Remember how hard Amazon had it to attempt an Android fork?
I was due to OEM SOC access being locked out due to those contracts....
Any open source mobile OS attempting to complete with AOSP needs access to mobile OEM soc providers not touched by AOSP contracts and currently that is somewhat hard.
Let's focus on making it possible to use really open Linux systems on smartphones.
Regarding some concrete examples - Google can deeply integrate Gemini, but a competitor can't do this and users get no final say here either. Competitors are restricted by the permission system, Google is not restricted at all.
While rooting can alleviate this to some extent, Play Integrity is there to make sure the user regrets that decision to break free..
Do you ever feel like the same food item doesn't taste the same it did 10 years ago? Maybe it's your memory being faulty or maybe the company got new management which decided to cut costs while keeping prices, extract the differential value from customer inertia and move on when the product stops being profitable.
Android is the same. Certain freedoms were a part of the offering - a part of the brand name. They no longer are. Not only should lose their trademark[0], they should be legally forced to change the name.
[0]: The purpose of which is to identify genuine product from counterfeits - in this case, the counterfeit just happens to be by the same company which released the original product.
A bit ironic to not believe Google is doing this. The same questions have same answers when asked about when Google is locking down side loading. A bit self-serving to pick and choose which things you want to believe are happening.
Nothing lasts for ever. The sooner you make the switch, the better off you will be.
You must find truth. Lies will find you.
This view NEEDS to be central to the tech freedom rhetoric, else the whole movement is literally just begging politicians and hoping corporations do the right thing... useless.
(these are honest questions and not "gotcha")
Well that would be true under a capitalist government.
> Why would state control lead to less policing?
Its not just "the state runs it", its "we actively become the state".
Collective ownership through peoples councils, peoples courts with a world view that keeps it all open: socialism.
The world view of not allowing individual ownership over collective goods, the world view of socialism, is the life line of the movement. The actual practice of daily democracy, of running production and of deciding social functions is everyones responsibility and it should not be left to what has become a professional class of liars.
Public office members, which should only exist where absolutely necessary, should be locals and serve as messengers with 0 decision making power. All power should be in the local councils. We can mathematically implement this today (0 knowledge proofs).
Every single book on socialism is on theory and practices of acheiving this. Thats what the "dictatorship of the proletariat is", the dictatorship of working people, collectively.
> What incentive structure would lead to innovation without a profit motive, when even the modern communist world relies on capital markets?
We've been innovating for hundreds of thousands of years before capitalism. You dont need to generate money to innovate, the innovation itself is the driver, AKA a better life. No need to lock and limit production behind the attaining of profits of those who lead it.
A lot of people are allergic to this rhetoric and will just assume I have a deep irrational bias, but I was actually a staunch free market supporter before.
Once I decided to be more intellectually honest with myself and read more about what both sides meant historically and currently, it really just made sense.
I take honest conversation where I can get it, even when I don't agree. And to be clear I don't agree with most of your points and think it's idealistic and couldn't work in the real world. But I appreciate the spirit of what you're arguing for (in my interpretation) power with the people vs power with corporations and government and I think that's a very fundamental principle that is very important common ground.
edit: clarity
If we force it upon them by begging politicians, corporations still have the incentive to find a way to remove it or circumvent it.
Youre playing the cat and mouse game because you've been taught that solving it is too extreme (thats not a coincidence).
We dont need to endlessly fight a whole class of people, capitalists, for them not to use the things we require against us. Only socialism can solve that.
I own a Pixel and while the hardware seems decent, I've had a buggy and annoying experience with Android, and it's been getting worse lately.
Are Google so high on their own supply that they think people use their phones out of preference for the OS? Because frankly it's not very good. That's like Microsoft thinking people use Teams because of its merits.
People buy Android phones because they can be had cheaper than an equivalent iPhone and because in spite of the buggy and inconsistent mess of an OS, you aren't beholden to Apple's regimented UX. Locking down Android will not give it a "premium experience"... It'll always just be "Temu iOS" at best.
GrapheneOS is great!
Come on, that's absolutely laughable.
There are several topics where Android is significantly ahead to the point that iOS is just a toy, and there are areas where the reverse is true.
And I say that as a recent convert, so it's not like I have a decade out of date view of any of the OSs. In my experience I had more visual bugs in case of iOS than android (volume slider not displaying correctly in certain cases when the content was rotated as a very annoying example).
It's not, though. Google phones are not going to suddenly become luxury devices.
It's going to remain at the same level of polish (i.e. mediocre), except now without the major selling point of being able to run your own apps and have alternative app stores, etc. Back around Ice Cream Sandwich or thereabouts they got rid of "phone calls only mode" and forced us to rely on their half-baked "priority mode" that's an opaque shitshow.
When my wife is on call she gets random whatsapp notifications dinging all night, whereas when I had an iphone I could set Focus mode and achieve proper "phone calls only".
Android is not good. I use it despite its flaws, because of the trade-offs, not because it's better.
Pixel Fold disagrees.
> When my wife is on call she gets random whatsapp notifications dinging all night, whereas when I had an iphone I could set Focus mode and achieve proper "phone calls only".
You can do that with do not disturb.
> Android is not good. I use it despite its flaws, because of the trade-offs, not because it's better.
That is your opinion. My opinion is different.
Android is good, but Googled Android is not. You should check out GrapheneOS to see what Android done properly looks like.
I do think they should offer more pre-configured notification modes by default, if only to show people what they can do with the feature. Perhaps "phone calls only" should be one of those.
And yes, I can also click one button and go into phone calls only mode. I can even set it on a schedule or based on my calendar. I don't know where you're getting your half-baked Android, mine Just Works.
You might not agree with every one of those points, but you can't seriously think everyone thinks like you. Go outside your bubble some time.
Where do you live? I've literally never seen anyone using a Fold or Flip device, ever. My kids are at the age where some of their peers are starting to get phones. All those kids have iPhones.
And I don't quite see your point about your kids' friends using iPhones. I sure as hell wouldn't give a kid a "luxury" phone. I'd take the cheapest thing that does the job and lasts a long time. An iPhone has a very long software support window so the cheaper models actually end up cost-competitive with budget Androids.
As for folds and flips, I've mostly seen people in suits using them, along with a few techy power users and some kids with rich parents. That's a luxury phone in my book.
Honestly having gone back and forth between iOS and Android every three years or so, both OS are the same. It's not like the grass is really greener on the Apple side. The UX is virtually identical for anything that matters. Personally I put material Android above liquid glass iOS. The alleged polish of the Apple UX was lost on me when I had my last iphone.
The reason Google's moves are surprising has more to do with them embracing being a service player more and more with the arrival of Gemini and them having regulators breathing down their necks everywhere.
I guess they did it after the truly baffling US decision in the Epic trial but it's very likely to go against them in the EU.