_______ __ _______
| | |.---.-..----.| |--..-----..----. | | |.-----..--.--.--..-----.
| || _ || __|| < | -__|| _| | || -__|| | | ||__ --|
|___|___||___._||____||__|__||_____||__| |__|____||_____||________||_____|
on Gopher (inofficial)
URI Visit Hacker News on the Web
COMMENT PAGE FOR:
URI PinePhone Pro [GNU/Linux smartphone] has been discontinued
codedokode wrote 2 hours 4 min ago:
The situation with phones is pretty bad now. The phones that have or
support open-source ROM (Pinephones, Pixels etc), are usually expensive
and cost like 2-3 normal phones. So it might be cheaper just to buy a
non-free phone and keep it in airplane mode (and connect it only to a
airgapped home WiFi network to transfer data), and a second dumb phone
for calling. Or have one phone with your data, connecting to Internet
via second $50 phone, which has connectivity, but no data, and DPIs all
requests from first phone, basically serving as a portable router.
And proprietary phones are really bad, today I read the news that
Samsung promised to comply with law and auto-install Russian software
(like Vk, Kaspersky, Rustore) when the phone is connected to the
Internet. And that's a Korean company. Consumers are treated like
garbage today.
It's understandable that you earn more on expensive phones, and freedom
is not free, but I don't want to buy a phone that costs like 2 cheaper
phones + a guitar.
I would prefer simply having something like GrapheneOS with root
access.
storus wrote 2 hours 56 min ago:
With the Android becoming a privacy nightmare, Pine was like the only
hope for some FOSS phones. Their main drawback was the software. Now
given the coding LLMs available these days, would generating a set of
useful apps for Pine be a major problem? They can be pretty
minimalistic but must be 100% reliable for the platform to take off.
Right now they are super buggy and basic features work randomly.
guywithahat wrote 3 hours 38 min ago:
Honestly the company is kind of a nightmare. When I ordered mine, they
shipped it with no packaging from Hong Kong. Obviously it arrived
broken, and when I told them they said I could pay to have someone fix
it in CA. It ended up taking 2 months for my chargeback to go through,
and they were threatening me the whole time. It was only after they
lost (which of course they would, it's like they've never worked with a
credit card processor before) they got really sweet and sent me a
return label.
Just a terribly run company. I'm sure it's better if you're buying bulk
boards from them but after my experience I wouldn't work with them
again.
jolmg wrote 2 hours 6 min ago:
> When I ordered mine, they shipped it with no packaging from Hong
Kong.
As I understand, customs (in your country) will typically check
what's being imported, to verify the invoice is true for correct
taxation, and also to check that it's something allowed. It might be
that your customs authority didn't put it back in its package after
inspecting it.
guywithahat wrote 1 hour 41 min ago:
Could be, but this seems to be a common problem with them other
people have complained about.
mcflubbins wrote 3 hours 54 min ago:
Pine has an attention problem, they produce a lot of different things
but the ones that people really wanted like the PinePhone Pro just were
never there, with they'd have just doubled down on something and made
that REALLY good first.
I preordered the Pinebook, it was never really awesome but it was neat,
I accidentally broke the screen and was never able to get a replacement
(at least from the store - they were always sold out.) Turned into
ewaste.
PinePhone Pro wasn't too good either, I really tried but had lots of
flaky issues with basic phone functionality, eventually gave it away to
a friend. It's collecting dust for sure and will eventually be more
ewaste.
Aurornis wrote 3 hours 16 min ago:
Pineâs approach has always felt like they wanted to make the
hardware and then hope that the community would sort out of the
software for it.
There isnât a lot of motivation for the community to sort out the
software for them when the products arenât attractive enough to
build a community around.
I wish they would narrow their focus, shift some resources into
software development, and produce at least one very good product. As
it stands, the Pine brand has become associated with buyer beware.
RealStickman_ wrote 2 hours 21 min ago:
To be fair to them, they at least tell you that software support is
largely community provided. However, you probably won't know how
that is in practice until you experience it once or twice.
rjsw wrote 2 hours 43 min ago:
As someone who doesn't run Linux on any of my Pine64 systems, that
suits me fine.
mystraline wrote 4 hours 17 min ago:
Good riddance.
That pile of garbage had crazy critical hardware faults they never
fixed.
1. If the battery is discharged, then in order to recharge it, you have
to take out the microsd and sim cards, press an SMT button, and plug in
with battery.
2. If you bought the keyboard/battery, and you plug in USB on the
phone, you fry the keyboard/battery. Shit burns up, haha screw you.
And if you say anything, you the user are at fault. You didn't read, or
follow their discord, or whatever, because it is 'Your Fault' â¢.
Pine's primary game here has been to paracitize off of FLOSS folks,
pump out incompetent and/or broken hardware, and summarily blame FLOSS
for their not-working. At minimum, they should be funding the projects
they want to build on/paracitize. But they do none of the sort.
We would be better if Pine died as a company. Then they wouldn't be
sucking the oxygen out of the FLOSS arena, and might get more
respectable orgs here.
jolmg wrote 3 hours 28 min ago:
> Good riddance.
Yes, we should be happy to have less options.../s
exe34 wrote 3 hours 1 min ago:
some options act like decoys - they take the pressure off and a
proper alternative cannot arise.
mystraline wrote 2 hours 14 min ago:
Thank you. That was exactly my point - they camped in a niche
they had no intent to do properly.
Worse yet, they screamed at users to lean on the community (read:
unpaid FLOSS as support). They refused to provide even baseband
images to do the things they were selling, like Pinephone Pro as
as, you know, a phone.
