Google: 'Your $1000 phone needs our permission to install apps now' [video]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBEKlIV_70E

by robtherobber • 11 months ago

565 517 11 months ago

youtube.com

loloquwowndueo3• 11 months ago

You paid $1000 for the metal, but the software is licensed and owned by Google.

You could install a free os on the phone instead and own the whole thing.

fluidcruft7• 11 months ago

Could you? From what I understand Google is hell-bent on making that difficult nowadays as well.

https://www.androidauthority.com/google-not-killing-aosp-356...

lawn6• 11 months ago

GrapheneOS still works fine (support for Pixel 10 will most likely come).

What the future holds is unknown however.

ylk• 11 months ago

Android 16 no longer provides device trees for Pixels as part of the Android Open Source Project. It's important to note it doesn't provide those for any other devices. There are no other OEMs providing similar AOSP support. [...]

by strcat, Graphene OS founder https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44679100

yupyupyups• 11 months ago

No, people pay for more than just "metal". We pay to access services which society expects us to have access to, a society which is increasingly becoming more unhospitable to those who lack that access. There is no moral obligation on our part to let two large corporations use that against us, by spying on us and robbing us.

otterley6• 11 months ago

people pay for more than just "metal"

Correct. They are paying for the physical device and the license to use the installed software.

dotancohen6• 11 months ago

I'm not sure which two large corporations you are referring to, but I'll take a guess.

My Samsung phone is not linked to my Google account and I don't have a Samsung account. I have no WhatsApp/Facebook/Meta account. I don't use Apple devices or have an Apple account.

Possibly the only apps on my phone that have an account linked with them are Telegram and AnkiDroid.

_aavaa_6• 11 months ago

Ridiculous argument.

You didn’t buy a physical book, you bought the paper, but the words are owned and licensed by the publisher.

You will need their permission to read it under an approved light, to sell it again, and even it lend it.

Wrapping the bs in a thin veneer or “software” doesn’t magically make it okay.

otterley6• 11 months ago

You didn’t buy a physical book, you bought the paper, but the words are owned and licensed by the publisher.

Correct.

You will need their permission to read it under an approved light, to sell it again, and even it lend it.

No. The physical media is transferable and the implied license carries with it. You just can’t make a copy and then retain it if you give the original copy away.

ipaddr2• 11 months ago

You do not need permission to read a book in your hands, lend it to a friend or sell it at your local bookstore.

You are overly restricting yourself.

b_e_n_t_o_n• 11 months ago

You need their permission to copy it. You actually don't own the words.

bill_joy_fanboy• 11 months ago

Your comment makes it sound like this is reasonable. It is not.

This is a complete and total ripoff. Everyone knows it.

spacebacon• 11 months ago

Everyone knows it’s a complete and total ripoff however people like that with good narratives write the laws all day.

loloquwowndueo3• 11 months ago

Oh I agree it’s entirely unreasonable. But that’s what you signed up for - it’s okay to be angry, I would too, but pretending that’s not what the deal was from the start is pretty naive.

codedokode9• 11 months ago

You couldn't - many phones do not support installing third-party OS and do not have public specifications. So your options are either become a product or do not have a phone.

oh_my_goodness3• 11 months ago

No matter how dystopian things get, there's always somebody rooting for the dystopifiers.

loloquwowndueo3• 11 months ago

Indeed. But that someone is not me. Screw Google!

Just pointing out that the deal with Google is implicit in the piece of metal you bought - and with some phones you have at least the choice of a free system. It’s more of a choice than I have with my iPhone.

RadiozRadioz• 11 months ago

Part of the issue is that phone manufacturers actively make this difficult. Hardly bootloaders are unlocked, barely any drivers are freely available, all the hardware is so tightly intertwined & locked in that you can still brick these things with no recourse (though this has improved). Not to mention 3rd party apps that have built with dependency on Google Play Services which needs to be replaced, banking apps with "security" attestation - using free software on a phone is magnitudes more hostile than doing so on a PC.

orbital-decay2• 11 months ago

It's not realistically possible because hardware makers collude with Google and keep their specs secret from anyone who isn't using Google's software. (among a myriad other reasons)

mathiaspoint12• 11 months ago

Don't use smartphones at all, they're only bad for you and you don't need them. Do anything you can to either get away from them or start moving away from them.

hoppp4• 11 months ago

I need them for my bank and public transport. It sucks but I am locked in. Its a national security issue for Europe to rely on google or apple but seems politicians don't care

gruez14• 11 months ago

for my bank

You can't access it via browser? Maybe there's a few fintechs that are app-only (think robinhood, at least initially) but it's not like all banks only offer access via smartphones.

public transport

???

binary132• 11 months ago

the only correct take

_aavaa_6• 11 months ago

And use what? A Linux laptop we carry around with us?

This is just letting them win. And if you think the forced pushing for control over what we can do with our computers will simply leave Linux alone, I don’t know what to tell you.

ndriscoll2• 11 months ago

Handheld PCs like steam deck or legion go seem like a compelling value, at least if you were going to consider a phone in the $500+ price range. Maybe also something like the Mecha comet on the lower end. If you're in an area where banks require an app, you could then go for the absolute cheapest phone you can find (which can probably be years out of date since the whole exercise has nothing to do with security) and treat it as a single purpose device.

otterley6• 11 months ago

Or you could start a business making your own completely open phones. If there’s truly a market for that, you could become extremely wealthy.

noisy_boy3• 11 months ago

And use what? A Linux laptop we carry around with us?

Even if you do that, it won't work in many cases because even in the government agencies, there are some that have gone app-only mode.

TeaBrain• 11 months ago

I've recently eaten at several restaurants where the menus were only available via a link reachable from a QR code. At the last place, I asked if the 13 page menus were available in physical form and the waiter explained that they didn't have any. Technically, a phone doesn't need to be that "smart" to reach a QR code and access a web page, but it's just one more way that people are being locked into using phones for tasks that previously didn't require them.

mathiaspoint12• 11 months ago

I know. You just figure it out. QR code menus aren't worth effectively selling yourself into slavery.

zahlman4• 11 months ago

At the last place, I asked if the 13 page menus were available in physical form and the waiter explained that they didn't have any.

I would walk out.

ksec2• 11 months ago

Depending on which part of the world you are in. It is increasingly impossible to do it. Post COVID, Cash is no longer accepted in many stores or restaurants. Smaller shops that used to avoid VISA and Master now accept them as well, at the expense of slight increase in menu price.

Landlord would rather leave shops empty than rent it at lower price. In order to combat rental restaurants cut cost by having QR Code ordering system.

The uses of QR Code, whether it is for payment or information makes Smartphone mandatory in those places.

Spending Money online with VISA or master now requires Mobile App log in for Authentication. Government Digital Log in System now also default to Apps.

I may be missing a few things, and there will be many more things to come that moves to Mobile Apps only direction.

m01• 11 months ago

Surely you can still pay with plastic cards, at least if the venue advertises accepting the big card issuers?

The latest neobank might require an app, but I'd be surprised if you couldn't find any bank in your country that allows you to spend money without using mobile apps.

Ask if you can order/pay without using the QR code. I'd be surprised if venues didn't have a paper menu as backup.

latchkey• 11 months ago

He says one thing that isn't true. He blames Apple for standardizing the concept of not being able to install applications on your "computer" (phone).

This was the case long before Apple, and started at the carrier telco's. Apple was the one who wrestled the control of the app store from the telco's, who were even worse!

Myself and a buddy built cool fun a bartender app (recipes for alcohol drinks) for the Danger Hiptop. It was rejected by the telco (t-mobile) because they were afraid of lawsuits due to the 21+ nature of the app. We never really got a formal rejection notice, they just stopped responding to us. It was also one of those things where you had to build the app first, submit it (to Danger, who then presented it to the telco), take the risk on everything yourself, and then get silently rejected. What a mess.

mathiaspoint12• 11 months ago

The problem was the belief we all had that smartphones would mean phones become computers the way we think of them.

