that an HN user would make for themselves.
gdulli
Apple? I'd never give my money to the organization that's responsible for bringing us to this place.
nextos
And Microsoft. Microsoft basically killed Nokia from the inside. Symbian was fairly open in terms of installing applications from wherever you wanted.
And Maemo/MeeGo were basically normal Linux distributions. Right now, SailfishOS is a worthy successor. It runs on a fairly decent number of devices and is quite ready for daily usage. Following the Nokia tradition, offline maps are outstanding. There's also a proprietary Android emulation layer that works really well for most applications, in case that is needed.
SailfishOS and Jolla could challenge the duopoly if a critical mass of developers migrated to the system. Right now, there's a fairly small technical userbase that has nonetheless produced lots of great indie applications. I can't believe I had Linux in my pocket with the N770 in late 2005 and, right now, mainstream options are so locked down.
bitwize
Sailfish is not, and never will be, available in the USA. The reason why is because US carriers do device whitelisting: if the handset is not approved by the carrier, it cannot connect. And they're not going to approve anything but iOS and Android.
FirmwareBurner
>Microsoft basically killed Nokia from the inside.
Nokia was dead man walking since the first iPhone dropped and Nokia employees of that time will tell you the same as they also wrote here before.
Even before Microsoft took over, Nokia's corporate structure, culture and management was too slow, bureaucratic and cumbersome to modern SW development, to be able to turn the giant ship around and catch up with what Apple and Google have already launched, let alone overtake them. It was game over for them already, Microsoft or no Microsoft.
cmxch
Then let the US in.
GeekyBear
> Apple? I'd never give my money to the organization that's responsible for bringing us to this place.
Apple didn't invent walled gardens, and walled gardens are not illegal unless you do what the EU did and change the law.
What is going to bite Google on the ass here is selling users an "open" platform and then using anticompetitive tactics to yank those supposed freedoms away.
Look at Microsoft's Xbox platform. It was created, advertised and sold to the public as a walled garden with no legal repercussions at all, because walled gardens are not illegal.
On the other hand, Microsoft created Windows as an open platform and sold it to the public as such. When Microsoft tried to use anticompetitive tactics to maintain control of the platform they sold as "open", they were found guilty of antitrust in jurisdictions around the world.
Google made the choice to sell Android as open. "Sideloading" apps was the only way to install apps at all for the first couple of years. The decision to sell Android as "open" only to yank those freedoms away will have legal consequences again here.
bonoboTP
Nobody in this chain claimed that's illegal (or not). It can be hostile, dystopian etc without ever being illegal.
itake
How are they responsible?
MetaWhirledPeas
Not only did Apple popularize app stores, they made it impossible to get software on their devices any other way, from day one. Google was the relatively "open" option. But that was the old Google. This is the new Google, apparently.
I'm actually pro-app store as long as it's helping apps to be malware-free. But I'm 100% against shutting out side-loading. Side-loading was never common let alone a common vector for malware, at least not that I've ever heard. But what it is, apparently (or we would not see these Google shenanigans), is a long-term threat to Google's own app store.
Some idiot executive decided this.
kleiba
I cannot speak for the grandparent, so here's my best guess what was meant: namely the introduction of a centally managed "app store" as the central/only way to install new software on your device, thereby taking control away from users?!
Was the iPhone the first device to come with that concept?
gdulli
Even less freedom of sideloading. They normalized it.
wand3r
> You can't even unlock the bootloader on most of the quality Android phones.
Can you not do this on Samsung phones? I was considering buying a used s22 ultra as an iPhone user to explore more freedom and pirate apps, etc. Is andoid really this locked down now? I have heard that quite a bit, but can't you sideload or install any apps you want on Android? Why do you need to unlock the bootloader?
orbital-decay
Not anymore, since OneUI 8. And before that, by unlocking the bootloader you were tripping Samsung's e-fuse, permanently marking the hardware as unlocked. That's why nobody ever bothered making custom firmware builds for Samsung devices.
Sideloading doesn't require rooting the device.
joquarky
Yet.
queenkjuul
Unlocking the bootloader is step 1 in rooting the device (usually) and is absolutely required to install an alternate OS (like grapheneOS)
And yeah majority of phones simply won't let you do that anymore
quantummagic
The government isn't going to save us, they love it and are in bed with these corporations; the more control, the better. Locked down computing, no anonymity online, the threat of losing banking/credit accounts, and authorities showing up to arrest you if you challenge the current dogma too strongly. We're so cooked.
solid_fuel
Our politicians are bought and owned, and it's hard to expect anything else after Citizens United. If we want a government to serve and protect us we must ensure that our politicians actually represent us.
tetris11
About a year ago, I looked at my collection of old phones and laptops and smirked at my needless hoarding.
