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This is gonna push a number of technical people to iOS. Not phone enthusiasts necessarily. At my workplace you need to be running non-rooted Android or iOS to be able to use work stuff from your phone. From that lens, if I can't install non-signed software or mess with the personal side of the OS... I might as well have an iPhone.
After Google decided to ban sideloading (their alleged "change of heart" is increasingly looking like a PR exercise), I decided to not buy any more devices devices based on American platforms.
My A73 works fine, but I planning to get a Jolla phone later his year. Going to use both in parallel to aid in switching.
I do wish European banks and eGov services started porting their apps to SailfishOS.
This is a different sideloading. The sideloading you are talking about is installing apks this is where you download a software update zip file and then sideload the update to the device to either upgrade or downgrade the os. This also has nothing to do with Google as their phones still have this capability
I am aware of the difference between recovery options and sideloading applications. :) I've installed/used LOS (and other ROMs) multiple times and I am a heavy user of F-Droid and its applications.
Just pointing out that this is just one more reason to avoid Android (saying this a Samsung user).
I should have gotten the pixel 9 instead of the s24 ultra. At this point it might just be more economical for me to sell mine at a loss and scrounge up for a pixel 9 and install graphene OS
Man I fucking hate this. I like the s24u because of the stylus. Sure I might use it 3 to 4 times a month, I'm always grateful that the pen is bluetooth and can act as a camera remote control, fingerlessly control my phone and just the precision a stylus has.
Man fuck my life this is such bullshit
How can I block any further updates from samsung? π¬
Pixel is doing the same later this year. We have to leave big tech devices altogether. I got the fairphone and its fun again, lineage tying a new phone in 2007.
So if my phone runs slow or drains the battery quick after an official samsung update i can now no loger fix it by wiping the cache. Is there something wrong with my money that Samsung does not want it anymore?
They want to lock us out of owning the devices we fucking paid for.
The sad thing is the average consumer neither understands nor cares.
They don't want you to be able to uninstall the government mandated spyware that will be rolling out next
"Next"? Isn't that already baked in with the platform's spyware that governments can access freely?
Fairphone has been great so far, spreading the word that there are alternatives and when it's time for an upgrade, vote with your wallet
Still not available/supported in most of the world, unfortunately. Hopefully they get big enough to open up soon.
I'm personally in the states, if that helps, but I agree it needs to take off in more places
I feel these companies are forgetting the lessons from the mid 2000βs. When you remove the hardware features from your devices, which only the most advanced users use. It doesnβt mean youβve locked it down, but instead invited these users to find alternative ways to bypass your security.
PS3 had Linux support. PS3 removed Linux supper. PS3 was cracked wide open.
Xbox One has a Dev mode, devs who wanted to play emulators on their Xboxes could. So the hardware was left be.
Their goal is to have no ways to bypass it. Sure, it's an ideal that might not hold up, but they will keep trying over and over and over again
Backed up by server-side authorization, and supported by powerful entities such as banks or governments. They will not stop trying
Surely they will never stop trying, and the challenge will get certain people really worked up to be creative in how to do it.
Remember iOS used to have a huge community on hacking the phone. The interest slowed down after Apple sort of implemented the features people used that for. iOS is certainly more secure nowadays, but thereβs no shortage of vulnerabilities being constantly discovered, and with vibe coding apparently being integrated even large companies, I suspect more and more dumb vulnerabilities will be looming just waiting to be exploited.
a powered system is a vulnerable system.
they will never have the ability to 100% lock down hardware.
This era is such a pointless attack against the smallest niche of users. I honestly don't get it. How much are a few techie hobbyists costing Google/Samsung's gargantuan bottom lines? They are stepping over dollars to chase after pennies.
Just let people who want to modify their phones. It's already prohibitively hard that no one who doesn't have the know-how is installing their own apps outside the stores.
They want no competition. They want consumers to have devices, that are necessary for them to have in the modern world, that are locked down and under control of corporate or state entities. It's surveillance capitalism combined with police states
It's the cyberpunk future
As a hobbyist if I can't side load my necessary apps to make my phone functional, then I have a non-functional device. And if my device is non-functional then there is no point in having one.
I'll legitimately just go back to a flip phone or have no phone. And there's no fucking way I'm touching a iPhone.
I guess that's part of the problem. It's easy to encroach on these things when there's effectively no pushback.
Welp, next phone is gonna be a challenge to pick.
I decided awhile ago to never get another Samsung phone, at least they keep making it an easy decision to keep.
Alas, I couldn't resist the lure of the fold
Pixels have a fold, and you get GrapheneOS for that. I tried a fold for about a week, just felt really uncomfortable holding that expensive a phone with so very little case options
I can't believe the but for the first time in my life I am now just straight up telling normal people to just buy Apple shit instead of Windows or Android devices. For the average person, it will be a better experience and Apple is at least a bit more trustworthy. These morons have destroyed everything that made themselves better than Apple and now there's no point in buying their shit. I think Linux and FOSS are much better paths but the average person will simply just not be able to handle running Linux as soon as something goes wrong. As for a phone I'm legit considering just downgrading to a dumb phone because I'm sick of all of it and everything sucks on the Internet these days anyway.
I was considering the supposed ifold but with Apple shoving Google Gemini and that Israeli AI on to it, I worry about the lack of customization to let me disable such things
Fairphone has been pretty legit tbh
K, fairphone 6 has been pretty legit?
Interesting. What is now the point of picking a Samsung phone over an iPhone? The freedom of Android seemed like one of its main selling points.
Samsung has always been the iPhone of Androids. There still are other decent brands
Neither are the pick, Linux phones are the future.
Linux phones barely exist at this point in time. Saying thatβs the solution in the future is absolutely pointless.
2026 is the Year of Linux, didn't you know?
The future of what?
I mean, most people won't know or care, and there are plenty of worse things Samsung has done in the past decade. I stopped buying their stuff for those reasons after the S10. I'm sad to report they don't seem to have noticed or shown the adequate amount of remorse.
In places with a strong Apple presence, maybe. Android, and Samsung specifically, are very much in a position of absolute dominance of the market in many regions. Samsung phones have no "selling points", they are the default choice.