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.
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.