Reviewer Calls Linux-based PinePhone 'the Most Interesting Smartphone I've Tried in Years' (androidpolice.com) 91
A review at the Android Police site calls Pine64's new Linux-based PinePhone "the most interesting smartphone I've tried in years," with 17 different operating systems available (including Fedora, Ubuntu Touch, SailfishOS, openSUSE, and Arch Linux ARM):
There's a replaceable battery, which is compatible with batteries designed for older Samsung Galaxy J7 phones. It's good to know that even if PinePhone vanished overnight, you could still purchase new batteries for around $10-15...
There's a microSD card slot above the SIM tray, which supports cards up to 2TB in size. While it can be used as extra storage, just like the SD slots in Android phones and tablets, it can also function as a bootable drive. If you write an operating system image to the SD card and put it in the PinePhone, the phone will boot from the SD card. This means you can move between operating systems on the PinePhone by simply swapping microSD cards, which is amazing for trying out new Linux distributions without wiping data. How great would it be if Android phones could do that?
Finally, the inside of the PinePhone has six hardware killswitches that can be manipulated with a screwdriver. You can use them to turn off the modem, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth, microphone, rear camera, front camera, and headphone jack. No need to put a sticker over the selfie camera if you're worried about malicious software — just flip the switch and never worry about it again.... For a $150 phone produced in limited batches by a company with no previous experience in the smartphone industry, I'm impressed it's built as well as it is...
I look forward to seeing what the community around the PinePhone can accomplish.
A Pine64 blog post this weekend touts "a boat-load of cool and innovative things" being attempted by the PinePhone community, including users working on things like a fingerprint scanner or a thermal camera, plus a community that's 3D-printing their own custom PinePhone cases. And Pine64 has now identified three candidates for a future keyboard option (each of which can be configured as either a slide-out or clamshell keyboard): I feel like we have finally gotten into a good production rhythm; it was only last month we announced the postmarketOS Community Edition of the PinePhone, and this month I am here to tell you that the factory will deliver the phones to us at the end of this month... I don't know about you, but I think that this is a rather good production pace. At the time of writing, and based on current sale rates, the postmarketOS production-run will sell out in a matter of days...
While I have no further announcements at this time, what I will say is that we have no intention of slowing down the pace now until February 2021 (when Chinese New Year begins)...
There's a microSD card slot above the SIM tray, which supports cards up to 2TB in size. While it can be used as extra storage, just like the SD slots in Android phones and tablets, it can also function as a bootable drive. If you write an operating system image to the SD card and put it in the PinePhone, the phone will boot from the SD card. This means you can move between operating systems on the PinePhone by simply swapping microSD cards, which is amazing for trying out new Linux distributions without wiping data. How great would it be if Android phones could do that?
Finally, the inside of the PinePhone has six hardware killswitches that can be manipulated with a screwdriver. You can use them to turn off the modem, Wi-Fi/Bluetooth, microphone, rear camera, front camera, and headphone jack. No need to put a sticker over the selfie camera if you're worried about malicious software — just flip the switch and never worry about it again.... For a $150 phone produced in limited batches by a company with no previous experience in the smartphone industry, I'm impressed it's built as well as it is...
I look forward to seeing what the community around the PinePhone can accomplish.
A Pine64 blog post this weekend touts "a boat-load of cool and innovative things" being attempted by the PinePhone community, including users working on things like a fingerprint scanner or a thermal camera, plus a community that's 3D-printing their own custom PinePhone cases. And Pine64 has now identified three candidates for a future keyboard option (each of which can be configured as either a slide-out or clamshell keyboard): I feel like we have finally gotten into a good production rhythm; it was only last month we announced the postmarketOS Community Edition of the PinePhone, and this month I am here to tell you that the factory will deliver the phones to us at the end of this month... I don't know about you, but I think that this is a rather good production pace. At the time of writing, and based on current sale rates, the postmarketOS production-run will sell out in a matter of days...
While I have no further announcements at this time, what I will say is that we have no intention of slowing down the pace now until February 2021 (when Chinese New Year begins)...