Now? I feel like I'm sitting on gold by keeping these cheap dumb devices around.
npteljes
I'd still consider it hoarding.
Depending on how old they are, phones have diminishing network compatibility, and cheap, dumb devices are in production still, and will be for the indefinite future. So it's not like they are a resource that the world has run out of.
Old laptops age better, but it's not like anyone restricts software on laptops, or will ever be able.
Telaneo
2G and 3G networks are already being dismantled, if not already gone, in several parts of the world. Even if you do want to stick to those devices out of principle, you often can't, or if you can, only for maybe 5 more years.
You can still buy equivalent dumb phones, but they aren't any more open than the rest of the rabble.
Laptops are a different story, although I believe part of that battle was already lost when the Intel SSM and AMD equivalent came around. We'll see how things go when banks start to require you to enable (In)Secure Boot just to be able to log in through a browser on a PC.
isaacremuant
We are not cooked. You only need to recognize that covid policies were theater and enabled them to rapidly advance in this direction and that the typical cultural left/right bullshit is a distraction.
If people stop the bullshit it's not that hard to effectively oppose
solid_fuel
What "covid policy" do you think contributed to Google locking down their device? Can you point to some of these "covid policies" and explain how it relates to this?
isaacremuant
Authoritianism based on an emergenc that prevents civil rights such as freedom of assembly and movement. Censorship. Lockdown. Those set the tone. Media and corporations that need to censor what people say to combat disinformation.
Later we get the wet dream of surveillance with V passports. Social credit style. If you watched the ads companies were trying, you would've seen it. But of course you're going to call me a conspiracy theorists just like it happened back then.
Locking down your devices, putting age restrictions and therefore digital id and no privacy to access the internet, it's all pretty convenient.
But hey, Google is doing this all for your own good, or they aren't and the good EU will stop them because there's no way they'd like control.
bigyabai
Non-sequitur. Covid policies weren't used to damage my online security or manufacture my consent for digital change.
If you're going to use unrelated discussions to launder your conspiracy theory, at least provide evidence. Otherwise we get to dismiss you without trial which is faster but less fun.
isaacremuant
Yes. They were. V passports. Censorship of so called disinformation.
I don't give a flying fuck if you dismiss me. You already did in 2020, 2021 and so on and I'm still here, didn't you?
Now I get to see you move uncomfortably while still ready to lick the next boot.
Enjoy it.
cyanydeez
[flagged]
fruitworks
Not really. People got debanked all the time for political reasons in the last 10 years
quantummagic
Not in Canada. People lost access to their bank accounts for donating to the wrong political protest, ie. the trucker convoy. And worldwide, people are losing access to their Paypal banking option, if they transgress Paypal's opinion on good taste. Seems each western country is taking the forefront in one aspect of the destruction of political and social freedom; with the worst, so far, being the UK.
tavavex
Canada doesn't have a direct, systematic way of blocking these transactions in the same way how other western countries are building up their systems. Your example was only made possible after the invocation of the Emergencies Act, which was shortly repealed. Whether using the EA was justified is still hotly debated, but most Ottawans living there at the time would agree that it was. This wasn't just a "wrong political protest", like the government punished people for having the wrong political opinion. Right-wing and far-right protests happen all the time in a political place like Ottawa. The issue here was the scale and the intensity - it was less a defined protest event and more of an attempt to settle in Ottawa for an indeterminate amount of time, complete with harassing locals while demanding accommodation to not freeze in the winter nights. I wouldn't be surprised if those "peaceful protestors" gave a lot of the downtown residents hearing or lung damage. The restrictions that came into effect then seem more like the exception than the rule, the government isn't by default authorized to do whatever. Even in something that had so little support, the pushback against the government's response was considerable. So I wouldn't portray any of it as something systemic or easy to do, like what some other nations are building up in their push towards authoritarianism.
I agree that in general the world is moving towards more authoritarianism and control in all facets, but I think Canada is still solidly lagging behind their friends in the UK, US, Australia and some EU countries. We still have no internet censorship authority. There is still hope to push back internet regulation a bit, even though it's obvious it won't last forever. The bills to clamp down will just be reintroduced over and over again until one of them passes. Still, banking bans are unlikely to come anytime soon, unless the people decide to threaten a whole city and the national government by putting on another J6 reenactment.
fidotron
I think it's time for us to go back to having mobile phones (texting, virtual credit cards, tethered wifi hotspots etc). separate from mobile storage and compute (mp3 players, cameras etc.).
The modern mobile ecosystem is selling games consoles when the nerds want mobile Unix workstations.
