back
322 comments
The challenge isn't buying it, the challenge is being able to do phone things with it.

Nowadays, you can no longer exist in society without a phone. Most things will work but it takes one critical service that doesn't have a viable workaround, and you're forced to buy (and possibly carry) a "mainstream" phone just for that.

Banking, government, authentication, postal service and public transit apps are just some of the common categories that will, in the end, force you to use one of those systems, unless governments mandate viable alternatives. The QR-code based recaptcha that's being introduced will be another brick in the wall.

As an individual, it feels like my options are to either submit or try to live a hermit's life, bringing endless suffering and exclusion to myself.

> Nowadays, you can no longer exist in society without a phone.

Fight this, fight it hard. It is not acceptable to have to pay a monthly fee to a giant corporation to participate in unrelated things.

I do have a cell phone (grudgingly) but I go way out of my way to never use it. I tell every business I only have a landline phone (which I do have). I will not use anything that supposedly requires a phone, give me an alternative or you're not getting my business.

While I don't have the full ethical commitment of RMS, I can be very obstinate and will push this hard.

> Nowadays, you can no longer exist in society without a phone

Hyperbole doesn’t help. I’m a 44 year old former software engineer now with a modest social media following (100k per platform). I don’t have a phone.

I’ve never had a smart phone, last dumb phone gone in 2015.

I have to hassle my bank to let me use email instead of SMS for 2FA, and I hand jot notes for driving directions sometimes.

Otherwise, I’m immensely happy not to have one.

It's mind blowing that we've allowed the development of a de-factor personal ID device absolutely controlled by an oligopoly of two private corporations.

Do people realize that this means either of these companies, since they can remotely turn off your account or device, can deplatform you from society including from many government services?

It's an astounding amount of power we have simply ceded to these two companies.

> Nowadays, you can no longer exist in society without a phone.

Is it the phone or just the mobile operating system? I do most of my phone stuff on a tablet that I keep at home - where it's safer. I am currently using an Android phone (without an account) for GPS, phone calls (contacts), internet, games, email (alternatives to google), etc...

But for those critical and sensitive apps (banking, etc)... I consider those to be too dangerous to be walking around with.

So any phone will serve (I can wait to get home to check email for example).

There was a time back in covid days where you had to have an app on your phone to go through customs clearance in Canada.
> Nowadays, you can no longer exist in society without a phone

If my phone breaks, I will die? :)

Perhaps it's this spreading of this lie that it's impossible to live without a phone that is contributing to the problem

You can exist, but life will be as inconvenient as it was in the 1990s (though importantly, it didn't seem inconvenient at the time, it was just the way things were).
>you can no longer exist in society without a phone.

I do just fine without.

But certainly there are additional challenges. In my city, for example, there has been a massive shift towards phone-pay parking... which excludes my paying for it — still waiting for my citation (to challenge in court).

Carrying my pager with me is the only reason people will pretend-believe I'm actually phoneless. Many have never seen beeper technology, its one-way advancedness.

> Nowadays, you can no longer exist in society without a phone.

millions of people would like a word…

> Most things will work but it takes one critical service that doesn't have a viable workaround, and you're forced to buy (and possibly carry) a "mainstream" phone just for that.

Absolutely not, if there is “critical service” that requires an iPhone or Android you call an attorney.

> Banking, government, authentication, postal service and public transit apps are just some of the common categories that will, in the end, force you to use one of those systems, unless governments mandate viable alternatives.

There are now and there always will be alternatives

> As an individual, it feels like my options are to either submit or try to live a hermit's life, bringing endless suffering and exclusion to myself.

As an individual you can and should fight any system that forces you into buying a smartphone. Alternatives must exist even if they might be “incovenient” (e.g. have to do it browser vs. via some “App”)

It’s always been the case. In previous eras people were “forced” to use mastercard / visa, Windows, AT&T, Western Union, East India Company, Templar bnking, etc.