At one point, I thought they were just an upstart trying to get
off the ground. But in reality, its a complete grift that ends up
taking community resources and nothing to show for it.
jbm wrote 4 hours 2 min ago:
I do not understand why so many companies have that charging issue
with Linux devices.
Anbernic has the same
issue with the RG35XX series. If the battery reaches 0, you may need
to pull it out just to get the charging to work. And if you
accidentally connect the wrong kind of usb-c charger, it won't
charge, so you may have it plugged into the wall for days and come
back to it being dead and needing battery surgery.
Great devices for hacking because they are cheap though â cannot
understand why an expensive phone would have that problem too.
bpye wrote 3 hours 26 min ago:
Anbernic cheaped out when trying to support USB host mode, as a
result the device will not work correctly with an electronically
marked cable. You can fix this - but you lose host mode - [1] . The
article is for the RG35XXH, but pretty much all the XX devices have
the same flaw.
URI [1]: https://www.wirehead.be/2024/10/21/anbernic-rg35xx-h-charg...
jbm wrote 3 hours 4 min ago:
This is awesome info and I couldn't find it ANYWHERE I looked,
thank you so much!
fakedang wrote 3 hours 28 min ago:
> Great devices for hacking because they are cheap though â
cannot understand why an expensive phone would have that problem
too.
Because the more I read about Pinephone, the more it seems like a
grift.
mystraline wrote 2 hours 45 min ago:
I also had run ins with their Pine A64 LTS.
You can buy eMMC cards that fit on the board. Their documents say
you can boot from them. Like 10x performance of a mSD card and
less wear-out.
I use a USB device to make the drive mountable from a Linux box,
and copy the firmware as prescribed. I then unmount and load in
the A64, and.... NOTHING.
Supposedly there's a uboot command that maybe enables it. Or
maybe its autodetect. Or maybe (5 other ideas, that all fail).
I returned that shit too because they make claims that it works
these official ways, and it never does.
Pine is a parasite. Always has been, but they make-pretend that
they're some great FLOSS company.
numpad0 wrote 3 hours 35 min ago:
Some of pre-HSDPA Nokia phones had the same issue. You needed a
clip-on raw cell charger to revive them. It's manufacturer skill as
well as a bit of cost issue.
OsrsNeedsf2P wrote 4 hours 26 min ago:
Really sad about this. I recently bought another Android and was
checking out the PinePhone Pro, but only wanted something with a little
better specs..
adamredwoods wrote 4 hours 26 min ago:
>> On the other hand, the PinePhone (A64) will continue to be sold for
around two years. It is currently still selling well.
Interesting! Well, there's a hint at your market.
dotancohen wrote 3 hours 39 min ago:
Enough stock on the shelves for an expected 2 years of slow sales.
mhitza wrote 4 hours 32 min ago:
It costs 600 euros in europe (plus shipping?) I don't know why they
expected that it would have sold more. Even the "200 dollars" PinePhone
is 350 in euros.
It was on my list of devices that would have been fun to hack on, but
not at that price.
marci wrote 4 hours 5 min ago:
Those price are from the (non-official?) european reseller.
You can still get the pinephone at the original price from the
original store
URI [1]: https://pine64.com/product-category/smartphones/
canadiantim wrote 4 hours 33 min ago:
Are Linux phones viable? Eg even the librem 5 seems like not workable
as a daily driver.
charcircuit wrote 2 hours 17 min ago:
Yes, Android has billions of users and is wildly successful.
mixmastamyk wrote 2 hours 44 min ago:
Librem 5 was good enough for a few years. Too old to buy now at the
price they're still charging however.
guywithahat wrote 3 hours 31 min ago:
They were all too slow and buggy in my experience to use; basic
functionality like text or camera was consistently broken or buggy,
and it took way too long to load.
cosmic_cheese wrote 2 hours 45 min ago:
The speed issue could in the short term be bruteforced with
stronger hardware, but as far as I'm aware thereâs no Linux phone
out there with anything approaching what one might consider
âstrongâ hardware.
Itâs a bit puzzling because thereâs Chinese companies like
Retroid and AYN pumping out Snapdragon 8 Gen 2/3 handheld gaming
devices that the community has ported Linux to, with working
graphics acceleration and everything. I doubt these companies are
using fully bespoke mainboards, because most of their components
are borrowed from existing smartphones. Seems like some company
could stick one of these Snapdragon boards into a phone chassis and
have a reasonably compelling Linux phone.
bsder wrote 1 hour 8 min ago:
> Itâs a bit puzzling because thereâs Chinese companies like
Retroid and AYN pumping out Snapdragon 8 Gen 2/3
There is no path from "I made a cellular phone" to "I can place
calls" that doesn't involve tens of millions of dollars paid to
the gatekeeping cellular carriers.
Without the equivalent of Carterfone for cellular, this will
never change.
whitehexagon wrote 5 hours 21 min ago:
I think the PP still makes for a great educational device. I was
following the Lupyuen tutorials for PinePhone nuttx for a while, and
then got inspired to have a go at following his revese engineering
journey using Zig. It has been slow going but great fun! Just started
on volume keys.
They say they continue production on the PP for 2 more years, so
hopefully I'll have a bit more than 'Hello, world' by then.
But buy a serial debug cable and SD card extension if you decide to
have a play with one, huge time savers! I only just got mine and it
has speeded up things no end.
