Google Keeps Making Smartphones Worse
Google’s Android, the world’s most widely used mobile operating system, started life as open-source software. In its quest for ever-greater profits, the tech giant has been gradually eroding Android’s open-source nature over the last decade.
Originally published on The Lever, but that one asks you to sign up.
https://jacobin.com/2025/07/google-android-smartphones-open-sourceOpen linkView original on lemmy.world229
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And thus highlights the hypocrisy of their "let's all be friends" messaging around getting Apple to adopt RCS; Google holds the keys to integrating RCS in messaging apps on Android. Last I heard they only granted access to Samsung.
I'd be willing to excuse a mobile OS for being partially or completely proprietary if it was good. But neither Android nor iOS are.
RCS is a really nice thing in principle, because SMS/MMS infrastructure is just awfully outdated from security standpoint.
Though, replacing SMS/MMS infrastructure which is internetless yet cross-carrier by making it a internet-first and tied to a single meta-carrier under the hood kind of defeats the purpose overall. There was an attempt to build an independent carrier-deployable implementation of RCS, yet it turned out to be bought off by Google :(
I’m shocked. Shocked! Well not that shocked.
Neither am I. It's just sad...
The last time I checked, a Linux smartphone was in the works, but still had quite a ways yet to go . . .
The year of the linux phone is almost upon us...
Sailfish works quite well. Especially if you are not heavily using privacy-hostile apps (it has Android emulation, so things like OSMand or public transport apps run well). Quite neat. I have been programming mine in Guile, and I also have a Sailfish PDA with a physical keyboard.
What you have to do is to think hard is what you really want from a phone or pocket computer .
Isn't that proprietary? So not really an alternative, even if it is so-called "Real Linux" for the Linux fanboys.
Some of the UI isn't open, otherwise it is Qt / Wayland / pyside with stsndard pkcon / rpm package manager and I program mine in Guile.
And the UI isn't the serious issue. The serious issue is propietary firmware which prevents you from really running Android / whatever on a vendor phone and also that a phone does not have one but around five different processors and only the "OS" one can be controlled by your own software. An Intel Pocket PC is far better in that regard, except that it won't work as a telephone.
How much is some? Can a usable, fully-free version be made without those non-free components? Given that the UI is the thing that mediates user interaction with the OS, I would suggest that a proprietary UI is in fact an issue.
I have been "using" a Pinephone for quite awhile now. However, since it runs Linux, it doesn't actually work. I have invested many hours and even basic shit like calling does not work 100% of the time, let alone more "complicated" things like a working email client. It just isn't worth it. I will stick with my Windows 10 Mobile phones for now.
We already have a Linux smartphone OS. It's called
AndroidAOSP (including GrapheneOS, LineageOS, etc)."PewdiePie, one of the world’s most popular YouTubers, recently published a video extolling the virtues of GrapheneOS"
Gross. Seriously though, Graphene is really good. Don't hold this against them.
...worse for users. Better for them...in the shirt term. That's the real issue. Short term Profit overrules everything in modern corporations.
Family-owned companies still think long term and stakeholders (vs. shareholders).
That is very very very often also not the case. There are probably many shitty private companies as public.
See: Cargill, Koch industries, Schwartz group, state farm and pretty much every insurance company in the US, deloitte, publix, subway, McKinsey, Vitol, etc...
I didn't talk about how good the companies were. Just their focus on short/long term objectives.
All the companies you mentioned are focused on long term goals (at least the ones I know). So you do confirm what I write 😃
They have been for a while now. It's just that now it kind of becomes obvious
There's a notification permission since Android 13 and you can always disable any apps notifications since I don't know when. If you download a ton of shitty social media applications and games and then click "allow" on every notification permission prompt don't be surprised then.
Change the default assistant settings. You can disable the assistant feature altogether.
Snapchat texted me a notification the other day
Haven't used Snapchat in years, wasn't installed and that setting wasn't even on when it was.
I read the headline as "[Google Keep]'s making smartphones worse", and wondered how a single note app could make them worse.
I'm on GrapheneOS on tablet/phone for time being, but I'm fine going back to a dumphone and a Linux or BSD tablet or convertible.
What messaging apps work well on GrapheneOS? I want to make the switch but I'm not sure what will work and what won't
Matrix (Element), Signal, Telegram. Other stuff probably requires Google services which I don't use on the tablet. Phone has Google services, but I don't really use it for messaging other than Signal.
Have you tried Briar, SimpleX or Session? Also do you get the same quality of mobile service on Graphene as you do on the default OS?
No use cases for this so far.
Mobile service quality is defined by the baseband, which is an immutable blob to the OS. I phone rarely and currently use my old LineageOS phone for it.
I've got a support case for my Pixel 7a open due to potential battery issue. If I return it I will buy a different, bigger (6.7") Pixel model. My new Pixel tablet is doing fine so far.
If in the future i'm ever forced to drop smart phones because of further proprietary/removal of open source option then i'm definitely going this route.
have a dumb phone and just rely on a good laptop.
On second thought.. maybe this is the way.
I use tablets to read things when lying down, so notebooks don't fit.
No wonder. A shame that people didn't want to support neither Firefox OS or other free Mobile OS...
Apple literally markets itself as synonymous with privacy. This marketing unfortunately fools many degooglers, because they are convinced Google is uniquely evil, and fail to recognize the problems are inherent in the proprietary software world (and, in the bigger picture, capitalism).
They never did make a good smartphone. Android has always been garbage on top of garbage.