In effect fewer people use computers now than used to. They're all online but not empowered the way we had hoped. It's all vice with none of the good parts.

butterlettuce• 11 months ago

The classic “You will own nothing and be happy”

OutOfHere3• 11 months ago

Actual ownership is what contributes to happiness. It is the most crucial part that does.

bitmasher9• 11 months ago

Ownership is one part of happiness, in that it increases physical security.

zahlman4• 11 months ago

This theory predicts a massive happiness gap between renters and homeowners, but I'm unaware of any studies showing this.

codedokode9• 11 months ago

Maybe it's time for the legal requirement that every computing device or microchip more powerful than 1 MIPS and having writable storage, must support reprogramming, to prevent creating digital waste.

mathiaspoint12• 11 months ago

Also not publishing source for drivers should be illegal. There isn't a single legitimate reason not to do that.

codedokode9• 11 months ago

They may say that if they publish the code, other countries will copy it for free.

93po2• 11 months ago

security through obscurity maybe?

gruez14• 11 months ago

to prevent creating digital waste.

Approximately nobody is going to be reprogramming their 8 year old iPhones to "prevent creating digital waste", especially when the CPU is unbearably slow and the batteries are well worn out. Say reprogramming is important for user freedom or whatever, but claiming it's going to make a meaningful difference in reducing e-waste is always going to be a spurious justification.

codedokode9• 11 months ago

I also meant microcontrollers. I am sure someone would remove chips from old devices and resell if they were reprogrammable. Also you could use them for your hobby for free.

mathiaspoint12• 11 months ago

8 year old phones are fine if you run a decent OS on them.

rpastuszak• 11 months ago

My 8 yo iPhone is perfectly usable, the battery wasn’t expensive or difficult to replace.

oh_my_goodness3• 11 months ago

A spurious justification is not ideal, but it would be acceptable at this point.

slug4• 11 months ago

All my personal and family computers are more than 10 year old, running latest Ubuntu. They have probably slower CPUs than that 8 year old iphone, but can run the latest web and email clients just fine. These are almost all salvaged from e-waste. I have a drawer full of old phones that could make very useful computer nodes, but instead of that I have to get (buy) some semi open raspberry pis since those phones are locked down.

torstenvl3• 11 months ago

Cool. So if the device is ostensibly so old and unusable now, what possible commercial rationale could exist for preventing its use for other ends?

wslh• 11 months ago

The first iPhone is more powerful than the VAX computer my high school used to teach in over fifteen simultaneous terminals.

whycome2• 11 months ago

Weird, did the CPU somehow slow down over time? Did it get tired?

dvdkon5• 11 months ago

IoT sensors, thermostats, dashcams, home intercoms, mobile data modems, smart TV dongles... I could name a dozen more products that could have an old phone as their heart, if they were cheap, unlocked, and easier to develop for.

An iPhone doesn't have to be an iPhone forever, and end-users don't have to be the ones doing the conversion. All we need is a law that would stop phones from going to a landfill and instead actually get them recycled as general computing devices.

The market can figure out the rest. If manufacturers today are willing to deal with antique toolchains and expensive programmer gear to save a few cents on microcontrollers, imagine what they could do with cheap boards running Android or iOS.

everdrive• 11 months ago

Those 8 year old phones were plenty fast when they were new. Why did operating system, apps, and websites need to get more bloated? Do they even do anything they didn't (or couldn't) do 8 years ago?

xandrius• 11 months ago

Approximately nobody is not nobody.

And saying this in a forum literally named after the act of hacking and repurposing devices is quite bold.

I have old devices still laying around in the hope one day I could reuse them for something, anything useful, I simply can't get myself to throw away something which seemed magical a few years ago.

wpm2• 11 months ago

How about 8 year old Macs with Apple Silicon, which are rapidly going to become a thing in just 3 short years, and are the same thing as an iPhone architecturally

What happens when Apple stops putting new macOS versions out for the M1, which by all accounts is as far better computer than my old Sandy Bridge Thinkpad, but will become completely useless far earlier?

anonandwhistle• 11 months ago

Do you have lobbying power to pass that? Because $trillions are on opposite side so make sure you can pay for it. Reality.

bapak2• 11 months ago

This probably falls into the "right to repair" and "green" initiatives, so I think it's going to happen in this decade.

fsflover7• 11 months ago

Yes, if you support https://eff.org

JimDabell• 11 months ago

This doesn’t make sense. The most locked down mainstream option on the market – the iPhone – is also the one with the longest market life, with iPhones holding their market value far longer than alternatives. So there seems to be a negative correlation between being locked down and e-waste.

I know you have “let’s reprogram old phones” in mind, but approximately nobody does this even when it’s an option. If you don’t like phones being locked down, then argue that on its own merits; e-waste is not a good argument.

notrealyme123• 11 months ago

7 years lifetime is nothing. All iPhones have to rotate in that timeframe. That's incredible amounts of waste.

Every shitty iPhone could still be a MP3 player, home control or something else. But no, its Garbage because your only way to install is by going online and hoping that your critical apps are still in a useful version in the app store.

dvdkon5• 11 months ago

I'd say that's a spurious correlation, if it exists at all. Just look at all the Android phone makers who don't allow bootloader unlocks and those who do. Personally I'd say Google Pixel or Sony Xperia phones last longer than Huawei ones, though I wouldn't dare say reprogrammability has anything to do with it.

Besides, when the options on the market range from "impossible" to "damn hard to reprogram", can you blame the market for not taking advantage of that? I'm certain a law that would allow waste recycling companies to unlock any phone, even without password or receipt, would lead to phones or phone motherboards being reused in a variety of lower-volume products.

Fire-Dragon-DoL4• 11 months ago

One of my desktop pcs is like 15 years old. It faced a ram upgrade and 2 gpus died over time, the processor still holds. The windows 11 upgrade killed it though, but I'll move it to linux and that should be ok.

fsflover7• 11 months ago

The most locked down mainstream option on the market – the iPhone – is also the one with the longest market life

Compare that to GNU/Linux phones (Librem 5 and Pinephone), which will be supported forever, since they run mainline Linux.

numpad03• 11 months ago

You have to shock European politicians with credible model of threats showing that not implementing such a regulation could very well lead to their daughters getting home address shared open to the world and harassed 24/7, e.g. so much widely known that it would be trending in Central Asian language while completely walled off from their eyes in languages used around their residence. Not that I endorse that kind of things or that I think faking one will do, of course.

But that kinds of threats must be theoretically established and acknowledged - which I think is ultimately inevitable but could be delayed or hastened by human actions. The point is, you could be seen as throwing pointless tantrum about your toys until it happens.

stavros• 11 months ago

Haven't European politicians already legislated against this anyway, with the DMA?

fidotron2• 11 months ago

I think it's time for us to go back to having mobile phones (texting, virtual credit cards, tethered wifi hotspots etc). separate from mobile storage and compute (mp3 players, cameras etc.).

The modern mobile ecosystem is selling games consoles when the nerds want mobile Unix workstations.

mathiaspoint12• 11 months ago

Modem Manager on Linux handles ppp and texting (even MMS if you're willing to build mmsd which isn't easy) with just a USB modem. You don't need a phone at all.

All phones have these days is "the app ecosystem" which is designed and optimized just to rent you out to corporations. Exposing yourself to it is almost always a loss.

mbac32768• 11 months ago

Do you actually carry around a Linux laptop with a USB modem instead of a smartphone? Can you blog about it?

bapak2• 11 months ago

The nerds are the minority. If you want hackable machines vote with your wallet and/or with your politicians.

pharrington6• 11 months ago

Nope. Its time to have full ownership over our handheld computers.

garciasn2• 11 months ago

There are options out there for you to do this. Hell, build your own. That’s what nerds did long ago. Keep up the same effort today. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

fidotron2• 11 months ago

This isn't going to happen.

You won't have modern mobile banking or cellular communications in a device without binary blobs or "trusted" compute modules you cannot inspect.

echelon2• 11 months ago

This.

It's time for an antitrust breakup of Google (and Apple).

These two companies control mobile computing like a dictatorship. This is a sector where most people do all of their computing. This isn't gaming or a plaything - it's most people's lives and trillions of dollars of business activity. All gatekept by two companies.