Almondsetat
The ratio between nerds and "normal" consumers is pretty high, and being a nerd does not automatically mean you care about having a "mobile unix workstation" (what unix-worthy work can you actually do on a phone?), and even if you have one it doesn't mean you'll actually find a use for it. It's safe to say that the market is irrelevant, and, unlike things like woodworking, boutique manyfacturers can't really exist in this space
cosmic_cheese
I don’t really care to do any task traditionally associated with full fat computers directly on my phone, simply because the input methods are extremely poor for that kind of thing. If my phone could act like an ultrabook/netbook when hooked up to a screen and proper desktop input on the other hand (similar to DeX, iPadOS 26, and the forthcoming baseline Android desktop mode), that’s a more interesting proposition and probably one that a number of more typical users would find interesting too.
For example, university students whose main use for a computer is editing documents could comfortably get by with nothing but a nice-ish phone, a monitor, and a Bluetooth KB+mouse.
Almondsetat
Google is said to be in the process of unifying Android and ChromeOs (which can run Linux programs), so your wishes are not that irrealistic (especially since DeX has been around for a while now)
_shantaram
this thing was so far ahead of its time https://www.notebookcheck.net/Review-Asus-PadFone-Smartphone...
if it came out today with say 16gb of RAM and used the new Android VM feature I would buy it instantly
fsflover
> If my phone could act like an ultrabook/netbook when hooked up to a screen
You just described Librem 5.
yjftsjthsd-h
> what unix-worthy work can you actually do on a phone?
I do most of my light/routine server management via SSH from my phone, plus keeping a version control checkout of my documents that I do actually work on in vim (yes, the limited keyboard is annoying but it's fine for light work). At a previous job, the former extended quite far; I could get paged in the middle of the night, connect to the VPN, SSH into the server, triage, and frequently diagnose and even fix the problem without having to actually get out of bed.
Almondsetat
But in that case all that you need is a pocketable PC with linux that can sit on your nightstand, especially since doing work-related stuff on your personal smartphone seems dangerous
undefined
esseph
I've rebuilt Linux servers with my phone from multiple countries over. I've also reconfigured BGP speaking routers with it.
cft
I have also fixed live bugs in vim from my Android phones, starting from 2014.
Controlled BGP enabled switches too.
Fixed database replication issues.
davidw
> unix-worthy work can you actually do on a phone
They're more powerful than plenty of computers from not too long ago
gloxkiqcza
Apple is rumored to release a MacBook with an iPhone 16 Pro SOC this year.
undefined
skybrian
If you interpret “this space” a little more broadly, there are boutique manufacturers catering to hackers that sell tiny, cheap, wearable computers. Check out all the stuff Adafruit sells.
dotancohen
Find a dumb phone that:
1. Presents a mobile hotspot, and
2. Supports CardDAV so I can actually sync my contacts
3. Records calls
cosmic_cheese
It’s so strange that out of the box CalDAV and CardDAV support is rare for mobile devices. iPhones are the best somehow, with Android being heavily Google-focused and support is totally absent on non-smart platforms, which is the perfect opposite of what one might expect! It’d make way more sense if the more open platforms were built around open standards, but somehow here we are.
xethos
It's "rare" in that Apple, BlackBerry / RIM, and (seemingly, though I never used it) Windows Mobile all supported it.
It was only ever Google that didn't
The fact they now make up half the market is what makes it rare, not that other mobile OS' didn't make it available
omnimus
I am not 100% sure but my partner has the nokia “bannana” phone and i think it supports both. It for sure supports 4g hotspot and caldav but i think even carddav.
Kinda sad that it's KaiOS the FirefoxOS fork. One can only wonder what would have happened if Mozilla kept with the project till now. There is huge wave of people wanting less absorbing devices nowdays.
numpad0
There was a multiple years of gap between rollout of voice call specification on LTE(VoLTE) and launches of first featurephone operating system supporting it. Android and iOS were only implementation available for a while. For this reason, practically all "featurephone" style phones that supports voice call, except very few, runs AOSP. At the point where your product runs AOSP, you might as well launch it as a low end smartphone, which is what a lot of vendor do.
AJ007
I suspect the solution may be a compact tablet running a touch-friendly Linux distro, and the "phone" is just a mobile hotspot. If you want some fantastic camera built in, that's a separate problem.
I've been more neutral about this in the past, but the current and future integration of LLMs (and other ML models) into the base operating system will mean these mobile phones do less of what the user wants and more of what the user does not want.
Secondly, Apple is in the process of becoming an adtech company and will not provide an alternative to Google.