Read the article(s) before you run out and buy one (Score:5, Informative)
From a linked article in April 2020:
"Functionality that is listed as ‘working’ in the PinePhone UBports Community Edition:
Voice calls
SMS texts
GPS
LTE
GPU hardware acceleration
Wi-Fi
Bluetooth"
"Functionality which is not currently working on the device includes: both the rear and front-facing cameras; battery/power efficiency (my phone lasts about 4 hours); USB host connectivity — but these are in varying states of progress."
Re:Read the article(s) before you run out and buy (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, 25 year old me would have probably bought one of these to never do anything with it. 52 year old me saves his $150.
Re: Read the article(s) before you run out and buy (Score:2)
Catch me up to speed here... is it called PinePhone as a nod to the old email client Pine and its editor Pico?? All I can find is the parent chipmaker is Pine64, but it seems too much of a coincidence.
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"Ever eat a PinePhone?"
-- Euell Gibbons
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RTFA... i know, but seriously...
Company that makes it
https://www.pine64.org/ [pine64.org]
Re:Read the article(s) before you run out and buy (Score:5, Interesting)
I own one.
As a phone it's admittedly less useful. The camera quality is fine for machine learning, but not for everyday photography. The current lack of Whatsapp/Signal support means I couldn't send those pictures to anyone if I wanted to.
However, I don't see it as a phone. I see it as a slick Raspberry Pi with built-in display, battery, camera and other sensors. If you'd buy all those parts separately, the price would be much higher (the screen alone would be $100).
I also see it as an investment into the Linux phone ecosystem. While this device is indeed underwhelming on specs, I have my eye on the generation after this, which will undoubtedle have better specs and quality. And by then, the software will also have an inportant feature: it will exist.
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However, I don't see it as a phone. I see it as a slick Raspberry Pi with built-in display, battery, camera and other sensors.
This is actually a good niche to try to fit into. But it does not look like they have attempted to differentiate the hardware much in order to fit into this niche. Overall, it just looks just like a normal cell phone.
A highly dockable connector with SPI, GPIO, I2C would really help differentiate the product. Perhaps the original iPod connector would work - just rework the pinout to be more developer friendly. This would give you 30 pins in a readily available connector. There are probably other opti
You can open it. (Score:5, Informative)
Except that it's a phone that you can actually open.
As in just remove the cover, no need to track special weirdly shaped screwdrivers on Aliexpress and/or fight against gobs of glue.
A highly dockable connector with SPI, GPIO, I2C would really help differentiate the product.
On the back, behind the cover, like several other hack friendly devices (Jolla's first phone, all of Fairphones, a few select motorolas, etc.), it has pogopins for I2C, interrupt and power, and there are already people playing with those (e.g.: adding a small cheap I2C thermal camera).
Like several other Pine64 products (PineBook, PineTab, etc.) it has hardware switches (in the form of dip switchs) that can shut off some functionnality (e.g.> to guarantee that the webcam, mic or radio is shut off) that will make some pricavy people happy (but at a tiny fraction of the cost of a Purism's Librem 5)
Like several other Pine64 product (also Pinebooks and PineTab), the dipswitchs also have a settings that convert the 3mm jack into a serial port instead of an audio port giving even more options.
the USB is also OtG (but in doesn't have dedicated pogopins unlike fairphones So hacking USB devices would require a cable, no way to have an USB enabled backcover, only an I2C one).
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Still it would be an ideal target for a Chinese buyout at this time and what a company like Huawei could do with it in one year would be interesting. At this time a Linux phone the consumer controls would probably take off if it was available in number with reasonable specs.
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That sounds like a feature, not an omission...
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Who asked for this device I wonder. This seems like some kind of failed prototype/counterfeit of something else that was previously on the market, from 2016.
Re:Read the article(s) before you run out and buy (Score:5, Insightful)
From the linked article:
However, Google has introduced more restrictions over the past few years in the name of privacy and security, making root and other deep modifications difficult or impossible. While I agree that most of the security changes in Android are needed (I really don't need the Facebook app digging through my local files), they do mean you are not in full control of your own device.
Who asks for devices like this are open-source developers who expect to actually own the piece of hardware they buy, thus allowing them or anyone to develop custom software that will run on it.
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Exactly.
So what?