I am not remotely defending the situation, past or present, just saying it’s a recurring theme.

> Nowadays, you can no longer exist in society without a phone

Hyperbole much.

I’m a 44 year old software engin, I don’t have a phone. Have never had a smart phone, haven’t had a dumb phone since 2015.

Some things are annoying, for example, I have to keep pushing my bank to let me use email not SMS. Going somewhere new I’ll look online on my laptop and jot down a few directions on paper.

That’s about it.

I snowboard and hike and hunt and camp and fish, no coverage doing all those anyway, so much of my life when not in a house with a laptop I simply don’t need or want one.

I'd wager the majority of people on this site could afford $100-$200 for a separate phone that's solely used for apps that mandate Google/Apple services. As a bonus, using the "mainstream" phone with only those apps increases security, compared to having your banking apps on the same phone as other random apps.
"As an individual, it feels like my options are to either submit or try to live a hermit's life, bringing endless suffering and exclusion to myself."

Classic "all-or-nothing", "black and white" HN comment

No middle ground. Two extremes and nothing in between

In the real world, few people think this way

Not only that, but it's common today to have more than one computer

There is no shortage of HN comments that keep claiming "banking apps" as an argument against any alternatives to using a single phone running a corporate mobile OS _for everything they do with a computer_, not just banking. Feels like a meme

These people must do a lot of banking on the go in places where laptops, for instance, cannot travel. If so, one wonders why not just have a phone dedicated to mobile banking

How about a second phone for the things you list?
This article fails to mention GrapheneOS.

The article starts with Murena, Punkt, Volla which are all based on Android. If you do this, then imho you must mention GrapheneOS, the by far better option (updates, privacy, security, organisation).

Google Pixel with GrapheneOS is the best non-Google phone... ;-)

Sounds very much like HarmonyOS. I was just in a Huawei Store and I think from a UI/UX perspective, despite being quite new, it's incredibly slick and leaps ahead in great design and integration within the HarmonyOS ecosystem. Even saw it being used as Laptop OS and Mobile, the convergence is quite applaudable.

The kindest was that the store's staff advised against buying the device as it's quite painful to use it with Google's apk & blobs, because it drains more battery than when it's integrated with your system services directly. I told him, that maybe rare, but I'm actually happy to not use Google apps as much as possible and especially not within my operating system. Another point he made was that 5G'A is blocked by Google, about that I know nothing to be honest.

Some Android forks are indeed quite nice, but the issue has always been the updating model, upstream maintenance and compatibility. With Harmony OS a large cooperation with the consumers in focus and the one developing the entire hardware stack is behind the OS development and maintenance making it safer against supply-chain hacks and a deeper integration possible than any other OS.

I use a Librem5 Linux phone. With the default PureOS operating system.

Enjoy your freedom, break free from Google and Apple.

Have a full Linux computer in your pocket that you can also use for calling.

See also the discussion on this post: https://mastodon.social/@janvlug/116504044251287290

Jolla still exists:

https://jolla.com/

They develop Sailfish, a non-Google Linux-based mobile OS that can apparently run Android apps decently in a sandbox.

The majority of these phones are running a modified version of Android. I wouldn’t call that non-Google. There is a total lack of diversity in the phone market. I’ve been trying to find a minimal feature phone for my kids and looked at Nokia, but non-Android Nokia phones don’t support enough US cellular bands.
Many years later and I'm still bitter that the tech press laughed Windows Phone out of the room straight to its demise. Yes it had very little developer support but at some point things were looking up. It was just the butt of too many jokes from influential people.

A third ecosystem right now would have been amazing

Every such post brings tears to my Nokia history filled eyes...
At this point, I am thinking about connecting a stock Android phone to a server and access it via scrcpy from my laptop whenever I need to interact with some stupid app bs that could've just been a website.

At least this way I can keep the majority of bloat away from primary communications device.

