This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Hot take: This is to stop the slop tsunami.
When any idiot can vibe code some slop app, things are going to get out of hand very fast.
When people program agentic AI to just scrape the app store for open source apps that copy them and slop them up, how do you stop it?
I'm not sure which future I hate more. Either way, things look grim.
What happens to existing side loaded apps on my phone?
Why has being in a state of constant "information" flow become so important for people? It's not even relevant, important, or interesting information, just a never-ending nerve-jangling assault of slop, ADHD nonsense, and generic crap.
I got grapheneOS on my phone right now. Go fuck yourself, google.
I will also do my damn best to make sure my older Samsung S23 doesn't fall into that version. I have uses for that phone.
Yea but you had to buy a google phone right or do they support more phones now
We must all keep pushing people to go against this and to build up Linux mobile alternatives: PostmarketOS, Ubuntu Touch, JollaOS, and semi by extension, GrapheneOS
People thinking this isn't a monopoly enforcement action in disguise are the same people who think banning Huawei was justified.
Google's one mistake was that they sold Motorolla to Lenovo, who ran it as low cost shovelware to make the mobile phone market in the US not look like a complete oligopoly. They kept their cost low by using complete stock Google ROMs while every other OEM exited the market.
Until recently when Lenovo properly built up their hardware lineup and started jumping ship to GrapheneOS the moment Google started clamping down.
That and thinking that they won't be sued to oblivion for this. People are looking for ways to do lawsuits and this is a big one
-- sincerely Apple users.
Your phone will be the same phone after September as it was beforehand.
On the long-term, I'd make some plans, get a small laptop, or even a linux phone, even as a second device to tether.
Yeah, this isn't going to get "better", this is going to get walked into a walled garden.
Get out or stay put, your call.
About to...?
We need go start talking about the year of the GNU/Linux phone
PostmarketOS isn't GNU
Anyways it'd be interesting to see more niche OSes on phones (there's a mobile port of Genode/Sculpt OS for example)
Or the year of free (as in freedom) pocket computers, since the global telephony system goes against the freedoms.
At the end of the day, all you can really do is to start treating your phone more like a phone and stop carrying it everywhere and using it for everything.
The convenience of it has made it way too easy for people to spy on you.
No. You can do a lot more. You can develop alternatives and enforce anti monopoly legislation.
This. Degoogling and using FOSS alternatives can only take you so far. We should drastically reduce smartphone usage. I got a dumbphone so I can be reachable. Outside of work, my smartphone is mostly powered off. I can't realistically get rid of it, as I need a bunch of banking apps, authenticators, Google Maps at times (and no, there's no real alternative to this, everything else sucks). But I only use it when I absolutely need it. It's gathering a lot less data than it used to. I'm striving to be as low value to big tech as possible. Reducing smartphone use has also done wonders for my wellbeing. I read more, I've regained my attention span, I have more time to do stuff I like. Stop scrolling, there's nothing but bullshit on the next screen, you're not missing out on anything. Stop trying to replace one app or site with another. Just let it go, it was never worth it.
