by neya a day ago
This is just developer fantasy. The average consumer doesn't care even one bit. Is the phone smooth? Does it have a good camera? Does it have a good battery? Does it last more than 2 years?
Go to some developing countries around Asia and you'll be surprised how people prioritise features when buying a phone vs developed ones. The developing countries account for most of the sales of most phone manufacturers. Phones that are like $150-200 sell like hot cakes.
This is evident even in the laptop segment. What developers want and what the average consumer wants/needs are two different things. Eg. Framework laptops. Macbook Pro vs Air.
Counter-point; we are in times of mass upheaval and protest. Purchasing a secure phone is desirable to almost anyone who is increasingly worried about state and corporate actors, especially those that would seek to surveil and coerce. I suspect some will buy these phones as a daily driver, some as a second phone.
Institutional trust is at an all time low, this is a smart move selling into the growing demand for secure devices and it’s in line with Lenovos recent big decision to sell Linux as the default on their new devices.
Finally this seems to be a corporate play itself, most companies also don’t want other companies surveilling their staff and extracting staff secrets. Hence the bringing of enterprise functionality to compliment the ‘secure’ work Graphene are already doing.
Consumers, when faced with a $100 Microwave that will last 2 years and a $130 microwave that will last ten, will buy the cheaper one nearly always. They don't care.
Consumers, when faced with a phone that offers "privacy" but that doesn't work with their banking app or their favorite game, will return it and get the non-privacy phone essentially every time.
Microwaves are a bad example. The cheaper ones are white labels basically all made in the same factory in China. The customer has no way to know if the slightly more expensive one is actually more durable or, much more likely, just the same, but generates more profit for the intermediaries. In this situation it is wiser to get the cheaper one.
Consumers have no way to tell that a phone gives "privacy" or even to understand the implications of that to their life. They have a significantly easier time understanding an error message that says "because your device has an unlocked bootloader, you can't use the <name of bank> app"
> Consumers have no way to tell that a phone gives "privacy" or even to understand the implications of that to their life.
This is the sort of thing anyone can look up on the internet before buying one.
The reason that doesn't work for white label microwaves is that the manufacturers don't want it to. The off brands exist so they can make sales to people who prioritize price, and they purposely change the company name every month so no one can find a review of the off brand and the same company can sell the same microwave with a higher margin to other people who will pay more for the name brand.
Whereas when your company makes a phone with better privacy etc., you want everybody to know that so they buy your phone instead of a competitor's.
> They have a significantly easier time understanding an error message that says "because your device has an unlocked bootloader, you can't use the <name of bank> app"
Indeed, it immediately lets them know that their bank sucks and they need a better one. (It's actually a pretty decent red flag that your bank has a cargo cult security team.)
> This is obviously false. It's the sort of thing anyone can look up on the internet before buying one.
It's not something that's quantifiable, and it's easily manipulable. The iPhone(tm) has a twelth-generation quantum superconducting wonderflonium chip that enables (pile of technobabble garbage) and "privacy".
This Motorola thing has (pile of technobabble garbage) and "privacy".
Consumers don't understand and they don't care. Even the ones with technologically savvy friends don't want the hassle, they want something that works.
How has 30 years of "Microsoft is anti-consumer and <pile of complaints>, you should use Linux" worked out for consumer market share?
> Indeed, it immediately lets them know that their bank sucks and they need a better one.
If you think even 0.1% of consumers would switch banks to buy some new phone, this conversation is not worth continuing as you and I don't live in the same reality.
> It's not something that's quantifiable, and it's easily manipulable. The iPhone(tm) has a twelth-generation quantum superconducting wonderflonium chip that enables (pile of technobabble garbage) and "privacy".
That's the marketing noise from the company itself. Then you go to Reddit or similar and ask technically competent people what they recommend.
> Even the ones with technologically savvy friends don't want the hassle, they want something that works.
The phone that supports open operating systems is the one that's less of a hassle. It doesn't go out of support even though there's nothing wrong with it, it isn't full of spyware and weird bugs because people can actually fix them when the OEM doesn't, it has a working ad blocker etc.
> How has 30 years of "Microsoft is anti-consumer and <pile of complaints>, you should use Linux" worked out for consumer market share?
Windows market share was >90%, now it's 67% and still falling. And that's just desktops; Microsoft was completely abandoned in the mobile market because they were so widely hated. By most accounts Windows Phone was actually decent but being from the notorious company whose OS nobody uses unless they're locked in was a death sentence.
> If you think even 0.1% of consumers would switch banks to buy some new phone, this conversation is not worth continuing as you and I don't live in the same reality.
You're not switching banks to buy a new phone, you're switching banks because when you bought a new phone it made you realize that your bank sucks. Which annoyed you enough to spend five minutes checking out other banks, at which point you realized there are credit unions that not only support your new phone but pay better interest rates and charge lower fees.
Then you remember that time when they charged you that fee for some BS reason last year and you swore you were going to get a new bank but never got around to it, and decide that you'd rather get on with what you always intended to do sooner rather than later instead of replacing your new phone that you otherwise like.
>Microsoft was completely abandoned in the mobile market because they were so widely hated.
This was not a factor. Windows phone lost because they didn't have apps. They didn't have apps because they rewrote between Windows Mobile 6 and WP7, and rewrote between WP7 and WP8, and rewrote between between WP8.1 and WP10. That's a lot of work for developers and they didn't have enough users to justify developers rewriting their apps that many times. Combine that with some companies refusing to build apps at all (YouTube refused to write an app and sued to block Microsoft from writing their own YouTube client) and users didn't want to put up with the lack of apps either.
> This was not a factor. Windows phone lost because they didn't have apps.
They didn't have apps because nobody likes them. If you're a user and you expect them to be well-liked then you buy the phone expecting others to buy the phone and developers to target it. If you're a developer then you make apps expecting enough users to buy the phone.
But if you don't like them and you're not sure anybody else is going to like them then you play wait and see instead, and so does everybody else, and so they have no apps and no users and people start to see that they have no apps and no users.
Which is why they kept changing things trying to force people to do it, giving Windows 8 that widely-disliked tablet interface on desktops etc.
> YouTube refused to write an app and sued to block Microsoft from writing their own YouTube client
Oh no, did someone with a dominant OS market share do an anti-competitive thing to Microsoft?
You're asking why people don't pick up Linux faster but you can see the symmetry when it's going the other way. It's not that they don't want to, it's that 80% of enshitification is lock-in.
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> Lenovos recent big decision to sell Linux as the default on their new devices.
Where did you see this? I want to believe it, but I can't find any press release about this (other than it already being available as an option at checkout, but it's not default) outside of weird domains full of AI articles.
Ok this has taken me down a rabbit hole. I swear I read this from a reputable source a week or so ago and my memory was that I went to post it here and there was already a HN post (but have been unable to find that nor the original article).
Basic details from the article were that machines would come with Ubuntu for retail and fedora for business machines and that 60% of new machines were planned to be Linux; therefore ending Lenovos prioritising windows on the majority of its machines.
But yeah can’t find much record of it now.
This site seems to have scraped the article I read as that copy all reads familiar but I def wasn’t reading from an AI site with a YouTube thumbnail up top.
https://galaxy.ai/youtube-summarizer/lenovos-historic-shift-...
Earlier article that’s not in question. https://itsfoss.com/news/lenovo-cuts-windows-tax/
There’s a huge amount of wishful thinking in this that people will care, and the Lenovo thing is just false.
I'm going to say this again. You aren't giving people credit where it's due. Those who live in democracies don't hold that privilege by not caring about anything. It's something that they constantly fight for.