Ezhik wrote 5 hours 23 min ago:
I'm so sad I couldn't get my hands on that Psion-like keyboard for it.
mlok wrote 5 hours 19 min ago:
Oh they look really cool :
URI [1]: https://pine64.org/documentation/Phone_Accessories/Keyboard/
ge96 wrote 4 hours 29 min ago:
This is one of those things seems cool but is it (usability)?
My own opinion, I bought a Toshiba Libretto CT50 and the keyboard
is really cool but also so small/hard to use.
ikkun wrote 1 hour 42 min ago:
they discontinued it because of quality control reasons, which
tracks with my experience. the key mechanism is weird, a circular
membrane around plastic posts, and it makes some of the keys
(especially the top row) constantly miss inputs. there's a 3D
printed shim 'fix' but that barely helped me. off-center
keypresses also bind really badly. the pogo pins that connect to
the phone are flaky, which can make it lose connection and
require a reboot. like the keys, there's a shim you can use
(putting some paper behind the contacts) which only sort of
helps.
a benefit of the keyboard case is the battery it has that extends
the phone's battery, which is nice, but it's an odd setup too.
the charge controller on it was originally designed for a power
bank and seems like a bit of a crude solution that's lead to
multiple issues, like how you could damage the phone having it
plugged into USB while the keyboard case is connected.
it's slow to charge too, often it can't even keep up with the
phone during use.
spankibalt wrote 2 hours 3 min ago:
When your fingers are too fat and/or your hands are too big for a
Libretto, or you have pathological issues troubling the relevant
appendages, then do yourself a favor and don't bother.
It's obvious: These keyboards are, or should be, primarily made
for mobile people, so high quality and tray or coffee table
compatibility are a must. The Psion 5-series keyboards are ideal
for this as long as you don't fuck with the formula.
jolmg wrote 2 hours 59 min ago:
It's just big enough that it might be barely usable to touch type
with sufficient practice, not comfortably though. Definitely
seems smaller than the Libretto from glancing at pictures. If the
idea is to have a portable keyboard to then sit down somewhere
and work, there are pocket BT ones that fold in half and are
comfortably big.
The only use-case I can think for the Pinephone keyboard is if
for some reason you want a physical keyboard to use while
walking.
jchw wrote 5 hours 24 min ago:
The PinePhone Pro just wasn't a very good product. There was frankly
unnecessary drama regarding the bootloader of all things, which was a
bad start. The specs were obviously a bad value compared to any
mass-produced phone, though it did bring the Linux phone down to a
price point where an enthusiast could reasonably buy it, so I can't say
it was priced that poorly. But, the big problem was software. Getting
the damn device to work reliably was a true pain in the ass. If you
could get "deep" sleep to work, then it would last longer than a couple
hours on battery, which was nice... But sleep/resume on the device was
buggy and slow. Getting a phone call can wake the device, but by the
time it actually wakes up you might've already missed the call. And
audio routing for calls was shockingly ugly... Most of the time it was
routed directly by the hardware, bypassing the Linux audio stack
entirely, but it was quite flexible and you could route it into
Pipewire/etc. The microphone quality is "it works" tier, though the
person on the other end may be occasionally alarmed by a flash bang of
noise for unknown reasons. There are two piss-quality cameras that
sometimes work for a little bit until they stop working.
I waited a long time and occasionally checked to see if anything had
changed, but it was clear that Pine64 had again taken the approach of
"build it and they will come" hoping for other people to clean up the
mess and make the phone usable. And to be fair, they were up front
about this, to some degree, but they built it and nobody really came.
The truth is it's just too damn hard for random people to fix all of
the software issues on a device like this, especially when it's
basically not usable as a daily driver yet. Working on a device like
this is a full-time job, and you can't really replace that full-time
job with 20 hobbyist weekends stacked in a trenchcoat. I did realize
this when I bought one, with full intent to be one of those hobbyists
spending weekends on it, but at least to me, it was simply too broken.
So I think the PinePhone experiment is a failure. Then there's the
Librem 5, which I presume is at least more stable and usable, but it's
at a price that is less easy to stomach.
I think until the software is ready and a market is proven, the best
route for Linux phones is going to be by taking Android phone parts and
trying to make it run regular Linux, a la libhybris. It may not really
work out either, but it does seem like it is a path of significantly
less resistance, where the software can be worked on with solid
hardware and hopefully solid enough drivers to build on.
There are some folks working on this angle, too. The latest I've seen
is the Liberux NEXX, no idea how it's going, not affiliated in any way.
URI [1]: https://liberux.net/
guywithahat wrote 3 hours 32 min ago:
I don't blame them for the prices given how unique the product was,
but the company was always kind of a mess. Lots of broken devices and
they had/have an outrageously hostile return policy, forcing people
to do charge backs. I agree on the build it and they will come
philosophy, it felt like they were riding the popularity of linux
phones while not contributing a lot to their future.
jolmg wrote 2 hours 46 min ago:
> it felt like they were riding the popularity of linux phones
while not contributing a lot to their future
I think they're the ones that contributed the most. They've
provided the most open-source phone out there at the lowest price
out there. The only other equivalent option is the Librem 5 at
$800, double the price.
They didn't contribute much/any software, but they contributed the
most accessible, viable hardware to make an open source linux
phone.
jolmg wrote 3 hours 58 min ago:
> the best route for Linux phones is going to be by taking Android
phone parts and trying to make it run regular Linux
> and hopefully solid enough drivers to build on.