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Slashdot used to be the "tiny niche" that had a curiosity for such things. Alas.
Re: Read the article(s) before you run out and buy (Score:1)
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Google has done nothing of the sort beyond their own Pixel line. The rootability of a device is 100% in the control of the device vendor.
Re: Read the article(s) before you run out and buy (Score:1)
Yes and no. You can root the device as before, but they have made the SafetyNet checks more strict so since recently you cannot pass them on rooted phones, even using advanced methods like Magisk. So if you want root and also using applications requiring passing SafetyNet checks, you are screwed.
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Those are two entirely different things, and surprise surprise long predate Google's efforts. Hell my Galaxy S3 had the knox system invalidated by rooting as well. 8 years ago.
Re: Read the article(s) before you run out and buy (Score:3, Insightful)
This is a device for tinkerers and privacy oriented people. And yes, some of us were asking for it.
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Yeah, for now it would be a 2nd device, or fringe (Score:5, Interesting)
I could see buying one as a second device, if I wasn't pouring my money into other things. Whatever I really wanted to do with it, I could make it happen. I'd keep an Android too.
As I recall there is at least I frequent Slashdotter who doesn't have a smartphone because of privacy, tracking, etc. They may be interested in this device.
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"Interesting" is an euphemism like 90% of the time. "That's an interesting approach, boss!"
Re: Read the article(s) before you run out and buy (Score:2)
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Yes!
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OK, I think this might actually justify easily replaceable batteries if you're going to be swapping them multiple times a day.
I hope it comes with a dock so you can charge the spare sets of batteries without needing the phone. Might be needing several docks - one for home, one for work so there's always a spare ready and you don't need to carry a charger or dock charger everywhere.
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One aspect here is they went with a battery from the cheap line of Samsung phones, they don't last long in the cheap Samsung phones either. My galaxy note with replaceable battery lasts about 4 to 6 times longer than the battery in my J3. Samsung brand replacement cost of the note battery? A couple of quid.
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I hope it comes with a dock so you can charge the spare sets of batteries without needing the phone.
The dock isn't included, but costs only a very reasonable [pine64.org] extra $5.
They sell extra batteries [pine64.org] for $10. The phone is also compatible with batteries for Samsung J7.
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LTE is working? Presumably not open source though. Wifi and Bluetooth firmware probably not open either. Or GPS.
So it sounds like all the proprietary hardware with binary blob drivers works but not much else.
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In the US, at least, it would be literally illegal to sell a product with a software-defined radio modem that lacked "robust" protection against unauthorized radio firmware to members of the general public who don't have a valid amateur radio license.
The RIL itself can be open source, but any setting that could induce the modem to "misbehave" has to be locked down. The catch is, many US carriers take advantage of this to lock out frequency bands they don't personally support and make their carrier-branded p
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Re: Read the article(s) before you run out and buy (Score:1)
Would buy a landscape slider version (Score:5, Insightful)
If they make one with a landscape slider keyboard, I'll buy one. But after being forced to make the effort to switch from handheld GNU/Linux to rooted Android, honestly I'm not interested in switching back. It's not meaningfully worse or better, just different, and the trouble of switching again keeps me where I am. In both cases you want a purpose-made mobile UI for everyday use, with a full desktop UI available in a chroot.
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As someone who still uses a Nokia N900 (best keyboard I have seen on any mobile device) a version of this with a keyboard that's anywhere near as good as the N900 would be good.
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You might want to have a look at F(x)tec's [fxtec.com] Pro1 phone, although it is more expensive and still only shipping in small quantities with unknown delivery times due to several mishaps including covid-19, after not even all the preorders from more than a year ago have been completely fulfilled yet. I'm still waiting for mine, too, but the order numbers of the devices shipped during the last few weeks at least justify some hope that I should be getting it within the next few weeks.
It is an Android 9 phone, Androi
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Already ordered one, almost got it last week, then had a "delivery exception" and it got sent back to Hong Kong, due to "shipper information issues." Some research suggests that it could be that FedEx damaged the package.
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Keyboard planed (Score:2)
If they make one with a landscape slider keyboard, I'll buy one.
The good news is that they are planning to make a keyboard backcover [pine64.org] (and a joypad too).
