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Comment by ryukafalz | Hacker News Reader

Then literally everyone you know is dependent on either Apple or Google.

Probably. But I don't think those requirements are unreasonable. It feels like it largely boils down to "I buy a smartphone to accomplish certain tasks easily". If you eliminate many of those tasks, is it a useful device for those people anymore?

I don’t think you’re incorrect in making your point here, yet your framing is a bit unreasonable. Pine phone isn’t supposed to be the equivalent to a modern smartphone. It’s a small project that has an entirely new platform with no major corporate backing. What you’re asking of it isn’t realistic until it has significant enough time and traction to fully mature.

That's probably a very fair point.

I wonder what the minimum modern requirements would be for a viable "mainstream" phone.

Common messaging apps (SMS, WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram, Slack). Social media apps (Facebook, Instagram, TikTok). email (Though an average stock email app is probably sufficient). Google Apps (gmail, google maps, etc..). Navigation (google maps is sufficient for most) Probably some set of games.

I suspect the real viable option is being able to run Android apps natively without any special configuration.

If that's the bar, then mobile Linux is simultaneously very fucking far, and dramatically closer than most people might think.

As far as messaging apps, they're all technically there - the best kind of there for the crowd that this would interest. Spinning up a Matrix server means maybe a days work for this crowd, which allows (and I currently use it for) Whatsapp, Signal, Telegram, and more. Even better, due to constant improvements by Matrix, the server is only getting lighter and your options more varied with things like Construct [0].

Email is there - one only really needs to ensure geary is set to scale to the phone screen. As far as gMail, I'd question what the overlap is between "Privacy conscious enough to use a Pinephone" and "Uses gMail instead of anything IMAP".

That only leaves navigation and social media. For the former, I've used the mobile site in-browser on my Android phone that the Google Maps app was too heavy for. And for both on the Pinephone, especially the pro, Waydroid [1] is getting closer to closing the gap.

To be honest, I could see it being mainstream for geeks within two years. Though that's unlikely what you meant by mainstream - which I think we can agree is several more years away, if ever.

[0] https://github.com/matrix-construct/construct

[1] https://github.com/waydroid/waydroid

For some reason it won't let me reply to your newer message, there just is no reply button at all, very strange, anyway, putting my reply to your second message here.

Thanks so much for the info! I don't ever do calls on whatsapp, so this sounds absolutely amazing for me! I also see that I can bridge in slack as well so now all the sudden I may be able to bridge all my work stuff into one matrix instance and remove those apps I hate from my phone?!?!?!?! At least from an initial thought process this sounds amazing.

I don't run any linux servers at home, so I suppose if I got a hosted instance of a matrix server I could see if I could successfully bridge in these other things and give it a try. Thank you so much!

Element.io also offer paid managed servers where they do the bridging for you if you'd rather not deal with it yourself. Starts at around $10 a month for a home server plus some light WhatsApp bridging and works surprisingly well, with the caveats already mentioned above about calling.

No worries! Feel free to drop me a line if you want / need any help with the bridges @xethos:xethos.net - I'd be happy to help another person (potentially) switch over to Matrix + bridges.

Wait a sec, are you telling me there's a way for me to participate in whatsapp conversations without actually having whatsapp installed on my phone? I am currently forced to use whatsapp by my work for supporting overseas live events, but I absolutely hate having anything related to facebook installed on my phone. Until now I just put up with it because I didn't know there was an alternative. Can you help me understand how this works?

Sorry, I'm not sure I should have gotten your hopes up like that: First and foremost, calling does not work.

Hosting a Matrix server [0], configuring the bridge [1], then running the client [2] anywhere you are will allow you to send and receive Whatsapp messages, status updates, pictures, videos, etc.

It's currently limited to using the WebUI - this means one is limited to the functions available through Whatsapp Web. This may, someday, possibly, change with Whatsapps new multi-device implementation, but I'd advise taking it for what it is instead of hoping it'll happen any time soon.

All that said, I've been using it for some time now. It's gotten much more stable, and I can recommend it for what it is.

[0] https://matrix-org.github.io/synapse/latest/setup/installati...

[1] https://matrix.org/bridges/

[2] https://matrix.org/clients/

Really depends how you define the task doesn't it? If it's "I have the ability to message other people" there's plenty of ways to accomplish that on this device. If you define the task as "I need to message other people specifically on a Google/Apple messenger application", well then it's always going to be out of Pine64s hands to some extent?

How about "I need to message other people in a way that doesn't make everyone I know have to change the current way they do things".

I wasn't necessarily referring to iMessage. But, WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, Slack.

To be fair, I've also failed to find a list of supported apps. The best I found was: https://www.reddit.com/r/PINE64official/comments/okjeuk/apps...

> How about "I need to message other people in a way that doesn't make everyone I know have to change the current way they do things".

Isn't that the exact purpose of those walled gardens, so it'd be hard to change platforms?

Telegram is working flawlessly on my Pinephone with Mobian.

> banking applications

I'd rather use the web app, it gives them less information about me

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