This is the crux of the problem with this approach. That the drivers
would remain closed-source. AFAIK, the Pinephones and Librem are the
only ones with open-source drivers.
jchw wrote 3 hours 48 min ago:
Fully understand the issues with this approach: my skepticism has
been expressed in former HN comments. However, the issue is that in
practice it already seems like this approach has yielded something
closer to daily-driver maturity, which would make it a suitable
platform for experimenting with software. It may be necessary since
it's hard to justify actually doing all of the effort to build the
phones with not much impressive to run on them.
fsflover wrote 5 hours 25 min ago:
Fortunately, Pinephone and Librem 5 still exist and work quite well,
despite being relatively slow. Sent from my daily driver Librem 5.
mixmastamyk wrote 2 hours 41 min ago:
I had the original Pine Phone and it never worked well and was too
limited/slow five years ago.
canadiantim wrote 4 hours 30 min ago:
Do you use WhatsApp, signal or Uber from your Librem 5? Is that
possible?
jolmg wrote 3 hours 55 min ago:
I haven't tried Whatsapp or Signal. The problem I've had with Uber
is feeding it GPS coordinates. Talking about Waydroid, for some
reason, while I can get Google Maps to see my coordinates, Uber
seems to try to get the coordinates some different way. IIRC, you
can still use it, you just need to be more explicit about where you
want it to pick you up.
alchemist1e9 wrote 4 hours 33 min ago:
Anyone have thoughts on Purismâs Liberty Phone? Looks like itâs
an upgraded Librem 5 of sorts.
woodrowbarlow wrote 3 hours 28 min ago:
what you're really paying for is a difference in manufacturing; the
spec bump is just to make the very high price hurt less. $2k
instead of $800.
they designed an elaborate process which theoretically guarantees
that your phone was not tampered with at the factory or in
transport. it was sort of a reaction to Bloomberg's "The Big Hack"
article, which claimed Apple devices were compromised en masse at
the factory in China by state actors (and the story was later
retracted due to lack of evidence).
i do think it's a cool effort, even if the threat is only
hypothetical. but it's a lot to pay unless you're operating under
an extreme threat model.
mrbuttons454 wrote 5 hours 43 min ago:
I bought one as soon as they were released, as well as the keyboard
case. It never really worked correctly, but I loved the concept and
wish they would have succeeded.
I know it's a niche product, but I'd love a pocket sized Debian device
with cellular, decent standby time, and a physical keyboard. Anything
out there I should look in to? I've tried to make various GPD devices
work, but they are too big, and the standby time isn't great.
int_19h wrote 2 hours 5 min ago:
There's [1] , but there don't seem to be many people playing with
these. Perhaps someone on HN would be willing to share their
experience.
URI [1]: https://furilabs.com/shop/flx1/
mixmastamyk wrote 2 hours 51 min ago:
The FuriPhone looks pretty good: [1] though I haven't seen many
reviews yet. But am keeping my eyes peeled.
URI [1]: https://furilabs.com/
RansomStark wrote 3 hours 59 min ago:
Way back when I had a Nokia N900 [0].
I still miss it. Wonderful little phone, physical keyboard, Linux,
perfect (almost).
[0]
URI [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_N900
garrickvanburen wrote 3 hours 15 min ago:
One of my favorite phones. Despite a bizarre hiccup preventing sd
cards from being recognized if the camera lens sensor broke.
aeblyve wrote 4 hours 1 min ago:
I think that finding an aftermarket keyboard solution for a
smartphone using the android virtualization framework to run a debian
VM (i.e. the "Linux Terminal" on Android 16) is your best bet by far.
The economies of scale (and compactness!) in mainstream smartphones
are very hard to match, and they tend to have superior power
management.
Do heavy lifting by logging into a remote server for best battery
life and compute power.
black_puppydog wrote 4 hours 39 min ago:
I'm fighting myself on the Jolla C2 at the moment. I'm kinda in the
same category as you I guess :D
detaro wrote 5 hours 6 min ago:
not sure about standby time, but MNT Pocket Reform is a neat and
unusual device in that category.
sugarpimpdorsey wrote 5 hours 9 min ago:
> I know it's a niche product, but I'd love a pocket sized Debian
device with cellular, decent standby time, and a physical keyboard
yes they're called netbooks and x86 tablets but you may need a time
machine back to 2015 to get one.
anthk wrote 2 hours 54 min ago:
Aliexpress still has those.
tempest_ wrote 4 hours 57 min ago:
You don't have to go to 2015
GPD has a bunch, they are not exactly cheap though
URI [1]: https://gpd.hk/product
hnlmorg wrote 3 hours 53 min ago:
Those arenât netbooks. Theyâre another class of device which
Iâve forgotten the name of. Something like umpc or something.
But the idea was netbooks were the bottom end of the market and
this other class were the same form factor but at the top end of
the market.
goosedragons wrote 3 hours 28 min ago:
Some of them are UMPCs, some are sub-notebooks and some
arguably are maybe netbooks. The GPD Micro PC 2 is not that
fast and only has a 7" screen like the original Asus EEE PC.
It's got less bezel, so perhaps it bleeds the line between
netbook and UMPC but inflation adjusted it's pretty comparable
in price.
hnlmorg wrote 1 hour 6 min ago:
ahhh fair enough then. I did admittedly only have a quick
look at their site.
The NetBook market was such a good one. It really is a pity
the Microsoft killed off the spirit of it, and then Apple
convinced everyone that pretty and expensive things without
keyboards are nicer than cheap and practical things.
I do miss EeePCs. The death of the netbook was probably the
biggest blow for desktop Linux becoming mainstream.
mananaysiempre wrote 3 hours 34 min ago:
GPDs used to be much cheaper[1], and IMO made much more sense
that way. Unfortunately, GPD indeed seems to have caught the
expensive bug.