Here's what needs to happen:

1. We need government mandated web installs of native apps without scare walls ("this app is dangerous and may delete your files") and enabled by default without labyrinthine settings to enable.

2. We need the ability to do payments and user signups without Google or Apple's platform pieces. We should not be forced to lock ourselves into their ecosystems.

3. Google search and Chrome cannot be the defaults on mobile platforms. We need the EU-mandated browser / search picker.

4. First party applications should not be treated as first class while third parties are left to dry. Google and Apple should not be allowed to install their platform components by default - a user must seek them out.

5. No more green text / blue text bubbles. All messaging must be multi-platform and equivalent with no favoritism.

6. Google and Apple wallets should not be the defaults, but rather the user should have the ability to configure their bank, PayPal, Cash App, or whatever payment provider they choose.

throwaway106382• 11 months ago

Here you go: https://www.punkt.ch/en/products/mp02-4g-mobile-phone/

dotancohen6• 11 months ago

No CardDAV sync. How do you get contacts on and off the device?

dotancohen6• 11 months ago

Find a dumb phone that:

  1. Presents a mobile hotspot, and
  2. Supports CardDAV so I can actually sync my contacts
  3. Records calls

There were none the last time I tried, about three years ago. And that even ignores the issue of trying to dial a number from a link on a web page or in a document.

omnimus• 11 months ago

I am not 100% sure but my partner has the nokia “bannana” phone and i think it supports both. It for sure supports 4g hotspot and caldav but i think even carddav.

Kinda sad that it's KaiOS the FirefoxOS fork. One can only wonder what would have happened if Mozilla kept with the project till now. There is huge wave of people wanting less absorbing devices nowdays.

cosmic_cheese3• 11 months ago

It’s so strange that out of the box CalDAV and CardDAV support is rare for mobile devices. iPhones are the best somehow, with Android being heavily Google-focused and support is totally absent on non-smart platforms, which is the perfect opposite of what one might expect! It’d make way more sense if the more open platforms were built around open standards, but somehow here we are.

numpad03• 11 months ago

There was a multiple years of gap between rollout of voice call specification on LTE(VoLTE) and launches of first featurephone operating system supporting it. Android and iOS were only implementation available for a while. For this reason, practically all "featurephone" style phones that supports voice call, except very few, runs AOSP. At the point where your product runs AOSP, you might as well launch it as a low end smartphone, which is what a lot of vendor do.

baq• 11 months ago

Presents a mobile hotspot

I guess you can get a mobile hotspot and a dumb phone separately. Looks like 5G Wifi 6 APs are available for ~$100.

ajdude• 11 months ago

For a couple years I used the TCL Flip as a phone and mobile hotspot for my iPod touch. I'm pretty sure KaiOS supports CardDAV.

AJ0072• 11 months ago

I suspect the solution may be a compact tablet running a touch-friendly Linux distro, and the "phone" is just a mobile hotspot. If you want some fantastic camera built in, that's a separate problem.

I've been more neutral about this in the past, but the current and future integration of LLMs (and other ML models) into the base operating system will mean these mobile phones do less of what the user wants and more of what the user does not want.

Secondly, Apple is in the process of becoming an adtech company and will not provide an alternative to Google.

Thirdly, Google may be forced to divest Android and the mobile business. If so, the buyer is likely to be as bad, or worse, because they'll have to figure out how to pay for the whole thing.

drnick13• 11 months ago

The dipshits at Apple and Google don't provide what should be a built in feature (recording calls) and make it difficult to add it through third party software. At this point, iOS and Android are actively working against the user.

Almondsetat5• 11 months ago

The ratio between nerds and "normal" consumers is pretty high, and being a nerd does not automatically mean you care about having a "mobile unix workstation" (what unix-worthy work can you actually do on a phone?), and even if you have one it doesn't mean you'll actually find a use for it. It's safe to say that the market is irrelevant, and, unlike things like woodworking, boutique manyfacturers can't really exist in this space

cosmic_cheese3• 11 months ago

I don’t really care to do any task traditionally associated with full fat computers directly on my phone, simply because the input methods are extremely poor for that kind of thing. If my phone could act like an ultrabook/netbook when hooked up to a screen and proper desktop input on the other hand (similar to DeX, iPadOS 26, and the forthcoming baseline Android desktop mode), that’s a more interesting proposition and probably one that a number of more typical users would find interesting too.

For example, university students whose main use for a computer is editing documents could comfortably get by with nothing but a nice-ish phone, a monitor, and a Bluetooth KB+mouse.

davidw• 11 months ago

unix-worthy work can you actually do on a phone

They're more powerful than plenty of computers from not too long ago

skybrian• 11 months ago

If you interpret “this space” a little more broadly, there are boutique manufacturers catering to hackers that sell tiny, cheap, wearable computers. Check out all the stuff Adafruit sells.

esseph2• 11 months ago

I've rebuilt Linux servers with my phone from multiple countries over. I've also reconfigured BGP speaking routers with it.

yjftsjthsd-h2• 11 months ago

what unix-worthy work can you actually do on a phone?

I do most of my light/routine server management via SSH from my phone, plus keeping a version control checkout of my documents that I do actually work on in vim (yes, the limited keyboard is annoying but it's fine for light work). At a previous job, the former extended quite far; I could get paged in the middle of the night, connect to the VPN, SSH into the server, triage, and frequently diagnose and even fix the problem without having to actually get out of bed.

butz• 11 months ago

It's finally time for Palm Pilot to shine again.

zahlman4• 11 months ago

time for us to go back

I never left. Well, my flip phones have had cameras in them, but. On the other hand, "virtual credit card"? What?? And what good is proper "mobile storage and compute" if I don't at least have a laptop-sized screen and a proper physical input device?

rafram2• 11 months ago

That wouldn’t sell. Who wants to buy two devices with more or less the same hardware when they could buy just one?

rs186• 11 months ago

This.

Apple stopped selling all iPod hardware, including iPod touch, for a reason.

TheRealPomax• 11 months ago

Or, and hear me out this is going to sound crazy: we finally stop pretending that we're using phones. When was the last time anyone actually used their "mobile phone" for actual real phone calls to a phone number that wasn't "phone support because the company involved is so ancient or dark patterned that they only offer phone support"? Or voluntarily initiated sending a text message, rather than using email or messenger software?

So how about we just stop making "mobile phones" and just sell what they are: pocket computers. And that name immediately tells legislators what's appropriate hardware control, namely: none. If you buy a pocket computer, you can now do with that computer whatever you want, and the company that makes the hardware has no say over that, and the company that makes the OS has no legal basis for locking you out of anything. And if those are the same company, then the EU can finally go "how about no, you get to break up or you will never sell anything in our market again".

saulpw2• 11 months ago

When was the last time anyone actually used their "mobile phone" for actual real phone calls

I called my mom yesterday (to her landline), and then I sent a text message to my friend from a parking lot to let them know I'd be there soon.

queenkjuul4• 11 months ago

99% of my communications are SMS/MMS and while i do avoid phone calls my friend called me yesterday, and i called a business to ask about their holiday hours this weekend.

And it's all LTE, your pocket computer needs a network whether you use SMS or some IP messenger. Therefore carriers get involved, and they make horrifying demands of users and manufacturers.

But yeah, i don't want a phone, i want a pocket computer with VoLTE

superkuh2• 11 months ago

Especially since the mobile phone part legally can never be owned or controlled by the human person. Only corporations can own and use the baseband computer/modem because only they have bought the spectrum license rights and built out the infrastructure to justify it to the FCC. Similar situations exist in other countries.

This legal reality is showing itself more and more in the practicalities of actual using "smartphones". The only real solution is what op said, make the modem completely separate from the computing device.

blfr3• 11 months ago

Yeah, if Google kills ReVanced, I may as well get an iPhone. What's the difference at this point. You can't even unlock the bootloader on most of the quality Android phones.

However, the crusade against the word and concept of "sideloading" is really weird. Yeah, installing from the repo is normal, and all the windows-land "download an .exe/.msi to invoke an installer" ways that then may or may not update the app are unusual and apart from an ordered process of system management.

