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Comment by amelius | Hacker News Reader

The point was: if it doesn't change the duopoly then who will write apps for the open platform? Not banks. Not governments. They will keep on developing only for Android and iOS.

And people with a pinephone will have a great phone with a great OS, but with a shitty selection of apps.

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I already use Linux with my bank and when I'm interacting with my government. And unlike on Android, the barrier of entry for me to write apps and set up quick solutions to problems is much lower. I don't need to run my code on a completely separate environment with no overlap. Emulation is going to be easier. I don't need to install Eclipse or whatever the heck Android devs tolerate now.

That's part of the point of using Linux -- not creating an ecosystem from scratch.

Virtually all of my computing outside of my phone is already done on Linux devices, and the setup works for day-to-day computing. Support is good enough for me. What makes you think Pinephone going to have worse support than my current Linux desktop?

My hope with Pinephone is that a decent influx of Linux phone users will improve the quality of desktop software on Linux as well, since it forces devs to stop ignoring touch screens and to start thinking about responsive design. Ideally, the desktop versions of many apps should scale on interfaces like this without needing to be rewritten. But regardless, I'm still not particularly worried that my bank website is going to stop working.

To take one example: the interaction with your bank goes through a web-browser, I suppose? You probably need a special device for 2FA? In most bank apps, you can simply log in using a PIN-code and do things like check your balance, make small wire transfers, and make payments in stores through NFC. Doing these things in a web-browser on a mobile phone with a separate 2FA device is much more cumbersome.

(I use Linux exclusively on the desktop so I know what you are talking about, but it just isn't going to work on a phone in the same way).

> the interaction with your bank goes through a web-browser, I suppose?

Can also be done with Android app via Anbox: https://social.librem.one/@dos/105119691527269967

If could be done for the guy in your linked example, he was lucky and you shouldn’t be giving people false hopes. More and more bank apps are requiring phones that can pass Safety Net, and Anbox won't.

:shrug: I don't have a bank app installed on my phone right now. And there are absolutely going to be Open Source 2FA apps being built for Pinephone, so I'm good there.

Currently, I don't use a banking app because I don't trust my bank to have that level of access to my phone with a proprietary app, and because my bank's app isn't particularly good in the first place. So I'm not really losing out by using Pinephone. In fact, I might have more functionality after switching, since Android development is a mess and on a Linux platform I might be tempted to build something quickly for myself that periodically pulls down the CSV data from my bank and does a few things with it.

I'm not saying that proprietary devs are going to start mass-building apps for this, I'm just saying that for a segment of the population, this may turn out not to be the problem you think it is.

----

Apps on my phone that I need replacements for:

- NewPipe

- Podcast app/music app

- Maps

- AndOTP

- Signal (and/or Matrix)

- Orgzly

- Email

- Good browser support

- Maybe a few misc utilities, probably something I'm forgetting

Do I have confidence that those apps or equivalents will be ported? Honestly, yes, I do. It would not take an insurmountable amount of work to build a Linux ecosystem that was more functional than my current phone setup.

Let me reply to that by listing existing apps listed on http://appl.ist:

- NewPipe > FreeTube, AudioTube

- Podcast app/music app > GNOME Podcasts, GPodder/Lollypop, Elisa

- Maps > PureMaps, GNOME Maps

- AndOTP > Keysmith, GNOME Authenticator, Two-Factor-Keychain, Numberstation

- Signal (and/or Matrix) > Axolotl / various, Nheko feels most complete currently

- Orgzly > Emacs maybe?

- Email > Geary (I still use Evolution though)

- Good browser support > Angelfish, desktop Firefox has been adapted nicely, once Chromiums Wayland supports matures it will also be a viable option (it’s very fast, but has annoying issues with text input currently)

It should be pointed out, however, that the mapping apps available on the PinePhone are little more than tech demos. Their feature set is vastly smaller than e.g. OSMAnd on Android. For me, even if the PinePhone took over my phone calls, Signal messenging, etc., I would still need to carry around an Android phone for decent maps.

- NewPipe -> for audio online there is AudioTube and for video there is Plasmatube - Podcast -> Alligator (an RSS reader) is gaining support for podcast soon (there is an open MR) - AndOTP -> Keysmith, but it still missing some features like scaning a Qr code - Signal (and/or Matrix): I develop a matrix client called NeoChat - Maps: there is PureMaps powered by OSM - Orgzly: still missing - Email: there are some poc that are able to read mails but this will still require a lot of time - Good browser support: Angelfish is great

You can find a bigger list of apps in https://www.plasma-mobile.org/. There is a few still missing that I will try to add later.

The PinePhone is just like an ordinary desktop Linux computer in the sense that there is a terminal right there, and you can run any shell-based apps you want. That means that instead of waiting for NewPipe to be ported, you could just use youtube-dl.