The only specialty that we possess over others is a deeper knowledge about technology and the politics behind it. But it DOESN'T have to be exclusive to us. We're not the only ones fed up with this amount of BS from the gilded class. People do listen and act if we're willing to inform them. Even if everyone doesn't respond, there will still be enough to make a difference. Just dismissing their will like this is uncharitable at best.
People won't care until they do.
After two years of talking up mastodon/pixelfed and most folks ignoring me, I've gotten 2 pings from family members about signing up and migrating off of twitter/instagram. It's only a matter of time and how quickly the rug gets pulled out from under folks I think.
and network effects.
Maybe their closer contacts disappeared…
The average consumer may not care but there's multiple overlapping segments that Motorola can capitalise on here:
- tech consumers (i.e. the current GOS pixel market)
- family members of tech consumers. i.e. tech consumers can hopefully now recommend stock grapheneOS on motorola to family members since it's not a custom ROM but just a stock device with official manufacturer support.
- privacy/security conscious non-techy types.
- non-techy users who want a device without AI or a bunch of unnecessary addon apps like google or samsung tend to preload on devices.
- business IT optimising for security and minimal attack surface while sticking to COTS B2B and B2C options for corporate handhelds.
Like this isn't the largest market ever but it's a sizeable and fairly loyal market because each one of these groups is fairly opposed to unnecessary change. It's safe, reliable, and sustainable growth in a broader market that is extremely hostile.
And they are in particular targeting the business IT market since this announcement was made as part of their showcase on their new B2B cellular options.
Don't underestimate tech-savy users' influence either. I could easily add 7+ people to the user base next replacement cycle.
I could add 3 off the top of my head. Probably a couple more. Privacy conscious people who aren't techies. Some have tried Linux, some don't know what a "browser" or "SD card" is.
If features like phone calls, SMS, the camera and most regular apps work (especially banking apps, sadly), they'll be happy and receive free indefinite support from me.
I wouldn't use banking apps myself unless they open source them, but I'm willing to make a concession and support my friends' issues with such apps.
Would it be better for privacy? I just can’t imagine a world where our “intelligence” blows up elementary schools and runs child rape rings and somehow telecom companies are allowed to make a product that doesn’t have access for “white” hats.
Bank tech sucks. I’m really surprised nobody has made a good online bank experience with no-nonsense APIs. This is a great opportunity for Motorola to partner with banks that commit to supporting their platform. The right online bank could be an ideal launch partner.
It's not just the average consumer. I continue to be surprised that so many developers and other tech nerds - the type who post on HN - chose and continue to choose the iPhone over Android when Apple dictates what apps they can install and locks third-party accessories out of certain features.
Current times do present the opportunity to raise awareness of the issue though. App store bans for apps like ICEBlock, and various laws age-gating app stores considerably expand the population with reason to care who has ultimate control of their phone.
> so many developers and other tech nerds - the type who post on HN
The average developer stopped being a "tech nerd" around 2010 or so. I think older developers sometimes don't understand how the ranks have swollen and how many, many more people are in software now that don't have the "I was a nerdy kid in the 90s, loved computers and chose the career" upbringing.
The average developer now has a MacBook, went to a bunch of bootcamps and writes TypeScript. Or enterprise Java if they got unlucky.
I used to be a custom rom guy in high school, and I also used to develop apps for my nexus 5. Now I have an iPhone and I save the tech nerding for work hours. I definitely would not have gotten this far without my custom rom days, but now my phone just needs to do phone things so I can work on robots instead.
This. I was heavily involved with the Maemo community back in the day and even made an Ubuntu 9.04 port to the Nokia N800/N810. These days I'm juggling multiple responsibilities and I need to conserve my mental energy for work. I certainly credit my career on that tinkering, but these days I just want something that works so I can put my energy elsewhere.
>I need to conserve my mental energy for work.
Is perhaps the saddest sentence. Whats the point of working when you don't have enough energy left to do the fun stuff?
You might be reading into that too much. It's more likely that this person's definition of what is "fun" has changed since they were younger. Spending time with family/friends or engaging with new hobbies might be how they have fun now, and that's perfectly fine.
Yea, messing with my computer isn't as fun for me as it once was. There's something screwy with my CPU cooler, and I've been putting off dealing with it for well over a year.
I still wouldn't be caught dead with a Macbook - I do have some self respect.
Dealing with broken Linux installs might be your definition of fun, but it's very possible to be a nerd and not find that particular thing fun, and prefering Macbooks
Android phones do phone things. They work perfectly fine - in many ways better than iPhones, and in others not as well.
I switched to an iPhone more in an act to protest Google and I regret my decision. Things didn't get easier, they got harder.
I mean for christ's sake, there's no universal gesture for "back". Do I swipe from the side? Press the x button at the top left? The top right? Is there no option I can find so I just force close the app? When I swipe to text with autocorrect turned off why does it change the word I swiped AND the word before it that was already correct? Why can't I swipe the word "racist"? Why can't I swipe the phrase "killed himself" and instead it "corrects" to "Lillies himself" or "milled himself"? (Made for a very awkward conversation about Turing...). Why can I swipe the word "suicide" but not "suicidal"? (These are phrases I've found to be easy to reproduce but it also happens with mundane everyday shit) Holy fucking shit how the fuck is this thing even a phone, it doesn't even do phone things well? I mean as far as I can tell there is no setting which will ever capitalize a singular "i", making it trivial to recognize an iphone user since well... iphones came out...
Not only that, with things like Termux they just work better. Want to sync files to your computer? Easy, rsync. With a few lines in a bash script my phone does daily backups locally. With a few lines I have a script that means my phone is a keyboard for my computer. With a few lines I have I can turn my old phone into something useful instead of garbage. Maybe these things are tech nerdy to the average person and "too much work" but for us? Come on, this shit is trivial.
I switched from iPhone to Android and I was fully expecting a world of pain but I was (am?) pleasantly surprised.
The back button thing is real. When I have to use someone else's iPhone I immediately feel the lack of consistency.
And KDE Connect is fantastic to use. So many things on iPhones are just annoying for no reason. I don't want to buy a 1000 dollar computer to look at my photos, come on now.
I'm not too big of a fan of KDE content but totally get why people use it.
I do want to suggest you install termux, and do it from fdroid rather than the play store.
I'm guessing you're on Wayland, so check out ydotool. (If still on x s/x/y) there's a lot of cool things to do with tools like that. Basic one is use your phone as a keyboard (like KDE connect can do, but I found it more reliable and KDEC doesn't play well with VPNs)
I wrote a similar script in Apple Shortcuts and... wtf is this bullshit. My files backup Shortcut is even uglier. I'm incredibly impressed at the hacky shit I was forced to do just to backup photos... I almost would rather pay for an app that does it. I almost would rather learn how to write an iOS app. Just to... replace a 10 line bash script -__-
Since I'm still not a big fan of Google my next phone is going to be a Pixel and I'll install Graphene on day 1. That is, unless something better comes out :)
I'll check out ydotool. I did a bunch of bullshit with shortcuts, too. I had one that would change my screen from grayscale to color when I opened the photos app. Of course it only worked, like, 80% of the time so that was great.
I have a pixel 9a with Graphene right now and I'm very happy with it. Great hardware, great price, great software. The one blindspot is messaging, which is a big problem in the US. RCS doesn't work on Graphene, and SMS is basically the worst thing ever, so I use Signal as much as I can. I'm hoping one of these days RCS becomes an actual open standard with competing implementations but... I won't hold my breath.
That's good to hear about graphene. I've been able to get most of my friends to move to signal but yeah the walled gardens are annoying. Does graphene not support the same RCS that Google does?
As for Android, I think the real magic happens when you just realize your phone is another computer and you can do normal computer things with it. It just starts unlocking so many doors. One thing I like to do is have my desktop sit behind my TV. Big screen for movies and games. For everything else, there's ssh. Your phone is just another terminal in that environment. But the modern version of a terminal means your local machine can actually do meaningful things too. Tbh, it's really what the big tech companies are doing too, they just pretend they aren't.
