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.
It's an interesting discussion to witness in these posts: convenience vs privacy and control.
The convenience and integration you get with commercial products like IOS or Android comes at a price. Everything that matters to you on a daily basis bundled together in one convenient package means that all things which define you as a person are conveniently interconnected for corporations to sell out your data for everyone who wants it.
GPS: your current whereabouts at any moment in time and a complete history of where you have been in the past
Payment functions: what you are buying and where you have bought it
Communication (Messengers, Phone): Who you communicate with and what you are talking about
Photos and Videos: Real life evidence from all the stuff mentioned above.
Web Browsing: Interests and Needs which will be used against you in a totalitarian surveillance state, at a glance
If you in 2025 still think this convenience is there to please you as a consumer I have bad news for you.
Convenience and interconnection of services look nice and useful but at the same time they're a privacy nightmare that makes Orwell's 1984 look like a bedtime story for children.
What this all comes down to: Strictly airgapping the boundaries between the different services is the only way to have a modicum of privacy. Photos do not belong in a cloud controlled by someone you don't know and should be taken from a separate device. Navigation belongs on a separate device with no internet connection, payment should not be done with a personal identifier at all (if avoidable) etc. Living your life this way might seem terribly inconvenient, but as someone who was alive at a time where all this convenience didn't exist I can tell you it has its advantages too. You'll rediscover what really matters.
That's a bit extreme. Some of those are not linked.
Yes you can not have cloud pictures without having to trust the server. But you can have an open source, inspected system that uses gps without any related data being shared. Gps doesn't send data, it's the system choice to create a way to send it to someone. You can have a Linux phone that doesn't chose to do that.
You can have convenience with privacy, but the companies offering those services don't want that, nor do the consumers care.
And those consumers would not care about a Linux phone.
I think some of this data is stuff im fine to share with some caveats. I think we can have a world of convenience and a world where people have a decent level of privacy. Of course there will always be tradeoffs but we can find a sane middle ground because at the moment its 0 privacy.
GPS data can be shared while im using a map to navigate and They must not "know who I am". I am ok to be a datapoint but I dont like when they build a personal profile with this information.
Payments are fine if its my bank and they never sell that info.
Communication must be encrypted and I do not want them knowing who I am talking to.
Photo and video thats private should be encrypted but anything posted public is public. I would use cloud storage but it needs to be encrypted.
Web browsing I dont mind if the site tracks what I do on the site but it must only be stuff I do on site and not build a profile using my off site data.
i, too, was alive at a time when all this convenience didn't exist but a large part of the world has moved on with forcing privacy nightmares.
some of these "conveniences" are requirements for people. i keep a lot of my personal digital activities isolated (offline gps, minimal invasive app usage on my phone, custom ROM, blah blah) but when i have to travel for work, i am required by the company to use ride sharing (relies on gps), commercial messengers, and other invasive commercial apps (that rely on phone based payment systems). typically i pick up a stock android phone and a pay as you go plan for this to use as a "burner", using false information where possible.
sure i guess i could quit my job and go hang potatoes in somebody's garage for $0.13 USD per year but i've made my bargain with the devil.
the lines between privacy and convenience are fuzzy and ever moving. it's best to approach this with a bit of threat modeling first. figure out what you're actually worried about and what you can tolerate, then decide how much convenience you're willing to suffer.