Under the back cover, it has I2C, interrupt and power pins, just like the Jolla 1 (which also saw a keyboard back cover: TOHKBD)
But after being forced to make the effort to switch from handheld GNU/Linux to rooted Android,
out of curiosity, what was your previous GNU/Linux portable device?
In my case it used to be webOS powered Palm Pre and HP Pre3, then switched to Sailfish OS powered Jolla (and followed when they ported to Sony Opendevices). I never actually used android as a daily driver.
In both cases you want a purpose-made mobile UI for everyday use, with a full desktop UI available in a chroot.
The USB port of the Pine
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My previous GNU/Linux device was a Nokia N900, I was actually considering a Pre but went with the N900 instead.
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This guy [youtube.com] made one out of a broken n950 [youtube.com].
It looks like it works pretty well on Maemo Leste, even with a chroot running LXDE.
Pine email client... (Score:2)
Oh too bad. I thought this was an update for the good old Pine email client from way back when the earth was still cooling.
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Reviewer should comment on PineTab too (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm happy to see the PinePhone getting a good review. This one looks pretty thorough - best text review I've seen so far but I've only read a few and heard a few YouTube enthusiasts talk about the phone.
I myself was more in the market to get the PineTab as I have a smartphone (iPhone 7 Plus which I hope to make last another year or two) but am getting tired of only a 5.5" screen for many things and would rather have 8 or 10" to work with. I'd probably have gotten one, but they decided not to even include GPS (mind boggling to me) on the PineTab.
Also, Android enthusiasts moving to PinePhone (or PineTab) should really have a good feel for how much their app ecosystem is going to change. One of my favorite apps is OsmAnd (hence the need for GPS) and it doesn't run on Linux nor am I aware of a program of its caliber that can be substituted. Now it is open-source so there is no reason it can't be ported if there were enough people who wanted it (there is an iOS version which I use though new features come out on Android first). But I imagine the typical Android user who is into FOSS may have a suite of apps they like including a bunch from F-Droid and find a big project ahead of them to replace all that in the straight Linux environment. Though for those that have the desire - I hope many do - it will certainly help improve the project. I look forward to getting a future version of the PineTab and or the PinePhone when it has matured further. (and I sure hope the next version of PineTab has GPS.)
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Dang, PineTab is out of stock... that'd be a perfect platform for reading PDFs. Hopefully they'll build some more or create a new version.
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Screen resolution's pretty low for that purpose. Probably the best cheap PDF reader is a used 3rd-gen iPad. There's nothing even close to it in price that has as high-resolution a screen (10" 2048x1536). I added a WebDAV client (maybe not entirely necessary) and just use the bundled PDF reader...haven't bothered with jailbreaking it as for me it's a single-purpose device, and Apple doesn't bother trying to push updates to it
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1920x1080 isn't bad, I mean I read PDFs now on my laptop. But yeah, I should probably look into an ancient iPad 10"...
I've got a 10" Android tablet with a high-res screen (25xx by something, I think), but the software is abysmal and it's stuck on Android 4.4 because, like all Android tablets, it was abandoned as soon as it was released into the market.
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But I imagine the typical Android user who is into FOSS may have a suite of apps they like including a bunch from F-Droid and find a big project ahead of them to replace all that in the straight Linux environment.
There has been recent progress [youtube.com] on Anbox. There is still work to be done working out problems with input, but I expect that to be resolved soon. With that, the transition will be much smoother, as you can continue to use android software while you seek or develop replacements.
This year will be the year of ... (Score:1)
N9 (Score:4, Interesting)
Every time I use my Android I sadly remember my Nokia N9, which was the best phone I ever had. (I did not have any of the previous Meego devices), except that the platform was killed even before launch. It was a proper Linux system (including X) with a beautiful interface and not a slow spyware-laden bloated advertisement platform using an interpreted language for no reason and which is incompatible to everything else.
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Apple correctly identified that what makes or breaks a smartphone is its applications. The Nokia N9 could come with free blowjobs but it still would be a worse smartphone than every other modern phone because fundamentally developers weren't interested and what software it did have was desktop software shoehorned onto a small screen without a mouse.
