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Comment by swiley | Hacker News Reader

I'm thoroughly convinced companies like Pine64 are going to completely displace Google (and perhaps even Apple) because they work with rather than against the developer community. I've owned a pinephone since the early fall of last year and have had to hack around and generally put up with bugs just to do normal stuff, but at this point everything needed to use it as a PDA works well and the modem related issues are being solved very quickly. It probably won't be long before the phone will be the more sensible alternative to an android.

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>I'm thoroughly convinced companies like Pine64 are going to completely displace Google (and perhaps even Apple) because they work with rather than against the developer community.

I applaud your enthusiasm but there's no planet on which Pine64 replaces Google or Apple. Unless they somehow convince the likes of someone like Samsung to make the switch, their market share will be measured in basis points.

The average consumer doesn't care at all how Google and Apple treat developers. And the average developer is going to go to the place they make money, even if it's more painful to do business with those giants.

Microsoft leaving the phone market is where I'd point. They were also very developer friendly but far too late to the market.

I don't even think Samsung can get away from android. They are trying with tizen but the ecosystem is hard to escape.

It was my understanding that Microsoft pulled the rug out from developers multiple times by making new OS versions not quite backwards compatible.

iirc the extreme TL;DR of that was this:

rewrite your windows mobile 5/6 apps for windows phone 7? ok, its a brand new platform, i get it.

rewrite wp 7 for windows phone 8? ok... (there may have been wp7 mango that needed tweaks but my memory is too fuzzy)

rewrite windows phone 8 for 8.1 ? cmon now

rewrite windows phone 8.1 for wm 10? no

Followed by "rewrite UWP for Reunion, sorry about the left turn with Windows 8, and don't use that C++ Builder like tooling any longer, IDL without VS support rulez".

They don't care who makes the phone but they do care:

1) about the phone not shipping with malware

2) about the phone not working after 2 years

3) apps no longer working because the only OS vendor for your phone disagrees about something with the developer

As for what developers care about: commercial devs will avoid the pinephone and IMO that's a good thing.

>1) about the phone not shipping with malware

Given the number of people who have no issues installing Zoom or TikTok, I'm not sure I buy that.

>2) about the phone not working after 2 years

The average consumer has to have the latest and greatest every 2 years whether the old phone still works or not.

>3) apps no longer working because the only OS vendor for your phone disagrees about something with the developer

The number of parler users willing to give up their iPhone for parler isn't even a blip on the radar. They won't even switch to android for it, why do you think they'd switch to Pine?

> The average consumer has to have the latest and greatest every 2 years whether the old phone still works or not.

My experience is that my older relatives get new phones frequently because they get their old ones so malware laden that they no longer function correctly.

That and apps grind to a halt because the developers use top of the line hardware and don't notice how wasteful of resources they are being.

but your older relative also expects:

a) the bank app to install

b) the whatsapp or whatever "everyone my age uses that" they are using to install

c) candycrush or whatever is the trendy game of the moment to install

d) Netflix/Disney+/... app to install

I really doubt these will ever be ported to PinePhone. And then, if they were, I am sure malware would also be ported, so back to square one.

They care, but not enough to slightly inconvenience themselves when shopping for a new contract. I have a lot of family that come to me for IT / device help and I make a big deal out of all these issues to them. I can't say I've ever had one do anything other than go ask the Verizon store (or equivalent) for the latest iPhone or Galaxy the minute their old one is paid off. The one exception is the relative who will buy whatever the absolute cheapest, most heavily subsidized device is. I don't see him buying a Pine either.

People today expect more from their phones than just basic PDA functionality. They want to consume lots of media on the phone, and sometimes even produce it. The Allwinner A64 CPU in the PinePhone is antiquated and underpowered compared to any midrange Android phone today, making it barely possible to even browse the modern web. Today many smartphones are popular precisely due to their camera, but the PinePhone’s is low-quality and even with some software tweaks will remain that way forever. So, the PinePhone attracts its niche audience of technies like us, but forget about mass adoption.

Reports on the PinePhone forum suggest it'll be 4–5 years before the next PinePhone with a better chip comes along (and by then, even that chip may seem old), so don’t expect this situation to change anytime soon.

Vanilla Linux on the PinePhone is also missing numerous battery optimizations found on Android that would give people the battery life they expect today.

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