5d ago

Google Keeps Making Smartphones Worse

jacobin.com 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 capacity over the last decade.

Originally published on The Lever, but that one asks you to sign up.

Technology @lemmy.world

Google Keeps Making Smartphones Worse

jacobin.com /2025/07/google-android-smartphones-open-source

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36 comments

The only difference is that Apple never pretended to be the good guy.
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).

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- RCS is a really nice thing in principle, because SMS/MMS infrastructure is just awfully outdated from security standpoint.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.

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 .
- 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 ~~Android~~ AOSP (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.
- ...worse for users. Better for them...in the shirt term. That's the real issue. Short term Profit overrules everything in public 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...

There’s a constant barrage of notifications, and by the time you have dealt with them, chances are you have forgotten what you wanted to do in the first place.
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.
Then there is Gemini, Google’s artificial intelligence bot, which won’t leave you alone. Press the home (middle) button for half a second too long, and it pops up, offering to “assist” you.
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.

No wonder. A shame that people didn't want to support neither Firefox OS or other free Mobile OS...

They have been for a while now. It's just that now it kind of becomes obvious

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.
- 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.

I read the headline as "[Google Keep]'s making smartphones worse", and wondered how a single note app could make them worse.

Someone needs to break the duopoly. HarmonyOS isn't open source but I'm hoping it will force Google and others to behave.
- Unfortunately it's still made by a big company.
  Linux phones made quite some progress in recent years. They still aren't what I'd call consumer ready, but it's getting there.
- i guess i'll have to try lineageOS instead.

At the moment, my hope is to be able to land a Harmony NextOS phone soon. I'd just as soon cough up data to the Chinese as 5-Eyes and Google.
- Honestly, not a bad idea. If Google breaks custom ROMs I might just switch to Huawei 🤷

They never did make a good smartphone. Android has always been garbage on top of garbage.

36 comments