Thirdly, Google may be forced to divest Android and the mobile business. If so, the buyer is likely to be as bad, or worse, because they'll have to figure out how to pay for the whole thing.
ajdude
For a couple years I used the TCL Flip as a phone and mobile hotspot for my iPod touch. I'm pretty sure KaiOS supports CardDAV.
baq
> Presents a mobile hotspot
I guess you can get a mobile hotspot and a dumb phone separately. Looks like 5G Wifi 6 APs are available for ~$100.
drnick1
The dipshits at Apple and Google don't provide what should be a built in feature (recording calls) and make it difficult to add it through third party software. At this point, iOS and Android are actively working against the user.
throwaway106382
dotancohen
No CardDAV sync. How do you get contacts on and off the device?
bapak
The nerds are the minority. If you want hackable machines vote with your wallet and/or with your politicians.
zahlman
> time for us to go back
I never left. Well, my flip phones have had cameras in them, but. On the other hand, "virtual credit card"? What?? And what good is proper "mobile storage and compute" if I don't at least have a laptop-sized screen and a proper physical input device?
butz
It's finally time for Palm Pilot to shine again.
superkuh
Especially since the mobile phone part legally can never be owned or controlled by the human person. Only corporations can own and use the baseband computer/modem because only they have bought the spectrum license rights and built out the infrastructure to justify it to the FCC. Similar situations exist in other countries.
This legal reality is showing itself more and more in the practicalities of actual using "smartphones". The only real solution is what op said, make the modem completely separate from the computing device.
TheRealPomax
Or, and hear me out this is going to sound crazy: we finally stop pretending that we're using phones. When was the last time anyone actually used their "mobile phone" for actual real phone calls to a phone number that wasn't "phone support because the company involved is so ancient or dark patterned that they only offer phone support"? Or voluntarily initiated sending a text message, rather than using email or messenger software?
So how about we just stop making "mobile phones" and just sell what they are: pocket computers. And that name immediately tells legislators what's appropriate hardware control, namely: none. If you buy a pocket computer, you can now do with that computer whatever you want, and the company that makes the hardware has no say over that, and the company that makes the OS has no legal basis for locking you out of anything. And if those are the same company, then the EU can finally go "how about no, you get to break up or you will never sell anything in our market again".
saulpw
> When was the last time anyone actually used their "mobile phone" for actual real phone calls
I called my mom yesterday (to her landline), and then I sent a text message to my friend from a parking lot to let them know I'd be there soon.
queenkjuul
99% of my communications are SMS/MMS and while i do avoid phone calls my friend called me yesterday, and i called a business to ask about their holiday hours this weekend.
And it's all LTE, your pocket computer needs a network whether you use SMS or some IP messenger. Therefore carriers get involved, and they make horrifying demands of users and manufacturers.
But yeah, i don't want a phone, i want a pocket computer with VoLTE
tananaev
I'm kind of surprised by this. Google is already under a lot of heat, especially in Europe. All sorts of lawsuits everywhere because of they monopoly abuse. And they decide to pull this move?
112233
OTOH, it gives more options to implement Cyber Resilience Act requirements, especially once the boundaries get mapped out in real life
frollogaston
New EU laws are kinda requiring Google to do this
progval
Which ones?
wkat4242
Chatcontrol in particular. If you control your phone it's going to be trivial to bypass it.
jjani
Eagerly awaiting Apple doing the same on Macs then. Let alone any Linux distribution.
frollogaston
PCs aren't phones, but those might get there too some day
oldpersonintx2
[dead]
supportengineer
[flagged]
vvpan
Yes and no. Yes billionaires are not people to be trusted but also they are a structural problem, a CEO that does not squeeze last the last penny out of users for shareholder value is just not doing their job. Billionaires are a-holes because the corporate incentive system rewards people like them. We need new structures.
jjani
> , a CEO that does not squeeze last the last penny out of users for shareholder value is just not doing their job
This has not always been the case. And still isn't in plenty of locales and companies. The S&P 500 of 2025 doesn't define immutable universal laws.
bobajeff
Some things to advocate for to counter the direction we've been going in.
1. Termination of WIPO Copyright Treaty (prerequisite for #2)
2. Repeal of DMCA. (primarily because of Section 1201)
3. Enact and enforce, Right to ownership, Right to repair laws.
4. Enforce antitrust laws. / Break up monopolies.
octoberfranklin
> 4. Enforce antitrust laws. / Break up monopolies.
I've given up hope of politically-appointed prosecutors ever doing a thorough and effective job of this. Sure there are some high-profile cases (AT&T, Standard Oil, Microsoft (almost), Google (maybe), etc) but the vast majority go unprosecuted.
