Linux phones are still behind android and iPhone, but the gap shrank a surprising amount while I wasn’t looking. These are damn near usable day to day phones now! But there are still a few things that need done and I was wondering what everyone’s thoughts on these were:
1 - tap to pay. I don’t see how this can practically be done. Like, at all.
2 - android auto/apple CarPlay emulation. A Linux phones could theoretically emulate one of these protocols and display a separate session on the head unit of a car. But I dont see any kind of project out there that already does this in an open-source kind of way. The closest I can find are some shady dongles on amazon that give wireless CarPlay to head units that normally require USB cables. It can be done, but I don't see it being done in our community.
3 - voice assistants. wether done on device or phoning into our home servers and having requests processed there, this should be doable and integrated with convenient shortcuts. Home assistant has some things like this, and there’s good-old Mycroft blowing around out there still. Siri is used every day by plenty of people and she sucks. If that’s the benchmark I think our community can easily meet that.
I started looking at Linux phones again because I loathe what apple is doing to this UI now and android has some interesting foldables but now that google is forcing Gemini into everything and you can’t turn it off, killing third party ROMS, and getting somehow even MORE invasive, that whole ecosystem seems like it’s about to march right off a cliff so its not an option anymore for me.
1 - you arent. You dont need to. They have it other ways. Tap to pay is done on device with a revokable token. If the device is stolen, the token can’t be easily accessed and can be remotely wiped at any time, unlike a stolen card which you have to call in to disable and even that doesn’t always go over well. 2 - Bluetooth doesn’t give me maps or a UI to access my music, podcasts, etc. 3 - feature parity wins people over. You aren’t going to bring people in to the ecosystem by selling on having less. You can sell on mandating less, but opening with “here are the things a Linux phones CANT do” will never get this off the ground.
That's the problem. The things you think "people" need is what they already have and it can't be different. "I want to trust everything on a company online but I want my data to be private and safe." You have to choose. For those people who think they "need" what you say, they already have apple and Google.
Just like Linux was never meant to replicate windows "features" like cortana and others, and it didn't, and it works for those who don't want those things which is why they want Linux.
The requirements for Linux to have your "needs" would make me not want it, and then it would just be a poor version of apple without the trillions of dollars that come with it. It wouldn't please either side.
The things open source people care will always be a minority. It's sad but it's the reality.
This is a ridiculous thing to say about something as frivolous and nonmandatory as NFC tap to pay & being able to use a Maps app in your cars dash.
It's not the existence of the option. It's the requirements it brings.
Which companies will this phone need to shake hands for that to work? What price will they have to pay? What risks does it bring to my privacy on that phone? What requirements will they have? Banks, car companies, credit card companies etc are not the kind of company I want to see involved in my system.
If magically you can have those agreements without any risk for me, then I'm happy with it. But it's impossible. You want a different product than mine with those needs.
I need freedom and trust in my system and I would like convenience. You need convenience and would like freedom and trust. It's a matter of how much you have to sacrifice of one to get the other. It's a personal choice.
For example, even before Android shitified itself, tap to pay wouldn't work if you have root or most custom roms. Is it the price I have to pay for your option? Limit how I can use my phone so that Banks can trust it? Imagine if I couldn't use sudo on Linux because someone wants to bend over to a bank?
I would look for a different system.
Do you own a bank account? A credit card? A car?
Your requests aren't interoperable with the daily life in 2025. Your incredibly niche requirements instead ensures that the general public cannot have access to a usable reasonably private OS outside the hands of corporations.
If you want these requirements you can rip the code out yourself and load it as a custom ROM, stop being anti progress for things as frivolous and solvable as this.
Not that I own all these, but what do they have to do with my phone? I don't see any connection to those except where I wanted to create it.
I'm not stopping you from wanting your apple/Linux phone. Or anyone from making it. I'm just saying that I believe that my interests are similar to a lot of people who care about open source, and therefore:
-The people who care about open source will not support that enough to be successfull (currently, as more people keep saying stuff like "I just can't live without this convenience" it might change).
-The people who care about those conveniences that much don't care about open source, privacy or freedom, and they won't support it either. They will only support it if it's even more convenient and lazy, and for that the apple/Linux phone would have to be even more evil than the current options.
