IIRC, Apple’s “open” browser implementation was so fundamentally broken and difficult that it made the actual implementation of a third-party browser exceedingly difficult. Kinda like how their call-blocking API is nothing more than a database loader with no feedback, so call blocking apps can’t share data back to improve through crowd-sourcing. The products all have to learn from Android phones on the same product to be able to share with iPhones.

They just copy GrapheneOS and take away features each release. Like soft-buttons instead of the silly swipe gestures? Gone (but they eventually brought back the option to enable.) Want to remove apps? They let you remove almost every one, then only disable some, then you can’t even disable but you can use ADB to mask the app for your user account so it appears removed but is still present. Quick settings for Bluetooth, WiFi get harder to disable with each release because they love metadata too much. Want to do GPS only and turn off their WiFi/BT stalker? Apps that use their modern GPS API will bring an OS dialog up to re-enable Google Stalking EVERY TIME, and still not fall back to GPS. (Watch Duty is a good example of this.) Disk access, you used to be able to at least SEE most of the filesystem on-phone including app container storage. Then you could only see the root folders but not files. Then not even the folders. You can still via ADB, for now, and even that slowly becomes more limited. Bootloader unlock? Not on many phones shipping today at all.

Then with Android 16, Google isn’t even shipping the binary blobs (hardware drivers) for the chips in Pixel anymore, Graphene has had to use kluges to get Pixel 10 support.

Google doesn’t release good OS features every major release, they just keep taking away everything they can until they find the cross-over of forcibly extracting the most data users will tolerate while supporting the least freedom and features as possible.

With their new closer Apple alliance, I wouldn’t be surprised if they cease phone/OS development in a few years. They seem to have no interest in making products worth buying anymore.

Cheapest guarantees you will be missing some 5G bands, might as well just focus on LTE. It will be around for years to come.

That being said, Galaxy Xcover Pro series is probably the way to go, just find an older model for “cheapest.”

Those still work? Time to dig in the wire bin.

The tl;dr is: Control. Vendors want it, making it easy to run open software would make that control harder to keep.

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Their deluded vision is that they think the traditional user interface is going away. Rather than interact with a machine, you’ll just be walking around, sipping coffee, having thoughtful conversations with a bot laughing along with your jokes as it writes your letter and does your taxes.

Bigger would be leveraging Android System SafetyCore or iOS mediaanalysisd to stalk-spy on the contents of everyone’s phones on-demand for the State. The software is already there, and on both platforms have deep entitlements…

Check too, to see if any of the tickets you use can just be presented as a QR code or e-mail. Requiring apps for simple things like that is so stupid, in general.

Allegedly. But they are also looking at a Qualcomm chipset too, allegedly. Qualcomm is a US military contractor.

Gamification of reviews is one of the biggest reasons for CI/CD existing. Releasing pointless version bumps with no code changes on most apps. The whole update psychology needs to change, in general.

I’ll go a step further, they don’t even want “civilians” to have access to any kind of general compute anymore. Just a speaker/microphone, maybe a display that you talk at. No traditional UI, no ability to own or save documents, or even have any concept of where these files live.

Now seems the perfect time to shed the cloud from one’s daily life and do the exact opposite. If one wants or needs compute, it lives in their home. Offsite backup at a friend’s or family’s home. There is not particularly a “need” for all these centralized datacenters for any human other than those that want control of everything.

So, NVIDIA CEO, shut it all down for a month and see what happens. I bet nobody will care.

I have to use a lot of LLM tech daily and wouldn’t miss it a bit, myself. Would even sleep better at night knowing all that energy use isn’t destroying the planet’s habitability.

I actually heard from an acquaintance that their employer is forcing employees to burn at least $100 of tokens a day “or else” - like, what??

Such a bubble. Can’t wait for it to pop.

Absolutely blows my mind at how much up their own asses they are to smell those farts.

They keep creating tools to create images, video, text, content. They’re replacing people with machines. Sure, this can have tangible benefits in some roles, especially dangerous ones, but they aren’t doing that. What in satan’s fuck is left in life if we don’t get to create, to build, to have purpose? Did they all collectively watch Wall-E and get the wrong message?

I always come back to that one scene in Star Trek: Insurrection:

Sojef: Our technological abilities are not apparent because we have chosen not to employ them in our daily lives. We believe that when you create a machine to do the work of a man, you take something away from the man.

While in that context, they took it a bit to the extreme, it is still poignant.

It seems the timeline right now is Office Space -> Wall-E -> Idiocracy -> Mad Max.

There was a whole term called “branching strategy” to handle things way more complex than a quarterly release - this is about nothing more than control. Bet it will be one to zero releases next year. They’re speed-running enshittification before a worthy open replacement can be written.

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No worries, and no neg either. This is where this timeline sucks. Quick Share is a great upgrade to the standard Bluetooth file sharing that existed for 20+ years as it adds in WiFi, but corps are all so walled-garden-metadata-stalking vampires. These companies are so stupid. Conflict too, in that sharing files easily can “make money” for them, but they’d rather fight than have standards.

I miss standards. Plugging a POTS jack in a wall and getting a dial tone was so simple. Now, everything, even “cable TV”, is JSON shitting around the Internet, but heaven forbid it’s the same JSON.

Bloody game changer, that. Been little by little whittling away at apps until the Play Store can GTFO for good.

Google Fi definitely has a smooth experience, even to/from pSIM, eSIM, and no real need for special SIM features. They implemented that very well. Now, every tier 1 carrier in the US, eeeeeeek!

Requires Play Services.