There are really only two ways to fix the antitrust disaster:
1. Private right of action (like RICO) for the Sherman Act -- let nonprofits and individuals file the charges. This takes the implicit pardon power away from politically-appointed prosecutors.
2. Graduated corporate income tax, which creates a natural diseconomy of scale. The income tax code already contains a decades-old mechanism (search for "common control" in the IRC) to prevent evasion using shell-company shenanighans. It's very well tested, it works, and it has been working since the 1980s -- mainly to prevent US persons from evading the extra requirements for owning controlling interests in foreign corporations.
ohashi
I believe there is a private right of action on anti trust.
If you're really interested in it, I suggest subscriber to https://www.thebignewsletter.com/
Bolwin
Lina Khan was doing pretty good
shkkmo
You got my vote! Too bad there isn't any way to actually vote for this (and that is by design.)
codedokode
Maybe it's time for the legal requirement that every computing device or microchip more powerful than 1 MIPS and having writable storage, must support reprogramming, to prevent creating digital waste.
JimDabell
This doesn’t make sense. The most locked down mainstream option on the market – the iPhone – is also the one with the longest market life, with iPhones holding their market value far longer than alternatives. So there seems to be a negative correlation between being locked down and e-waste.
I know you have “let’s reprogram old phones” in mind, but approximately nobody does this even when it’s an option. If you don’t like phones being locked down, then argue that on its own merits; e-waste is not a good argument.
notrealyme123
7 years lifetime is nothing. All iPhones have to rotate in that timeframe. That's incredible amounts of waste.
Every shitty iPhone could still be a MP3 player, home control or something else. But no, its Garbage because your only way to install is by going online and hoping that your critical apps are still in a useful version in the app store.
Fire-Dragon-DoL
One of my desktop pcs is like 15 years old. It faced a ram upgrade and 2 gpus died over time, the processor still holds. The windows 11 upgrade killed it though, but I'll move it to linux and that should be ok.
queenkjuul
My home NAS/web server is using all its original core components from 2012.
dvdkon
I'd say that's a spurious correlation, if it exists at all. Just look at all the Android phone makers who don't allow bootloader unlocks and those who do. Personally I'd say Google Pixel or Sony Xperia phones last longer than Huawei ones, though I wouldn't dare say reprogrammability has anything to do with it.
Besides, when the options on the market range from "impossible" to "damn hard to reprogram", can you blame the market for not taking advantage of that? I'm certain a law that would allow waste recycling companies to unlock any phone, even without password or receipt, would lead to phones or phone motherboards being reused in a variety of lower-volume products.
codedokode
I wanted to add a correction, I think that the user should be able to give up this right if it helps prevent theft for example. Today, if forums can be trusted, many Android phones protected with Google Account (FRP - Factory Reset Protection) can be unlocked in different ways, sometimes as easy as opening a keyboard (or invoking a voice input), going to settings and disabling the protection, or deleting a partition with FRP data. And for other phones there are no publicly available information, but there is software that you can rent. So (if the information on the forums is true) it seems that Google's anti-theft protection was made just for a bullet point in marketing materials and not for really preventing theft.
fsflover
> The most locked down mainstream option on the market – the iPhone – is also the one with the longest market life
Compare that to GNU/Linux phones (Librem 5 and Pinephone), which will be supported forever, since they run mainline Linux.
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anonandwhistle
Do you have lobbying power to pass that? Because $trillions are on opposite side so make sure you can pay for it. Reality.
bapak
This probably falls into the "right to repair" and "green" initiatives, so I think it's going to happen in this decade.
rekrsiv
Both of those have trillions of dollars more in counter-initiatives, and that was before the global democratic backsliding started snowballing. I don't think it's going to happen this century.
fsflover
Yes, if you support https://eff.org
numpad0
You have to shock European politicians with credible model of threats showing that not implementing such a regulation could very well lead to their daughters getting home address shared open to the world and harassed 24/7, e.g. so much widely known that it would be trending in Central Asian language while completely walled off from their eyes in languages used around their residence. Not that I endorse that kind of things or that I think faking one will do, of course.
But that kinds of threats must be theoretically established and acknowledged - which I think is ultimately inevitable but could be delayed or hastened by human actions. The point is, you could be seen as throwing pointless tantrum about your toys until it happens.
gruez
>to prevent creating digital waste.
Approximately nobody is going to be reprogramming their 8 year old iPhones to "prevent creating digital waste", especially when the CPU is unbearably slow and the batteries are well worn out. Say reprogramming is important for user freedom or whatever, but claiming it's going to make a meaningful difference in reducing e-waste is always going to be a spurious justification.
dvdkon
IoT sensors, thermostats, dashcams, home intercoms, mobile data modems, smart TV dongles... I could name a dozen more products that could have an old phone as their heart, if they were cheap, unlocked, and easier to develop for.
