Google has quietly deprecated the Messages and Dialer apps in AOSP, and it could have ramifications for upstart brands and custom ROM fans.
At this point it’s just a countdown until Google winds down AOSP altogether and takes its whole mobile OS proprietary.
I am sure they are watching RedHat playbook closely.
These clowns need to be broken up. Enough is enough.
They are absolutely watching redhat.
I expect an announcement within the next year.
oh god, please no, mobile Linux is not yet ready 😩
and i say that as a hardcore NixOS-UserYeah, 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.
Looks like the ecosystem still needs another year or two, but it’s going forward steadily.
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:
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The touch-oriented app infrastructure is stronger on smartphone OSes.
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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.
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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.
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.
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.
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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.
Well, for starters, it doesn’t have a 5G modem, which is probably kind of going to be a basic want for a phone.
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.
Google doing what Google does best
OK Google, you win. I capitulate. Next phone is going to be Apple. If it’s locked down, low customization walled garden either way I’d rather something with trade in value and a bit of snob appeal.
Or just don’t buy a phone. The resources required to build a phone are literally destroying our planet. I wish I was exaggerating.
Wish I could, and I’m completely with you on both manufacturing and mining needed to enable our phone addictions. But I need it to function in modern society, much like my car or industrially farmed food. Being reachable and being able to reach out 24x7 is now an expectation. I don’t have the practiced skills to be useful as an agrarian, and not being into religion I’m pretty sure the Amish wouldn’t take me in.
Once the not-user-serviceable battery dies or hardware start to glitch at around 2 years of age a replacement is mandatory for me. Apple’s phones seem to be designed for a service life of 3-4 years rather than 1-2, so that may be a way to help.
Even the Amish have phones these days.
Isn’t this what forking is for?
Yes but it’s going to be hard to keep up with Google in a fork.
It doesnt have to. It just has to work…
The way they have been handling older apps, “just working” would already be better than what they offer.
Unfortunate, but somewhat of a formality. AOSP Messages and Dialer were essentially deprecated as it was already, and we have many projects ready to take their place.
Aren’t there alternative dialer and messaging apps out there? The existing dialer and messaging apps on AOSP are already old & massively out-of-line with the rest of the OS.
Yes, I use Simple Dialer and Messages from F-Droid.
Because Android users notoriously complain about their OS not being completely locked down with zero freedom whatsoever!
Embrace. Extend. Extinguish.
They have been doing it app by app for a decade. Nothing new to see here, wonder when they’ll deprecate Android altogether
I’m guessing it’s not a big deal to replace it with a third party text messaging open source app; I’m not sure about the Dialer, though.
It would be an interesting solution, to port a few mobile Linux apps to Android (some of them are already there) - I’m a bit worried about potential maintenance burden for platform support; but it could benefit KDE/GNOME apps by getting feedback from a bigger bunch of users.
I got sick of vendors being a year behind on updates which would prompt me to use a custom ROM. Decided to finally just get a pixel and live with the fact I will never be able to de-google myself unless I totally leave the eco-system
Messages is understandable since as far as I know Google is keeping tight control over RCS. It’s similar to why Signal abandoned SMS in my mind. Apple doesn’t allow 3rd party access to SMS and Google seems to be playing the same game with RCS (which requires doing the same to SMS). Supposedly this is meant to be temporary but with all the reliance on SMS for 2FA I dunno if Google may have decided it’s a security risk to allow 3rd party access. Dunno if dialer decisions cascade from there somehow.
Frankly I’m fine with it. SMS and RCS (and all carrier-controlled messaging) should be considered obsolete and privacy risks.
But…but… Isn’t AOSP open source? Did someone lie to me? Just restore the functions! Right? Am I right?
Or was Google just exploiting people believing that they were participating to an open source project?
This news serves as perhaps further evidence of AOSP’s reduced significance, as Google seeks to tie more and more previously open-source features behind its own proprietary frameworks and services.
Surprise motherfuckers! \o/
I think it’s more of a “started with good intentions” type deal.
They weren’t always an evil company. Then, as they became embroiled in corporate greed, they didn’t always make phone hardware, meaning the open source OS that Samsung and LG and the other brands were making were shipping with Google products built in.
Now that they have their own foot in the door for hardware, they have more corporate incentive to start reeling in the software from the free section.
I’ve been slowly migrating to postmarketos, android will only get worse.
My next phone is gonna be a Linux phone anyway.