URI [1]: https://blog.danieljanus.pl/2022/08/18/i-love-my-gpd-m...
goosedragons wrote 3 hours 27 min ago:
The GPD Micro PC 2 is still pretty cheap. The other models
are way way faster so it's not surprising they cost more.
mananaysiempre wrote 2 hours 47 min ago:
Pretty cheap by some definitions, yes, but as best as I can
tell (historical prices arenât exactly readily
available), the Micro PC 2 ($700 list price before tax) is
still between 1.5Ã and 2Ã the price of the original
(â¬300âpresumably including about 20% taxâper the
linked article, between $200 and $500 per the Wayback
Machine, in nominal dollars before 10% inflation).
goosedragons wrote 2 hours 25 min ago:
You can get it for $513.
URI [1]: https://gpdstore.net/laptops/gpd-micropc-2/
MrGilbert wrote 4 hours 57 min ago:
GPD makes decent small devices, that can be equipped with cellular,
and work fine with Debian. So no need for a time-travel here. :)
andrewmcwatters wrote 6 hours 4 min ago:
I looked into buying one a while back, and the spec sheet said it was
using a 9 year old processor, and PinePhone uses a 13 year old
processor.
It wasn't "discontinued," no one was working on it for years, and it
was pointless to purchase.
The PinePhone is an outdated ripoff.
yjftsjthsd-h wrote 3 hours 59 min ago:
> It wasn't "discontinued," no one was working on it for years, and
it was pointless to purchase.
If it was being made and sold and now it's not, then it was
discontinued. You may point out reasons why it was discontinued, but
that is in fact what happened.
linmob wrote 4 hours 54 min ago:
"No one was working on it for year" is both untrue and unfair. There
have been continued improvements (both PinePhone and PinePhone Pro),
and I know that there are people who have put in the midnight oil to
make them happen.
What that work was not is 'paid for by PINE64'. It's also not been
enough to raise the bar enough to make the phone work well enough;
but if you consider what's involved there, it makes sense.
You don't just need to write/fix a driver, you need upstream (or at
least a distribution) to accept it and include it for that work to
make a meaningful difference for anyone else.
rpnx wrote 6 hours 14 min ago:
Pinephone pro... The phone was not specced well enough and had issue.
Hoping the FLX1 isn't vaporware.
BariumBlue wrote 6 hours 24 min ago:
I really like the phone/desktop convergence concept. Mostly I think
because I want the freedom / open experience of my desktop on my phone
though, I think.
But I think most folks interested enough in the concept are also rich
enough to afford a phone and a laptop, and if you want a keyboard for
your phone you might as well just use a laptop.
I still think conceptually it's the right direction for tech that our
devices should be so flexible, but it's hard enough in practice that
it's not generally done.
catlikesshrimp wrote 4 hours 50 min ago:
if it is only the keyboard you want, A small foldable keyboard is
less bulky than the laptop. I am talking about just a keyboard and a
trackpad.
URI [1]: https://www.newegg.com/p/0GA-03F8-00011
WorldPeas wrote 4 hours 2 min ago:
the problem with keyboards like this and the ones on the surface is
that they have no connective hinge and rigidity. with my UMPC at
least, I like to hold it by the base while looking at the screen. I
really wish there would be a clampable keyboard that used nice
membranes like the GPD but had a phone clamp on top like a selfie
stick and a single swivel-hinge like those fujitsu convertibles
BriggyDwiggs42 wrote 4 hours 56 min ago:
I feel the same way, but while there are definitely actual hardware
limitations preventing phones from being identical to computers, the
problem is mostly a choice. Why arenât ipads with keyboard cases
able to be used exactly like laptops, for example? I think companies
seized on the combined accessibility and restrictiveness of
smartphones to justify design choices which are more about profit.
Restricting the app library makes apple a great amount of money. Ads
are hard to block across a mobile device, why else if not for more
money? I think the circumstances of smartphone development gave them
the opportunity to make these choices and weâve gotten locked in
since.
saidinesh5 wrote 6 hours 18 min ago:
I think the convergence concept still makes sense in big corporations
where most of your work happens on a VM in the cloud, while you just
use your device as a thin client. Especially in places they don't
even let you use a thirdparty browser >.>.
Earlier this year, I was actually tried to replace my bulky 16" MBP
with a Pixel 9 for work. Android's desktop mode just wasn't there..
Maybe I will try it again next year...
All I really need was a browser and a drop down terminal anyway.
solardev wrote 6 hours 22 min ago:
Don't most Samsung phones and tablets already do this? Dex or
something?
rchaud wrote 5 hours 39 min ago:
It's not most phones, just the high end ones, Galaxy S series,
Galaxy Z Fold Series, Tab S series and the A90 phone.
woodrowbarlow wrote 5 hours 58 min ago:
yeah, but Dex lets you use your android apps with desktop
ergonomics. PinePhone and Librem let you use your desktop apps with
mobile ergonomics.
semi-extrinsic wrote 6 hours 19 min ago:
Huawei as well. Used to have a P30 Pro. It felt like a true
downgrade when I bought a Pixel 8 Pro two years ago and it had no
desktop mode and a worse camera to boot.
Xss3 wrote 4 hours 18 min ago:
Tbf huawei got heavy subsidies and just wanted marker share,
google actually tried to make a profit.
peaseagee wrote 5 hours 58 min ago:
Android 16 (coming to Pixel 8 series if it's not there already)
supports this.
storus wrote 6 hours 26 min ago:
PinePhone Pro's main drawback was the low-res display for a price of a
midrange Android with far superior specs. I was thinking about buying
one but it was barely better than the regular PinePhone.
mixmastamyk wrote 6 hours 30 min ago:
Not surprising. These phones were out of date when they debuted and
not updated, in like five years?
