Any comments?
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I think my next phone will be an iphone, it will sucks, I will hate it but at least I will be able to connect to my bank or my gov services without having a phone constantly reporting my activity to google. and I will be able to install apps without having tenthousands sync enabled.
I meanā¦ at one point if I canāt get a phone that respect any kind of privacy or whatever at least I should take something that has 8 years of support and will work most of the time for what I want to do with my phoneā¦
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I think my next phone will be an iphone
Iāll preface this very directly by stating that I fully support your decision to do what you believe is the best solution for you. If you do go down this road, I do sincerely hope you will be happy with your iPhone. iMessage is great, Apple Maps is honestly better than Google Maps at this point, and the overall support for the platform is excellent. There are great reasons to choose to use an iPhone; I donāt fault anyone for owning one.
ā¦that being said, I would like to humbly and respectfully bring a bit of scrutiny to your perspectiveā¦
at least I will be able to connect to my bank or my gov services without having a phone constantly reporting my activity to google
If those services use Firebase or Analytics or GCCā¦a measurable amount of data is still going to Google. Apple talks a bit privacy game - and I believe their claims on the topic a whole lot more than Samsung - but neither of us can go to Gitlab and see the iOS source code, so their claims amount to ātrust me broā.
and I will be able to install apps without having tenthousands sync enabled.
Forgive me if I misunderstood this statement, but there is plenty of data which syncs to iCloudā¦and even if you opt out of iCloud entirely, many apps are still client/server, so many of the mobile apps we download are still beholden to data synchronization models, irrespective of platform.
at one point if I canāt get a phone that respect any kind of privacy or whatever
Well, ārespecting privacyā is a spectrum; some would argue that other AOSP distributions do a better job at respecting privacy than /e/OS, but thatās a separate thread. The concern from the original post is that AOSP is moving to semi-annual releases, rather than quarterlyā¦and I have to pose the question: are Android software updates that much of a must-have that the semi-annual release cycle is such a letdown?
Android 16ās headlining features, according to Wikipedia, areā¦
- Embedded photo picker
- Health records
- Privacy sandbox
- Material 3 Expressive
- Battery icons are changed to landscape, with the percentage shown inside the icon
- Desktop mode if connected to monitor/TV, keyboard and mouse
And Android 15ās wereā¦
- Reintroduction of lock screen widgets on tablets, which were introduced in Android 4.2 and removed in Android 5.0.
- Google Advanced Factory Reset Protection
So yes, while Iām a biased curmudgeon who canāt find a feature worth worrying about on the whole Wikipedia list since Android 11ās one-time permissions option (and even then, I still prefer the Xprivacy model to Android permissions, because it was much better at lying to apps rather than telling them 'the user said ānoā), the cadence of āfeatures worth clamoring to ownā has slowed down significantly since the early days when even point-releases were massive improvements.
Again, I may well be āthe forum curmudgeonā, but I would submit that the three-month additional wait for new AOSP releases is unlikely to be that big of a showstopper in practice at this stage in the game. Google has spent much of their development time on the closed-source elements of Android - the Gemini integration, the Dialer integration, Gmail, and so onā¦the base level OS is pretty well cemented, so I think Googleās continued focus on their ecosystem will amount to fewer improvements to the actual OS on both the AOSP side, and in the Pixel ROMs.
All of this sidesteps the security updates question completely - because the article does so as well. There is nothing really said about whether there will be a slowed cadence for security updates, so it seems plausible that those monthly releases will be unchanged.
Again, I support you making the best decision for your needs, and if that means getting an iPhone, I hope youāll still hang out with us privacy folk =). I simply hope that a bit of deeper consideration is performed before going through the process of switching.
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I totally agree with you. Mmmā¦ what is a biased curmudgeon?
Hey, you should not take my take on an issue so seriously. But if you want to argue hereās what ibthink is going to happen.
Goggle will slowly and surely going to close down the OS and any kind of freedom on it. They have rollback for now on sideload but they almost certainly will end up with something equivalent.
I fear that many government will impose some sort of online ID or whatever, and EU and USA gives me no hope about respect of anyoneās freedom.
No solution is perfect everything is a compromise, an iPhone with adguard may be a bad experience but one I may end up trying because I canāt stand having to search every time I want to use my phone for the simplest things like roaming parameters or identify what is draining the battery because the OS is maintains by a band of lovely nerds that donāt have half the necessary work force necessary to achieve their goals.
Iāve been trying in the past 5 years to fight against google and the world, Iām loosing the fight , and an iPhone with adguards seems like a better option than any alternative that will half work sometime when the moon is full.