An iPhone doesn't have to be an iPhone forever, and end-users don't have to be the ones doing the conversion. All we need is a law that would stop phones from going to a landfill and instead actually get them recycled as general computing devices.
The market can figure out the rest. If manufacturers today are willing to deal with antique toolchains and expensive programmer gear to save a few cents on microcontrollers, imagine what they could do with cheap boards running Android or iOS.
gruez
>IoT sensors
The average person has no need for "IoT sensors", whatever that means.
>thermostats
Seems unlikely given that most HVAC systems in north america operates off 24V wires, so you'd to add some sort of electrical relay switch on top for it to work. That alone is going to kill most of the savings. Moreover is your heating system really something you want to DIY? Sure, it's all fun and games to spend an entire weekend setting up your own home surveillance system from repurposed phones, because if it fails nothing really bad happens. A thermostat is something that you don't want randomly failing because your phone decided to randomly bootloop or turn into a spicy pillow.
>home intercoms
Most people would just use their phones
>mobile data modems
What's wrong with tethering off your phone? Why bring an extra device?
>smart TV dongles
Assuming your phone even supports 4K output in non-mirroring mode (you really want to watch TV shows in 1080 x 2400 that your phone's screen runs at?), this seems like a suboptimal solution given that you'll need a usb-c hub for it to work, and will be missing niceties like supporting a TV remote. All of this hassle, just to save $30 for a fire TV, or $100 for a SBC.
slug
All my personal and family computers are more than 10 year old, running latest Ubuntu. They have probably slower CPUs than that 8 year old iphone, but can run the latest web and email clients just fine. These are almost all salvaged from e-waste. I have a drawer full of old phones that could make very useful computer nodes, but instead of that I have to get (buy) some semi open raspberry pis since those phones are locked down.
gruez
>I have a drawer full of old phones that could make very useful computer nodes, but instead of that I have to get (buy) some semi open raspberry pis since those phones are locked down.
The average person doesn't have any need for "computer nodes". Just because some homelabbers want to create a k8s cluster off their 10 year old phones, doesn't mean any significant proportion of phones are going to be salvaged in that manner.
Almondsetat
>They have probably slower CPUs than that 8 year old iphone
They certainly DON'T. I don't know where this estimate is coming from, but it's inarguably wrong
rpastuszak
My 8 yo iPhone is perfectly usable, the battery wasn’t expensive or difficult to replace.
gruez
I'm not claiming that they're literally unusable, only that they're unusable by most people's standards. Case in point, when was the last time you've seen a touchid iPhone? The last such device was introduced as recently as 2022 (or 2017 if you only count "mainstream" models). The 2022 model is still in support, and 2017 models were still getting security updates as of 5 months ago, yet virtually nobody uses them. If so many people ditched their iPhones while they're in support, what gains could there possibly be to allow people to flash third party ROMs? I'm sure there's some diehard enthusiasts that'd keep it alive, but as I argued above, it's not going to make a meaningful difference.
drnick1
My iPhone Xs is about 7 years old now, and I haven't replaced the battery yet. I won't buy Apple or Google again though, it's GrapheneOS or bust next.
torstenvl
Cool. So if the device is ostensibly so old and unusable now, what possible commercial rationale could exist for preventing its use for other ends?
gruez
If you read my comment carefully, you'd see I'm not objecting to regulations that devices must support programming, only to the argument that such regulations will meaningfully reduce e-waste.
xandrius
Approximately nobody is not nobody.
And saying this in a forum literally named after the act of hacking and repurposing devices is quite bold.
I have old devices still laying around in the hope one day I could reuse them for something, anything useful, I simply can't get myself to throw away something which seemed magical a few years ago.
everdrive
Those 8 year old phones were plenty fast when they were new. Why did operating system, apps, and websites need to get more bloated? Do they even do anything they didn't (or couldn't) do 8 years ago?
codedokode
I also meant microcontrollers. I am sure someone would remove chips from old devices and resell if they were reprogrammable. Also you could use them for your hobby for free.
gruez
Why would anyone go through all that hassle when you can get a ESP8266 from aliexpress for less than $2? The skilled labor cost alone needed to desolder the chips is going to wipe out any savings, not to mention the hassle of fabbing custom PCBs to work with your hodgepodge collection of microcontrollers.