So in my mind it's a dead end, and I personally I don't support it. But go for it! And I do believe that over times those conveniences will be seen more and more as needs and soon we might have a Linux phone I wouldn't want to use. But good for those who want it.
BUT just to be clear, I desperately want a Linux phone, yes! But my concerns are stuff like: does the hardware work well? does the camera work well? Does the GPS work well? What about signal with the telecoms? Battery lifre? You know, mostly hardware related with the software.
Tap to pay, car play, siri, all those things can be on the list, but way down on the bottom.
I feel like you're conflating some things here. Tap to pay is more private and secure than a bank card, and is more private than most cryptocurrencies. Cash is obviously better, but it is increasingly looking like it might be phased out of some places eventually (I really hope not, but is a legitimate concern). However, you are right that it's not open source and relies on trusting big companies that don't like user freedom.
So I would say that some of the people using tap to pay don't necessarily not care about privacy more than convenience. Some of them just want to be able to use money in places where cash is dying out.
I don't use tap to pay personally.
I'll be honest that I don't know how it works because I never cared. What I know is that it doesn't work with root or most roms, it removes my freedom because my phone can't be "trusted", so any other issue it has is not important. Even if it was more private than cash. It needs Google to "trust" my phone and I really, seriously trust a thief more than Google.
Cards are another massive issue but it's a problem so widespread that there's nothing I can do about it anymore. I use cash whenever I can but I know humanity and it will die soon because people don't care.
And later tap to pay will be mandatory and if you don't have spyware (Google play, apple) on your phone you can't buy anything anymore.
The present is bad, the future is horrible.
Fortunately cash is still a common option in Australia (and I'm here), and likely will remain so for a long time. However, I'm increasingly hearing that other countries are increasingly refusing to accept cash.
It's probably best to get something working on Linux phones before it's too late, but as you said Google is worse than a thief, so whatever is made should not use it. Best to maximise the freedom for people in a horrible future, lest Android or iOS ever become the only viable options. Problem being I don't know how that would work, especially since banks would probably hate freedom respecting systems.
I agree basic functionality is higher priority, but I fear tap to pay will reach basic functionality status in some other countries when their banks phase out any alternative. (I don't think cryptocurrencies will ever become common). It may not directly impact me that other countries phase them out, but it will gradually kill the Linux phone ecosystem.
Yeah, that's the thing, I don't think it's possible without becoming as evil as the alternative. If it is, I'm all for it. But my freedom comes first.
Australia will lose cash over time. All first world countries will. You can't stop "progress". It's just a matter of how long, and then how long until you are not a citizen without Google play on your phone. Or considered disabled, which is already happening.
Bluetooth works fine (or should work fine) with music, podcasts etc. I do it now with a phone, it's a standard I don't see why a mobile device running Linux would be any different.
As for maps, the voice goes over Bluetooth so I don't see an issue there either.
You can't choose a specific playlist or album over Bluetooth via the head unit is what they were saying. And with the maps some people don't like to have the voice on and prefer to actually be able to glance at a map when needed, on the head unit.
True, but then again I dont want to mess with any screen while I am driving. I line up a couple of podcasts or episodes and that is several hours right there. Or stream from my server, and just line up what i want. I can still skip fast forward change tracks, and I don't see why, on a linux phone, I couldnt make the blue tooth inputs do more if I mapped them that way.
It's just good in those moments where things have fucked up for some reason and you can either quickly stop at the side and easily deal with it on the head unit or if there's no traffic around you can slow down and touch the buttons you need to bit by bit while keeping an eye on the road. Or, even better, if you have a co-driver they can sort it for you on a screen that both you and them are able to deal with.
Its funny, because that is my experience with carplay, but not my devices.
Car play fucks up. One of the reasons I don't want it.
I just want a touchscreen cast. Is that too much to ask?
Touch screen cast would be awesome too. I'd love for there to either be that or an open android auto/car play standard. The former would probably be easier and I imagine some aftermarket head units have that functionality already.
I've actually wanted to DIY a head unit at some point and getting a good satnav experience on it would be key to it being a daily DRIVER.
vocal map instructions suck and always will
I noticed that googles is horrendously bad. The open source stuff is ok.
the open source options (that I found) lack hours and public transit maps