Google will require developer verification to install Android apps, including sideloading

MAU: > I followed the Pinephone closely and since it was released, there were issues with it even making calls. I bought one of the first community releases, the postmarketOS one. Sadly I received it in mid-2020 just before my life got completely blown off course. I still have it, but haven’t yet figured out to install an up-to-date version of an OS on it. I can’t say with any certainty whether it’s ready to be a daily driver. But I have read accounts of people in Australia using it as one. So maybe the calling issues have been fixed? MAU: > A partially proprietary Jolla phone is better than a locked down Android, any day. I guess. But as I mentioned, this is not a problem that can be solved by atomised individuals making consumer choices in isolation. A brick is much more privacy-respecting than any digital device, but sadly no one will port their app to it What’s going to drive most people’s choices is which devices will run the apps they need and want to use. You criticised Mobile GNU for having a limited range of apps. Despite the fact that adding apps can be done by developing a mobile-friendly interface for existing GNU/Linux apps. How many apps are available for Sailfish? MAU: > I wonder if FirefoxOS can be resurrected. Yes and no. FirefoxOS was a project of Mozilla and reviving it would be both impossible and - given the utterly dysfunctional state of Mozilla these days - undesirable. But a project could definitely be built around a new fully-libre mobile OS that’s … MAU: > low cost, accessible and designed for modest specs. The question is, who’s going to kickstart it and how? MAU: > Can there not also be a group of developers to make something where s/he can say insert a SIM card and take over the device to do the bidding of the user? No idea, but this is an intriguing possibility. It would be great to be able to pop shell and jailbreak our own devices by inserting a special SIM card for the purposes. OTOH if it is possible, we need to think about how to secure existing devices against people doing it without our consent.