The new home of /r/Android on Lemmy and the Fediverse!
Android news, reviews, tips, and discussions about rooting, tutorials, and apps.
🔗Universal Link: [email protected]
💡Content Philosophy:
Content which benefits the community (news, rumours, and discussions) is generally allowed and is valued over content which benefits only the individual (technical questions, help buying/selling, rants, self-promotion, etc.) which will be removed if it's in violation of the rules.
Support, technical, or app related questions belong in: [email protected]
For fresh communities, lemmy apps, and instance updates: [email protected]
📰Our communities below
Stay on topic: All posts should be related to the Android OS or ecosystem.
No support questions, recommendation requests, rants, or bug reports: Posts must benefit the community rather than the individual. Please post to [email protected].
Describe images/videos, no memes: Please include a text description when sharing images or videos. Post memes to [email protected].
No self-promotion spam: Active community members can post their apps if they answer any questions in the comments. Please do not post links to your own website, YouTube, blog content, or communities.
No reposts or rehosted content: Share only the original source of an article, unless it's not available in English or requires logging in (like Twitter). Avoid reposting the same topic from other sources.
No editorializing titles: You can add the author or website's name if helpful, but keep article titles unchanged.
No piracy or unverified APKs: Do not share links or direct people to pirated content or unverified APKs, which may contain malicious code.
No unauthorized polls, bots, or giveaways: Do not create polls, use bots, or organize giveaways without first contacting mods for approval.
No offensive or low-effort content: Don't post offensive or unhelpful content. Keep it civil and friendly!
No affiliate links: Posting affiliate links is not allowed.
Our Communities
Lemmy App List
Chat and More
Migrating from Android to a possible "NothingOS" has the same energy as migrating from Twitter to BlueSky:
You're escaping from one techbro's grubby hands just to fall into another's.
He's gonna do the same shady shit eventually. It's the way all these companies operate, if don't go FOSS you ain't escaping anythin'
Addendum:
If you think about the tech stack for what an OS is, I don’t think we need to work on the lower parts of the stack [...] but we should work on innovating the user experience, because operating systems haven’t really changed for 40 years. [...] these devices have so much information on us [...] but they don’t leverage any of that information to make the experience any better.
Now this, I wholeheartedly agree.
I feel there's a looooot of room to try new, innovative, potentially even wacky user UIs and experiences, Sailfish OS and Nintype/Minuum being my favorite examples of a existing concept being done with completely fresh UX, HOWEVER
Not having to work on the lower part of the stack??? What???
If we're talking about x86, sure I guess, throw a Linux kernel on it and build whatever on top but ARM, specially on phones, looks like a compete hellscape! (to a outsider like me)
Ask any Linux phone Dev how easy it was to get the hardware going. Their heads will likely start spinning.
Could you build a new, modern mobile entirely from components with Mainline Linux support? And did this support come from the manufacturer or was it hundreds of hours of painful reverse engineering from the community?
New phone without having to work on the lower parts of the stack??? Dunno bout that man.
Why not just make an android skin
They already have it. It's called... surpise-surprise.... Nothing OS.
from their website:
Nothing OS 3.0
Powered by Android 15. Open Beta is out now for Phone (2a).
EdgelordOS
The problem is not building a new operating system, but app support. We have and used to have a lot alternatives, but because mainstream apps are missing no one wants to use them. They don't have enough users, so developers won't develop for them, egg-chicken problem. Everyone tried to solve this by android compatibility layer, but android apps will always run better on android...
I use microG since years at this point, and while most things are working, I always find some quirks, and some random apps not behaving as they should. I'm fine with that, but a non-tech guy would freak out from that. And it's not even a completely different os, only an alternative implementation of GMS aka Play Services.
See previous and current examples, all of them was/is a good or at least usable as an os, but if you can't use your bank's app or whatever app you need in your daily life, you won't switch to it. Even M$ couldn't solve this problem, why Mr. Pei could solve it.
Edit: Obviously in the article they don't speak about an actual OS, but one more Android skin... So Mr. Pei is not planning to solve this, they are just redefining the meaning of words, Android skins are called "OS"s in entrepreneur speak nowadays.
Every android skin is an "OS" these days. I wonder how much "it's own" it would be.
But they already have a "Nothing OS": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_Phone_1#Software
And they are calling that an "OS":
“If you think about the tech stack for what an OS is, I don’t think we need to work on the lower parts of the stack — drivers and how hardware connects to software and the kernel,” Pei added. “I don’t think we need to work on that, but we should work on innovating the user experience, because operating systems haven’t really changed for 40 years.
Yeah, they speaking about another freaking skin...
They could do a lot of things.
The Windows Phone, BlackBerry, Pebble, and Samsung Watch have shown that attracting developers to build high quality apps for an OS is hard.
A compatibility layer would make a lot of sense, but at that point, why bother with the new OS?
why bother with the new OS?
So someone's petty little sanctions don't obliterate your business. It's worth having a backup.
New Android skin when?
Well, I'll show him because I'll build one!
Oh wait, that's the company name. Never mind.
In other news, Nobody ate all the cookies.
New OS is a waste of resources, but it would be great to see them embrace something like GrapheneOS
These companies might want their platforms to be free from google's control, but that's only because they want to have that control for themselves.
Correct.