Hi,
At best, why not switch to GrapheneOS? Because Googleās restrictions on AOSP mainly apply to smartphones other than Pixel.
At worst, why not stay with Android and AdGuard, but switch to a Fairphone? That way, youāre still choosing a GAFAM for your OS, but at least you have an ethical smartphone that doesnāt exploit children in mines in Congo or other African countries, or Uyghurs in China, and is also environmentally friendly.
I had a fairphone 4 with Android e that died after 18 months, I could do most of what I wanted to but had to fight random stuff from wrong APN, insane lag when receiving phone calls making me having to call back.
I now have a fairphone 5 with e, APN are fucked up to a point it took me a week to have my APN fixed and itās fixed in the sense that it worked but sometime it do not work and I loose network.
Some apps that used to work now refuses to work properly because of android integrity, which wonāt be fixed in other android distro either.
My phone is also a profesional one and I need some app that definitely are not privacy friendly and requires google play services but my ADHD is not capable of managing 2 phones, I tried in the past and I canāt. So Iām stuck with one phone.
I love fairphone, but so far my experience with Android E is OK at best and absolutely horrifying and nerve wracking in critical moments.
So I one point if I want to just have a phone that works and do not requires an account to be synced to the whole OS ( you can only connect an apple account in the appstore not the whole cloud stuff) at the moment I know only Apple that does it.
I certainly donāt like apple way of doing stuff I almost threw my mac book out a windows at one point in my life and got rid of it, I sincerely hate it, but I have other battle to fight in my life than fighting my phone. Iāve used some friends iPhone, it aināt perfect at all but it seems to mostly works which is just what I want at that point.
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I understand yes and itās normal, but why not testing GrapheneOS ?
So I one point if I want to just have a phone that works and do not requires an account to be synced to the whole OS ( you can only connect an apple account in the appstore not the whole cloud stuff) at the moment I know only Apple that does it.
I dont understand that, sorry.
Again i understand, the Appleās ecosystem is very solid and works almost perfectly. Coming from Apple with iPhone, Mac, iPad, AirPods or Apple TV, i know what iām talking about. Sometimes, iām like you, leave /e/OS and my FP6, leave Linux on my computer and go back to Apple, but I have no reason not to do it, so Iām staying 
Donāt be sorry.
sometime you canāt understand people and itās OK.
If youāre fine fighting your phone for every app you actually need because itās a requirement of your job, or just a requirement of life if you donāt want to go through 10 steps or administrative procedure when you can simplifies it to 2 then power to you.
Iām done fighting, I just need a phone I can rely that people will understand me when I call them me being walking in the street, cooking or just sitting at my desk and a phone I can install an app on for 10 minutes to do something make sure it works and just remove it after without having to check Iām doing something wrong look on the internet for 30 minutes to see if someone else is having the same issue, getting mad because search engine has become insanely less efficient with the rise of SEO and AI, to discover a 2 years post of someone having the same issue and did not find a solution.
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Hi voyager529,
thanks for replying with your AOSP-frequency related comments: also to me they seem really reasonable and agreeable.
Regards
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what is a biased curmudgeon?
Good morning Colors!
a ābiasā is when someone has a belief that changes how they see something, preventing them from being neutral. For example, someone who had a bad experience owning a car from a particular car company might choose to avoid them when buying the next car.
A ācurmudgeonā is an old, cranky person, stuck in their ways, unwilling to change.
Calling myself a biased curmudgeon was a way of me making fun of myself, and making it known that my case had some preconceptions and that I wasnāt being completely neutral. The context was discussing how Androidās feature set hasnāt really had anything good since version 11 - really, Iād be happy running 4.4.4 if I could.
So, I wanted to make clear that my statement about not seeing the importance of getting new Android versions quickly, was coming from someone who hasnāt been impressed with feature sets for quite some time. Iām sure someone out there will have a very different view of the feature sets included, and not every new feature or fix is on the Wikipedia list. My goal was to acknowledge that others will not share my perspective on this, so they may arrive at a different conclusion - and thatās perfectly fine =).
Hope it helps!
Good day, Kiwy_e!
Hey, you should not take my take on an issue so seriously. But if you want to argue hereās what ibthink is going to happen.
Iām not looking to argue, promise - we agree on plenty here; the importance of privacy is something we can most certainly agree on. This is a discussion forum, so my goal is just to discuss 
. Like I said, Iāll happily defend your choice to anyone else who gives you a hard time for making the choice thatās best for you, but the reason I thought a discussion was worth pursuing was so that you can make the best decision possible that most closely achieves your goals. Doing so publicly helps others in this community do the same, especially if they share your concerns. The intent is a friendly discussion about complex topics, promise
Goggle will slowly and surely going to close down the OS and any kind of freedom on it.
