Google has confirmed it isn't discontinuing AOSP, but it's making a change that makes it harder for devs to build Android for Pixel phones.

TL;DR

  • Google has made it harder to build custom Android ROMs for Pixel phones by omitting their device trees and driver binaries from the latest AOSP release.

  • The company says this is because it’s shifting its AOSP reference target from Pixel hardware to a virtual device called “Cuttlefish” to be more neutral.

  • While Google insists AOSP isn’t going away, developers must now reverse-engineer changes, making the process for supporting Pixel devices more difficult.

  • Sir Arthur V Quackington@lemmy.worldEnglish
    362·
    2 days ago

    The absolutely criminal dark patterns that they pull on people via Google photos auto backup is insane.

    Just in my own orbit 2 of my friends wives, my parents, and my in-laws all wound up paying Google because they thought they had to or lose all their photos. We helped most of them disconnect the autobackup (that they didn’t even know was activated) and move it to offline safely. But that was the most downright evil shit Google has ever done and literally a fire in me for manipulating the elderly and less tech savvy so blatantly.

    • ᗪᗩᗰᑎ@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      262·
      2 days ago

      devil’s avocado: this move has saved many people’s cherished photos from disappearing by having them auto save. before Google photos I’d run into cases (I used to do home IT support) where people had years of family photos disappear because they didn’t back them up properly. Having to communicate what happened was never fun.

      is Google photos perfect? No, but it’s a great solution for people who don’t want to manage their data.

      • Sir Arthur V Quackington@lemmy.worldEnglish
        11·
        2 days ago

        Yes, but that shouldn’t explicitly opt in, and they shouldn’t marry that product to Gmail and Google Drive if they are going to push it to enable by default.

        Again, it’s really insidious. They push it so aggressively I had to disable it on my personal device twice, and I can’t just not use Google Photos app because it’s tied to the camera itself on pixel phones.

        • tiramichu@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          1·
          1 day ago

          I agree with you, it’s insidious.

          Given you’ve got a Pixel phone, you can save at least yourself from this problem by running Graphene or Calyx on it.

          • Sir Arthur V Quackington@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            17 hours ago

            I’m not worried about me. I can manage. But I had to intervene and make it a Project for my immediate family. Which is always unfun, because who wants to expose all their personal data that way, especially photos.

            Crazy that Google just screwed over GrapheneOS like this.