Hardware switches for almost everything and open source software :D
I just flipped through the various pinephone PDFs linked from the November update and saw no evidence of hardware kill switches. Maybe they're buried in the schematics, but the exploded phone diagram has nothing for them.
Can you link where you saw mention/proof of this?
>The detachable back panel – which covers the privacy switches, pogo pins and the removable battery – is made of a durable soft-touch plastic.
https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePhone
> Privacy Switches: LTE (include GPS), Wifi/BT, Mic, and Camera
edit: You can see them at the first link (picture "PinePhone mainboard + daughterboard (prototype) "), its the little switches above the sdcard reader
Well, I guess that's better than nothing.
I can't see myself removing the battery cover and flipping dip switches every time I want to utilize GPS and cellular networks, and again when I'm done, though.
But it does let them check the "hw kill switches" box...
I think just posting the link here gave the wrong impression. Its an open Linux phone with HW-Killswitches. If that sentence on its own doesnt have you grin like a kid on Christmas, its likely not yet the device for you. But as was often said when talking about the Pinephone, its a start. At this point the target demographic is still developers not people who are looking for an open source replacement of their current smartphone. Its why the batch is called "brave heart". While there are operating systems booting on it already, the expectations Pine set when the developers edition came out were rather low.
The Purism Librem 5 addressed this while still having the kill switches easily accessible externally, with recessed switch bosses appropriate for regular external use.
On the Pinephone it looks more like an afterthought to try get some feature parity with the L5.
I'm excited to see more Linux phones on the market with non-android user space. But it's about 15 years too late for me to jump to buy anything running Linux without actually wanting to daily drive the end result, like back in the Zaurus days (I had three different models). I basically don't use a smartphone because of the current situation, not since my Nokia N9 broke, and that Linux phone was incredibly disappointing on the hackability and security/privacy fronts, though I did enjoy using it.
The Pinephone is at its core a proof of concept made cheaply available to jump start development for open source linux smartphones. Once its shown to be working we can talk about every day competitors to existing smartphones, but thats at least a generation away. Librem is trying to achieve this to begin with by marketing it to privacy and security conscious users. I am really curious if that will succeed, but i fear people will expect it to match the comfort of their current smartphones at that price, which is a really difficult thing to do. Looking at history, it took a while till Linux became a realistic option as an OS for a home computer for people who dont consider them self geeks. The pinephone isnt reaching for the moon but makes the first step.
To the other point, this will be my first smartphone as well and is intended for daily use, just not with GPS, LTE and SMS.