Iāve found the future of AOSP to be a bit hazy. On the one hand, itās certainly clear that Google isnāt terribly interested in catering to the techie community that helped establish Android as a viable option when iOS, Blackberry, and Windows Mobile were the big platforms. Design choices have increased hostility toward the modding community, rather than simplifying the paths for the modding community, so Iād completely agree that the XDA community is probably seen more as a thorn in Googleās side, rather than a group of enthusiasts to whom they look to assist.
At the same time, I donāt think AOSP is really focused on the modding community anymore. AOSP is the basis for lots of things, like Toast point-of-sale systems, set-top cable boxes from Comcast and AT&T, a number of automotive infotainment units from Volvo and other car companies, plus all the different Google TV models. If Google makes AOSP closed-source and starts requiring licensing fees, thatās going to be a foundational shift in how many industries work, and thereās no telling how that would pan out. Samsung, TCL, Motorola, or anyone else could just start with the existing AOSP, and fork it for their own ecosystemā¦and if that version becomes popular enough, whatever Google might gain in licensing fees, they might lose if the OS makes its way to phones and tablets, where Google would lose Play Store revenue.
That being said, I think there remains room for concern as time progresses. Irrespective of who runs AOSP, if enough functionality gets shifted to Play Services to the point where MicroG canāt meaningfully implement a compatibility layer (note to self: donate to microG), thatās certainly a source of concern that would get problematic over time. Similarly, the amount of time that /e/ has to put into getting Revolut to work, specifically, is also proof that there are at least some apps that are going to maintain an adversarial stance to an open source, privacy-centric platform.
As a counterbalance, however, we can look at Huawei, who lost their Google Blessing in a very quick way, and then rebuilt HarmonyOS in a way that was easy-enough for Android apps to support without a major overhaul. Now, there areā¦other factors involved there (not getting political, but Iām sure that they had way more resources working on it than the /e/ Foundation, as well as a much larger user base), but thereās at least some possibility that the EU could regulate a workable OpenAndroid fork into existence, that is required to support functionality that Google Android leaves in the Play Services.
Obviously, lots of conjecture here, and we agree that Google isnāt making AOSP or downstream ROMs a top priority, but the future isnāt entirely bleak if the willpower is there.
I fear that many government will impose some sort of online ID or whatever, and EU and USA gives me no hope about respect of anyoneās freedom.
Agreed, unfortunately. Iād submit two things, though:
- the ID system is more likely to be enforced by the apps, rather than the OS, and
- the system, if implemented, is likely to be more stringently enforced on iOS than Android.
I say this because, Iād at least like to think that most of the F-Droid apps are safe from thisā¦a photo ID for a chess game with no ads or data collection? Facial recognition for a calendar app or on-device period tracker? Iām not sure that FOSS or PWA apps would be subject to these things, and thereās at least some possibility that the open source, local-data apps exempt from the ID system would gain some popularity as a result. This is possible with Androidās support of third party app stores and FOSS licensed apps, but not on iOS, as it has neither.
I canāt stand having to search every time I want to use my phone for the simplest things like roaming parameters or identify what is draining the battery because the OS is maintains by a band of lovely nerds that donāt have half the necessary work force necessary to achieve their goals
Oh, trust meā¦I agree that privacy is turning into a full-time job, and may God richly bless every one of those lovely nerds whoās hobby is thanklessly maintaining some obscure-but-critical function. Itās sad that privacy-enabling software is a second-class citizen at best, and that it is dependent on a tiny number skilled, principled developers to make it happen. Itās my hope that things continue to improve and stabilize, but I would agree with your overall assessment, that āphones that just work consistently and reliablyā and āphones that run software that respects privacyā are two entirely different classes of product, and will likely always be so. Both of my parents are on iPhones expressly because of this; they too are privacy-centric, but I know that I donāt have the time or the fortitude to provide them with tech support on an /e/OS phone, and the absence of FaceTime and blue-bubble text messages is going to be a source of contention for themā¦so because Iām the only one whoās willing to make the concessions, Iām the only one with the shred of privacy and control that /e/OS providesā¦so I definitely understand where youāre coming from.
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Thanks for the answer. Although I have never met the word before, it was quite clear from the context. Anyway, you could make a career with your calm and richly explanatory style.
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