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Comment by prox | Hacker News Reader

It’s a pity we are not at a level where open(-like) phones are a thing. I have been looking from time to time for one that pretty much works out of the box, but all the stories are not painting a pretty picture.

What’s the showstopper into bringing an open phone to a general audience? (Aka open box, turn on, type in credentials and done.)

In the meantime I hope my ancient iPhone keeps working.

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The OS is just not ready at all, many apps are missing. Many things dont work or simply suck like the camera, and also the hardware is very slow and very out of date compared to maistream. I think in general Open hardware is a very distant thing, and not very well invested in, as manufactures don't see any positives for them in it.

The best daily driveable "open"(as in OS and Kernel) and privacy focused experience would be with a Google Pixel and CalyxOS / GrapheneOS.

be aware, you might face issues with SafetyNet, other than that its perfect.

Possibly the general audience isn't interested in the benefits of an open phone. I remember a HN comment where a phone manufacturer said making relationships with suppliers was almost impossible without a decent sized market segment.

Maybe with the right positioning and marketing, e.g. playing the privacy or sustainability (repairability) angle, I could see more people being interested. Anecdotally, I've seen the things like the Fairphone have reasonable interest and adoption from non-tech friends and acquaintances.

So catch-22. No market, no manufacturing, and no manufacturing because no market. Ouch.

That's precisely why the PinePhone matters. One might criticize PINE64's approach of "throwing hardware over the wall and hoping that the community magically comes together and makes the software side work", but without PINE64 the situation would be even worse.

Is also true of computers generally. If you want a computer that really supports Linux (or whatever OS you want), you have to support the vendors that are doing the work.

> What’s the showstopper into bringing an open phone to a general audience?

Developing everything, that is, all the hardware and firmware, from scratch since iron manufacturers aren't willing to open theirs.

> What’s the showstopper into bringing an open phone to a general audience?

The biggest showstopper is Open phones can't seem to do what all of their closed competition can do. If an Open phone can't reliably make calls, send texts, get on WiFi, or run apps people want there's no demand for them.

Even the cheapest Android phone has millions of person-hours sunk into its hardware and software implementations. There's no need to drop down to a command line to get some component to work right. If it truly sucks you can return it and at worst you're out under $100.

Until an Open phone can get to at least the capability of a cheap Android phone you can buy at a drug store no one is going to want them, especially for the price premium of their low volume production.

> What’s the showstopper into bringing an open phone to a general audience?

Billions (even more likely, tens of billions) of dollars required to make a mobile phone happen.

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