BenjiWiebe
The chips in phones would be horrible to work with - they're too small. Plus, the SoC is much more complicated to deal with than a microcontroller intended to be stand-alone.
wpm
How about 8 year old Macs with Apple Silicon, which are rapidly going to become a thing in just 3 short years, and are the same thing as an iPhone architecturally
What happens when Apple stops putting new macOS versions out for the M1, which by all accounts is as far better computer than my old Sandy Bridge Thinkpad, but will become completely useless far earlier?
mathiaspoint
Also not publishing source for drivers should be illegal. There isn't a single legitimate reason not to do that.
codedokode
They may say that if they publish the code, other countries will copy it for free.
wizzwizz4
Let them! Drivers are virtually useless without the associated hardware, and if you're making the hardware, you know how to write a driver for it.
93po
security through obscurity maybe?
pharrington
This doesn't stop with handheld computers. If Google will be able to get away with it on phones (which is FAR from guaranteed atm), they will do it on Chromebooks. Microsoft will do it on Windows. Apple will do it on Macs. Then the hardware manufacturers will only allow "trusted" developers via TPM.
Full ownership of all our computers must be norm again. It's fine if tech companies want to charge extra to sell walled gardens and market it as extra security. But they must sell computers and software that the buyer actually owns.
p1mrx
The community could work around this problem by creating an open source general purpose app runtime for Android.
A user would install the runtime, signed by a developer who shared their government ID with Google, and then use the runtime to launch whatever app they want. It's probably infeasible to launch an APK from another APK, so the runtime could be based on WASIX+WebView or something.
We could call it "General Computation". Google could start a cat and mouse game of banning developers who sign the app, but at least this "war on general computation" would be obvious and ironic.
kleiba
This would be removed from the app store faster than you can say Jack Robinson.
p1mrx
It doesn't need to be on the Play store, as long as they allow sideloading apps from known developers.
It would be challenging for Google to argue that the app should be banned entirely, as it's basically a web browser with extra APIs, like TCP/UDP sockets.
hleszek
They would ban the developer, or its key or whatever and ask him to register again and not do this again. They won't allow any workaround like this to exist because then the whole system has no purpose, they need to have control.
drnick1
Developers shouldn't have to share personal information with Google or anyone. The real solution here is unlocked bootloaders and free/libre operating systems. Anything less and you don't truly own your phone. You can only use it to the extent allowed by Google/Apple.
spwa4
I think the real question here, aside from how to displace Android and IOS, is: how do the developers get paid for the upgrades, new features, security analysis and fixes, developing new boards and coming up with bsp (board support packages, essentially a "distribution" for hardware manufacturers that works on whatever new boards they relase) and infrastructure of such an OS.
Let's just assume this is about the amount of effort Mozilla puts in. So they'd need to collect ~500 million per year.
Where does that money come from? Presumably the answer can't be Google.
aeblyve
The smartphone is not a mere commodity but a part of an entire social system of production between banks, telcos, software houses. Alternatives seemingly must come from outside the system... possibly Huawei from China and their HarmonyOS, which happily enough is banned in the US.
Or any sufficiently hard-boiled alternative from the inside. IMO things like custom ROMs lack sufficient vertical organization and that is why they're not so relevant (but at that point, you're basically constructing something much like a corporation once again, if not an entire society stemming out of it).
like_any_other
> Alternatives seemingly must come from outside the system... possibly Huawei from China
lol: HUAWEI will no longer allow bootloader unlocking (Update: Explanation from HUAWEI) - https://www.androidauthority.com/huawei-bootloader-unlocking...
(It was surprisingly hard to find any news articles covering this. Most media just don't care that one of the biggest manufacturers in the world won't let users control their own phones. So much for holding the powerful to account, or protecting liberties.)
aeblyve
I don't think phones were ever "user-controlled", each one is designed fundamentally to connect to corporate-run wireless networks. Thus they want a say in the types of communications you do, gating certain kinds like RCS behind attestation. To that end there will be never be an alternative without some channel control.
Not totally unlike the way Bell used to strictly regulate their own user endpoints in the 20th century.
Within that stage, I could be wrong, but I would expect a somewhat freer software ecosystem there, as it is an economy oriented around manufacturing, and it is useful to write many various applications around that end.
like_any_other
> I don't think phones were ever "user-controlled", each one is designed fundamentally to connect to corporate-run wireless networks.
And PCs connect to corporate-run wired networks. What you're saying is at best an argument for locking the only radio chip itself, at worst it's propaganda to justify stripping ownership rights from consumers - "The item you think you own can affect some corporate property, therefore the corporation will seize control of it."
Hell the ISPs, phone and wired, can already drop you as a customer, blocking your communications, if they detect you interfering with their network. So any arguments that they must also control your devices are simply lies, transparently so even if they were coming from someone with 1000-times the goodwill and honest record of ISPs.