Also, since you're new to Android check out revanced. I'm not sure if you need this on graphene but you can recompile apps. Mostly used for removing ads but there's more to it than that.
I'm hoping one of these days we can just treat computers like computers. Stop creating these walled gardens. It really slows down innovation and honestly, I believe the big companies would make more money doing it. After all, their whole business sits on top of open source work. The computer is nothing without the program. The smart phone is nothing without the app. Why can't we recognize that the success of these machines is that they're environments. You can't create a product for everybody, but building environments doesn't have the same limitations
PhotoSync and LocalSend.
Swipe up from the bottom (which goes to the app switcher), and then swipe up any app you want to force-quit.
Sorry, I definitely was unclear when angry writing this
> Is there no option I can find so I just force close the app?
I see, you can't find the way back so you quit the app in frustration. I get that
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Nobody needs to, it is a online forum.
I like iPhone and won't go back to android because I am comfortably using a 6 year old iPhone on the latest operating system with no real issues. Planning to keep using it until it stops getting security updates, or the hardware fails.
I think the assertion here is there are no Android phones that don't have long term support. Apple compared to Google Pixel phones are basically the same longevity today[0][1].
With a lot of Android devices they'll have a lifespan even beyond that. Although there are choices to make at that point. You just don't have the option with Apple.
[0] https://endoflife.date/iphone [1] https://endoflife.date/pixel
It's less surprising to me that a developer would choose a Macbook than an iPhone. You can have root on a Macbook and install software without permission from Apple (though I hear of late it may require using the command line).
The hardware performance is outstanding, and while opinions are split about the OS, a lot of people who display good taste in other technical matters like it. I've chosen to spend my own money on a different laptop, but if someone offered me a high-spec Macbook Pro on the condition that I use it for a year, I'd accept.
I choose a Macbook because it's my terminal. I'm given the choice "Macbook" or "Windows laptop". I'm forced to use Microsoft products and they're actively hostile to Linux. My laptop is really just a glorified ssh machine, with a web browser, and corporate shovelware. Life is so much better in the terminal. Home is 192.168.1.0/24 and 100.64.0.0/10, it doesn't matter what screen I'm using. Home is where the ssh connection is.
>I'm forced to use Microsoft products and they're actively hostile to Linux
How so? Powershell has openSSH built in now, and WSL2 basically works minus some annoying behavior and caveats. I have a Windows 11 laptop and I use it like you are saying as an ssh machine and web browser without much issue.
> WSL2 basically works minus some annoying behavior and caveats.
And on top of that, as frustrating as OSX is (even as terrible as OSX26 is) Winblows is worse. OSX feels disconnected, but Winblows feels hostile.
What setup do you use for seeing image previews (or the images themselves?) on a terminal in Linux?
I use yazi a fair amount but I've also configured fzf to do it. There's a lot of tools to view the images, chafa is a good one.
This definitely should be improved but I honestly don't use fzf that much. I can fix it if you really need something but I'm sure you could find it in the docs or even an LLM could handle this. Requires you to define a few variables, lsd, bat, and chafa
$ echo $FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS
--ansi --preview "if file --mime-type {} | grep -qF image; then chafa --passthrough none -f sixels --size ${FZF_PREVIEW_COLUMNS}x${FZF_PREVIEW_LINES} {}; elif file --mime-type {} | grep -aF -e directory; then lsd --color always --icon always --almost-all --oneline --classify --long {}; elif file --mime-type {} | grep -aF -e binary; then strings {} | bat --color always --theme=Dracula --language c; elif file --mime-type {} | grep -aF -e text -e json -e empty; then bat --color always --theme=Dracula --style=numbers,grid --line-range :500 {}; fi"Not the original poster but possibly lsix[1], which looking at the readme should work in certain terminals on Windows as well but I haven't tried it.
Ok, I still don't see how that's "hostile to linux" and not just windows being crappy, which it is.
Because I didn't really speak about Microsoft's hostility to Linux.
I think the moment it turned from annoyance to hate was when they bought Skype and then removed features from the Linux version. Features like... conference calling... but there's a million things like that. Go talk to Linux nerds and I'm sure you'll get a unique story each time. We've all felt the pressure
I think they mean that Office products and the like aren't available on a Linux OS
At _least_ you're not forced to use Microslop. But that's been a pretty common refrain from a lot of devs - the Macbook is the lesser of two evils.
I've been given a Winblows machine in the past. My boss thought he was doing me a favor because it was a powerful machine... Sorry... all I need is ssh...
> My boss thought he was doing me a favor because it was a powerful machine
From folding@home to mining@work
Why not just install Debian (or whatever) on it, instead of suffering Windows?
Because it was a work machine?
Yes...? Didn't stop me before. Unless it's some locked down, domain-joined e-waste like I have now. Public sector IT policy literally prevents me from doing certain tasks at my job, and makes others take four times as long. Not even my email works properly.
Last job was a lot of SSH and webshit like Jira, Confluence, Odoo and Google apps. They didn't care if you used Amiga OS as long as your work got done.
It's very evident when you work with the young juniors. I've seen people with CS degrees that don't know their keyboard shortcuts.
I’ve got great news for you.
> writes TypeScript. Or enterprise Java if they got unlucky.
I would argue writing TypeScript is also equally being unlucky (I write Elixir for a living, but sometimes have to deal with TypeScript too)
Back in the 90s, Macs were mostly used by the "tech nerds". Normal people ran windows 95/98. It's still kind of weird to me that Macs became sufficiently mainstream as to lose their tech nerd cred :)
My memories are different. Macs were run by media guys for graphics, video and audio. Tech nerds used, sure Windows, DOS, but also Linux already, many types of Unixes, Netware, Commodore Amiga, Atari ST or Falcon. But Macs? No!
Exactly, Macs were more of a yuppie toy for people that didn't need real computers.
Maybe "tech nerd" is being interpreted in a specific way that I don't quite follow. Are the multimedia guys with the expensive tech setups not nerdy enough?
They were nerds but not computer nerds. “tech nerd” would be someone building computers, learning how to program a bit, war driving, etc
Huh. For me "tech nerd" has always been more general, and encompassed the folks pushing the envelope in multimedia/games/home-automation, and so on
I was young but I do remember during the 90's my really nerdy computer/programmer friends being into Apple stuff until around the time Steve Jobs left, then getting into Unixes and eventually messing around with Linux or going back to Apple when they adopted a Unix base for OSX.
My own experience was learning on an old IBM PC at school, then Apple 2s later. Also my dad was a programmer (but maybe less nerdy/more professional) so I got second hand x86 hardware and learned to program on Windows with Visual Basic, Delphi and Visual C++ (since he already had licenses). Eventually I got into Linux in the late 90's.
Yeah, that is correct, the early Apple computers were used by tech nerds too! I mainly referred to the 90s like the OP and to Macintosh computers.
I'd say Macs have a far greater association with developers and tech nerds now, most code was being written for Windows and Unix back then. I was in a Computer Science University program in the 90's, and our labs were full of Unix workstations, things like SGI and Sun. When the iMac dropped, they put them in the non-CS labs. On a personal level, I've always felt the relatively current Mac==developer trend is driven in large part by fashion, but I've never been a fan of the Apple/Mac ecosystem even though I can respect what the Mac is on an engineering level. So maybe I'm biased.
This is such an uncharitable take of your peers.
The issue is not pedigree - it’s that many folks have an incurious mind.
I certainly know many folks with a CS degree that are incurious and frankly terrible engineers. I also know bootcampers that are extremely curious, have a lifelong-learner attitude, and are subsequently great engineers.