The proper alternative to Google Play is F-Droid, not downloading/baking .apks.

pharrington6• 11 months ago

Why is it weird? You install software on your computer. You install software from your app repository. You install software with your package manager. You install software on your server. You install software on the computers you administrate. "Sideload" was always the weird, Orwellian term.

(editted to add repository and package manager points)

blfr3• 11 months ago

It's weird because "sideloading" accurately captures that you're doing something ad hoc outside of the main channel. You install software with your package manager, from the app repository, and you sideload it with `curl | bash` or manually moving an .exe/.msi/.apk.

This is a fine distinction. And it will happen and should happen because there are always gaps. Without a way to fill them, you're left with a subpar experience.

And while many people are fine with it on their iPhones, I can't really imagine not having ReVanced apps, Molly, or a dozen other little fixes.

AJ0072• 11 months ago

This is what bothers me about the whole "App Store" stuff with the EU. This entire fight about Apple being required to allow third party "App Stores" -- how about simply the user can load whatever software they want to on the device which they are the owner of?

The amount of legalism that's been brought in by both sides, Apple/Google and the regulators, layered in lies (we need to approve the software, register the developers, to protect the user from software), is divorced from the reality of the hardware-software relationship. This has led us down a path where everyone is debating the topics that Google, Apple, and revolving door regulators choose rather than the underlying reality.

There is a simple solution to all of this: Google and Apple should no longer be allowed to operate any sort of "App Store" or software distribution channel.

Fire-Dragon-DoL4• 11 months ago

On windows, you mostly download apps from websites and sideload them. And windows is by far the most common OS

isaacremuant10• 11 months ago

Politician and corporations want you to not have ownership or control over your devices. Either for money or control, but they absolutely would love for things like Linux to not be possible or illegal so they can force you to watch ads and pay their next version of enshitified shit, not consume the wrong kind of news and absolutely not assemble in political opposition to their corruption.

If you don't see the patterns of absolutely pathetic authoritianism, which most people cheered on during covid policies times, you're not going be very effective at opposing this crap.

93po2• 11 months ago

revanced is killed on iOS too unfortunately and has been for a long while

noisy_boy3• 11 months ago

Atleast you get some decent hardware if you have to give up the freedom anyway.

gdulli2• 11 months ago

Apple? I'd never give my money to the organization that's responsible for bringing us to this place.

itake• 11 months ago

How are they responsible?

nextos5• 11 months ago

And Microsoft. Microsoft basically killed Nokia from the inside. Symbian was fairly open in terms of installing applications from wherever you wanted.

And Maemo/MeeGo were basically normal Linux distributions. Right now, SailfishOS is a worthy successor. It runs on a fairly decent number of devices and is quite ready for daily usage. Following the Nokia tradition, offline maps are outstanding. There's also a proprietary Android emulation layer that works really well for most applications, in case that is needed.

SailfishOS and Jolla could challenge the duopoly if a critical mass of developers migrated to the system. Right now, there's a fairly small technical userbase that has nonetheless produced lots of great indie applications. I can't believe I had Linux in my pocket with the N770 in late 2005 and, right now, mainstream options are so locked down.

GeekyBear6• 11 months ago

Apple? I'd never give my money to the organization that's responsible for bringing us to this place.

Apple didn't invent walled gardens, and walled gardens are not illegal unless you do what the EU did and change the law.

What is going to bite Google on the ass here is selling users an "open" platform and then using anticompetitive tactics to yank those supposed freedoms away.

Look at Microsoft's Xbox platform. It was created, advertised and sold to the public as a walled garden with no legal repercussions at all, because walled gardens are not illegal.

On the other hand, Microsoft created Windows as an open platform and sold it to the public as such. When Microsoft tried to use anticompetitive tactics to maintain control of the platform they sold as "open", they were found guilty of antitrust in jurisdictions around the world.

Google made the choice to sell Android as open. "Sideloading" apps was the only way to install apps at all for the first couple of years. The decision to sell Android as "open" only to yank those freedoms away will have legal consequences again here.

thrance2• 11 months ago

Same here, being able to enjoy YouTube without ads is the only thing really blocking me from switching to ios. Silver lining is, maybe if using YouTube is made painful again it'll help me cure my last remaining internet addiction.

65• 11 months ago

You can install iOS Safari ad blockers. AdGuard for example

Saline9515• 11 months ago

Orion browser (from Kagi) and Brave block natively youtube adds on iphone.

Jordan-117• 11 months ago

I used to think jailbreaking was the only way to do this, and mourned my adblocker tweaks when Apple made jailbreaking practically impossible. But turns out sideloading on iOS is a pretty easy alternative: just install AltStore via your computer, sign in with your Apple ID, and then import and install the YTLitePlus .ipa from their GitHub[1]. This gets you a YouTube clone with adblocking, SponsorBlock, custom UI controls, and all sorts of other quality-of-life features. You can even sign into and sync with your existing YouTube account.

The only downside is that free Apple accounts must renew their certificate in AltStore (while connected to their computer's home network) once a week, or else it'll all be deactivated and you'll have to reinstall AltStore and YTLitePlus from scratch. But you can pay $99 for a year-long developer account, set a recurring reminder to renew, or worst case YTLitePlus makes it easy to export your settings so you can quickly restore it after reinstalling.

[1] https://github.com/YTLitePlus/YTLitePlus

redwall_hp• 11 months ago

I watch YouTube without ads on iOS. Any decent Safari ad blocker stops YouTube's ads. Google seems to make YouTube an intentionally subpar experience in a browser compared to a mobile app, but it works.

ajsnigrutin• 11 months ago

However, the crusade against the word and concept of "sideloading" is really weird. Yeah, installing from the repo is normal, and all the windows-land "download an .exe/.msi to invoke an installer" ways that then may or may not update the app are unusual and apart from an ordered process of system management.

Wait, let me take out my word 97 CDs to read the "sideloading instructions" booklet. Oh wait, what was considered a normal install Same on mobile phone in symbian era. It's not "sideloading", it's a "normal install".

leeoniya• 11 months ago

Wait, let me take out my word 97 CDs

oh, those things you literally load from the side? :P

jacquesm3• 11 months ago

It's not side loading. It is just installing and running. I swear all this 'for your benefit' crap is going to relegate all of our computing hardware to the status of dumb terminal before long.

Note how the term 'side loading' is already weighted against you doing it, it is supposed to make you feel you're doing something that is borderline illegal even if it is still possible and that you are bypassing safeguards that would stop you from doing this stupid thing if you only took the proper route.

wilsonnb33• 11 months ago

It’s called that because you used to download the apks on a separate computer and then load them onto the phone, it has nothing to do with sounding illegal

m463• 11 months ago

Kind of like "jailbreaking" as a term. It makes it seem like you're a criminal escaping from confinement enforced by good and decent society.

fluidcruft7• 11 months ago

Oh is ReVanced that YouTube-without-ads thing? I'm about to install it out of pure spite to reciprocate Google's hostility.

nodja• 11 months ago

It's much more than that. It's an app that patches apks and has a series of community patches for specific apps. For youtube it's the usual ad blocking and sponsorblock, etc. but it can apply patches for all apps, one of the universal patches is changing the package name, this allows you to install 2 of the same app. I use this on youtube and tiktok so I have both accounts logged in at the same time, each logged in to a separate app.

MiddleEndian2• 11 months ago

The proper alternative to Google Play is F-Droid, not downloading/baking .apks.

Disagree entirely. Google Play refused to download some app on my phone because it thought the specs weren't good enough for whatever reason even though it worked fine on my previous weaker phone.

I found the APK, I downloaded it, and just installed it. Why would I want to first download some other middle-man to deal with any of this shit? Ideally there would be no "store" at all on my phone.

