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Posted by theanonymousone 15 hours ago

Android 17 is the first since 3.x to add new APIs without releasing to the AOSP(grapheneos.social)
837 points | 408 commentspage 3
linzhangrun 2 hours ago|
How surprising.
matheusmoreira 12 hours ago||
I wonder how low Google will sink next time.

Respect for the GrapheneOS for pushing through regardless, even if they have to reverse engineer stuff. Can't wait to buy their phone.

dingaling 4 hours ago||
> Can't wait to buy their phone.

Good phrasing. It's certainly not _your_ phone, you're just an untrusted user who is extended the privilege of using it.

zb3 12 hours ago||
> I wonder how low Google will sink next time.

Oh, the possibilities are endless and they're just getting started. Besides stopping releases of AOSP completely they could also mandate that any "certified" Android device should not allow bootloader unlocking (albeit OEMs will disallow that anyway)..

vkaku 14 hours ago||
Many developers will likely be developing at Android 16 APIs only. Will rely on Aptoide+AOSP exclusively. This is likely the timeline we'll see a decline in Play Store and Pixel usage.
DaSHacka 14 hours ago||
You vastly overestimate how many people care (developers included) outside of FOSS and HN circles.

Nothing will happen, as it never does.

tiagod 14 hours ago||
Pixel market share is and always has been absolutely tiny, and the people that care about this are a rounding error.
cton 2 hours ago||
Out of curiosity, do closed APIs mean OEMs can’t fuck them up or at least limit how much they can?
ironqcold 13 hours ago||
Google is increasingly locking down Android. I wouldn't be surprised if they killed off AOSP entirely in a few years...
VCFundedGenYer 14 hours ago||
Android has been so thoroughly disappointing through the years. Started as a great open free form alternative to iOS, to becoming the very thing it sought to combat.
fgonzag 13 hours ago||
I had never considered using lineageos and the like, but honestly the writing is on the wall. Google is going straight into a closed AI device.

I'm going to start donating to a few free android distros I guess, I'm probably going to be trying them sooner rather than later, and without AOSP support the dev burden is going to be much higher, and it probably means they'll end up diverging and incompatible at some point (not in both directions, lineage will probably always have to have Android app support)

josteink 14 hours ago||
If Android wants to be the inferior not-open-source mobile OS, why would I not just buy an iPhone instead then?

It’s closed too, sure, but at least it’s more consistent.

pimeys 14 hours ago|||
Android has free and open artificial pancreas that is still easy to install and keeps us with complex type 1 diabetes alive.

Google may just want to kill us and Apple don't even let this kind of software exist without massive hurdles...

subscribed 14 hours ago||||
Because it's much worse (for me).

However at this point, as a GrapheneOS user if I couldn't use it for any reason I'll go to iOS (even though I used it for a couple of years and I've been fed up).

mitxela 9 hours ago||||
Because it still allows installing apps with some hoops, and iOS doesn't allow it at all.
add-sub-mul-div 14 hours ago|||
Because (1) you'd be rewarding the entity that originated and normalized the loss of freedom that Google much later adopted, and (2) as Apple restricts more freedoms you'll still be able to enjoy them on Android for a few more years as Google remains (comparatively) more user friendly.
palata 13 hours ago||
Google managing to get worse every day.
claudiojulio 13 hours ago||
Forget Android. The future is Plasma Mobile.
mitxela 9 hours ago||
All FOSS consumer operating systems suck. We only tolerate them because they are FOSS.
d3Xt3r 1 hour ago||
I disagree. Linux (especially a top-notch distro like CachyOS or Aurora) is quantitatively and qualitatively superior to Windows in several aspects (performance, filesystem features, workload-specific kernel tuning, DE customisation etc). Several benchmarks out there that can show you the performance edge Linux has over Windows. Plus there are several features completely missing from Windows, like atomic updates, immutability, not to mention all the cool features found in filesystems like btrfs. Of course, Windows has some benefits too, but making a sweeping blank statement like "All FOSS consumer operating systems suck" is very egregious and insulting to the all volunteers around the world, who continue to work tirelessly to make FOSS better every single day.
MrDrMcCoy 10 hours ago|||
I desperately want to use it, but it runs on precisely no decent hardware as far as I can tell. My attempts to get it working on the fxtec and furiphones failed miserably.
d3Xt3r 12 hours ago||
Agreed. Linux is the future, fk Android. GrapheneOS should stop wasting their efforts on Android, when they could've contributed towards PostmarketOS or similar, or even made their own distro. Working on Android is a complete and utter waste of time and effort.
microtonal 4 hours ago||
Yes, let's abandon a very mature OS that is still open source, has millions of apps, and billions of users by one one that was designed for desktops, with a security posture fitting the 90s, virtually no phone apps unless you emulate said very mature OS, and which will have all the same problems with remote attestation, etc. </s>
d3Xt3r 43 minutes ago||
Yes, I'm sure the billions of people will read the advice of a random commentor on a niche site and throw away all their handsets running a "very mature OS" and cause a crisis. </s>
HumblyTossed 11 hours ago||
GrapheneOS scares them.
dingaling 4 hours ago|
There are about 3.9 billion Android phones currently in use globally. I don't think a niche fork with 0.00025 billion users will worry them.
fithisux 6 hours ago|
Google is a for profit company. It does what it needs to stay profitable. Are the actions of Google moral? No!

Governments are paid out to not intervene. They should have stepped in decades ago. They should have made Google to release source code and interoperate with public services. They already make profit from their services.

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