The article starts with Murena, Punkt, Volla which are all based on Android. If you do this, then imho you must mention GrapheneOS, the by far better option (updates, privacy, security, organisation).
Google Pixel with GrapheneOS is the best non-Google phone... ;-)
As much as I like graphene it is literary running on google hardware (atm) and uses asop. Even if it is a really good option is you want to run degoogled and secure android.
> Enjoy your freedom, break free from Google and Apple.
You can't escape it.
Your friends and employers and banks use it. The state will soon mandate it for ID. It's the accepted worldwide compute platform, and you're being weird and subject to breaking randomly, being unsupported, and losing access by stepping outside the traffic cones.
They'll use attestation, certs and signing, proprietary APIs, and the scale and might of trillions of dollars to force this.
The only way to "break free" and "enjoy your freedom" is via regulation.
The EU and ASEAN are the best bets. Getting another Lina Khan that works faster is the next best bet.
Being weird in the 0.0001% will not last, nor does it help anyone else escape this monopolistic tyranny.
They are also less than 2 months away from the first deliveries of the Jolla Phone 2026, a new SailfishOS device they have designed and built from scratch. Over the past years the official Sailfish experience has largely been relying on Sony Open Device program - a co-operation which hasn't always been very smooth for the customers.
I have been daily driving SFOS on a Sony Xperia 10 III for the past 3 years and it works well for me. I think the 10 III is the current "peak Sailfish" at least among the officially supported devices but this should change once the new phones roll out in early July. For new orders of the 2026 phone they are currently aiming for delivery in September in the supported markets (EU, UK, Norway and Switzerland).
I have rage-quit apple for a C2 and the muscle memory still kicks in after months. The ergonomy of Sailfish is sometimes bizarre, the little top left dot for navigation for example. Still it does everything I need, just with a very bad camera. Let's hope the 2026 will fix that.
Oh but you don't usually need to care for the dot itself so much as it's just an indicator that you can do a middle swipe left/right to move between stacked pages.
Many years later and I'm still bitter that the tech press laughed Windows Phone out of the room straight to its demise. Yes it had very little developer support but at some point things were looking up. It was just the butt of too many jokes from influential people.
A third ecosystem right now would have been amazing
>> It was just the butt of too many jokes from influential people.
I loved my Windows phones (especially near the end when you were getting Pixel & Apple level hardware for pennies on the dollar), but is this really true? They had limited hardware partners (and the disaster with Nokia), lukewarm carrier deals, absolutely no apps, but who were these "influential people" who made fun of it? If anything it seemed more like no-one was even aware of it. I remember the little press they did get being quite positive on the devices & OS, while critical of the broader ecosystem, which seems fair.
Given what Microsoft has done with the state of Windows with built-in telemetry, the attempts to add Recall, and now AI features they are adding to many customers dismay, you have them doing anything different with Windows Phone if it had gained traction than Apple and Google?
I moved to a Fairphone 6 with /e/OS a few weeks ago. I can do everything I need to, everything I want to, and with more control over my digital footprint and what data is being collected about me. I've completely moved off Google services.
The OS experience is pretty impressive for not being made by an evil megacorp. The hardware is fairly midrange, but midrange today is last year's top end, and unless you're some expert photographer or needing phone VR or whatever, it's a great, normal smartphone experience.
I'm donating to the open source devs who make my apps, and they respond when I ask for useful features instead of always enshittifying it. For the corpo apps, it pulls from Google Play.
They keep saying "If you don’t pay for the product, you are the product". Okay, all fine and well.
But what will my phone still actually be able to do if / when I stop my subscription? Not a single clear answer besides "[…] gradual feature deactivation, and ultimately reverting to a device running AOSP".
This article fails to mention GrapheneOS.
The article starts with Murena, Punkt, Volla which are all based on Android. If you do this, then imho you must mention GrapheneOS, the by far better option (updates, privacy, security, organisation).
Google Pixel with GrapheneOS is the best non-Google phone... ;-)
As much as I like graphene it is literary running on google hardware (atm) and uses asop. Even if it is a really good option is you want to run degoogled and secure android.
GrapheneOS is a Google OS - it's a slightly modified Android developed by Google and continues to be dependent on Google for updates.
(Murena /e/OS is similar.)
GrapheneOS requires a Google Pixel (currently) though. That's why they omitted it I imagine
> This article fails to mention GrapheneOS.
From Wikipedia: "GrapheneOS[b] (/ˈɡræfiːn.oʊˈɛs/) is a free and open-source, privacy- and security-focused, Android-based operating system"
So still Android.
I use a Librem5 Linux phone. With the default PureOS operating system.
Enjoy your freedom, break free from Google and Apple.
Have a full Linux computer in your pocket that you can also use for calling.
See also the discussion on this post: https://mastodon.social/@janvlug/116504044251287290
> Enjoy your freedom, break free from Google and Apple.
You can't escape it.
Your friends and employers and banks use it. The state will soon mandate it for ID. It's the accepted worldwide compute platform, and you're being weird and subject to breaking randomly, being unsupported, and losing access by stepping outside the traffic cones.
They'll use attestation, certs and signing, proprietary APIs, and the scale and might of trillions of dollars to force this.
The only way to "break free" and "enjoy your freedom" is via regulation.
The EU and ASEAN are the best bets. Getting another Lina Khan that works faster is the next best bet.
