I’ve posted this as a reply on ‘My wish list for /e/’ but i think it probably won’t
be read, I think /e/ has a lack of unique and useful features, while using /e/, it feels just like a generic Lineage fork, like those that come with a substratum theme or something like that, it’s just all about the ecloud services, we need something more like ‘Paranoid Android’, they made a ROM, that is just different and useful in its own way, not an UI clone of iOS and Google services. I love what /e/'s doing, but I would like to see it make real progress, as a community and a ROM, maybe /e/ could go more in the way harmony did, after all, there’s OpenHarmony OS, so it shouldn’t be that hard to port all the forks /e/ uses, I’m not saying they should fork it, I propose that we should make /e/ different in more ways, not just deGoogling it, the general public doesn’t care about these things, they just want to scroll through Instagram & FB. Here’s a list of the best ROMs I’ve ever seen, for inspiration purposes;
Paranoid Android
Havoc OS
crDroid
DOT OS
AOSiP(My current daily driver)
Project sakura
I forgot this God’s work, Android Ice Cold Project
Let me know what you guys think
(Sorry @Manoj, I know I’m not using the correct tags, I just can’t see them on my screen, thanks for your amazing job with the community)
For me that “deGoogling” is the main point of /e/OS, along with the ‘out-of-the-box’ integration with /e/'s cloud services. I am not at all interested in changing the UI, or in other ‘unique and useful features’, especially since you don’t actually define any such features
While I agree with petefoth that de-googling is the (or at least one) major factor, some BLlSS improvements would be really, really helpful and necessary…there are some threads only about that ;- )
I don’t think there’s necessarily a need to reinvent the wheel (in fact as I’ve previously specified, I prefer Trebuchet to Bliss, and I’m going to miss it next week when I’m in a position to flash /e/ on my OP currently running Lineage). I agree with @petefoth, get Google out of my pocket to the largest extent possible. Everything else is nice, but ultimately unnecessary (and potentially damaging, if we want widespread adoption of /e/, people have to feel like there isn’t major hoop jumping required).
I had a look at some features of the others. Really cool. Would love things like the charging control.
However, murena is progressing nicely. After all it is FLOSS. They wellcome contributions/patches.
I know the dev team is doing a lot of hard work, but these would be good improvements in the future I think, having the possibility to customize your phone, better battery life, a custom kernel that lets you edit your use mode(Gaming, normal, battery saver), and software features that would make your hardware last long. I am not saying we should “Reinvent the wheel”, just to make /e/ a better experience, that isn’t just a copy of iOS’ UI and Google services, 'cause the general public doesn’t care about privacy, for example, having a gaming mode would be great to attract more people, or, having customization options, people would start to make THEIR phones to really be unique and look as they want, and having some of the optimizations of the others ROM, would make /e/ the perfect candidate, because it would be, perfect for gaming/teens, the most battery efficient, smooth and with a great customizable UI, there are some ROMs that are exactly that, why can’t we ? What’s stopping us from being great ?
Totally agree with @petefoth .
Concentrate on the degoogling. That is what’s needed in the market, and that’s what people find and try /e/OS for.
Ideally additionally empower users to get to know a bit more about their devices and about using Android and about security and privacy implications instead of just having a frightening black box of tech in their hands, and we’re good.
Settings - Battery - Battery saver and performance - Performance profile: Power save/ Efficiency/ Balanced/ Quick/ Performance
That’s what a myriad of different launchers are for. At least for the home screen and App list.
/e/OS is already great in what it set out to do. Of course there’s always room for improvement, but somehow you just sound bored with it for superficial reasons. A pity, but not everybody feels that way.
I’m not ‘bored’ with it, I just had enough problems with it. Screen issues on the Moto G7 Play, I wan’t able to use the main feauture of the OS(Ecloud), and my sdcard wasn’t working because it was f2fs, and I didn’t installed E on ext2, because it isn’t compatible ._? So ? What am I supposed to do, I like this project a lot, but it’s not ready yet
Fair enough, I guess nobody really can be against fixing bugs and at least having a look at missing filesystem support. Like I said, there’s always room for improvement.
That’s not what your opening and second post were about, however, you’re moving the goal posts now .
File issues at the GitLab, if not done already, and hope for them getting fixed. If you know for certain those issues don’t exist in the stock OS or other custom ROMs on the respective device /e/OS developers might be thankful for a hint.
Well, while I hear you, for me the whole main point of this e os is the degoogling. This is why I am using it. I don’t care about customising my phone. In fact I detest having too many options to customise because I just waste my time trying them all out; and for what in the end. I agree that Bliss could stand some improvement though especially the notification bar on the top left which is annoying
to say the least. But I learned to ignore it. I don’t use the e cloud at all. I just want a degoogled phone that just works - and stable; this one for the time being this is fitting the bill just fine. There will always be room for UX improvements but I prefer to leave this to the devs to figure out.
thanks for stating the obvious. i agree with you 100%. the point of e is to gain users from Apple & Google eco system. I have been stuck in the apple world since late 1990s. I was frustrated by the locked in system and censorship and surveillance state that Apple, google have become. I have purchased a different de googled phone, but the choice of phones were very limited. here there are over 200 options for phones. this is what the public will go to when they wake up and leave the apple/goggle censorship companies. I installed the e system on a oneplus and will try again on another oneplus phone next week. Convenience features that others possibly want are the reason we got in this situation with the tech giants controlling so much now. keep it simple, make it work , fix the bugs. you can change wallpapers , notifications and other simple things to make phones more personal. Gaming on your phone, FB, IG, etc are available to anyone who wants to get back into the corrupt tech and are not the driving factor in having a useful tool to make calls, send texts, check email, do work on a browser. e phones work well for this , this is exactly the type of phone I was looking for to escape the Apple world .
Simply replacing the launcher can enable a different experience in terms of look and feel. I found the stock /e/ “Bliss” launcher does not really provide a user interface flow I like - but just installing and configuring an apk solved all of that quickly for me. I went with the “Ruthless” launcher which works nicely for providing gesture based navigation and a category searchable “app drawer” - and checks out as not having any trackers, and is ad and gsf free (important to do as many popular launcher apps, such as “Nova” actually have trackers embedded in them, which would totally undermine the whole /e/ privacy measures.)
on the “Ruthless” launcher - the bottom search bar just does local searches for installed apps. I’ve set up DuckDuckGo to be my internet search engine on my /e/ device (Redmi Note 9 Pro) - using Brave instead of the default Browser.
As a power user only when I need to be, the main features of a mobile OS is reliability and compatibility and I have found /e/ is superb in these areas. My main wish is a better camera app, ability to text photos and videos in high resolution, and easier self-hosting of ecloud (or tighter integration with nextcloud). Perhaps also include activesync in the default mail app and fix the SIM card internal memory restriction. Overall the devs are doing a great job in a highly complex and dynamic environment and have my deep respect.
Good topic ! In my opinion, personalization is very important. It’s good to have an IOS kind of theme, but other themes would be welcome. Maybe /e/ work in partnership with some of those launcher apps to include it in /e/.
Look at what Vilvaldi Browser is doing. They are all about personalization for their browser and I believe they are gaining presence on the market, not only tech enthousiasts.
What is there to include?
The launchers are out there. You don’t like Bliss, then you install the launcher you like more from the App Store or other source of your choice … done.
What’s the big deal? If /e/OS would start to somehow include a selection of launchers there would be no end of users saying “Why is this launcher included? Why not this other one here?”
/e/OS can’t include them all. And it’s an Android OS. Android allows you to pick your own favourite launcher, to easily install it and to use it. End of the problem.
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