I get it, I get a stiffy too thinking back to a full Linux phone, open source, being in control of your own hardware. But the reality is the Nokia N9 shares it's
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Apple correctly identified that what makes or breaks a smartphone is its applications. The Nokia N9 could come with free blowjobs but it still would be a worse smartphone than every other modern phone because fundamentally developers weren't interested and what software it did have was desktop software shoehorned onto a small screen without a mouse.
I get it, I get a stiffy too thinking back to a full Linux phone, open source, being in control of your own hardware. But the reality is the Nokia N9 shares it's review with all the posts here about the PinePhone: a great toy but an absolute waste of time owning one as smartphone.
This is BS. 100%. Pure.
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Thankyou for your detailed counter point. I can see the error of my ways now that everyone has a successor to the N9 and that Nokia is the most valuable phone maker in the world. I humbly apologise and am truly enlightened by the evidence against my claim shown by your post.
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You're right, but it would be nice to hear a bit more about *why* it's bullshit.
Apple moved the smartphone market not because of their applications, which didn't exist when it took over the world, but by it's design. Well, at least the belief that Apple had the best design.
The great app wars came much later, and were just as stupid as you remember them. No one gives a shit about the number of apps any more. Most are garbage, and always have been. All people want are the popular games and services.
If the
Re: N9 (Score:1)
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Having app availability does matter because the World Wide Web as a commercial tool is slowly being deprecated (by all but a select few) in favour of discrete application environments optimised for a particular purpose.
Is it still 2010? Yeah, that didn't happen.
Re: N9 (Score:2)
This is so wrong, you have obviously never used a NO. The UI and launch apps were quite far ahead of what Apple had at the time. Simplest example, the cumbersome time/number selectors on the iPhone that frustrated me to no end - on the N9 I could set my alarm time with my finger in 2-3 secs with a simple circular motion. Going from app to app or even terminating apps was a swipe. I mean the UI itself of the phone was called Swipe. Nokia had the most developers at the time (Symbian) and they were promised an
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The N9 good stellar reviews and it an extremely good UI (and got awards for it). So was nothing wrong from the technical side.
What killed it was that the new CEO which came from Microsoft decided that Nokia will switch to Windows Mobile so the platform was declared dead before the first phone even was on the market. The switch to Windows Mobile then nearly killed Nokia which when from being very profitable to loss making in a short time and sold the smartphone unit to Microsoft.
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Edit: The N9 got stellar reviews and it had an extremely good UI (and got awards for it). So there was nothing wrong from the technical side.
Re: N9 (Score:2)
Re: N9 (Score:2)
I had the N800 before it, loved the slider keyboard, but the UI was a bit unpolished - good for geeks/devs, but loved having a full Linux with a nice UI. After it, the N9 was the best phone I've ever owned as well, really polished the UI experience, could multitask and app switch like no modern iOS or Android phone can (on a single core too!). While still having a full Linux with packet manager underneath. My partner upon seeing it next to my work iPhone she told me compared to it the N9 looked like it came
Re: N9 (Score:2)
Sorry meant N900 before it.
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If you so very much enjoyed the Nokia N9, did you ever consider the Jolla with Sailfish OS? It was made by the same people who worked at Nokia on Linux phones.
I very much enjoyed the Nokia N9, but bad battery life and no Whatsapp did it in for me. I then bought the Jolla 1 and am now using a Sony Xperia XA2 with Sailfish. I have been really happy with Sailfish these last 6 years. I enjoy a plain linux phone, ssh access with root, and a phone that I can trust.
In some senses I think the N9 was a bit better in
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When I last looked at it (years ago) the fact that they replaced X with an inferior and non-compatible solution (Wayland) made it completely unattractive to me. I also was not convinced about the UI at the time. But it is great that they still around and offering support for phones from other vendors is an excellent strategy. Maybe I will take another look.
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XWayland is doable on Sailfish OS. Since the Pinephone is native gnu/linux and not using libhybris, hw accel should work in XWayland too, via the lima driver. Chroot into your favorite distro and run whatever you want.
They had to go with Wayland, because libhybris only provides hw accel for wayland, but not X. Due to the scarcity of mobile GPU with decent X11 drivers at the time, they were constrained to rely on hybris.