There’s nothing special taught in the vaunted halls of a CS undergrad that can’t be trivially learned off YouTube.
I agree with your first couple of sentences. But the YouTube bit is dangerous misinformation. You cannot match any credible university education by watching YouTube.
There are many wonderful educational channels on YouTube. Just as in a classroom - you cannot passively absorb material and expect to understand it with any depth. You can absolutely get the same education off YouTube. The only advantage a proper course provides is pre-made structure. But even that is accessible to the motivated learner.
I know plenty of tech nerds who have been Apple fans since the 80s.
on the Apple //e
> I continue to be surprised that so many developers and other tech nerds - the type who post on HN - chose and continue to choose the iPhone over Android when Apple dictates what apps they can install and locks third-party accessories out of certain features.
I bought a Nexus One the day it became available, installed endless third party ROMs on it, tweaked it to my heart's desire. Got a Nexus 4, then 5. Today I have an iPhone.
I just need something that works, just because I can tweak endlessly doesn't mean it's a good use of my time. Honestly one of the original biggest motivators was iMessage. A rock solid messaging system ought to be table stakes for a mobile OS but Google has reinvented the wheel so many times I've lost track. Also FaceTime for calling distant relatives.
Sad to say, I don't find myself missing the relative openness of Android at all. Google-branded Android has issues similar to iOS, they also removed ICE Watch style apps. And non-Google Android is work.
> Also FaceTime for calling distant relatives.
Are your relatives unable to install Signal or WhatsApp?
Yes is a possible answer here, but installing a messaging/video-call app seems pretty low effort. I've had several elderly relatives do it and none required hand-holding, just the name of the app.
At the time neither WhatsApp nor Signal had iPad apps. Looking at it now it seems Signal added that in 2020, WhatsApp in 2025. But I switched years before both.
Even starting a FaceTime call is a struggle for lots of people.
Installing an setting up Signal or WhatsApp is out of the question for a huge portion of the population.
> Even starting a FaceTime call is a struggle for lots of people.
Yes, 90% of global smartphone users can't do it at all :P
> WhatsApp is out of the question for a huge portion of the population.
What an insane take this is.
How is it an insane take? My mother is in her seventies, has an iphone, and can't seem to figure out how to put me on speakerphone when I call her. It's a struggle to get her to do much of anything on there. My father is even worse. They didn't grow up with the technology like younger generations did and just don't get it.
At the same time, there's plenty of people who didn't grow up with the technology and manage to navigate their devices fine. I had to teach an elder what the notifications bar was because their children never bothered to explain it. We should take some responsibility instead of being ageist by assuming old people are dumb.
> assuming old people are dumb
Not just old people. Hackernews skews technical and seems to mostly interact with other technical people.
There are people in their 30's, 40's and 50's who don't own a computer at all (other than a smartphone), don't interact with computers on a regular basis, and almost exclusively use the built-in talk/text/browser apps that come pre-installed.
It may be a relatively small percentage of the adult population in the US, but it is still many millions of people.
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This reminds me of when people say “I can’t believe developers use VS Code, real developers use vim/emacs”
It’s a tool, a means to an end. I just want my tool to be easy to use and work.
Another analogy would be cars: do you tune and modify, or do you want a transportation appliance?
There is no wrong answer. Maybe your hobby is tinkering with your tools. If that’s you, more power to you.
I want a phone, editor, and car that are easy to use and “just work.”
There are actually wrong answers. We, intuitively, like to think in tradeoffs. No free lunch and all. So more open phones must be harder to use, they must be X Y and Z. But theyre not necessarily.
That's gatekeeping/snobbery. VSCode won't tell you you're not allowed to install extensions that aren't blessed by Microsoft. If it started doing that, most people could trivially switch to Codium.
VSCodium does tell you your not allowed to install some extensions that are blessed by MS. (I.E. it's open core and switching might not be trivial if you rely on any of the proprietary extensions.)
Before my iPhone I had Android with custom ROMs, tricked out UI, bunches of system automations, etc.
Now I want to spend exactly 0 seconds a day on any of that, and would never buy something that caused me to exceed that 0 seconds. I want an appliance in my pocket, when my car breaks down or I need to be in touch. I do my fun stuff elsewhere.
It's weird to me that people keep saying that.
How on Earth is iPhone more "appliancy" than regular Android? If anything, it's more annoying than Android with all the Apple inconsistencies. The settings UI, for example, is just plain broken. The gesture UI is finger-breakingly inconsistent, while Android has a simple reliable 3-button bottom bar.
The most appliance thing about it is continued updates for and switching to a new device.
If you stick with Samsung, the issues I've had probably go away.
> gesture UI is finger-breakingly inconsistent
I'm not familiar with this, at all. The app switching is actually my favorite feature about iPhone. So easy to flip between two apps. I don't use a case, so maybe that's related.
I've been using Pixel devices for a decade. I don't remember any issues with moving? I think the only bothersome thing was re-authentication in some apps after the move.
It typically took me maybe an hour to move devices? Including moving to a non-Google phone once when I broke my phone during a foreign trip and had to get a temporary replacement.
> I'm not familiar with this, at all. The app switching is actually my favorite feature about iPhone. So easy to flip between two apps. I don't use a case, so maybe that's related.
I can't get it to switch consistently. On Android it's dead easy and reliable with a nav bar. On iPhone it's often not registering a gesture if I swipe too fast or don't start swiping from the very bottom.
It’s surprising to me that people who care enough about software to make a living writing it would tolerate the abominable state of software on Android.
I tried switching but it is really hard when nearly every app is just horrible to use or missing basic features.
Sure there are some limitations on what software is easy to install (as there are and will be soon on Android), but at least iOS has software worthy of being installed.
I don't think they have to reach the average consumer for this to work. The world is big, and while 99% probably could care less there are more than one reason to own an open source phone. If the lenovo hardware runs Android and Graphene, it's not like they have to make a big investment in it. And the Graphene users could give them some pricing power.
If you are a phone manufacturer looking to differentiate your product, this is cheaper than inventing a display that folds four times or what have you.
I don't think it's iPhone vs. Android, rather "mega-corp $$$" vs. hobbyists. At the point where Android could be considered "open" (e.g. removing Google Play Services, etc.) you've lost a lot of the functionality that people come to expect from a smartphone. Sure, there are workarounds, but let's be honest: they're hacky and not a great experience.
It is a great experience without Google Play Services on GraheneOS.
Well, google doesn’t sell pixels in eu that can use graphene, and samsung installed the israeli spyware on all their devices. So apple is kinda the best solution.
Unless you count xiaomi and huawei as the proper android devices?
> I continue to be surprised that so many developers and other tech nerds - the type who post on HN - chose and continue to choose the iPhone over Android when Apple dictates what apps they can install and locks third-party accessories out of certain features.
I ran Android since the beginning because I wanted to write my own software when I was in high school. I was on Android for something like 14 years. The other software I ran was never as good as my iOS compatriots. My software would crash, it looked worse, and it was generally lower quality.
Of course, there were exceptions, but not enough.
I switch to an iPhone a bit over a year ago and, while still having issues (especially recently), it's just such a better experience.
My computer is where I do my fun software development. I just want my phone to work, which my Android phones weren't. Whether the hardware, the OS, or the applications were at fault doesn't matter to me, because I just wanted it to work.
Apple is doing a marvelous job of destroying the whole “it just works” or “it’s easy to figure out how to ____” thing they had going on. I would get over on an android 10-12 years ago and get exasperated about even trying to send a text message on the damned thing. Which, unfortunately can also now be said about the Apple experience.
Apple doesn’t care what I think about their battery draining bloated garbage software anymore so I’m quietly quitting and don’t care about them either.
I just finally gave away my MacBook to someone who needed it more than I do .. I loathe Tahoe… as much as I do ios26… but haven’t cut the cord with the iPhone YET.
