It feel like we’re losing to Google, day by day. They aren’t killing AOSP directly, but they are making it useless step by step.
Now it’s Google Play Services, Play Integrity checks, installation source checks… more and more apps just refuse to run without GMS. Banking apps? Most of them don’t work. And it’s only getting worse. I run vanilla AOSP on my main profile, no Play Services. I keep GMS only in my work profile for the apps that absolutely need it. But now even some regular apps that don’t need any play services won’t work on my main profile anymore. They simply block your from running , like le chat.
Maps is google’s most important app there is no way to run without play services. Sure we can use webview or gmaps wv, but they don’t provide turn-by-turn directions. Earlier maps used to work without play services, but two years ago, an update stopped it from working. Now that old version is out of date and no longer works.
Google is slowly making GMS very important to run. The problem with GMS is they require to run as system app and has to have all the permissions by default.
Hope EU puts pressure to make google allow apps to run independently without GMS or atleast install them as user apps(like graphene os sandboxed play services).
If we keep going on like this, AOSP can only run fdroid apps in the future.
I can’t wait for when they are ready!
It’ll be awhile. They’ve been in a development state since the launch of the original pinephone in 2020. And even the pinephone is going to be unavailable in two years as pine64 is ceasing sales on it. Not trying to crap on devs. I bought two pinephones (Braveheart & Mobian bundle). Tested multiple distros and excitedly followed their progress for years. I never had a reliable working phone in that four year span. IMO SailfishOS and Post Market OS are the two most usable mobile distros. SailfishOS now requires an ongoing subscription to use which I don’t like.
https://liliputing.com/pinephone-pro-linux-smartphone-has-been-discontinued-but-the-original-pinephone-is-still-available/
Sailfish only needs a subscription to get updates, you can use it without a sub.
I use danctnix on my pinephone, which is basically arch. It does the basics, that’s about it. What’s missing is more convenient apps. Most of the stuff is catered to desktop.
Of all the OSes I tried, I liked ubports the best, but it was not updated and not all hardware worked iirc, and suffered the same problem of apps. At least arch gets updated constantly.