Editing to add this from the front page of HN right now: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45082595 (F-Droid site certificate expired)

Telaneo8• 11 months ago

I'd probably still want a common repo to get software from, for the same reason we use package managers and repos on Linux. Not to mention that the app store experience is more friendly to the newbies out there. But the 'just download an apk/exe/.app and run it' should still exist as a lowest common denominator. Not to mention that the existence of that possibility will hopefully keep stores in check and not become overtly hostile, since if they do, users can just say 'fuck it' and download their software piecemeal.

joquarky4• 11 months ago

I wish that standard software development practices included encouraging the implementation of an "I know what I'm doing, stop coddling me" option.

blehn• 11 months ago

Not that Google needs any more cash, but ReVanced has to be the absolute worst defense for maintaining openness on Android. As in, you could have cited the thousands of legitimate apps that have nothing to do with circumventing a pretty reasonable subscription (compared to other media subscriptions out there) for Google's own app.

wpm2• 11 months ago

Not paying for Premium is pretty cheesy but Revanced also fixes a number of hostile UX changes to YouTube no subscription let you escape normally.

It also allows you to patch other apps to make them work the way you want.

xethos3• 11 months ago

The deal with Youtube was always presented as "You watch a couple ads, we show you a couple videos"

Google has dramatically altered that deal, and now shows much longer, less-likely-to-be-skippable ads, with much higher frequency.

Calling it "a prety reasonable subscription" is only reasonable if we forget that this wasn't the deal originally offered

Furthermore, this is a massive corporation closing up a project that got it's start by selling itself to geeks as Open.

It is Google's OS, and it is Google's app, but closing up the Open project to advantage their own app sure as hell feels like poor form

account423• 11 months ago

I disagree that it's a bad defense. It demonstrates well how reduced openness will allow Google to abuse its monopoly even more. It shouldn't be any business of the maker of my phone to support the business model of the most popular video sharing website.

wolfi1• 11 months ago

f-droid would also require google approved devs

wand3r• 11 months ago

You can't even unlock the bootloader on most of the quality Android phones.

Can you not do this on Samsung phones? I was considering buying a used s22 ultra as an iPhone user to explore more freedom and pirate apps, etc. Is andoid really this locked down now? I have heard that quite a bit, but can't you sideload or install any apps you want on Android? Why do you need to unlock the bootloader?

orbital-decay2• 11 months ago

Not anymore, since OneUI 8. And before that, by unlocking the bootloader you were tripping Samsung's e-fuse, permanently marking the hardware as unlocked. That's why nobody ever bothered making custom firmware builds for Samsung devices.

Sideloading doesn't require rooting the device.

queenkjuul4• 11 months ago

Unlocking the bootloader is step 1 in rooting the device (usually) and is absolutely required to install an alternate OS (like grapheneOS)

And yeah majority of phones simply won't let you do that anymore

JohnTHaller• 11 months ago

There's the fact that on iPhone you have to use Safari's rendering engine and every 'browser' just sits atop it.

joquarky4• 11 months ago

They're intentionally fumbling on progressive web apps for the same reason.

necovek9• 11 months ago

With phones becoming our main computing platform, I wonder why do we look at it any different from our personal computers?

On my computer, I can choose to containerize applications I run with something like docker, flatpak or snaps; run them in a VM, under a separate user, in a chroot... or, not! I can get them from the Debian/Ubuntu/Fedora/... archive or... not! Or I might compile it from source and run it directly or... not!

Based on source of the app I decide how much I trust it and thus decide on the encapsulation strategy for it (sometimes, none).

Yes, I understand having full control of your system has some minor downsides (you can mess things up more easily), but you can usually do that anyway (just fill up your phone storage with photos and see how your phone behaves).

baranul• 11 months ago

With phones becoming our main computing platform, I wonder why do we look at it any different from our personal computers?

Especially after people paying so much money for the devices, it's ludicrous that they are not allowed to make their own decisions and install what they want. Ownership, user rights, and privacy have been kicked in the face. If you can not install whatever software that you want, then people should be signing only rental agreements.

It is also more the reason to push Linux smartphones[1]. Android is not doing anything special, that people could not get or create for Linux phones.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open-source_mobile_pho...

fsflover7• 11 months ago

With phones becoming our main computing platform, I wonder why do we look at it any different from our personal computers?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19328085

nosioptar2• 11 months ago

Oddly enough, Google Pixels are easy to unlock the bootloader, provided you didnt get the verizon version.

Dont get me wrong, im not accusing Pixels of being "quality". In my experience, they're not quite as good as a free phone from a MetroPCS store.

wyclif2• 11 months ago

I was with you on "easy to unlock", but the "not quite as good as a free phone from a MetroPCS store" is just a laughable, probably troll take.

poulpy123• 11 months ago

Android phones still have a huge price advantage on iphone: the least expensive iphone is 800€, the least expensive Google pixel is 550€ (which is much higher that 2 years ago), and the least expensive Samsung is 300€.

EchoReflection• 11 months ago

Apple and Google are just two heads of the same surveillance-state hydra: https://web.archive.org/web/20201108102009/https://www.bloom...

franktankbank• 11 months ago

I'm going to be fucking pissed if I can't use AlfaOBD. I've saved myself thousands doing simple repairs which required that interaction.

add-sub-mul-div• 11 months ago

I assume my Galaxy S20 is immune to this because it's not getting (major) updates anymore. I'll continue using it as long as I can to avoid this. Does anyone know the most recent Galaxy phone that will be safe from this? Should I get one or two extras?

tananaev• 11 months ago

I'm kind of surprised by this. Google is already under a lot of heat, especially in Europe. All sorts of lawsuits everywhere because of they monopoly abuse. And they decide to pull this move?

112233• 11 months ago

OTOH, it gives more options to implement Cyber Resilience Act requirements, especially once the boundaries get mapped out in real life

frollogaston2• 11 months ago

New EU laws are kinda requiring Google to do this

progval• 11 months ago

Which ones?

jjani2• 11 months ago

Eagerly awaiting Apple doing the same on Macs then. Let alone any Linux distribution.

noisy_boy3• 11 months ago

I saw a youtube video that the latest Pixel 10 doesn't have a physical sim card slot - only eSIM. Just when I thought the sideloading shit was bad enough.

pensatoio• 11 months ago

Why is eSIM related? I want to understand. To me, SIM cards always seemed ridiculous and pointless.

hedora• 11 months ago

My cell company locks my physical sim to the phone it is plugged into.

If I move the sim, I have to go through similar bullshit as I would if I wanted to move an eSIM (attempts to upsell the plan, charge for the “service” of moving the sim, etc, etc.)

At this point, I don’t see any disadvantages for eSIM, since the backported the enshitification to physical sims.

Someone1234• 11 months ago

I can swap a physical SIM into as many devices as I want, without the involvement of the network. With eSim my provider gives me "permission" to swap it to a new device maximum 3 times per YEAR. This has been spoken about by cellphone reviewers in particular as a huge headache.

For another example, Mint Mobile now charges $3 per eSim to swap devices. So now you're paying for something that used to be free, and that is likely a preview of what we have to come.

dvdgsng• 11 months ago

Seems to apply only to 10 and 10pro in USA. Rest of the world gets nano-sim. https://www.androidauthority.com/google-pixel-10-no-physical...

christophilus• 11 months ago

I’ve been eyeing the FLX1 or Jolla as a replacement for my iPhone. Anyone daily driving those?

mathiaspoint12• 11 months ago

I lived with a pinephone for a few years. Once you switch over you realize smartphones were never actually nice and it was all just a very clever psychological trick. You kind of stop taking that form factor seriously. You can skip the trouble and just get a UMPC.

Seattle3503• 11 months ago

what are you using?

rafram2• 11 months ago

Knew it was Rossmann from the title before even clicking. He genuinely always seems so miserable. Does he ever talk about positive things?

potamic• 11 months ago

Acquainting people with consumer rights is a very positive thing! Why do you think otherwise?

jondwillis2• 11 months ago

What sort of positive things would you have him talk about?

on_the_train• 11 months ago

Yup, cpt Drama is of course right there. It's disingenuous at this point. He doesn't care, he's just sweeping up tech drama

slashtab2• 11 months ago

“Ignorance is bliss”

npteljes2• 11 months ago

That's a valid reason not to subscribe to his channel, but not a reason to dismiss the point just because the discussion started from a video of his.

timbit42• 11 months ago

Sometimes he talks about his dog.

quantummagic2• 11 months ago

The government isn't going to save us, they love it and are in bed with these corporations; the more control, the better. Locked down computing, no anonymity online, the threat of losing banking/credit accounts, and authorities showing up to arrest you if you challenge the current dogma too strongly. We're so cooked.

tetris11• 11 months ago

About a year ago, I looked at my collection of old phones and laptops and smirked at my needless hoarding.