Right, that's part of what's exciting about it.

To develop apps for Android I have to set up an emulator, dev environment, learn a bunch of extra ropes, package everything. But I can throw together some bash scripts in a day, it really opens up the possibilities to solve a lot of my own problems.

Compare that with something like Windows Phone. Not having apps there is a serious problem, because I don't necessarily want to pull out C# and build an entire app to fix every issue I have.

> I already use Linux with my bank and when I'm interacting with my government.

I also use Linux with my bank. All banks I know of in my country require you to install an invasive "security software" (warsaw), even when you're using the web browser; some also require the phone app to be used as a second factor (for instance, one bank generates a dynamically changing QR code after you enter your password; you have to open its phone app and scan that QR code, which the phone app uses to generate a number to be typed below the QR code).

For the government, it's easier, you just have to install the ICP-Brasil root certificates (since they haven't been accepted yet by Mozilla).

That's terrifying, and I deeply sympathize, but it seems like a government problem more than an app ecosystem or market problem?

It's not just that Linux isn't going to break the app store duopoly in your case, nobody is going to, because your government is effectively reinforcing that behavior. Forcing people to install root certificates on their devices is a problem on a whole 'nother level over just commercial incentives.

I just don't see how any technology or market-based solution will solve that problem. What happens when the government starts deciding that its authentication software won't work on rooted devices? What happens when the bank decides they need contact/GPS/camera permissions on your phone for "security"? I mean, that's not an app ecosystem problem at that point, it's just full-fledged required malware from your bank.

In the US (for all of the many, many faults with our trash-dump of a banking/federal ecosystem) at most I've only ever been asked to do 2FA using completely open standards, and the worst problem I've run into is that my bank's website won't load over some VPNs. I can even disable analytics on my bank's website and it'll still work.

But getting support on a Linux phone OS for what sounds to me at first blush like malware and spyware isn't really the best solution to what you're describing. The problem isn't that the malware isn't available on Linux, it's that you're forced to install malware on any of your computers, including iOS/Android.

I think you mixed two different things; what requires the authentication software is the banks, not the government.

The government isn't forcing anyone to install the ICP-Brasil root certificates; if you don't, the government websites will just show as untrusted in the browser (since they're signed by one of the CAs which chain to the ICP-Brasil root), but other than that they should work the same. Things might be different if you are authenticating your identity to the government with a certificate stored on a smartcard or USB key, since these certificates are also signed by a CA which chains to the ICP-Brasil root; I don't know if adding the ICP-Brasil root to the browser is necessary to make that work.

As for the banks, AFAIK the government doesn't mandate how they approach their online banking security; their use of that invasive "security software" is probably mostly path dependence at this point. It was very common to see computers infected with malware designed to steal online banking credentials from the browser, and that "security software" was supposed to block that kind of malware (for instance, by blocking the browser accessibility APIs whenever the user goes to an online banking site). Things are already better than in the past (that "security software" used to be Windows-only, for instance, so Linux users couldn't use online banking).

And yeah, all the bank apps I have on my phone require contact/location/camera permissions (the camera permission is unavoidable since they have to be able to read the QR code for PIX payments, and boleto bancário barcodes), and for at least one of these apps, I strongly suspect it's using the location permission for security purposes (the location indicator always lights up whenever I log into that app). It wouldn't surprise me at all if it also rejected rooted devices.

Here in the Netherlands I can use the website of my bank even if I don't have a smartphone. I get some QR-camera reader which I can point at the computer screen and it generates a TAN code, which I can enter at login and at transactions.. I do believe the government and banks in my country somewhat think in line with the user needs. Not in every country will this mentality exist.

Sure, if you want an app for an open source platform like Linux, that may take a lot longer. I think there is already a common platform for this, but not many banks offer it.

It's a good point, but still not something that I think that can be solved by opening up app stores.

My issue isn't that those apps aren't available for Linux. Even if they were available for Linux I wouldn't install a bank app with those permissions. I wouldn't install that on my primary Android phone (I guess there's a good likelyhood I couldn't, since I run rooted Android).

I'm not sure what I would do in that position. Maybe get a separate phone just for banking? I don't know, it's really tough. I sympathize.

But yeah, the Pinephone is not going to solve that problem, banks would need to move over to open standards for authentication through apps that are trustworthy. Just releasing their apps for a smartphone wouldn't be enough. At least any "security software" that can run on desktop Linux can also be run on your phone, assuming it doesn't freak out over the hardware, and assuming you're willing to tolerate it.

> All banks I know of in my country require you to install an invasive "security software"

Is this meant to be taken literally? I would be surprised if e.g. mBank didn't work with SMS as the sole enabled 2FA.

Personally, I would rather have an extra Android phone for cases like this, as well as for the times when one has to make an actual phone call, though. I wouldn't expect the call quality on the pinephone to be anything to write home about, even if the software was all mature already.