SFOS UI is by far the best. Everything else feels clunky by comparison. Phosh ain't
Corporate smartphone (Score:4, Insightful)
There are no good corporate-centric smartphones on the market that I am aware of. All phones are inherently personal devices requiring Google or Apple accounts.
Privacy and security is turning into a killer feature. Having a phone centered around those features should be a huge market niche.
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Privacy and security is turning into a killer feature. Having a phone centered around those features should be a huge market niche.
I think BlackBerry (or whoever bought the name) might disagree with you.
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Android and Apple devices can support enterprise management.
That said, I'n not inclined to give corporate any access to my personal device. They can afford a phone, and I'm deeply skeptical of any company that wants to cut costs by bleeding onto my personal devices... they're probably going to be even worse about bleeding into my personal life.
What I don't want a phone to be (Score:2)
sounds great (Score:2)
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hopefully it will kickstart a new direction for most all smartphones, allowing the user to choose the OS/Firmware to run on their phone
There will be x people buying it. Some percentage of those would have bought an iPhone but now they don't. How many people would that have to be to convince Apple to allow users to choose the OS/Firmware to run?
That said, it wouldn't be a difficult technical problem. Have a switch in hardware that can only be changed while resetting an iPhone, which puts it into "iPhone" or "not iPhone" mode, hard enough to reach that it can't be changed by mistake. Make iOS install only in iPhone mode. Leave to hard par
Not great specs though (Score:2)
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There's a 3GB model.
Warning for criminals (Score:3)
One company sold an incredibly secure phone for several thousand euros per year. Several police agencies in Europe worked together and broke in. Security got _totally_ broken; the police got the identities of _all_ 60,000 or so customers, and 3 months worth of all text messages sent by these 60,000 customers. (About 10,000 are estimated to be legit, tough luck).
So if anyone is tempted to use this kind of phone to protect their criminal business, think twice. You are painting a huge bulls eye on your own back.
Re:Warning for criminals (Score:4, Insightful)
Correction:
"If anyone is tempted to use this kind of phone to protect their legitimate business, think twice. You are painting a huge bulls eye on your own back."
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So if anyone is tempted to use this kind of phone to protect their criminal business, think twice. You are painting a huge bulls eye on your own back.
Lets see... isolated baseband, physical kill switches, boots and runs from removable SD card... vs antidote about some unrelated device you don't even bother to name.
I spotted the fed.
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One company sold an incredibly flawed secure phone
FTFY. The police aren't saying how they actually cracked it, but they either hacked a great many of these phones (unlikely), broke the messaging encryption (less likely), or they managed to exploit something server-side: stored private keys (maybe the company didn't mind listening in on all these high-value conversations), or they didn't use real end-to-end encryption. A previous criminal messaging service got hacked in a similar manner; they decoded and re-encrypted messages on their servers, and the pol
Re: Warning for criminals (Score:1)
Maybe there's still chance (Score:2)
Everyone was laughing at Firefox OS and it now has over 100 million users making it the 3rd biggest platform. Sure, it's called KaiOS now but it's the same OS. They simply found a niche (feature phones in developing countries) and were able to grow in it until reaching critical mass. Now there's even WhatsApp client in the app store.
So maybe, just maybe, by aiming for the DIY community Pine64 will be able to get a foothold in the market. Sure, not enough to fight with Android or iPhone but maybe just enough
Re: Maybe there's still chance (Score:1)
The software is a clusterfsck (Score:2)
No, I'm not referring to particular things like it barely making calls and the battery lasting 4 hours of "doing nothing" and the camera being a no-go and so on. No, I'm referring to everybody having to mess so much with the underlying Linux distro that you end up with something that's as much Linux as Android is (possibly even less).
Take UBports/Ubuntu touch - at first sight it would be just some Ubuntu with Unity and some specific apps and settings but still manageable as a normal Linux. WRONG! apt will m
Finally (Score:1)
So, really, who cares???? (Score:1)
99.9999% of phone purchasers just want a phone that works (phone and camera) and that can run the apps they want to / already use. They don't care about the OS - unless they are already wedded to it hrough a related app store, cloud storage services / etc. So really, what's the point in this???