I played with one for a bit but then mobian trixie updates bricked it
twice and I gave up. Only wanted it to be on par with my old iPhone
6s, but it never achieved that.
Star labs makes a great Linux tablet, the starlite, so it is near
possible to make a decent floss phone these days.
bee_rider wrote 5 hours 49 min ago:
Oh wow, that Star lab tablet looks great.
For quite a while I used an iPad+NUC, which was perfect and I loved
it, except it could only really run terminal programs (via ssh) or
iOS programs nicely. VNC kinda works but not well.
Eventually I switched to a folding convertible laptop, but it is a
significant downgrade in terms of form-factor. Nice to know that
exists, hopefully theyâll stick around until Iâm ready to turn
this thing into e-wasteâ¦
mixmastamyk wrote 2 hours 59 min ago:
Yes, though haven't used it as a convertible yet.
I usually use tablets as my home movie machine since we don't have
a proper TV. At this, the Starlite with Phosh and recent
Fedora/firmware updates is fantastic. Freetube, Netflix and Kanopy
on Firefox via widevine, PBS, and homegrown .mkv's are more than I
have time to watch.
On the go a Framework 13 is fantastic, tall screen, light and
powerful. Only waiting on coreboot and ECC RAM.
ethagnawl wrote 6 hours 34 min ago:
This is a bummer. If there was ever a time this sort of device was
needed, it's now / in the near future when Google (probably) starts
requiring all Android apps to be signed by approved developers and
further locks down the Android platform.
I kind of regret not buying one of these instead of a Pixel 7 but,
unfortunately, I'm pretty tethered to the Android ecosystem at the
moment.
nrdgrrrl wrote 3 hours 52 min ago:
You say that, but they're discontinuing it because they didn't sell
enough of them. It may be the device we need, but it's not the device
we're buying.
Aurornis wrote 3 hours 20 min ago:
The product was never really attractive by itself. You had to be
extremely patient and willing to overlook the serious problems with
their software to even try to use it.
I would like to see some other company take a real swing at this
product space but with a less strict approach around the hardcore
open-everything ideals. Theyâre good in theory, but in practice
people want a phone that works and you have to get to that stage
first.
NoboruWataya wrote 3 hours 26 min ago:
I never had a PinePhone Pro but I did buy an earlier model and the
user experience was very far off what we have come to expect from
modern phones. I'm sure the Pro was better but still probably not
that close to an Android or Apple phone. That's not a sleight on
the company at all, they faced some very high barriers and I
respect what they did. But I don't think this is entirely on
consumers for not putting their money where their mouth is. It's
just yet another example that it's really hard to create something
(in the phone space, at least) that is affordable, open and highly
functional.
reorder9695 wrote 3 hours 37 min ago:
I'll buy them once I can access all of my banks on it, that is
literally the only thing holding me to IOS or Anroid at the minute
AnthonyMouse wrote 2 hours 31 min ago:
NB: Attestation has no security value here because if the phone
isn't compromised then the owner having root isn't a security
problem and if the phone is compromised then the user is entering
their bank login into a fake scam app that doesn't require
attestation regardless of what the real one does.
But because the banks that require this are cargo culting some
nonsense, they require iOS or Google Android but don't really
care how old the phone is. Which means you can transfer your
cellular plan to the phone you actually want to use and then just
keep your existing phone indefinitely to run the bank app over
WiFi or tethering.
charcircuit wrote 2 hours 25 min ago:
What is protecting against another app on a PinePhone from
stealing your bank's authentication token?
fc417fc802 wrote 1 hour 54 min ago:
What's protecting me when I do online banking in the browser,
which I can do using more or less any device? The answer is
that targeted attacks against the average middle to lower
class individual are rare enough that there are far more
worthwhile things to worry about. Such as the vast majority
of banks (at least in the US) not supporting hardware tokens.
jolmg wrote 1 hour 20 min ago:
> What's protecting me when I do online banking in the
browser, which I can do using more or less any device?
IDK about your country, but it's also common for banks to
require supplying a token from the phone's banking app in
order to login via the browser.
fc417fc802 wrote 48 min ago:
Not in the US, at least so far. If that were ever to come
to pass I would be in danger of becoming unbanked. I
flatly refuse to install third party proprietary software
on my phone (I grudgingly accept firmware blobs for lack
of a realistic alternative).
Here the majority continue to use SMS based 2FA rather
than supporting TOTP or hardware tokens.
Note that TOTP can be handled by any app of the user's
choosing, doesn't facilitate attestation or any other
user hostile practices, and in practice means that an
attack requires physical theft of the device. While the
theory might differ, in practice the effective security
level is equivalent to other (objectionable) schemes.
AnthonyMouse wrote 54 min ago:
And what does that buy you? The user goes to the bank
website in a compromised browser, attacker gets their
password. Bank sends a code to their phone, user types
the code into the compromised browser, attacker gets the
code.
AnthonyMouse wrote 2 hours 11 min ago:
There are two possible scenarios here.
The first is that your phone is not compromised. In this case
there is no other app trying to steal your bank's
authentication token. This is true regardless of which OS you
use or whether you have magisk installed or what other code
you put on your phone that isn't trying to steal your bank's
authentication token.