GrapheneOS seems to be the only contender that will get me to go along with that,(I’m running it on a pixel7 and warming up to it but still go back to iPhone to do some things I have no patience for figuring out on the pixel.)
Motorola may seal the deal. If they offer a cool device. I had a Nexus 6 (I think) that Motorola made and it was cool, it was just already obsolete when I got my hands on it. I could root it and do whatever I wanted on it, and half the reason I got into iPhone was that I could readily jailbreak those once upon a time. And can’t now.
So I have this fisher price piece of shit Apple device I can’t do anything fun on and the battery’s dead after 2-3 hours of use when … I paid extra for so called “pro max” devices for the extra battery capacity alone… the whole reason I even went down that road was getting lost in New York City with a dead battery a few too many time, this thing used to go 12-15 hours under ios18…
Motorola had made several of my favorite phones ever before an iPhone existed. We’ll see. I don’t think anyone even enjoys or wants an iPhone anymore. We are all just fucking , and getting fucked by, Apple until someone better comes along.
What else disgusts me about Apple is all the subtle ways they want you even more addicted to or dependent on your device. iCloud bullshit. In device subscriptions. Oh use our password manager and have a unique fucking 30 char password for every single site . Would you like a proprietary “passkey” so you’re forced to reach for your god damned iPhone another 15 times a day! 2fa? Authy won’t run on gOS. Just all this endless shit I’m going to have to divorce and migrate off of as well to get rid of them. And i will because i hate this company now. Please put them out of society’s misery for us.
The problem is as bad as Apple has become, it has a long way to fall before it reaches the depths of Google/Android. We could have six more iOS 26 style disaster releases and I suspect it would still be better than putting up with Android.
I tried to switch to graphene for similar reasons to you. It just wasn’t viable, as you’re discovering.
And if you want to even attempt to have a modern smartphone experience, you’re logging into Google account, which is an “out of the frying pan, into the fire” move.
That's where I'm at too.
For now, Apple is still the best in a bad situation, and at least for now they aren't primarily an ad company.
I am glad about the Graphene+Motorola partnership though, it always felt ironic to me to have to give Google money to completely escape Google.
I'm continued to be surprised that people carry around devices that are controlled by targeted advertising firms
> I continue to be surprised that so many developers and other tech nerds - the type who post on HN - chose and continue to choose the iPhone over Android when Apple dictates what apps they can install and locks third-party accessories out of certain features.
Why do you assume every "developer and tech nerd" cares about the things you do, or should? This is like the stereotypical buffoonish sysadmin who scoffs at people who don't mod their machines or configure every last bit of their OS by hand.
I expect most people to think it's bad if a corporation can keep them from running apps on their phone when those apps are good for the user and bad for the corporation. If most people don't understand that conflicts of interest lead to unethical behavior, that's a larger and more urgent social problem.
I expect tech nerds to be aware that the conflict of interests exists in this case, while the average person would not.
You can be aware of the conflict of interest and still decide that is an acceptable trade-off to make. Ethics are personal, subjective, and subject to trade-offs. You have a strong ethical support for having control of the apps running on your devices and that overrides other trade-offs. Another person may have competing ethical beliefs such as Google is an advertising company and while Android allows open software installation (today, at least), Google's conflicts of interest as an ad company are more concerning for the entire platform and larger ecosystem than Apple's conflicts of interest as an application gate keeper.
There's no right answer, everything is a shade of gray. Your strongest ethics aren't necessarily your neighbors'.
> Google is an advertising company and while Android allows open software installation (today, at least), Google's conflicts of interest as an ad company are more concerning for the entire platform and larger ecosystem than Apple's conflicts of interest as an application gate keeper.
This, I suspect is a large part of it. At least for me, as a self described "tech nerd" who have been messing with computers since my childhood in the 90s.
The other aspect is that I don't do anything serious from my phone. I'm still "old school" I guess and prefer a keyboard + mouse. My laptop is my main computing device, not my phone. And for that, Apple currently offers the best of a bad situation. It's still advantageous to them from a marketing standpoint to offer privacy, and they aren't primarily an advertising company. They are the only one of the two that offer E2EE (Advanced Data Protection) for photos, all the processing for that is done on device, etc. When meta threw their huge fit over the app tracking transparency, but were silent on anything Google was doing with Android, that just sold Apple even more for me.
I'v made a choice to accept the tradeoff of them being an application gate keeper because for anything "serious" I'd just be using my computer anyway, which still allows me to install and run whatever I want, and do whatever I want with the hardware. I don't need that from a phone. Quite the opposite, I don't want that on a phone, I'm totally fine with the phone just being an appliance, and Apple offers the best appliance experience still.
If this translates to longer device retention (if you enable battery changes, a current gen device can easily last a decade), people will care.
$200 phone that you can use for 5+ years without handicapping the user will be a much bigger hit.
This translates well to the boots paradox. This can change "cheaper is much more expensive in the long run" to "cheaper is a bit more expensive on the long run".
This, of course, will not create enough value for the people who doesn't need or appreciate the need for these $200 phones.
This is one of the advantages apple currently has: Staying on the bleeding edge of or buying an iphone is cheaper than you would think, because iphones in general retain their value longer than the average android, due to apple's relatively long OS update period (and yes, it would be better if they were more open and less control freaky, but they still beat their competition). And even the android brands that do have competitive support periods lose out due to the brand confusion.
This is one of the advantages apple currently has: Staying on the bleeding edge of or buying an iphone is cheaper than you would think, because iphones in general retain their value longer than the average android
I have found that you can also use the less long value retention to your advantage by not buying an Android phone on release day. E.g. Pixels often go for hundreds off after 6 months or so. E.g. here in Western Europe, including VAT: Pixel 9a 549 -> 349, Pixel 10 899 -> 549, Pixel 10 Pro 1099 -> 769. At the same time the iPhone 17 has only gone down about 100 Euro. When getting e.g. a Pixel at the discounted price, the loss is not so much after selling after 1-2 years.
Also, I had a habit of getting a new iPhone every year and the loss of selling second-hand is now much larger than in the early days. I think the demand lessened due to the market largely reaching an equilibrium + there not being a lot of advances in smartphones, so people are staying on their phones longer, so there is less demand for second-hand phones (e.g. my parents were on iPhone 11 until recently, my mom still is).
The typical interested buyers are also more annoying to deal with these days (also probably due to the changing iPhone demographics). So nowadays, if I cannot sell it to family or friends, I'll often just send it to a company like Rebuy.
> apple's relatively long OS update period
For a 127 EUR Samsung A17 up to 6 OS and security updates (6 years) are advertised. For a Google Pixel up to 7 updates. How long is it for Apple?
Apple provides 7 years of software updates, plus one year of security updates on top of it, plus zero day patches after that period.
Samsung will switch from monthly to updating less and less often over the age of your device. Your device will be vulnerable to known security issues but Samsung will stick to their once every 3 months and sometimes once every 6 months update schedule. I found this out after my premium Samsung tablet sat vulnerable for months.
https://www.sammobile.com/samsung/samsung-galaxy-security-up...
That's true, but for the price and compared to non-Samsung they are doing really well. Our daughter's A54, which was a bargain at 300 Euro, is still getting monthly updates after three years and looks like it's still getting them for at least another year (since A53 is also still supported).
Though for price vs. updates it's hard to beat the Pixel 9a. It's currently often ~349 Euro and gets updates until April 1, 2032.
I can barely use my iPhone 16E after the liquid glass update so I will say for me, it was one year.
That's nuts. My iPhone 13 actually feels quicker after the iOS 26 update (and this is the first time I think I've said that about an iOS update since it was iPhoneOS / single digits)
Part of the issue with the 16E is that is is using a binned A18 chip. when I heard it was using the A18 chip I decided to buy it, but it seems the GPU sucks, and Glass is so GPU intensive so...