Is anyone successfully running Android inside a container in Linux, for their daily apps?
What would a mobile OS look like if the browser became the operating system and apps were sandboxed WASM instead of native APKs?
I’m surprised that the Seeker is not even mentioned. I understand it’s Solana, it’s blockchain, whatever people think about it... to me it’s the only serious attempt at creating an app store that can compete with apple or google. What’s the point of independent hardware if the whole sw stack is them?
A key question: do any of these phones run an open-source baseband radio? Is that even allowed?
I really want to try one of these one day: https://devices.ubuntu-touch.io/promoted/

But I haven't dared yet because I kind of expect it will not be able to replace my current phone.

I moved to a Fairphone 6 with /e/OS a few weeks ago. I can do everything I need to, everything I want to, and with more control over my digital footprint and what data is being collected about me. I've completely moved off Google services.

The OS experience is pretty impressive for not being made by an evil megacorp. The hardware is fairly midrange, but midrange today is last year's top end, and unless you're some expert photographer or needing phone VR or whatever, it's a great, normal smartphone experience.

I'm donating to the open source devs who make my apps, and they respond when I ask for useful features instead of always enshittifying it. For the corpo apps, it pulls from Google Play.

I've been the owner of a murena (fairphone + /e/OS) for many years. I've never had the opportunity to check its repairability, that darn thing hasn't broken yet.
Hey, that's my article. Thanks for sharing it!

Here is some good practical info on the pros and cons of different de-Googled phone OSes:

https://blog.gridranger.dev/mobile-oses-featuring-fairphone-...

A less drastic option is get an Android phone and put Lineage Android on it. https://lineageos.org/

There's a bunch of officially supported phones but most Android phones will have unofficial support also.

I've only looked into one device en detail, the Jolla.

Okay, no touch typing, maps apps don't start or don't find your location, WhatsApp probably doesn't work and I guess I don't have to start with banking apps.

So which one has the biggest chance to be Android/iOS alternative?

Many many years ago, smarphone users had these choices:

Symbian, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, PalmOS... what else?

I looked at Punkt.

They keep saying "If you don’t pay for the product, you are the product". Okay, all fine and well.

But what will my phone still actually be able to do if / when I stop my subscription? Not a single clear answer besides "[…] gradual feature deactivation, and ultimately reverting to a device running AOSP".

Doesn’t really inspire confidence.

So what happens when Law Enforcement plugs into your non apple, non Google Phones and runs its forensic apps on it?
I'm writing this reply from an AuroraOS phone (a descendant of Sailfish OS).

Yes, it is quite hard to get a non-duopoly smartphone..

Given how many of these were running android, I'm surprised Mudita Kompakt wasn't listed.
It makes me sad that the F(x)tec Pro1 X never got a successor. It looks like a very cool phone.
< it was 18 cm long, 9 cm wide, and 2.8 cm thick, and weighed just over a third of a kilo. (For our readers in Liberia, Myanmar and elsewhere, that's 7 × 3½ × 1.1 inches, and ¾ lb.)

LMAO

HarmonyOS from Huawei is no longer based on Android, but it’s not an open OS.
Wonder how this works in a byod corp environment?
What I miss a lot is to be able to have a kind of "virtual" android running in a cloud instance. That could look legit to Google to not be restricted by integrity check and all. But there I could share access to my single instance to my multiple non Google non play store devices, eventually sharing access between multiple persons...

Like for example, every crappy things like banks nowadays requires their own shitty app. It might be a pain in the ass to share between phones or to reinstall if you lose or change your phone. And all these useless app consume really a lot of storage resulting in my phone's being always full.

That would be perfect to access it in a kind of remote access for use once in a while.

err, what? not a single mention of grapheneos in the entire article?
> But can I run my apps?

> Well, probably, yes.

Even with "probably" as a qualifier, this is disingenuous.

Not even Android has caught up to the highest tier of apps available on iOS.

I usually buy either Xiaomi or Oppo phones and I am pretty happy.