The first step of the process is to not buy anything apple recognizing there hardly ever was a company more hostile to user freedom both on software and hardware side.
Google and giving up your privacy? You might be happy with that but I’m already “voting with my feet” on that matter.
There are some independent Linux based offerings now but they’re immature and going that way would mean loosing support of some third party apps that I currently need.
No manufacturer is offering a perfect or even good enough product right now. You end up compromising on something.
Currently: a Google-free AOSP-based distribution on one of the hundreds of supported devices.
In the future, hopefully: a free software mobile platform compatible with a range of hardware.
Google-free Android is a thing, I've been using it for about 10 years now. I do not have a Google account, there is no 'Gapps' (Google Apps) on my devices, I do not use the 'Play Store' (which is a bit of a silly name for people who speak Dutch where the word 'Play' sounds like a Dutch slang term for toilet, 'plee'), I don't use Google Search directly (it is one of the engines used in my own Searx instance, next to DDG, Bing, Yahoo etc.), no Gmail (I host my own mail), no Google Docs (or whatever it is called today, Libreoffice Online works just fine for me, hosted on my own server), etc.
Just try it for a change instead of giving up and giving either Apple or Google their pound of flesh. There is too much disinformation on the subject of mobile freedom, too much 'party politics'. There is a world outside of Apple and Google, why not give it a try instead of assuming it doesn't exist?
My assumption has not been that Google free Android doesn’t exist but that I’d need Google’s app store to run the third party apps I need.
Specifically things it's stuff for firmware updates on stuff like Shimano Di2 or other hardware devices.
Are third parties now officially supporting other alternative app stores?
(Sorry about the questions but this is quite interesting.)
Personally I’m thinking of moving towards a non-android Linux based phone and keeping an older iPhone for these updates.
As someone who dabbles in alternative mobile OSes, it's always frustrating to me when more and more products require using Apple/Google services for basic functionality. I try to avoid buying devices like that whenever possible, because they just lock me into those ecosystems.
The Amazon app store is an option, for things that are available there. It's not everything, but it feels like there's a decent selection there.
That said, for those apps that are only found in the Play Store, there are third-party clients like Aurora Store: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.aurora.store/
(Warning: possibly against some part of the Play Store ToS and Google is notoriously opaque regarding enforcement. Use caution.)
That, unlike e.g. the Play Store, should be installable normally as any other Android app even on compatibility layers like Anbox. This probably isn't super polished yet, but I know there's work being done on using Anbox for Linux phones and it seems to work: https://social.librem.one/@dos/105119691527269967
But yeah, personally I'm planning on 1) keeping an older phone around for the things that absolutely need it and 2) avoiding things that absolutely need it as much as possible.
As to app stores, I use F-Droid and Aurora Store (an alternative front end to the Play Store) for those few proprietary apps (mostly the Swedish BankID electronic ID app) I need to have access to. Aurora Store works with anonymous Google accounts, you do not need - and are advised not to use - a real Google account for this.
I use MicroG (free software implementation of the Google Services Framework) on a few devices but mostly just do without it.
Is Apple to sell phones to you, or to the general population? Answer is obvious, isn't it?
For the general population, making a tightly controlled (and simple) hardware and software environment makes more things possible -- overall -- to the users than absolute freedom does. It's a paradox -- by controlling things, they set the market for this product loose.
You can see how it is a hard thing to manage to, and leads to users like you being unhappy. Linux gives incredible freedom to users, yet has very little market penetration.
Not everyone wants to be able to side load apps, tweak their battery charging settings, and have their phone die because they did something wrong to it.
I’m not defending Apple’s user-hostile practices, I’m just saying that if this situation is going to change by people voting with their wallets, it’ll be because of changes to things that matter to the masses, and not the (totally legitimate) philosophical concerns of technology enthusiasts.
Maybe you'll find that it's harder than you think (as well to turn a profit) and there may be reasons why things are the way they are?