Edit as reply because I'm "posting too fast, please slow down":
> your handset plays the role also of one of these unfree modems
No, only the cellular chip does. And non-free/locked firmware is nothing new, even in PC-land.
> but any alternative must rival what makes the telco system, for the most part, actually work.
But it worked (and still works) just fine with rootable phones on the network. So rootable phones are not in any way an "alternative" - they are the (dwindling) status quo.
scarface_74
Why are people using banks only accessible via apps?
homebrewer
In my case, it is because there aren't any left that don't do this. Two banks still provide web interfaces that work through normal browsers, but only for their business clients.
This trend started in China, spread to countries like mine, and (as recent history shows) the relatively free democracies have been more than happy to copy some pretty nasty ideas from autocracies like ours — we went through your current news cycle 10-15 years ago, so I wouldn't be surprised if removing the last few vestiges of having control over your computing also came to you in another five to ten years.
scarface_74
What country?
aeblyve
I'm not aware of a bank that is /only/ accessible with an App (maybe that is your point?), but obviously wanting to obtain the best financial offers, interest rates, etc., trumps software freedom for most people.
Part of the story is that it only takes a /single/ major scandal RE sideloading to seriously injure a bank's reputation, even if the vast majority of sideloading use cases are legitimate.
JustExAWS
What banks only offer the best interest rates an offers through apps?
I’m very much a credit card point churner and I have an HYSA. The same rates and offers are on the websites and the apps.
And how would a bank know if you’re using a website on a rooted phone?
People are complaining about the app stores when they are choosing banks which are app only - which I would never do - you should be complaining about your bank.
jackwilsdon
Monzo in the UK is basically app-only. They have an "emergency" web interface but it only allows read-only access (apart from un-freezing your card) and can only be used if you've used the app in the past 90 days.
pengaru
What I want is a law requiring support for facilitating owners of programmable computers be able to install their own programs independently. If it's not gate-keeped, there's nothing to do. But if you choose to gatekeep because "security", you've signed up for some work to comply with the law.
If there's something like a Play Store with OS-level integration preventing unsigned applications from installing and running, FINE, that's an arguably useful security feature for regular users who have no interest in writing their own apps or consuming software outside the Play Store.
This doesn't preclude allowing the user (with admin rights) adding signing keys of their choosing.
If I want to trust Lennart Poettering's or Jonathan Blow's binaries to install/run on my computer/phone, let me install their public keys, a one-time addition gated by admin rights.
If you're not enabling me to potentially put bits of my choosing on my computer, its software better be in ROMs getting physically swapped out for "updates".
latchkey
He says one thing that isn't true. He blames Apple for standardizing the concept of not being able to install applications on your "computer" (phone).
This was the case long before Apple, and started at the carrier telco's. Apple was the one who wrestled the control of the app store from the telco's, who were even worse!
Myself and a buddy built cool fun a bartender app (recipes for alcohol drinks) for the Danger Hiptop. It was rejected by the telco (t-mobile) because they were afraid of lawsuits due to the 21+ nature of the app. We never really got a formal rejection notice, they just stopped responding to us. It was also one of those things where you had to build the app first, submit it (to Danger, who then presented it to the telco), take the risk on everything yourself, and then get silently rejected. What a mess.
mathiaspoint
The problem was the belief we all had that smartphones would mean phones become computers the way we think of them.
In effect fewer people use computers now than used to. They're all online but not empowered the way we had hoped. It's all vice with none of the good parts.
joshlemer
I'm a little bit unclear about this, will Google's changes here also affect other android distributions like LineageOS, OxygenOS, etc? If not, then I could see that Google locking down their Android Distributions like this could breath a lot of life into some alternative distribution(s). If yes, then perhaps forks of Android or even competitors to android altogether.
mayama
Google has delayed releasing pixel 10 sources and unlocking bootloader for new phones is becoming increasingly rare. They may lock it down too going forward.
nilsherzig
I don’t think so, but it’s getting harder to flash custom ROMs (locked bootloaders) and there are even legislations in planning which would make it illegal (at least in the eu).
It’s already cumbersome to run your banking app (and other „required“ apps) on a custom ROM with all the attestation going on. I assume these distributions will bleed users and see a reduction in new ones due to higher entry barriers.
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Yeah, if Google kills ReVanced, I may as well get an iPhone. What's the difference at this point. You can't even unlock the bootloader on most of the quality Android phones.
However, the crusade against the word and concept of "sideloading" is really weird. Yeah, installing from the repo is normal, and all the windows-land "download an .exe/.msi to invoke an installer" ways that then may or may not update the app are unusual and apart from an ordered process of system management.
The proper alternative to Google Play is F-Droid, not downloading/baking .apks.