this post was submitted on 29 Jun 2023
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Google has quietly deprecated the Messages and Dialer apps in AOSP, and it could have ramifications for upstart brands and custom ROM fans.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 1 year ago (3 children)

At this point it's just a countdown until Google winds down AOSP altogether and takes its whole mobile OS proprietary.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

oh god, please no, mobile Linux is not yet ready 😩
and i say that as a hardcore NixOS-User

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah, I've been watching the mobile Linux space with interest but it's definitely not in a place yet where I would consider using it as anything more than a novelty. The PinePhone is a neat little piece of hardware but no way it can replace my LineageOS phone right now.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I was vaguely wondering how hard it would be to use a GNU/Linux laptop as a phone. If you always carry a laptop, that's more-reasonable than it might seem, and that opens things up hardware-wise a lot. There are at least three obstacles:

  • The touch-oriented app infrastructure is stronger on smartphone OSes.

  • Laptops aren't as good at idling power-wise as phones. You want to be able to listen for calls without consuming a lot of power.

  • Apparently, while you can get 5G modems for laptops, getting one for a computer that can do voice service is not an option today. You can do VoIP or something, but I suspect that you're looking at a latency hit then.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can they at least handle texting? A lot of services require SMS-based 2FA (insecure as it is) these days, so a phone that can't receive texts is a complete non-starter.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I don't know that off-the-top-of-my-head, but I would guess that with normal voice service the modem may well also handle texts, as at least historically, I believe the SMSes went over space in some sort of command channel separate from the per-active-phone timeslice reserved for voice.

However, you could hypothetically get SMS service and relay that to a your laptop-phone over IP from some service that provides VoIP service. With SMSes, unlike with voice, the latency shouldn't really matter.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Looks like the ecosystem still needs another year or two, but it's going forward steadily.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How hard is it to transform the steam deck into a phone? I mean the Software is still missing, but with enough Power you can emulate apps.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Well, for starters, it doesn't have a 5G modem, which is probably kind of going to be a basic want for a phone.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I am sure they are watching RedHat playbook closely.

These clowns need to be broken up. Enough is enough.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

They are absolutely watching redhat.

I expect an announcement within the next year.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

It seems to me that that might seriously deter third-party Android distributors—AFAIK most do not ship stock Google apps for all the basic utilities, they only ship the auxiliary ones like Gmail or Docs.