Indian phones are weird
quirksmode.org
quirksmode.org
I've been using SailfishOS for almost two years, and I confidently say that underneath the GUI, it is just a regular GNU/Linux system[1].
Why do I bring this up? Jolla, and the community are developing a more inclusive mobile OS (that has Android app compatibility, and can be ported to Android devices relatively easily using libhyris[2]). I'm hopeful that it will help minimise the hackery described in the article.
For example, SailfishOS ships with Gecko engine v31 at the moment (soon to be updated...), QtWebkit, and (soon, after the port to Qt5.6 is complete), QtWebEngine (Chromium).
I'm hopeful that more Indian (and Chinese) phone manufacturers can start contracts with Jolla. I'm not aware of any software houses (as opposed to internal) that customise Android for your device.
[1] glibc, systemd, BlueZ, Pulseaudio, gstreamer, connman, Telepathy, Python, gcc, Qt, etc.
Note, that if you use the 3rd party port of SailfishOS on your Nexus5, it doesn't come with the Myriad/Alien, Android compatibility layer.
The community however has developed and released sfdroid: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOU8fa0ZLT0
Yes, while I have no official word (I'm just a fan), I think this will be the case. As long as it's an official port done by Jolla, Myriad/Alien Dalvik should be available.
the problem is not that android is somehow not "inclusive", it's that android allows vendors to ship a modified browser for whatever silly reason they want to, and the vendor never releases any updates for the modifications they provide.
unless Jolla is going to take over control of the phone and ship software updates directly to consumers without involving the handset vendors, they aren't going to solve the problem.
Essentially, you will get several sms messages a day which if you accidentally hit one of the keys on your phone ( which is actually very easy ), you get billed $1 every week ( think daily fortunes / love poems / etc ). It's very easy to accidentally opt-in to several of these.
To opt-out of these advertisements you need to find a hidden number on the telcos website, send an sms message, and wait 10-14 days until the advertisements stop.
I have to think that the telcos are taking in millions of dollars every month from these spam ads.
In the USA, T-Mobile spammed me like this. Again, very difficult to stop the spam.
I think eventually this will be unstoppable, at which point I guess I'll stop using SMS and/or stop using phones.
I can't wait 'til the day I'm sitting in a group, and everyone keeps pulling out their phones every 30 seconds to clear another SMS spam, and then call me a luddite when I say I don't have a phone.
Data is much better now, coverage is very good in metros, and sucks outside, but that's fine with me. Guess if you live in certain areas (e.g. Los Gatos, CA) you might have to get VZ or something - though I hear they're doing a lot to fix that (e.g. band12 LTE using 700Mhz spectrum).
By the way, there's a centralized DND registry in India called "Commercial Communications Customer Preference Portal"[0]. You just need to send an SMS to enable/disable unsolicited commercial calls/SMS. It has been very effective so far.
It's a pain in the ass but I kept on reporting for a month after activating DND and the calls and messages dropped. I've even received calls from people begging me to take my complaints back or otherwise they'll loose their jobs. I agreed twice but holy hell those exact same companies spammed me again. I stopped being a good samaritan and just told them to sort it out with their companies since it's the companies fault. Now spam has reduced to a message or two a month.
From what I understand there are old mobile numbers list being passed around from before DND was available and that's why you need to start reporting the spam messages. Word quickly spreads between the companies to remove your number from the lists.
So possible for Intex, OEMs added Chromium browser since they don't have Google in China, then added Google play services with Chrome, and finally has a marketing deal with Opera to add it as only browser on main screen.
Since Mozilla stopped developing and selling Firefox OS smartphones a while back, you don't get to see those for sale on major retailers.
I still own (and use) one. Agree that it's a bit of a pain. But if you need a phone for making/receiving calls and test messages, it's reasonably good (especially for the price). Not bad if you get a phone for $30 and you're still using it for almost 2 years.
I bought the bright orange ZTE Open C fxos phone to try it out.
Haven't done much more with it that travel around with it, mostly using it as a primary phone for calls. The battery life is insane on that one - I went about 4-5 days without charging it when I was traveling (barely any calls, mostly standby).
The good part was the HERE maps downloaded onto its SDCARD and I could use at least some of the GPS functionality when it is offline.
However for the same amount of money I could easily buy a Micromax or Karbonn phone which would have 2 killer apps to use - PayTM and Ola Cabs.
To be fair, most Android devices and iPhone would achieve similar battery life if you're not actually using the phone.
Apple claims to get 10 days of standby out of an iPhone. I would imagine with 'barely any calls' or using the device you would get somewhere between 5 to 10 days. 5 days doesn't really sound that impressive.
I have a work iPhone that I barely use (since I prefer Android personally), and it usually lasts 4-5 days.
But, the perhaps bigger issue with Indian phones is the locking down of firmware. Spreadtrum (the SoC in the phone that you're mentioning) has all sources (device + kernel + vendor trees included) for compiling FFOS for the "tarako" board (upon which 3 of the first $35 FFOS smartphones sold in India were based).
However, I'm not sure up to what extent you can modify their firmware. Github user abgoyal (forgot his HN username) had a fair amount of success acquiring the kernel sources for his $35 FFOS device from the vendor ( https://github.com/abgoyal/zen_u105_kernel ), but iirc he had issues with those sources too.
Now, if I want to buy that particular device (since its open) to have a cheap $35 _thing_ to break, unfortunately I can't, since they stopped production.
Thats me. That repo has fully funtional source for the Zen variant of the phone. The Spreadtrum sources are enough to get started on other variants, but you will have to hack support for the dispay and possibly the touch panel.
It was a very interesting exercise getting stock debian onto these babies. I have been hoping to write it up for a while now, but never got around to it.
https://lwn.net/Articles/680109/ is the most promising.
One reason I post this is because I was hoping the article was something about changes made in international brands for Indian context, which might reveal some aspect of Indian telco environment I wasn't aware of. No such luck, just the usual lack of attention to detail by not-paid-enough employees at the phone companies.
I'm not sure what stats are like for users of the specific devices he's looking at here, but India's a big market: I'm guessing browser compatibility here is going to be of some interest to more than one or two folks.
If you're reading his blog anyway, you'll probably be aware that much of it is about compatibility questions in browsers and wouldn't be surprised that an article on Indian phones is likely to be related to that.
Just seeing the headline in isolation, I was (and I suspect you were) expecting much more "weirdness" - odd shapes, strange keyboard choices, obscure OS options etc.
That's not a fault of the blog, just a result of seeing a headline outside its context.