Now? I feel like I'm sitting on gold by keeping these cheap dumb devices around.

bonoboTP8• 11 months ago

Until they deprecate old SIM cards and make new ones that refuse to work in legacy phones.

Telaneo8• 11 months ago

2G and 3G networks are already being dismantled, if not already gone, in several parts of the world. Even if you do want to stick to those devices out of principle, you often can't, or if you can, only for maybe 5 more years.

You can still buy equivalent dumb phones, but they aren't any more open than the rest of the rabble.

Laptops are a different story, although I believe part of that battle was already lost when the Intel SSM and AMD equivalent came around. We'll see how things go when banks start to require you to enable (In)Secure Boot just to be able to log in through a browser on a PC.

npteljes2• 11 months ago

I'd still consider it hoarding.

Depending on how old they are, phones have diminishing network compatibility, and cheap, dumb devices are in production still, and will be for the indefinite future. So it's not like they are a resource that the world has run out of.

Old laptops age better, but it's not like anyone restricts software on laptops, or will ever be able.

isaacremuant10• 11 months ago

We are not cooked. You only need to recognize that covid policies were theater and enabled them to rapidly advance in this direction and that the typical cultural left/right bullshit is a distraction.

If people stop the bullshit it's not that hard to effectively oppose

bigyabai3• 11 months ago

Non-sequitur. Covid policies weren't used to damage my online security or manufacture my consent for digital change.

If you're going to use unrelated discussions to launder your conspiracy theory, at least provide evidence. Otherwise we get to dismiss you without trial which is faster but less fun.

solid_fuel2• 11 months ago

What "covid policy" do you think contributed to Google locking down their device? Can you point to some of these "covid policies" and explain how it relates to this?

solid_fuel2• 11 months ago

Our politicians are bought and owned, and it's hard to expect anything else after Citizens United. If we want a government to serve and protect us we must ensure that our politicians actually represent us.

pharrington6• 11 months ago

This doesn't stop with handheld computers. If Google will be able to get away with it on phones (which is FAR from guaranteed atm), they will do it on Chromebooks. Microsoft will do it on Windows. Apple will do it on Macs. Then the hardware manufacturers will only allow "trusted" developers via TPM.

Full ownership of all our computers must be norm again. It's fine if tech companies want to charge extra to sell walled gardens and market it as extra security. But they must sell computers and software that the buyer actually owns.

microflash• 11 months ago

"You'd need our keys to enter your house."

specproc• 11 months ago

I guess this is the thing, they're not our houses. I'm increasingly of the perspective that phones are just a tax, an entry requirement for a hostile society.

Spent a week with it uncharged in my drawer recently, that was great, should try that again.

ksec2• 11 months ago

It is really wired when I learned a few years ago the landlord has a spare key to my rented flat and could go in whenever he wants. And this sounds like it.

ayaros2• 11 months ago

Both Apple and Google should just bite the fucking bullet and let people install whatever they want.

Apple, for their part, should have just buried the option to "sideload" deep in the settings. They could have put up a dialog, or maybe 5 dialogs in a row, each one scarier than the last, warning the user that if someone told them to do this, they are being scammed. They could have done it every time someone installs an app from outside the App Store. Make the user wait 10 seconds or a minute between each dialog. Put the option behind their passcode, or their Apple ID password. Void AppleCare if they do it, for all I care. They could have done any of this. Anyone actually concerned about their security would have avoided it anyway.

This is what they should have done. Now it looks like regulators are going force their hand. Why Google is doing this now, of all times, is beyond me. Have they read the news lately?

The regulation should be for phones, computers, and game consoles too.

I know this isn't an unpopular opinion... whatever. I gotta vent somewhere.

laweijfmvo• 11 months ago

I actually don’t want this, especially for non tech savvy older relatives. Someone calls them and gets them to allow remote access to their PC, easily. Ever heard of the Android UI (bugs) that allowed apps to hijacking dialogs etc? I’d rather they just had a phone where security was the only option.

reorder9695• 11 months ago

Why not have it so you could choose to have it like that, but also choose to run whatever you want? No reason this is impossible

const_cast10• 11 months ago

Doesn't matter, most malware is on the playstore.

Play integrity doesn't protect anything, disallowing side loading has no security benefits. Thats just a lie, a convenient piece of propaganda to convince you to advocate against yourself.

There is no security on the play store. Can apps ask for way too many permissions? Yes. Are they open source? No. Are builds reproducible? No. Does Google check the code? No. Is it almost all adware and spyware? Why, yes!

Google does not give a flying fuck about the quality of the play store and anyone who disagrees is legitimately delusional. Have we looked at the play store? Seen what's recommended?

I mean, for fucks sake you can't download a goddamn calendar app without it asking for phone permissions and showing you popup ads.

Look - Google allows malware on the playstore because they have to. They make money off of ads sold on the playstore and advertisments in apps. Google has ZERO incentive to stamp malware. But they have every incentive to prop it up.

I don't need Grandma to download an unsigned binary from the internet to compromise her. Get fucking real dude. I call her, ask her to install anydesk, and remote control her device, all Google approved.

ayaros2• 11 months ago

This is a very real problem, and I understand it well... I have my fair share of relatives who are technologically incompetent.

The solution is to integrate sideloading into the parental controls. There are already existing permissions in iOS to restrict the installation and deletion of apps, so adding a sideloading permission should be straightforward. (They can still leave it disabled by default and bury it a bit behind a few menus and dialogs...) If a family member is really so technologically inept they can't be trusted with their own phone, then you should already be making use of parental controls in some fashion. Set a pin for them which you know and they don't know. It's as simple as that.

Perhaps that's a bit harsh, but we should not be sacrificing these freedoms at all, let alone at a time when there are already existing solutions for protecting those who are vulnerable.

(The relative simplicity of this solution is yet another piece of evidence this issue is not really about the security of users.)

Squid_Tamer• 11 months ago

For real. They could even gate sideloading behind a 10 question multiple-choice-answer quiz on the consequences of sideloading. That's how we license dangerous abilities in the 'real world' - demonstrated competence via standardized test.

It feels so transparent that their concern isn't actually user safety here.

pkphilip2• 11 months ago

It is time to get the government to recognise mobile phones as being full fledged computers and which require the same consumer protections. Just because you are carrying it around all the time doesn't make it any less a computer.

CharlesW2• 11 months ago

It is time to get the government to recognise mobile phones as being full fledged computers…

Mobile phones are not, and have never been, general-purpose computers. If you think they're locked down now, you'd be completely astounded to learn what the industry was like pre-iPhone/pre-App Store.

homebrewer2• 11 months ago

I was hacking on firmware for the couple Sony Ericssons I had, replacing major system components like sound drivers with no problems. Installing third-party applications without first asking for permission from your master was normal and expected. They were about as open as current Android is, and probably more so than Android in another five years.

pkphilip2• 11 months ago

What is a "general purpose" computer? who decides what is "general" or not? what can you not do in a mobile phone which you cannot do on a regular desktop / laptop computer? If anything, a mobile phone has MORE capabilities - such as GPS, the gyro etc. So it is a superset of features of a "general" computer like a desktop or a laptop and not a subset of features making it a "non-general" limited computer.

fsflover7• 11 months ago

Openmoko, Nokia N900, Pinephone, Librem 5 enter the chat.

kamranjon• 11 months ago

What are the implications of this for GrapheneOS? Because it’s based on android, will that project die off?

slashtab2• 11 months ago

No, GOS is fine.

janice1999• 11 months ago

They can choose not to enforce it. The problem is that both Google and other phone manufacturers are making custom ROMS more difficult (restricting access to binaries needed to get the phone to work, not providing bootloader unlock etc). The other issue is if governments choose to go after them. Some police services are already trying to equate custom ROMS, and in particular GrapheneOS, with criminal drug-dealing gangs.

justoreply• 11 months ago

it doesn't matter, if GrapheneOS is going to be the only one to allow "side-loading", then the market for application installable without a store will disappear

th0ma54• 11 months ago

[flagged]

quantummagic2• 11 months ago

Agreed. It's two separate issues though. Someone who did nothing but donate $100 to a cause they believed in, should still not lose access to their bank accounts, without any legal proceedings or recourse.

th0ma54• 11 months ago

I can be arrested for donating money for any kind of terrorists cause or group, however.

ragequittah• 11 months ago

I believe they froze assets of the main organizers and people who were actively blocking city streets. After many warnings to discontinue the illegal activity over weeks and weeks. And they could only do it for max a month.

tjwebbnorfolk2• 11 months ago

Why should people have the freedom to spread diseases?