It's not even the lack of apps directly but the effect of not having one of the two supported OSes.

For example, the Dutch government is slowly pushing everyone to either use their authentication app (for DigiD, the national digital government authentication service), or just stop using digital government services all together and just digitally mandate friends or family to handle your digital affairs. This latter option is of course targetted at the infirm and elderly. People who are able, literate, and have computers with modern OSes on them at the ready, but not one of the two smartphone OSes are considered to be such a minority that they can be safely ignored until they fold and get a cheap Android device.

I don't have a smartphone with Android or IOS, and I get nudged constantly when using DigiD (on a laptop or desktop computer) to get the app for authentication. My bank also nudges me at every transaction (which I do on a desktop computer with a stand-alone card-reader they provide). I can't turn off the nudging or make the services remember my choice, and always have to perform an extra click to authenticate. The upcoming digital government law goes a step further and mandates a level of assurance that can currently only be met by the app for accessing your healthcare records. This is of course not required: you are also welcome to go to the healthcare provider in person and ask for you dossier on paper. And when you do so, you will be nudged at every step of the way to consider using their app.

If this is a pattern that occurs worldwide, then smartphones that do not offer these apps have a very limited audience, and will remain curiosities for tinkerers and privacy conscious folk willing to make the trade-off (or even have a separate Android phone for the stuff mentioned above, for each adult member of their household).

We somehow managed to get through the phase where Microsoft Windows was a hard requirement on your computer for compatibility reasons (remember how South Korea was stuck with ActiveX way beyond its sell-by-date?), but now we're stuck here.

Hence smartphone OSes are a public utility, and should be opened up.

That really doesn’t follow. The web is already open, and banks are already regulated. Just mandate that banks provide access to their services via the web.

Web browsers lack an equivalent to Google's Safety Net, which banks are increasingly insisting on for security's sake.

That’s easily solved.

How so? Safety Net is about things like locking the bootloader on one's phone, and preventing the user from having root access. Desktop computers don't have the same restrictions, and most of the people on this thread supporting the PinePhone would chafe at the notion that their desktop computers need to be locked down.

It’s not about requiring that exact solution. It’s about providing security. There are other ways. If banks require a controlled endpoint, they can supply a hardware key.

As mentioned elsewhere here, separate hardware keys are on the way out. Banks no longer wish to offer them because the vast, vast majority of customers have a phone that, if it passes Safety Net, already is a hardware key.

This means there is no reason they can’t support the web if required to do so.

The argument that App stores must be regarded as public utilities because banks don’t support the web makes no sense. Banks can easily support the web.

They often do; it's two-factor authentication that's the problem. If they'd support some open standard like WebAuthn this problem wouldn't exist, but they all insist on using home-grown solutions.

> For example, the Dutch government is slowly pushing everyone to either use their authentication app (for DigiD, the national digital government authentication service),

Could not you use identity service from different EU country (based on eIDAS regulation)? Here in Czechia there is eIDAS-compatible identity provider that uses U2F tokens.

Eventually — and specifically for healthcare — yes! But I'm not sure if a citizen from one country can easily obtain credentials from another. It seems mostly meant for cases where you might need to sign on to a Dutch government website and you can then just use those Czech U2F tokens. It is a way forward though, but currently mostly hypothetical.

Unfortunately, while there is a migration going on from offering only DigiD to offering the whole eIDAS suite (in the Netherlands this is done via a government service called ToegangsVerleningsService, so vendors only have to implement a SAML connection to that which will eventually support eIDAS), it is by no means sure that every government function will allow eIDAS instead of just DigiD. It's honestly a very opaque process.

Great to hear that the Czech Republic chose U2F (now part of WebAuthn) though!

> We somehow managed to get through the phase where Microsoft Windows was a hard requirement on your computer for compatibility reasons

This almost made me spill my drink ))

Is it so much better in the Netherlands, or do you just not get to interact with government bureaucracy much? Trying to e.g. get a building permit over here without using MS Office and Windows is something I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy...

You can still get updated software for CP/M, BeOS, DOS and OS/2 for crying out loud. Maybe not a lot, but people write / maintain that stuff. A relatively modern phone, running Linux? If it gains any adoption, I expect that the availability of apps won't be a problem. Maybe the ecosystem won't be quite as rich as Android or IOS, but it may well be "pretty good" which will be good enough for a lot of people.

You definitely have a point, and it‘s a pity that (desktop) Firefox recently dropped its haphazard support for Progressive Web Apps making that alternative even more unlikely to happen.

On the other hand, I would not call the App Selection shitty, see https://LINMOBapps.frama.io.

Actually, it has happened in the past. Windows Phone, a decent platform from the developer perspective failed to attract any significant interest. And that’s with all the resources of Microsoft and the recognition of Nokia.

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