The second is that your phone is compromised. Then what
prevents the device from capturing your bank credentials is
the same as if you use a compromised phone running Google
Android: Nothing. If you enter your bank credentials into a
compromised phone, the attacker gets them. Attestation can't
prevent this because the phone is compromised, so the login
screen isn't from a bank app that requires attestation, it's
from a scam app which is exfiltrating your credentials.
charcircuit wrote 1 hour 55 min ago:
>Nothing
This is far from the truth assuming by compromised you mean
that the user has installed a malicous app. Android has
proper sandboxing which means that other apps can't read
the token owned by the bank app. This is part of the
Android security model and attestation is evidence that the
Android security model is being enforced. Phishing apps are
different from an app that steals existing authentication
tokens on the device.
AnthonyMouse wrote 1 hour 30 min ago:
> Android has proper sandboxing which means that other
apps can't read the token owned by the bank app.
Let's consider this alternative as well:
Scenario 1: Device has no malicious code at all; same as
scenario 1 before.
Scenario 2: Device has a malicious app but the malicious
app doesn't have root and the OS (regardless of whether
it's Android or something else) enforces proper
sandboxing. The malicious app can't extract the bank
authentication token regardless of attestation.
Scenario 3: Device is fully compromised; malicious code
has root. Same as before, if you enter your credentials
into this device the attacker gets them.
The problem is that the only useful thing for attestation
to do is to distinguish between 1 or 2 vs. 3, but that's
the thing it can't do because if the malicious code is
privileged it can replace the bank app with one that
exfiltrates the credentials without requiring
attestation, so the only cases where attestation is
happening are the ones where it isn't needed.
fc417fc802 wrote 1 hour 50 min ago:
You aren't responding to the scenario that was posed.
You're assuming an isolated compromised app on an
otherwise clean device. GP is assuming a compromised
device.
Of course attestation does nothing to improve the "single
compromised app" case since (assuming Android) that goes
nowhere either way. The only thing attestation does is
meddle in end user affairs.
charcircuit wrote 1 hour 29 min ago:
>if the phone isn't compromised then the owner having
root isn't a security problem
The scenario is the phone isn't compromised. Having
root means you, or an app you run can bypass the
security protecting the authentication token.
fc417fc802 wrote 57 min ago:
And now you're being intentionally difficult. Please
interpret things in the most plausible manner. Beyond
common decency, it's part of the site guidelines.
By "not compromised" GP clearly meant a scenario
where no malicious apps are present.
I agree that's a serious omission. I responded to
your scenario (a nonzero number of malicious apps) in
my earlier comment. Any Android device will defend
against that regardless of the presence of
attestation.
Any non-android device can still use online banking
and thus attestation doesn't appear to accomplish
anything legitimate. Building out proper support for
hardware tokens would provide superior security in
approximately all cases.
The specific "root on android" scenario isn't
generally a concern. Typical implementations require
explicitly granting the capability to a given app. A
malicious app can't gain it without fooling the user,
at which point it could more easily phish the
credentials and possibly even proxy an entire
session.
tmtvl wrote 2 hours 31 min ago:
Then tell your banks they have to support the PinePhone or
they'll lose you as a customer. The PinePhone folks don't have
access to the source code of whatever interface your banks
provide on Android/iOS, so they can't do anything about it.
dotancohen wrote 3 hours 42 min ago:
It's that "we" are too small a market. And I'm not convinced that
most of us actually buy these niche devices, even though we say we
will.
kristopolous wrote 2 hours 26 min ago:
nah it's that the work delta is too great.
So if you come out with a typical android phone, you have to do X
amount of work yourself and some Y amount you can just buy.
If you are doing something like a PinePhone, there's a multiplier
on the X of work you have to do yourself ... a significant
multiplier and that's the problem.
That's why if you have a something like a Pine phone that has the
sales of say something like this: [1] you're going to bleed money
- you won't survive - it's too much of a lift.
That's also why almost all phones (that are financially viable)
look and feel almost the same.
URI [1]: https://www.bluproducts.com/android-phones/
jraph wrote 4 hours 16 min ago:
I'm monitoring support for PostmarketOS on Fairphone models, with a
mainline Linux kernel. They actually have someone working on
upstreaming stuff to mainline, which is quite nice.
The FP6 doesn't seem there yet [1], but the FP5 is close! [2] The FP5
is a comfortable device. With call support completely figured out,
Mobile Linux would probably be enjoyable on it. [1]
URI [1]: https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Fairphone_(Gen._6)_(fairp...
URI [2]: https://wiki.postmarketos.org/wiki/Fairphone_5_(fairphone-fp...
fellowniusmonk wrote 4 hours 50 min ago:
The situation with RCS means Google and Apple have a complete
douopoly on the texting market.
CharlesW wrote 4 hours 14 min ago:
SMS will outlive us all.
ge96 wrote 6 hours 37 min ago:
Kind of sad, I had both PP and PPP
When they were "new" the tech was old already and then the lack of
drivers for the camera for example which I can't talk, I'm not a driver
developer. I thought it would make me get into developing drivers but I
never did.
Or writing Qt/C++ apps vs. cross platform/web that I was used to.
