Linux

tap to pay, voice assistants, carplay...everything I hate about modern phones. Don't threaten me with a good time, Linux.

Missing those things would be a feature for me.

I'm much more worried about having a usable battery life and having basic phone functions like WiFi calling and MMS work.

So in other words they're perfectly suited for day to day use?

I have zero need for any of the janky bullshit features you listed, so this is great news!

Someone did do some work on reimplementing the Android Auto Client Server API.

Just needs time and interest.

https://github.com/tomasz-grobelny/AACS

Actually I don't need any of those things you mention. It may be a mistake to assume that Linux phones should imitate Google/Apple phones.

RCS text messaging is another to consider, at least in the US. The carriers implanted it in a proprietary way, so only Apple and Google apps have it. It's a poor substitute for an IM/chat app and not private and secure like it was promised due to poor implementations, but it's still far better than plain SMS. I still have people I can't get to use Signal or another secure IM app.

The Android Auto is the only one I'd be sad about. I love not having to use my phone's screen for navigation and the navigation built into most cars is crap and expensive to keep maps and data updated. I like being able to use any navigation app, though Google Maps/Waze is still the only one I've found that has both live traffic info, which is extremely important with my city, and reading the street names rather than just "turn left" it says "turn left on some street" so I don't have to look at the screen as much.

I use GrapheneOS and that's what I won't be able to replace once I finish my Immich and Home Assistant self host setups to replace Google Photos and Google Home/Nest, but st least they are sandboxed a bit.

Though Google has been moving to make it even more difficult to use their apps on these alternate OSes. Like I just found that Google Photos latest version pops up a not closeable error screen if it doesn't have full "photos and video" access. Doesn't work with the limited access or storage scopes that come with GrapheneOS, at least for now. I have photos I don't want google to scan and index even if they are not being uploaded, which they do now. It's obviously a ploy to get access to your data since it used to work fine. Now, I just use the mobile website instead until I have time to get Immich totally working and get people to switch if they want to see my stuff or share with me.

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.

Of all the things that my phone is supposed to be able to do this is the one thing I never touch. It has never worked better for me than just doing it with my own two thumbs.

Does anyone actually use their voice to control their phone (not voice typing)?

Don't want or need any of those things you mention. I want a phone, I want to be able to send messages, I want GPS and a camera. Good battery life, wifi and enough memory and storage... And then privacy...

I think problem number 1 might be solvable if GNU Taler succeeds in europe as the digital euro backend. https://taler.net/

Of course this would only apply to people in the EU, but who knows, others might follow.

I was wondering what everyone’s thoughts on these were:

1. It doesn't work on GrapheneOS either, so I got separate devices I carry with me that do the tap-to-pay instead, and they've been a godsend. They're super compact as well and came for free when I opened the accounts.

2. I don't own a car, on ebike I use my screen.

3. Normally I use my fingers. If they're not available I yell cuss words at my phone until they're available again.

This is awesome because I don't want or need any of those things. If this is all that's missing, I think I'm ready for a Linux phone when my android dies.

Which phone did you find where these are the only problem you encountered? I don't care about any of these things and haven't been finding any usable Linux phones.

I already don't have any of those things on my de-googled android. I'm used to it. Sure, they would be nice, but it's not a dealbreaker that I have to tap a card instead of my phone, or use Bluetooth instead of carplay, or type on my phone instead of talking to it.

I switched to GrapheneOS like 4 years ago and at first I was bummed that I could no longer tap my phone to pay. But it's fine. I still go out with my wallet in my pocket, so it's no problem to just tap my bank card really... I'll take privacy over convenience thanks

Voice assistant through homeassistant is great. You can plug into an AI. There are guys using the SIP plugin to dial chatgpt from a landline.

https://www.reddit.com/r/homeassistant/comments/15jjkkm/i_built_chatgpt_into_my_rotary_phone_and_made_it/

Of course, you can also self host AI models if you have the hardware. I'm not there myself yet... but the tech is ready.

Everyone here just saying "oh I don't use that therefore no one needs it and should just lose it and switch to a Linux distro" is not helping anyone. This person told us their requirements to switch. How hard is that to understand for anyone. They also told us the requirements of most of the population. This concept should not be so hard to understand. Everyone has features they need in certain products. Some people don't care how headphones sound they just care that they make sound others are really picky audiophles. It's all preference

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.

Help a non-techy out. I've fully switched my computers to Linux (fedora workstation, silver blue, and ubuntu). Been Linux only for several years now. Silverblue is probably my favorite. I'm willing to make the switch for my phone, too. But there are a few things I'm pretty reliant on:

My banking apps, cash app, and, embarrassing as it may be to admit, Grindr.

Any chance of getting those?

Are those actually the only things you find lacking? If so that's really good, practically the same as using LineageOS without any Google services.

I don't use any of the stuff you mentioned and might have to consider Linux mobile as a daily driver if it's that good. Especially if Google kills custom ROMs, it sounds like the people already running them would feel right at home switching to Linux mobile.

More importantly, how's the app situation? Can people generally expect most of the desktop GTK or Qt apps they're familiar with to be usable on a phone form factor? Is there a reliable way to run Android APKs on regular Linux now? At the very least F-droid apps?