Android 14 changed the color of the low battery icon from red to white.
Recently, for some reason, I've stopped getting "Battery low" notifications at very low percents...but I still get them at 30% & 25% (I have it set to start at 30%).
...so now I rarely notice when my phone is about to die. This has interrupted me on so many occasions.
My hatred of Android has been growing exponentially lately.
I use #GrapheneOS, which does a fair amount to curb some of my biggest problems with default #Android.
...but at the end of the day, the ecosystem is built on behalf of & in service of advertisers & spyware manufacturers, so problems like every app spamming notifications persist.
Google has tried to fix the notification spam (probably to prevent competing advertisers from encroaching on their market share), but ended up exacerbating this problem.
Many versions ago, Google tried to address battery issues from each app perpetually running in the background to poll for notifications by providing its own cloud-based push notification service & blocking background services unless the app is posting an ongoing notification.
...so now, every app that needs to run in the background, *FOSS or not*, must keep a **useless** notification posted that does nothing but clutter the drawer.
Every app wants to notify immediately. Within 30 seconds of booting, I have 11 notifications (excluding the grouped ones).
The only stuff I actually want to alert me are: emails, SMS messages, missed calls, & direct messages.
...but half of these are so flooded with spam that anything I actually want is drowned out by noise.
This results in me just ignoring my phone.
My initial complaint is the kicker, the only thing I actually want notified by that isn't full of spam **just doesn't work**
for ref, I'm someone who has spent a HUGE amount of time/effort to avoid spammy services acting as a gateway to my brain for advertisers, self-host alt services that dont do this, & restrict notifs when I must keep a spammy service around
...and it still feels hopeless.
I feel so bad for non-technical people. I saw my grandma'a notification drawer when helping her w/ her phone, & it looked like a casino w/ 100s of attempts from various services to get her to buy or interact with their products
My phone, despite my best efforts, works against my wishes on behalf of others.
This is a device society expects you to carry 24/7 & acts as your primary gateway to both digital & IRL services. i.e. mandatory.
#Google is a cartel colonizing the attention spans of billions of people. It must be broken up & the #AOSP project should be put under the control of a democratic organization
#MobileLinux cannot come fast enough. I'l tolerate **any** level of jank to never have to touch Android again.
@Lehmanator #MobileLinux is here. Buy a #Librem5 or #OnePlus6 and enjoy a "mainline" experience with #postmarketOS (or #mobian). Or maybe go for the halium experience by buying a (bootloader-unlocked) #Pixel3a and running #UbuntuTouch (or #droidian). Even try a #PinePhone or #PinePhonePro. I'm sure there are other daily-drivable devices too, you said "any level of jank".
@float13 @zachdecook @Lehmanator Graphene is built on the idea that the Linux kernel can be hardened "to the nines" to provide a secure and private environment. Hence its requirement for powerful hardware features to mitigate certain types of vulnerabilities.
But if a project is going to require advanced hw for security, then IMO don't tweak around the edges of an almost insanely large monolithic kernel (Linux & all the other popular ones). "Sandbox" using a hypervisor or microkernel and be done with it. "Hardening" a monolithic kernel will never make its attack surface acceptably secure.
I would like to see more use of KVM capabilities in the Android ecosystem. Either that, or a full-on adoption of a typical automotive infotainment stack which would have QNX or similar as the foundation with an Android RE.
@float13 @Lehmanator #waydroid is supposed to be the right answer (but has no google play services); I would say a better airgap is to have a second device that's not connected to the internet (and use an offline-capable maps app, like #OrganicMaps).
Being comfortable saying no to most proprietary services is prerequisite to daily-driving mobile linux.
@float13 @zachdecook Waydroid. You can add Play Services to it, but its a lot of work on most systems. From my limited usage of it, it seems to integrate w/ GNOME very well. No idea about on a touchscreen tho, I never got around to setting it up. Given its a container on a Linux host, you could firewall the f out of it, force it to only communicate over Tor, or only resolve certain hostnames.
Graphene is great from a security standpoint, privacy less so bc you're stuck w the Android ecosystem
@zachdecook @Lehmanator OnePlus 6/6T are daily driveable if you don't need phone calls, but with n VoLTE support they do not really work as phones. For now you can receive calls by manually switching to 2G mode, but when the 2G networks shut down this won't be an option. That said, I carry my OP6T with pmOS as well as an OP6 with Android that I just use for phone stuff, camera, and the occasional use of google maps.
@CalcProgrammer1 @Lehmanator My modem is in the mode "allowed: 2g, 3g, 4g; preferred: 4g" and it seems to do the switching automatically. (on TMobile's network in the USA, FWIW)
That being said, I use #Dino with #jmp.chat for telephony, and that has less jank, along with working on multiple devices at a time.
Why let the carriers lock you out of the PSTN when JMP.chat can bridge the gap using open source SW.
@zachdecook @CalcProgrammer1 Wait so do you have working phone calls? I will need *some* solution to that.
Dino is nice. Curious about JMP.chat.
I'm wondering how difficult it would be to bridge SMS, MMS, RCS, & calls to Matrix & Jitsi. I don't think Android has an RCS API non-OEM apps can hook into, but everything else seems plausible.
@CalcProgrammer1 @zachdecook wait so VoLTE works and not regular calls? or the other way around?
I definitely need mobile calls working on my daily driver. I could maybe put up with it, but I'm not keen on being unreachable by most people if there was ever an emergency.
@Lehmanator @CalcProgrammer1 No VoLTE. If you use verizon (which shut off their 2G towers), that means no calls. For others, it means a 2G call experience (grainy), if your mic/speakers work. Calls on mobile linux have been janky in my experience (bad alsa UCM's, issues with pulseaudio, pipewire, callaudiod --restarting often helps).
@zachdecook I have a OnePlus 6T that is currently borked because I was trying to update the kernel on NixOS mobile. I suppose what I meant was mobile Linux being stable & featured enough to not need to have a backup device for some things.
I might have to buy a second device so I can both maintain the device and daily drive it.
Ok maybe "any level of jank" comes with exceptions. But if calls, SMS , LTE, & BT work, I can relegate my Pixel to being a GPS & digital camera.
@zachdecook I won a
Librem 5 and its being shipped soon. I cannot wait.
@zachdecook @Lehmanator
What's a good solution if you still need the occasional mainstream or google app (ie. navigation) but want to sandbox the shit out of their greedy little hands?
I've heard Graphene but haven't had a chance to try it yet.