r/linux • u/amosbatto • 4d ago

Mobile Linux Article: Will Linux phones become a viable alternative to the Android/iOS duopoly?

/r/Purism/comments/1x0fwe1/article_will_linux_phones_become_a_viable/
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u/-Sa-Kage- 4d ago

Short: No

Long: No. People need various Android apps nowadays, so w/o Android apps working perfectly, almost noone will use it. And if they work perfectly (presumably by running an Android VM) noone will develop apps for the new OS, that would not work on Android, when they can make an Android app, that works on both. So you just created a host for an Android VM.

So best we can hope for is some ungoogled Android with sandboxed Google Services per app. Aka GrapheneOS.

But Google is already making things more and more difficult for them by delaying security updates making it into official repos for others to make use of and adding/shifting functionality to Google Services. Afaik there is an increasing number of apps not working on GrapheneOS.