Android is in a strange place at the moment; it’s stronger than ever, but feels further away from what launched almost 20 years ago.

    • skuzz@discuss.tchncs.de
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      7 days ago

      Each year is a planned step towards further death of the platform. Just found out the other day with a potentially malfunctioning app on Android, that one can no longer see /data/data/ even from ADB. One used to be able to browse that directory structure in a file manager, but then it was only via ADB, and now not at all, apparently. That is just one of many aspects of the OS taken away from the owner of the device. (Not “user”.)

      Android might be worse than iOS, in that they sold it as open, and then slowly took that away, the death by 1000 cuts approach. So more people feel comfortable using it, not realizing their freedoms are being removed with each new iteration. Apple at least said, “no it’s closed, so you have a choice whether you are ok with that or not” right up front.

      Of course, as choices dwindle down to two American Corpo OSes, we all still lose in the end.

  • shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip
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    8 days ago

    I feel like it is, and I’m actually now actively working on sourcing a secondary device to put postmarketOS Linux on and begin using Linux on mobile. I am currently unaffected by Google’s shenanigans because I use LineageOS with no Google Play services at all, but I fear they could bake that into AOSP directly in the future. And then Android would be a totally dead platform. Therefore, it’s actively time that I start looking at the alternative and trying to use it to see where it stands and where I might be able to help smooth out some rough edges. One thing is for certain, I will not stand for an Android, where I cannot install the applications I want to install on my own device, and I will not be going to iOS ever. Fuck that. I would get rid of my phone entirely before going with either of those options, and thankfully, it doesn’t look as though that will be necessary, because Linux on mobile, while rough around the edges, does exist.

      • shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip
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        8 days ago

        What environment do you use? I’m thinking GNOME mobile would be my best option because it has some accessibility settings. I can’t use a device without magnification at a minimum and both magnification and a screen reader are preferred when possible.

        • punkibas@lemmy.zip
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          8 days ago

          I’m using phosh, which I believe has some gnome components.

          I can see there’s a quick setting for adjusting screen scaling and options for large text. There’s also an option for a screen reader in the accessibility options but it doesn’t seem to do anything now that I’m trying it, maybe I have to download some TTS program to make it work.

    • olbaidiablo @lemmy.ca
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      8 days ago

      My problem is that I can’t find a single Linux capable phone with a decent sized battery (10000mAh+). Hopefully when Google does this, the Chinese manufacturers pivot to Linux phones in anticipation of the coming market for them.

    • artyom@piefed.social
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      8 days ago

      If Google proceeds with killing app installs I will be giving Linux mobile a go as well.