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/02/21/iphone-16e-geekbench-bi...
It was fine without liquid glass, but I unfortunately missed the downgrade window,
Samsung and pixels Almost match it. Something about ¡Phones it's outside of the us or in developed counties I might say they're expensive compared to android. The price difference between what they cost in the us and in other parts is a lot. When I came to the us that I realized that buying an ¡Phone is not that dumb, as here the price are reasonable, for example Samsungs phones cost the same.
That may be a good argument 5 years ago but not today.
An iPhone does not necessarily last longer than an (flagship) Android phone these days, including security updates.
can you walk into a Samsung shop and have your battery replaced with an OEM part, warranties and all, in about two hours?
I don't think that's the topic being discussed here.
> boots paradox
For those that don’t know what they meant, here you go[0].
I’ve always been a fan of Quality, but Quality costs, and people that get rich, generally do so, by selling lots of lower-quality stuff. Hard to compete against.
Excellent info and article. I'd not heard of this paradox, but I've always told my kids, "If you have to spend more to get quality, go for it." I will say though, if I won't be using a product very often, but still need it, I will buy something at a lower cost/quality.
>If this translates to longer device retention (if you enable battery changes, a current gen device can easily last a decade), people will care. $200 phone that you can use for 5+ years without handicapping the user will be a much bigger hit
Would it? Most people, including in the developing countries, like changing phones. It's one of the small consumerist joys they get, plus they show the Joneses that they can keep up.
This is easier if the device retains its resale value. Keeping up with the latest iphone is cheaper than the latest Android flagship because of this.
Changing a phone means days of annoyance as you find one more thing that didn't transfer. Or one more thing that doesn't work the same as the old phone, but not in a good way. Or one more thing that you have to dive deep into settings to express that you do actually want your communication apps to run in the background so you can communicate. Or one more pocket the new phone doesn't fit into. More annoyance if you had to change phones because the old one can no longer accept input.
I remember a time when a new phone meant exciting new capabilities, and my current phone does have a new radio vs the old phone which is nicer than I thought it would be ... but at the end of the day, it's pretty much the same but different. Even though there are approximately 10,000 android phones released per year (hyperbole, I think), only a handful have my must haves (appropriate bands, headphone jack, reasonable cpu) so I don't actually get to shop on my want to haves; there's not so much joy there.
the biggest threat to long term usage of a phone to me are physical damage or loss. buying a cheaper phone reduces that risk. if a phone lasts more than two years i count my blessings.
> if you enable battery changes, a current gen device can easily last a decade), people will care.
Modern batteries last surprisingly long. I assumed my 5yo pixel 4a was at 50~60% capacity based on feels and the adb batterystats printout estimated the same (with 1600 charge cycles). But when I actually measured the screentime / charging wattage, it was still at 80% capacity. Even confirmed this by replacing the battery and running the same tests.
I think part of the reason the old battery felt worse is that it would read 100% when it was only ~85% full then trickle charge at like 2w for another 90 minutes.
The cynic in me thinks Motorola somehow won't really enable that since it would cut into their recurring sales too much..?
But, I agree. I used several Motorola phones and those were the main two reasons I replaced them. They either ran until the battery was misbehaving or I became concerned about the state of the software. The other reason would be actual tech changes such as LTE/5G and the transitional period where not all models supported all the important radio bands for my providers.
A few Motos have stayed in the family and had amazingly long lives as home devices (no SIM). I'd love for the balance to somehow come out in favor of your hopes. I.e. they decde they can save so much on OS maintenance costs that they don't mind the effect of users holding onto phones longer.
Interesting perspective — thanks for sharing this.
I don’t think this view is in line with the realities of the smartphone market.
Some/many low end phones in on have replaceable batteries (e.g., Nokia C12). I’m not sure if it’s because of buyer demographics, simpler/easier assembly, less engineering constraints due lower-end/less hardware, but the place you tend to find replaceable batteries is on the low end.
The user is never really handicapped because low end users just continue using phones after they’ve lost security updates. All their apps still work and that’s all they care about.
In the mid to high end market, you’ve got two factors at play:
1. Many consumers actually want the latest phone frequently so long as they can afford it, and for many customers in many markets it’s a trivial expense (more on that in point #2)
2. Many of the higher profit locales like the United States have financing and pseudo-financing schemes that hide the cost of the phones. If you are using a post-paid plan on one of the big 3 carriers, you’ll literally never pay for a phone. You can get a brand new $1000 phone on a trade in deal every three years, with a pseudo-contract lock-in (they give you the phone for free after bill credits, so if you leave the carrier you are paying for the phone. Or, in the case of AT&T, they just lock the phone until you pay it off).
Even budget carriers like Metro and Boost have free phone offers involving low to mid-range phones.
> $200 phone that you can use for 5+ years without handicapping the user will be a much bigger hit.
Fairphone and framework devices are more expensive than their locked down competitors. Are there any open devices that come close to being that affordable without being years behind tech/feature wise?
$200 for an open source, modern smartphone that can last sounds great. But it sounds like a bit of a fantasy right now.
The market for programs like revanced is pretty big, that's why Google is going to remove "sideloading". At which point there will be a large market for an open phone that allows the user to install what they want.
As long as the banking apps and such work.
Banks shouldn't have custom apps that are not mobile websites, accessible via the mobile browser just as well.
Apparently there are special auth apps storing things in secure-enclave-ish parts of the OS. Not a great match for websites.
No, that's just BS.
The web has a secure storage standard and OAuth + MFA is just as secure as anything your bank could cook up in an app. In fact, I'd be shocked if banks did a better job of security in their apps vs what browsers and standard auth flows provide.
Banks just like selling the idea that "if it's encrypted, it's secure". But trust me when I say this, bank security across the board absolutely sucks. The company I work with does financial data ingest and... yeah... There's more than a few institutions where we had to pull teeth to get them to send stuff through an encrypted transport (SFTP, for example, they want to just use FTP).
The OS/browser could give this capability to web apps via an API.
That would be a breeding ground for malware.
The capability to ...read their own keys that they set up?
You mean like the android play store already is?
When my bank didn't support my phone, I switched the bank, not the phone.
That is sensible. In sweden there's 1 single app to authenticate yourself. Strictly speaking the bank does work without, but A LOT of other stuff doesn't, making life very hard.
BankID was working just fine when I was experimenting with LineageOS without Google apps (incidentally, on a Motorola phone) last year. It is something I worry about though, seeing as they could easily stop that from working and there's no real alternative.
Perhaps you can't get the freedom without fighting for it?
People do need to rent apartments and such things, it gets cold in sweden.
I think they meant that if there is a single identity app you should petition your government to require it to run on any mobile phone rather than require one or two American companies to dictate what it can run on. Or better yet, allow people without mobile phones to also be able to rent apartments.
This could develop into a chance for a crypto wallet to shine.
> [..] Phones that are like $150-200 sell like hot cakes.
True and all. But there is at least anecdotal evidence the niche for $500 phones marketed as not-google/not-samsung/not-apple/not-chinese is substantial and growing. Here in Europe I'm seeing Fairphones in hands of non-techies, so there seems to be some willingness to pay a premium to move away from big tech.
The original Google Nexus program showed that there is a market for more open phones and platforms.
I don't disagree with you that in order to sell, these devices need to be somewhat appealing to more than just devs. However, I will say that the dev market isn't as small as it once was. A decent phone with an open platform would be something a lot of devs would likely prioritize buying. It won't be the next Iphone, but it will be a pretty dedicated market segment.
Framework is a good example of that. A laptop business that stays afloat mostly because there is a desire for repairable long lasting products, even if it's a bit niche.