Do you want to bring back leper colonies, then? Should it be illegal to buy eggs from the grocery store while sick with a communicable disease? All kinds of horrific policies can be justified to prevent disease spread.

th0ma54• 11 months ago

Good point I was too generic, why should people be allowed to spread COVID specifically? Most certainly I can be arrested today for injecting people with dirty needles?

tomhow• 11 months ago

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45084014 and marked it off topic.

gspr2• 11 months ago

Why, oh why, is there not a smartphone – or even a similar form-factor device without the ability to phone – that lets its user run anything they want (say, a normal Linux distro)? And then you emulate Android whenever you need something that only runs on that?

Hell, I don't care if it's a generation or two behind smartphones. I don't understand why this doesn't exist when non-bleeding-edge hardware has become so mind-bogglingly cheap!

What am I missing?

meneton• 11 months ago

https://pine64.org/devices/pinephone/

Telaneo8• 11 months ago

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45053872

Magnusmaster• 11 months ago

There is such a smartphone. But then you can't use your bank's app because it uses hardware attestation to ban alternative operating systems, and most banks require the app for 2FA or don't have a functional web portal at all. It's going to be even worse once governments roll out age verification apps that use hardware attestation.

gspr2• 11 months ago

Luckily my bank still allows a fob type device as 2FA. But of course your point is valid.

It's a travesty that this behavior is allowed, of course, but as long as it is, I'd keep the cheapest possible regular smartphone around for this purpose alone. I'd try to think of it as an unwieldy fob-like device.

theearling• 11 months ago

Looks like this one does just that, android VM ontop linux:

https://furilabs.com/shop/flx1/

msarrel• 11 months ago

I'm pretty sure that this combined with the announcement that in the newer pixel you will only get 200 charges before it starts to decrease the utility of your battery, and only 1,000 charges are guaranteed. So now they've got a platform where you can't install the apps you want and it has a definite end of life. Sounds like they don't even want to be in the handset business.

pengaru• 11 months ago

What I want is a law requiring support for facilitating owners of programmable computers be able to install their own programs independently. If it's not gate-keeped, there's nothing to do. But if you choose to gatekeep because "security", you've signed up for some work to comply with the law.

If there's something like a Play Store with OS-level integration preventing unsigned applications from installing and running, FINE, that's an arguably useful security feature for regular users who have no interest in writing their own apps or consuming software outside the Play Store.

This doesn't preclude allowing the user (with admin rights) adding signing keys of their choosing.

If I want to trust Lennart Poettering's or Jonathan Blow's binaries to install/run on my computer/phone, let me install their public keys, a one-time addition gated by admin rights.

If you're not enabling me to potentially put bits of my choosing on my computer, its software better be in ROMs getting physically swapped out for "updates".

whywhywhywhy• 11 months ago

Timing of this with other privacy and computing/internet freedom pushbacks speaks volumes.

p1mrx4• 11 months ago

The community could work around this problem by creating an open source general purpose app runtime for Android.

A user would install the runtime, signed by a developer who shared their government ID with Google, and then use the runtime to launch whatever app they want. It's probably infeasible to launch an APK from another APK, so the runtime could be based on WASIX+WebView or something.

We could call it "General Computation". Google could start a cat and mouse game of banning developers who sign the app, but at least this "war on general computation" would be obvious and ironic.

kleiba2• 11 months ago

This would be removed from the app store faster than you can say Jack Robinson.

p1mrx4• 11 months ago

It doesn't need to be on the Play store, as long as they allow sideloading apps from known developers.

It would be challenging for Google to argue that the app should be banned entirely, as it's basically a web browser with extra APIs, like TCP/UDP sockets.

shayway• 11 months ago

Isn't what you're describing basically just a PWA? Minus the signing shenanigans anyway.

p1mrx4• 11 months ago

PWAs can't use TCP/UDP sockets. There's probably other interesting stuff in WASIX worth supporting.

drnick13• 11 months ago

Developers shouldn't have to share personal information with Google or anyone. The real solution here is unlocked bootloaders and free/libre operating systems. Anything less and you don't truly own your phone. You can only use it to the extent allowed by Google/Apple.

spwa42• 11 months ago

I think the real question here, aside from how to displace Android and IOS, is: how do the developers get paid for the upgrades, new features, security analysis and fixes, developing new boards and coming up with bsp (board support packages, essentially a "distribution" for hardware manufacturers that works on whatever new boards they relase) and infrastructure of such an OS.

Let's just assume this is about the amount of effort Mozilla puts in. So they'd need to collect ~500 million per year.

Where does that money come from? Presumably the answer can't be Google.

hungmung• 11 months ago

So I paid $1000 for a Pixel 9 Pro 1TB, then Syncthing wasn't able to keep maintaining their android app because of Google, and now Google wants to block me from using F-Droid. Google, you've fucked me in the ass for the last goddamn time, I'm completely de-Googling over this. I refuse to subsidize the surveillance state any longer. Fucking fascists.

solaire_oa• 11 months ago

As disgusting as this decision is, hopefully it de-emphasizes the idea of mobile apps in general, which (besides CPU heavy apps like video games) are often web-apps with extra steps (React/Ionic/WebView/etc).

aeblyve7• 11 months ago

The smartphone is not a mere commodity but a part of an entire social system of production between banks, telcos, software houses. Alternatives seemingly must come from outside the system... possibly Huawei from China and their HarmonyOS, which happily enough is banned in the US.

Or any sufficiently hard-boiled alternative from the inside. IMO things like custom ROMs lack sufficient vertical organization and that is why they're not so relevant (but at that point, you're basically constructing something much like a corporation once again, if not an entire society stemming out of it).

scarface_742• 11 months ago

Why are people using banks only accessible via apps?

aeblyve7• 11 months ago

I'm not aware of a bank that is /only/ accessible with an App (maybe that is your point?), but obviously wanting to obtain the best financial offers, interest rates, etc., trumps software freedom for most people.

Part of the story is that it only takes a /single/ major scandal RE sideloading to seriously injure a bank's reputation, even if the vast majority of sideloading use cases are legitimate.

homebrewer2• 11 months ago

In my case, it is because there aren't any left that don't do this. Two banks still provide web interfaces that work through normal browsers, but only for their business clients.

This trend started in China, spread to countries like mine, and (as recent history shows) the relatively free democracies have been more than happy to copy some pretty nasty ideas from autocracies like ours — we went through your current news cycle 10-15 years ago, so I wouldn't be surprised if removing the last few vestiges of having control over your computing also came to you in another five to ten years.

like_any_other2• 11 months ago

Alternatives seemingly must come from outside the system... possibly Huawei from China

lol: HUAWEI will no longer allow bootloader unlocking (Update: Explanation from HUAWEI) - https://www.androidauthority.com/huawei-bootloader-unlocking...

(It was surprisingly hard to find any news articles covering this. Most media just don't care that one of the biggest manufacturers in the world won't let users control their own phones. So much for holding the powerful to account, or protecting liberties.)

aeblyve7• 11 months ago

I don't think phones were ever "user-controlled", each one is designed fundamentally to connect to corporate-run wireless networks. Thus they want a say in the types of communications you do, gating certain kinds like RCS behind attestation. To that end there will be never be an alternative without some channel control.