Being weird in the 0.0001% will not last, nor does it help anyone else escape this monopolistic tyranny.
Jolla still exists:
https://jolla.com/
They develop Sailfish, a non-Google Linux-based mobile OS that can apparently run Android apps decently in a sandbox.
They are also less than 2 months away from the first deliveries of the Jolla Phone 2026, a new SailfishOS device they have designed and built from scratch. Over the past years the official Sailfish experience has largely been relying on Sony Open Device program - a co-operation which hasn't always been very smooth for the customers.
I have been daily driving SFOS on a Sony Xperia 10 III for the past 3 years and it works well for me. I think the 10 III is the current "peak Sailfish" at least among the officially supported devices but this should change once the new phones roll out in early July. For new orders of the 2026 phone they are currently aiming for delivery in September in the supported markets (EU, UK, Norway and Switzerland).
I have rage-quit apple for a C2 and the muscle memory still kicks in after months. The ergonomy of Sailfish is sometimes bizarre, the little top left dot for navigation for example. Still it does everything I need, just with a very bad camera. Let's hope the 2026 will fix that.
Oh but you don't usually need to care for the dot itself so much as it's just an indicator that you can do a middle swipe left/right to move between stacked pages.
Many years later and I'm still bitter that the tech press laughed Windows Phone out of the room straight to its demise. Yes it had very little developer support but at some point things were looking up. It was just the butt of too many jokes from influential people.
A third ecosystem right now would have been amazing
The Windows phone didn't make it due to Microsoft failing to compete, not the press.
Not many tech products exite me less than the concept of a Microsoft Windows 365 Copilot Cortana phone.
Yes, and let's not forget Stephen Elop's 'Burning Platform' Memo
https://www.wsj.com/articles/BL-TEB-2031
Paywalled for me
>> It was just the butt of too many jokes from influential people.
I loved my Windows phones (especially near the end when you were getting Pixel & Apple level hardware for pennies on the dollar), but is this really true? They had limited hardware partners (and the disaster with Nokia), lukewarm carrier deals, absolutely no apps, but who were these "influential people" who made fun of it? If anything it seemed more like no-one was even aware of it. I remember the little press they did get being quite positive on the devices & OS, while critical of the broader ecosystem, which seems fair.
Given what Microsoft has done with the state of Windows with built-in telemetry, the attempts to add Recall, and now AI features they are adding to many customers dismay, you have them doing anything different with Windows Phone if it had gained traction than Apple and Google?
What would a mobile OS look like if the browser became the operating system and apps were sandboxed WASM instead of native APKs?
Palm webOS has entered the chat!
HarmonyOS from Huawei is no longer based on Android, but it’s not an open OS.
I really want to try one of these one day: https://devices.ubuntu-touch.io/promoted/
But I haven't dared yet because I kind of expect it will not be able to replace my current phone.
Ubuntu Touch was amazing, way ahead of Android and iOS when it came out, the touch gestures were so much better than what was available.
But then it's just maintained by very few people nowadays and half abandoned.
You can buy a used Pixel 3a if you want to toy around with it, they cost nothing.
Is anyone successfully running Android inside a container in Linux, for their daily apps?
Given how many of these were running android, I'm surprised Mudita Kompakt wasn't listed.
So which one has the biggest chance to be Android/iOS alternative?
Many many years ago, smarphone users had these choices:
Symbian, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, PalmOS... what else?
Windows phone still had the best ux of any smartphone, I just wish the ecosystem was there. To this day nothing even comes close to smart tiles.
I moved to a Fairphone 6 with /e/OS a few weeks ago. I can do everything I need to, everything I want to, and with more control over my digital footprint and what data is being collected about me. I've completely moved off Google services.
The OS experience is pretty impressive for not being made by an evil megacorp. The hardware is fairly midrange, but midrange today is last year's top end, and unless you're some expert photographer or needing phone VR or whatever, it's a great, normal smartphone experience.
I'm donating to the open source devs who make my apps, and they respond when I ask for useful features instead of always enshittifying it. For the corpo apps, it pulls from Google Play.
I looked at Punkt.
They keep saying "If you don’t pay for the product, you are the product". Okay, all fine and well.
But what will my phone still actually be able to do if / when I stop my subscription? Not a single clear answer besides "[…] gradual feature deactivation, and ultimately reverting to a device running AOSP".
Doesn’t really inspire confidence.
> But can I run my apps?
> Well, probably, yes.
Even with "probably" as a qualifier, this is disingenuous.
Not even Android has caught up to the highest tier of apps available on iOS.
err, what? not a single mention of grapheneos in the entire article?
I usually buy either Xiaomi or Oppo phones and I am pretty happy.
Still a "Google phone" as per the definition of this article. They're looking for Linux-based non-Android phones.
Are Xiaomi phones still legal in the EU with their proprietary chargers? All phones need to have USB-C and USB-PD now.
Which proprietary charger? I always had Xiaomi phones and they always use USB ports.
Xiaomi uses a proprietary charging protocol, I believe it is called Hypercharge. It also requires a proprietary cable with an extra pin/chip.
Looks like they opened the protocol, https://new.c.mi.com/global/post/1895204
Also, it's only for fast charging, you can use any other charger or wire without an issue.
You can charge it just fine with regular usb-c charger. So not a problem.
The wife has a Xiaomi phone, we live in EU.
It was sold normally as any other cellphone.