TL;DR
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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.
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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.
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While Google insists AOSP isn’t going away, developers must now reverse-engineer changes, making the process for supporting Pixel devices more difficult.
Yeah, I’d totally buy a phone running one of those provided it does all the phone things properly: SMS/MMS, reliable calls, all day battery, etc. I don’t need fancy apps, I just need a working phone.
If I can get that, I could probably donate some time porting apps.
It’s so crazy (technically understandable, but still crazy) to me that reliably receiving calls is still such a major issue
I really want to give furios phone a shot. It’s apparently close to supporting my carrier.
That and a sailfish phone. The community one though didn’t support my carrier (think it’s mainly EU specced only.)
What I find missing most of the time though is any esim support. Makes me wonder if the hardware one that you can program an esim on works.
I plan on buying one when my current phone is no longer usable.
Why eSim? Does your carrier not support physical sim?
For traveling I find it much easier to just buy an esim
I want a phone with only cellular data, no calling, no sms, just an open source browser capable of webasm and webrtc
We had those, they were called Pocket PCs. I too want them back. I loved the Dell Axim x51v. A tablet does the job, but it’s the same shitty OS.
Sounds like a tablet, and that very well could be easier for someone to build than a phone.
Can we have one of those that fit in my pocket, like 6.5" max ?
There are some 7-8" tablets that could probably fit in a pocket, but finding the perfect mix of Linux compatibility and cell chip is going to be difficult.
However, I see a few Linux tablets out there that have to be all runs, because Linux tablets are a pretty small niche, so it might not be that expensive to build one yourself.