Personally I'm not that afraid of Google nor what they are up to. I think they strike a decent balance. I tire of the polemics against them.
What I see as critically important, as absolutely key to a vital, alive civilization is progress & exploration. Android is on version 11, and at this point, the mold has set. This world where you buy a phone, run the same OS you've always run, and wait 3 years until you have to throw it out (because it's running an antique kernel & security updates are ending) is an unexciting one, it is less than what human potential has available.
PinePhone is one of the forebearers of a better future. Which future? Any of them, all of them. The future that is coming that doesn't look exactly like today that doesn't look exactly like 5 years ago. The future where hardware is supported for more than 3 years. The future where there are multiple different interfaces & operating systems available for devices.
The future where people other than giant companies have a chance to build cool hardware. This one is a nod too to Quartz, their new/upcoming very-competent, expandable mid-range option, which they explicitly target as a featureful development kit to make cool hardware on. Battery charging, 12V, ePaper, camera, display, USB, PCIe,... just a lot of good robust well built features. On an open source board.
The fact that everyone is so up in arms against Google disguises what a boring, out-of-our-hands, staid, unchanging future we've been lead in to. Google is not the focus. The actual agents that we should be looking at, attending to, are ourselves. We've still spinning endless stories & selling fear of some other, but it is our own slumbering, our own lack of control & competency & creative freedom that defines the last decade of communicative capitalism taking over. PinePhone & Pine64 just want the individual human spirit to have a chance again. (And to band together as they may with other spirited journeyers.)
Excited as well by their last bit in the update, embracing LoRaWAN. Not just opening the door to innovation in cellular phones, but blowing open decentralized, user-empowering new means of communication.