For some reason I was obsessed with the thought of Dex/your phone being
a computer if connected to a big monitor, it was cool using VS Code on
the PPP but there would be problems. The external monitor I think was
capped to 1920x1080 (if connected to a 1440P display a huge chunk was
just static)
I had my fun with it
I was interested in the Pine 64 eInk tablet but that seemed to not be
in stock at the time. I had the Remarkable 2 at one point, I want to
get it again.
edit: looks like the PineNote is in stock right now
my consumer brain is getting tickled, might get a PineNote, what I
liked about the RM2 is I didn't have to charge it for like a month was
crazy, unfortunately PineNote doesn't seem to have that, and no tilt
support on pen but ehhh. I don't know if RM forces you to have a
subscription now, I didn't have it on mine when I got it in like 2022.
gunalx wrote 1 hour 4 min ago:
you might habe an old enough rm account to have free base
subscription.
jolmg wrote 4 hours 35 min ago:
> The external monitor I think was capped to 1920x1080 (if connected
to a 1440P display a huge chunk was just static)
That happened to me with the PP, but I can reliably use a 1440P
monitor with the PPP. Not sure if it's the phone, or the fact that I
added a power cord to the phone while it was connected. I can't
remember if I did that with the PP.
EDIT: Scratch that. It's because I used the official dock with the
PP, and for the PPP I used one I got on Amazon.
The official dock is docked (:P) to 1080P.[1]
I wonder how it happened that the de-facto standard here is for the
protocol going over USB-C to be DisplayPort, but for the hardware
connection to be HDMI, and so leading to docks needed to be spec'ed
to the resolution you want instead of being passive.
URI [1]: https://pine64.com/product/pinephone-pro-usb-c-docking-bar/
ge96 wrote 3 hours 46 min ago:
To be clear when I say 1440p I mean 3840x1440 which might be
obvious
I was using random USB-C to HDMI/usb that I bought on Amazon, I
primarily used Mobian
jolmg wrote 3 hours 32 min ago:
I meant 2560Ã1440. Checking online, I didn't realize there were
so many different 1440p resolutions. [1] Random adapters on
Amazon specify 4K though, so I would've thought they'd work for
you too.
URI [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1440p
zorgmonkey wrote 4 hours 21 min ago:
The answer is boring and annoying, they almost certainly want it to
work with TVs and cheap monitors both of which commonly only have
HDMI inputs. It has been my experience that you typically have to
pay more for a USB-C dock with displayport outputs, even though
they don't have the chip just cause of economies of scale.
cosmic_cheese wrote 6 hours 26 min ago:
Yeah for these kinds of things to work the hardware has to be at
least somewhat competitive and the overall device reasonably usable.
It doesnât need to be a flagship or anything, just relatively
recent, and the experience doesnât have to be perfect, just
actually suitable as a daily driver. Thatâs what gets people
interested, inspires devs to contribute and fill app gaps. This kicks
off a virtuous cycle where less technical family of those devs see
the device and want to try it, which in turn creates more demand for
apps pulling more dev interest and so on and so forth.
Itâs critical to be good enough to clear that initial hurdle,
though. Without that, the device is relegated to the most curious of
tinkerers which just isnât sustainable.
As far as dev experience goes, from my limited dabbling I think
GTK+Adwaita might actually be overall nicer for mobile development
than Qt, due to furnishment of a full set of widgets without having
to pull in anything else, as well as bindings to way more languages.
Itâs considerably more comparable to UIKit and Android Framework at
the very least.
bruce511 wrote 4 hours 7 min ago:
>> Thatâs what gets people interested, inspires devs to
contribute and fill app gaps.
Alas, no, sorry. It's really not the number of apps that matters.
Any phone OS could have less than 500 apps and be wildly
successful. On the other hand you can have a million devs cranking
out apps and the device would still be useless.
Turns out the only apps that matters are the ones everyone actually
use. Your banking app. Facebook. Whatsapp. Uber. Airbnb. Etc. All
the product of big corporates.
And my bank (to pick just 1) is simply not interested in developing
their app for yet another platform. The effort in building it,
supporting it etc simply makes no sense.
Facebook, Netflix, Twitter, ESPN, and the next 40 "must haves"
simply don't care. And independent devs simply cannot fill these
holes. Without these the phone is simply useless as a daily driver
for anything other than complete techno fanatics.
Crumbs Microsoft couldn't convince this cohort to get on board.
Some random Linux phone certainly won't.
I don't say this with glee. They're nice toys. But Joe public
doesn't reject them because of the hardware specs. He rejects them
because they're functionally useless in the actual world.
cosmic_cheese wrote 3 hours 40 min ago:
I think this is wildly more individual-dependent than you may
think. Speaking personally, while I do have a number of big
commercial apps installed, the number that couldnât be filled
either with a web app or the Android version via a compatibility
layer is tiny. The native apps I find most difficult to replace
are those by small to midsize devs, which are exactly the ones
most likely to be the primary contributors to a new platform
early on.
I donât think this is particularly unusual, either. Plenty of
people have absoutely no need for video streaming on their phone
outside of maybe YouTube for example, which works well enough on
the web.
Microsoftâs not the best example here, because they had
momentum with both devs and users but shot themselves in the foot
repeatedly on both sides of the fence: warring internal factions
reset Windows Mobile development multiple times consecutively and
burned through dev goodwill and poor strategy on the consumer
side killed things there. Mozillaâs foray into phones failed
because they insisted on sticking to entry level devices which
were both not interesting to most of the market and not powerful
enough to handle a new unoptimized OS.
dotancohen wrote 3 hours 31 min ago:
For what it's worth, I don't have a single one of the apps GP
mentions installed on my phone. No Netflix, no Facebook, no
WhatsApp.
I am aware that I am an outlier, though. I need either Anki or
AnkiDroid. I need a somewhat decent text reader, preferably one
that properly highlights and folds Org mode files. I need a
voice recorder that timestamps the file name. I don't think I
know anybody else who needs any of those three, other than
those I've introduced to Anki.
ge96 wrote 3 hours 47 min ago:
That is true, you have to have two phones
DIR <- back to front page