Not totally unlike the way Bell used to strictly regulate their own user endpoints in the 20th century.

Within that stage, I could be wrong, but I would expect a somewhat freer software ecosystem there, as it is an economy oriented around manufacturing, and it is useful to write many various applications around that end.

y-c-o-m-b• 11 months ago

I wonder how feasible it would be to just start using remote desktop apps for connecting to a Linux OS. Until they ban those apps too, of course.

bobajeff• 11 months ago

Some things to advocate for to counter the direction we've been going in.

1. Termination of WIPO Copyright Treaty (prerequisite for #2)

2. Repeal of DMCA. (primarily because of Section 1201)

3. Enact and enforce, Right to ownership, Right to repair laws.

4. Enforce antitrust laws. / Break up monopolies.

shkkmo• 11 months ago

You got my vote! Too bad there isn't any way to actually vote for this (and that is by design.)

octoberfranklin• 11 months ago

4. Enforce antitrust laws. / Break up monopolies.

I've given up hope of politically-appointed prosecutors ever doing a thorough and effective job of this. Sure there are some high-profile cases (AT&T, Standard Oil, Microsoft (almost), Google (maybe), etc) but the vast majority go unprosecuted.

There are really only two ways to fix the antitrust disaster:

1. Private right of action (like RICO) for the Sherman Act -- let nonprofits and individuals file the charges. This takes the implicit pardon power away from politically-appointed prosecutors.

2. Graduated corporate income tax, which creates a natural diseconomy of scale. The income tax code already contains a decades-old mechanism (search for "common control" in the IRC) to prevent evasion using shell-company shenanighans. It's very well tested, it works, and it has been working since the 1980s -- mainly to prevent US persons from evading the extra requirements for owning controlling interests in foreign corporations.

ohashi• 11 months ago

I believe there is a private right of action on anti trust.

If you're really interested in it, I suggest subscriber to https://www.thebignewsletter.com/

Bolwin• 11 months ago

Lina Khan was doing pretty good

joshlemer• 11 months ago

I'm a little bit unclear about this, will Google's changes here also affect other android distributions like LineageOS, OxygenOS, etc? If not, then I could see that Google locking down their Android Distributions like this could breath a lot of life into some alternative distribution(s). If yes, then perhaps forks of Android or even competitors to android altogether.

nilsherzig• 11 months ago

I don’t think so, but it’s getting harder to flash custom ROMs (locked bootloaders) and there are even legislations in planning which would make it illegal (at least in the eu).

It’s already cumbersome to run your banking app (and other „required“ apps) on a custom ROM with all the attestation going on. I assume these distributions will bleed users and see a reduction in new ones due to higher entry barriers.

mayama• 11 months ago

Google has delayed releasing pixel 10 sources and unlocking bootloader for new phones is becoming increasingly rare. They may lock it down too going forward.

dmfdmf• 11 months ago

You don't actually own your phone if ownership implies control over your property. You just get to pay for it. This was always the goal of our corporate/government "partnership" AKA fascism.

Can't wait for Windows 12 to have a mandatory S-Mode and a Microsoft account tied to your PII, for your protection. No anonymous writer can publish the 21st Century equivalent of the Federalist Papers and our tyranny is safe.

profsummergig2• 11 months ago

The canary in the coal mine is that tomorrow Windows or macOS could do the same with PCs.

killingtime74• 11 months ago

It's not the same unless AMD and Intel decide to only let you install windows or Mac OS. You can always install Linux or an older version of windows

profsummergig2• 11 months ago

I don't want to argue with you, but you can always install a non-Google fork of Android on the phone. It's the Google fork of Android OS that this article is about.

Fire-Dragon-DoL4• 11 months ago

What drives me nuts is: this is for your own good right?

I can still put metal in my microwave and set my home on fire, but I cannot sideload apps.

wkat42427• 11 months ago

This is because nobody makes money when you set your house on fire. Apple makes a ton of money off that app store.

freefaler• 11 months ago

13 years ago, Cory Doctorow warned us:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbYXBJOFgeI

So basically market forces and profit optimization is at work here as always.

However, if we can still unlock the boot loader and install Lineage OS or something like that and have a way to pay for developers to release their apps on stores like f-droid we can use the hardware.

The biggest problem with having freedom to use our devices is that the model is broken for the developers who support them. You "can donate", but from the numbers I've seen it's like 1 in 1000 donate. No pay == developers can't invest their time to improve the software.

So if there is "really" a substantial number of enthusiasts that are ready to pay for the freedom they crave, then companies like Librem will have enough customers to create decent and usable products for this audience. Want digital freedom - prepare to support the people who provide it.

Yes, that might mean that we'll need to have 2 devices, 1 for "banking/government services" that is "certified" and one for our own usage. Shitty but we'll be forced to do that sooner on later. The efficiencies for the government to enforce the policies is so strong that they can't helps themselves. And corporations like to have more data to squeeze every cent from the customer.

So if there is a working business model for "freedom" we might have a partial freedom. If there isn't we'd be just a digital farm animals to be optimized for max profits and max compliance.

bonoboTP8• 11 months ago

13 years ago, Cory Doctorow warned us:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbYXBJOFgeI

Wow, that's in Talks at Google. Listening to the Q&A is just so weird. The audience (I assume Google employees) are openly advocating for digital freedoms and the classic hacker ethos. Crazy how much the Overton window has shifted. I wonder where those people are now.

creer• 11 months ago

$1000 for a Google phone can be revised. The flagships are now well over $2000.

mig1• 11 months ago

I know it feels like this might be part of a big plan against sideloading, but from my time at Google, I’d say it’s more likely to be the idea of some exec trying to get a promo.

bonoboTP8• 11 months ago

Do you think you were in a position there to hear about any of the actual "big plans" of Google, in case such do exist? Nobody is saying that every last employee who executes on such tasks are "in" on some big secret plan.

Also the two are not in conflict. People are getting promoted for things that advance company goals. They are following rational self-interest of the company.

MaxMonteil• 11 months ago

In a way I hope this gives more opportunities to PWAs or at least websites that consider the use case of getting "installed" (at least added to home screen).

It's a far cry from native apps and it comes with its own issues. But in my case, the vast majority of apps I use regularly have a competent mobile web interface.

This is of course limited by what the OS will allow as we see with Apple's purposefully poor support for them and Google would likely follow suit. Maybe alternative browsers could offer what's missing.

Maybe there'll be more power behind a Linux distro for Android that puts browser apps and self installs first?

People have a natural desire for ownership in some form, I'm sure we'll find a way. But things do look bleak right now.

TrianguloY• 11 months ago

I wonder if a "parent lock" type of measure but for external installs could work, basically allowing a user to disable the external installations (and other things) unless you enter a custom code.

For those of us who know enough there is no need to enable it.

For those that are not as technological (like elders), a familiar/friend can enable it and no matter what they try, they can't "harm" the device without asking you first.

The only ones not getting any benefit are non technological people without technological contacts, but even in those cases I'm sure shops would gladly provide that support (like the usual "setup support)

moradiyashar8• 11 months ago

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.telegram.m...

shirro• 11 months ago

I can see a fracturing of digital convergence in my future. Corporate controlled communication device in one pocket and an open source SBC in the other. I'm not particularly into the privacy/security stuff. I just think it has all gone too far I'm not sure the value is there anymore as we all get squeezed for profits. I don't need or want most of the shit that companies are pushing. The services I used to find useful like really good search have been destroyed.

qwertox• 11 months ago

These phones should offer 3 environments: The one which Google likes, where Banking apps and Wallets reside and only verified apps can be installed into, then the normal one, where our all crappy apps run, like weather, whatsapp, and an unrestricted one, where permissions aren't required at all. Though it should be hard to install an app in the unrestricted environment, like force the use of adb for the initial install. Unrestricted should hot have access to anything running in the secure environment.

fsflover7• 11 months ago

Related discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45087396

brunoaries• 11 months ago

Eu aceito

Google: 'Your $1000 phone needs our permission to install apps now' [video]

Related Stories