Can't speak for the other distros, but Mobian/Phosh has reached a point where it's usable as a primary phone. Tons of work from the community has brought battery lifetimes up from ~1 hour to the point where it lasts me the day under normal use. Firefox is usable, and most every piece of software I need has a workable counterpart.
That said, the experience is still quirky (think c.a. 2000 linux on desktops). Most things work, but the final mile still requires a decent amount of poking at config files and trawling wikis. Doable, but not everyone's cup of tea.
(Posted from a pinephone)
Of course I could just have an Apple/Android phone sitting at home for such purposes, but it is definitely less convenient.
The phone app is effectively used as a hardware security token.
https://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/the-shadow-prison...
Great stuff. (No affiliation.) I need to dig into her other work. Apparently quite a bit of her other stuff is also available online for free.
But for banking there is absolutely nothing and bank in the EU requires a mobile phone app to unlock the account. I fear that the only way to solve that is at a political level but this probably also means something unreachable for now. This sucks.
[1]: https://invent.kde.org/network/tok [2]: https://invent.kde.org/network/neochat [3]: https://invent.kde.org/network/tokodon
Plus some apps I don't strictly have to use but I want to: WhatsApp (to use the web app I should run the android one somewhere it can receive messages with my phone number, cough), Telegram (probably OK), OSMAnd, NewPipe as a YouTube adless replacement (YouTube web is not OK), Google Street View and satellite maps (the web app is vastly worse), car sharing apps (less of that now), random apps from my customers.
All considered I'll have to carry an Android phone anyway so I'm carrying only an Android phone. No Linux phone. But I've been using Ubuntu as my only OS since 2009.
Actually, Invidious and the likes (viewtube?) are quite good for this. SponsorBlock even works there.
FreeTube makes the phone very hot and is very slow, unfortunately.
Something like NewPipe would be neat though.
> OSMAnd
Something like this is sorely missing. A-GPS isn't integrated in current distros too (a script can load AGPS data in the Phone's modem)
I really hope it'll work out, but we'll see.
I've heard binary distribution is a problem, with many overcomplicated methods like Appimage, Snap, and Flatpack. But it doesn't matter because linux users will prefer installing from source code or a trusted repository anyways. And they should: This is the more secure way of doing things. Closed source programs need not apply.
For me, 99% could easily be web-based, which makes "mobile web" the standard, and not necessarily "linux-phone."
Some can be operated via the web but they tend to require a hardware authentication token, which is as inconvenient as carrying a second phone (each bank requires a different token or card reader).
Some can be operated via the web but use their phone app as an authentication token for web access.
And some don't provide full functionality via the web at all.
Plus, the apps are way more convenient than logging in via the web in practice.
I opened a business account with an (at the time) exclusively mobile bank last year, because other banks took too long to authorize setup (they generally take weeks or even months), and I had a new company starting. I went with the only bank I knew where I could get set up within a few days to start taking revenue, as I had a client ready to pay from the start. It turns out that being mobile also meant they had a streamlined electronic setup process, and no visit to a branch during a pandemic. It still took a few days, as various people checked out my identity, read my LinkedIn profile to confirm what kind of business I was in, etc.
Last time I opened an account for a new company it took over a month and two in-person interviews, so the mobile bank was a big improvement.
Since then they have added web access as well, which is great, but use the phone as an authentication token, which is a bit annoying. It's not ideal, but neither are any other options I know about. Having to carry a separate physical token/reader around (or in practice, leave it at home and not have it when needed), as all the other business banks I've used require, is more annoying.
Not only is that unnecessary, it is also not practical as the entire purpose of Open Source is that if you do not like something you fork it and make it your own.
Linux on the Phone should absolutely avoid the Wall Garden draconian approach of iPhone and modern Android
Things like viewing your computer files from tablet or phone, or responding to text messages from your laptop, using your phone as a trackpad, etc.