Thread

Android 17 is the first since 3.x to add new APIs without releasing to the AOSP

1180 points · 723 comments · theanonymousone

ahmd-sh · 1789760365 · focus · HN ↗
i despise where Google is going with this. it's a duopoly in the smartphone OS space and we need (for lack of a better analogy, spare the technicals) open-source distros like we have with Linux on desktop.
Graphene is reaching that status for me every day and i'm looking forward to switching to it as my daily driver.
1. pojntfx · 1789760661 · focus · HN ↗
  GrapheneOS is pretty neat, <a href="https://postmarketos.org/" rel="nofollow">https://postmarketos.org/ is also pretty damn polished out of the box these days. I'd argue the "mobile desktop Linux systems" are actually a bit more polished than Graphene, esp. when it comes to default apps (no AOSP abandonware dialer, contacts etc. apps to fight with, it's all just maintained, responsive GNOME/KDE apps)
  1. spijdar · 1789761353 · focus · HN ↗
    I want to believe this, but it's hard for me to take this at face value. It's been about 4 years since I've run pmOS, so my experience IS very out of date, but I also have a hard time believing that the experience has radically changed in the meantime.
    The short is that yes the GNOME/KDE apps do often look more impressive, but they suffer the same sort of malaise which seems to have infected Linux desktops sometime since Eternal September, and between the sporadic crashing and "this doesn't feel right", it's really hard for me to accept "It's more polished than AOSP!".
    pmOS's installation page opening with a warning:
    Make sure you read state of postmarketOS before installing postmarketOS.
    Which leads to a page that opens with:
    The goal is to make postmarketOS usable for everyone, but we are not there yet. Usability and most importantly stability issues need to be worked out first. If you are looking for an OS that is as usable as iOS or Android, this project is currently not for you.
    Does not do a lot to dissuade my skepticism. I know you said the apps specifically, but even there, it's like... I dunno.
    grapheneos · 1789842343 · focus · HN ↗
    GrapheneOS provides drastically better usability, robustness, overall functional and app compatibility. Privacy and security are also drastically better in AOSP and especially GrapheneOS than that desktop Linux software stack ported to mobile.
    All of the default apps in GrapheneOS are being rapidly overhauled or replaced. It wasn't a priority due to the incredibly good open source app ecosystem with many existing alternatives available. There isn't a similarly large and high quality open source mobile app ecosystem available for what's being promoted.

Open on Hacker News to reply ↗

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.