Given a lot of phone manufacturers are now trying bizarre edges to get ahead (like foldable... who wants that?) it seems like a good rarely taken route.
Agree with you on the foldables. God, no one wants that. That's why they have to pitch it as some luxury product the masses can't afford. I hate those creases too. No one can convince me those things are durable...no matter how many marketing videos they make.
> Agree with you on the foldables. God, no one wants that.
I think there are a lot of people who would love to have a smaller form-factor for when the phone is in their pocket, with a large screen for when it's being used. The current state-of-the-art might not be very good for foldable phones, but the demand is there, and that's what drives innovation.
Well...not to be disagreeable, I've had the Flip 4 and now, since it came out, a Flip 5. Both are excellent products. IF you keep a semi-fresh screen protector film on them, the screen will not break/crack in the flex/fold area. I didn't try them for luxury, I tried them because they fit comfortably in my pants pocket.
I guess I could see it. I'm guessing you tend to wear pants with shallow pockets correct? It is a problem my wife runs into that woman's pants have next to no pockets. She ends up needing to store her phone elsewhere as a result.
Does Apple use some kind of mind-control rays?!?
Foldables are a growing market in Asia, where they are more widely available. They are quickly becoming a new status symbol, displacing Apple. Especially in China where the local phone manufacturers are now completely independent and free to experiment.
Apple somehow completely missed the plot (yet again) despite being having the largest tablet marketshare. Google, to their credit, is now pushing developers towards supporting dynamic screen dimensions.
I don't even use an Apple. I travel a lot within Asia, so, I'm aware of the foldables situation in Asia. But, again, only to prove my point - not everyone runs around with those. You usually see the wealthy and some rich kids carry them around.
I would love a Samsung Z fold 7 but they are far too expensive for me
Developer fantasy? Here's the consumer fact: people do not like the race-to-the-bottom extractive practices installed on their computers non-consentually. People do not like the union-style collective barganining of duopolies following each other's anticonsumer practices after the bolder one tests it. Everybody complains about this stuff nonstop, and adapts by reducing their attention span on a fundamental level. The demand for a respectful computing environment is enormous.
I've been buying Google Pixel for almost 10 years now, and Nexus phones before that, and my current Pixel is the last Google phone I'll buy.
The ecosystem is closed, Google is speed-running to 100% evil, they're locking down APK installations, etc.
I need to find a replacement, and with me a lot of tech friends and non-techies that just ask me for advice.
The market is waiting for someone to step in; this is a golden chance for Motorola.
Other than flip/niche phones, phones appear to have plateaued.
IF you offer someone a phone with similar specs to others, yet much, much more private - many would go for that.
If that were true then the Windows phones would've survived. You need the app ecosystem.
How many is many? Fairly sure hardware development is very hard and expensive. Are we talking about 1 million people worldwide (peanuts, will probably not recover the investment) or 50 million worldwide (might be worth it)?
I think you're an order of magnitude out. Motorola shipped 36.6 million handsets total across 2024. They seem to have had 33 handset models available in that period, and they were in profit, so the break-even point is presumably somewhere below 1.1M handsets.
If I'm off for the second group I'm probably also off for the first one. I'd be surprised if a purely privacy focused phone sells more than 200k units per year.
It's developer fantasy because no one was putting any money into this kind of project. Presumably, because the data showed there wouldn't be enough return from it. Which then implies that the data has updated to show that there is at least enough for a company like Motorola to put at least this much money in to it.
The whole point is that a company is going to try to market this developer fantasy to non-developers, assuming that what excites developers about it enough to discuss it will resonate with non-developers when they hear developers talk about their new phones.
It's not a guarantee of success or anything, but a lot of stuff works like this. Mozilla didn't gain market dominance (for a hot second in the early 2000's) because they marketed to non-devs. They just provided a superior product in every way to everything else at the time, and devs couldn't ignore that, so non-devs always dealt with non-microsoft browsers whenever the devs came around. That kind of "grass is greener" non-marketing is a real winner when the product is solid.
So here's hoping Motorola takes a great idea and builds a product so solid on it that people can't ignore it.
>> Make MDM easy & first class (no third parties...), and a ton of corp will roll it out too.
To me, this is how you get around consumers buying locked down more heavily subsidized devices, if you're competing with an open device strategy.
Corporations want corporate devices that (a) are secure, (b) work, and (c) take as little of IT's time as possible to manage.
Motorola + GrapheneOS + Microsoft for a turnkey managed corporate device solution seems surprisingly competitive.
I generally agree with the sentiment about the average consumer, but the commenter above called out MDM specifically, as in, corporate Mobile Device Management (MDM).
I definitely see how large security conscious companies could be quite interested in a good GrapheneOS phone since it would alleviate fears about their corporate data getting leaked to Google, and really allow them to secure the phone in all the ways they want. So the market wouldn't just be niche privacy conscious consumer, but companies buying these phones for employees.
It might be developer fantasy but half of the giants in the mobile market really did take off this way:
* xiaomi with their miui skin/custom ROM - "bringing iOS like polish to Android" back then
* oneplus with their initial devices with cyanogenmod - clean aosp interface without any bloat and lots of features.
In fact, when my brother was buying phones for my mom (neither of them were really that technically inclined), he bought a Motorola mostly because "it doesn't have all those ads like redmi at the same price"
Indeed - I remember MKBHD praising the initial OnePlus thanks to that approach. Today he's got 20M subscribers. If Motorola gets big tech reviewers on their side it's a big market.
Not to mention the more techy people in a family unit often make recommendations. I told my dad to buy a Nexus phone for that same reason which he still has, of course it's 10y old now so I'll probably have him upgrade to a Motorola.
I know a fair number of non-technical folks that hate the idea of trusting Google or Apple with their data. It's part of a generalized backlash to big tech corps that will only increase as their size and power over our lives continues to grow unchecked. Godspeed GrapheneOS
The laptop segment is a poor example. Apple is the only company mass producing high performance arm laptops with a completely custom os that integrates to the hardware. You take what you can get. Your choices are: run windows (lol), or linux(whats linux?) system76 is the only company even coming close, but their performance is way behind mainstream unfortunately because they don't have the custom silicon capability that Apple does.
> The average consumer doesn't care even one bit. Is the phone smooth? Does it have a good camera? Does it have a good battery? Does it last more than 2 years?
think company-issued phones. There are many that would love to not have to deal with samsung and apple.
The average consumer is also very happy to take recommendations from the tech-literate people in their life. I would love if there was a budget-friendly, privacy-preserving phone I could recommend to everyone.
When side-loading and adblock stops being available then the average consumer will flip a table. Most folks I know with Android devices have them running with adblockers and such; and their Android TV devices are _loaded_ with pirate streaming software.
Because here in Canada you can buy devices preloaded with such things for a pittance over MSRP.
No one suggests that open and developers-friendly phones should be expensive.
I agree, but they always will be expensive because they are a niche. Same reasoning as phones that focus on one niche (like photo/videographers) always end up being super expensive (eg. Xperia from Sony).
Disclaimer: Niche Xperia User.
Not necessarily, the Xperia line of devices is varied, with nice set of tiers:
1 - Flagship $$$$ 5 - Smaller Flagship $$$ 10 - Mainline $$ Ace - $
Sony's problem is that they have garbage marketing teams that don't understand that 99% of people don't look at a spec sheet, they ask the employee at the shop for the best phone, which is gunna be the one that gets the employee the most commission.
In Japan, they already have that with Docomo, AU, and Softbank. But they've failed to materialize that strategy outside of here.
Right, it's the economics of mass production that does that.
But this seems like it's mostly for corporations and businesses that they're doing this feature. It's the same as Lenovo Thinkpads which also have good Linux integration,and are catered to business. So if they're able to make business from this open products from corporations, and I as user benefit from a computer that allows to run open software. It's a win-win for everyone
> This is just developer fantasy. The average consumer doesn't care even one bit. Is the phone smooth? Does it have a good camera? Does it have a good battery? Does it last more than 2 years?
Even more than all of those, customers want Google Mobile Services apps, such as Google Play, Google Maps, YouTube.
I wonder if there is an enterprise market for a fully audited, fully customizable phone that can be deployed across an entire organization, giving the institution full control of the software, apps, security, usage, etc.
[dead]
It is funny how I do believe this is true, but also can't help but notice how much effort they spend defeating this exact user base. Reminds me of ad companies... I'm sure they also don't care about targeting some fraction of a percentage of their base, but look how much effort they spend defeating ad blockers lol.
There is a hobbyist market for a tinker-phone; it’s just tiny. Like Raspberry Pi or Framework market cap vs Macbook market cap.
> countries around Asia and you'll be surprised how people prioritise features
While this is true, I can also say that the other minority becomes large enough for any OEM to care. It might even drawf market size of other markets when only compares in numbers.
> [..] Phones that are like $150-200 sell like hot cakes
What percentage of that is based on phones at that price having a headphone jack?
I know where you're getting at, I wish modern phones had the headphone jack. It was the most stupidest decision to remove them. I now use an Apple USB-C to headphone jack converter, while the inbuilt DAC is really good, it's quite inconvenient as I'm an audiophile myself and if I take a different headphone with me to the gym, I can't use it if I forgot to bring the converter (which happens a lot).
This is just a pessimist's fantasy. The average consumer doesn't care even one bit. Is the phone smooth? Does it have a good camera? Does it have a good battery? Does it last more than 2 years?
Go to some developing countries around Asia and you'll be surprised how many people are sideloading apps, which is part of the reason Google tried their bullshit with developing countries first.
You're right that people mostly care about if it works, but when they have more choices they care about more things IF all else is equal. The "2 years" thing is definitely not correct either, especially as budgets are getting tighter.
The time is right for this change, as the reality is that the market has stagnated. Even cheap phones have good cameras, good batteries, and run smooth now. There's been very little innovation in phones over the last 5 years that the average person actually cares about. But the average person is frustrated with surveillance capitalism, but feels like there's nothing they can do about it. Don't confuse exhaustion with apathy. They look similar, but are very different.
>> This is just a pessimist's fantasy. The average consumer doesn't care even one bit. Is the phone smooth? Does it have a good camera? Does it have a good battery? Does it last more than 2 years?
The Windows phone did all three way better than Android and was still a massive failure in the US and abroad.
I was never able to daily drive it but the people I knew that did would have disagreed. Regardless of reality perception also matters, unfortunately.
> What developers want and what the average consumer wants/needs are two different things.
This description of average consumer is so 2021. Nowadays the average consumer can vibe code stuff and share it with his friends. So he needs a package manager not only an app store.
I personally don't hold vibe coding in any high regard, I hate not knowing and controlling what code is running on my computer/device, but I can see the value for amateurs in just playing around and occasionally destroying the OS, installing it again and so on.
> Nowadays the average consumer can vibe code stuff and share it with his friends. So he needs a package manager not only an app store.
This is also developer fantasy for two reasons:
(1) Most vibed apps suck in unpredictable ways.
(2) Most avg consumers don't even know what Claude is, let alone Claude Code, let alone being good enough at vibing to produce anything of value.
>Most avg consumers don't even know what Claude is[..]
Vibe coding is very early and pretty expensive, but computers and the internet are always in an exponential curve, a curve much steeper than the rest of the economy. Give it 3 years, and you will be amazed.
Not everyone will be vibe coding. In every social circle of 10 people, 1 person will be good at that, and will develop programs for his/her friends.
>Most vibed apps suck in unpredictable ways.
Yes of course, it would be infinitely preferable for normal people to learn proper computer science, algorithms etc. We agree on that.
> Does it last more than 2 years?
I originally didn't want to comment out of personal spite... but I once bought a motorola phone that got its last update (security or not) 23 months after launch.
They're on my shit list now.
I don't know why you need to bring developing countries into the discussion. I'm quite sure average users from developed countries don't care that either.
The market is huge enough to including all kinds of consumers
> Is the phone smooth? Does it have a good camera? Does it have a good battery? Does it last more than 2 years?
Currently, yes. These are easily achieved bars for a Graphene piece.
The average consumer doesn't care about what you think. The average consumer is getting really tired of people speaking on their name. The average consumer would like to vote with their wallet, thank you very much.
> user control and freedom
Yeah, most people don't want that. Wasn't that apple add with the hammer all about freedom?
To add to this, midrange phones and laptops are now more than "good enough". You can get a phone for a couple hundred dollars that plays just about any game, runs any software, takes good enough pictures.
Laptops too. Look at the Steam Deck or Switch 2, both years old hardware, both very relevant. Laptops with equivalent specs are more than fine for most people.
The article specifically talks about B2B and MDM-like features. The "average consumer" isn't the point here -- rather, governments, defense, high-security corporations, etc.
The average consumer trusts our jugement. If we say motorola is the best phone, we will convert a significant chunk of consumers in as few as 5 years given the short life of the devices
The average consumer WILL like an OS that isnt overly cluttered and simpler and cleaner.
You have a point, but two counters to this:
1) You don't need to capture a large part of the market to make a profit. The market for smartphones is large enough that even capturing a small percentage of it can be profitable.
2) Privacy is increasingly becoming a differentiator and I predict privacy will be increasingly important as a differentiator. Just because no company has successfully managed to market privacy benefits doesn't mean there is no market for it. There's a lot of marketing potential in terms of privacy that companies like NordVPN, Incogni, and DeleteMe have figured out. People are clearly willing to pay for privacy.
The average consumer (in the western part of the world) uses an Apple or Samsung phone, not a Motorola.
Lenovo is not going to change that, nor will they ever make a phone that is better at being a Samsung phone than Samsung.
I think that in the current smartphone manufacturer landscape, being an underdog kind of requires serving niche segments.
For consumers maybe, for countries on the other hand there's a massive push for digital independence right now and this is part of it.
you don't need to convince the average user, you just need to convince the tech-influencers.
Developing countries also care about blocking ads, installing pirated games, and apps for pirated streaming of music and video.
As someone born in a country that used to be "the leader" of the third world, computers here won over consoles only because we could pirate expensive games that we couldn't afford. Expensive cartridge vs two tape recorders and some fiddling with the tapes? The tapes win!
This would be big for businesses, like the the full title of the article reveals:
"Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS Foundation, marking a new chapter in smartphone security and expanding its enterprise portfolio"
I know a lot of businesses that would love to not be exposed to Google.
They are probably going for a new thinkphone generation for the prosumer/enterprise and not for the consumer market.
I actually think things have changed slightly. With the sudden shift to political extremism of the US government there's growing mistrust of US-owned software products... and anybody who thinks hard about that will have similar concerns about a Chinese company like Motorola/Lenovo.
Now I don't know how big the public market is. And you'd have to do a lot of conspiracy-based marketing to pull it off, which is kind of gross.
But commitment to auditable, hackable OSS would target a different market of people looking for devices -- think of the EU agencies trying to get off of MS products.
"Hey, do you know if the NSA is spying on your devices? PLA intelligence? Would you like to be able to build all your phone's code from source to be sure?"
Technically that marketing line would actually do really well to sell phones into those types of organizations and related ones too.
A fully suitable off the shelf device would be a dream for most government IT.
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This is spot on. I’ve had this conversation with so many software engineers that struggle to understand that what they want is rarely what your average Joe wants. “Well I’m right and they should understand that” is usually a good summary of the response.