Essential Phone, available now
essential.com
essential.com
> Devices are your personal property. We won’t force you to have anything you don’t want.
Devices are your personal property. The SoC is still a proprietary trade secret, the baseband is still spying on you for the NSA, the GPU is still a closed blob piece of shit. No mainline driver support, bootloader is closed source, firmware is closed source. We own this phone, you don't.
> We will always play well with others. Closed ecosystems are divisive and outdated.
....
> Devices shouldn’t become outdated every year. They should evolve with you.
Devices become outdated because shitty vendors refuse to open source and mainline drivers for their components.
> Technology should assist you so that you can get on with enjoying life.
Technology should be trustable, and a device where you cannot tell if or when the microphone and/or camera are recording and being remotely accessed is anything but.
Not wanting to single Essential out too much here - every vendor goes on and on about how great this phone is for you, while holding as much of a vice grip over the operation of the device as possible to make sure you need to buy another one as soon as possible through planned obsolescence. It is just the stick up the ass language announcements like these use is really infuriating when the people making them know full well how much they are screwing you over.
The first actually open platform phone is the one that will have longevity. The rest are snake oil about how good they will take of you because you can't take care of yourself with your own software that you can trust.
YES. This one of the major reasons of the Android versions fragmentation.
However, most of them don't even have mainline-able drivers. See Amlogic which got rejected because of "shitty code".
[1]: http://linux-meson.com/doku.php [2]: https://patchwork.kernel.org/project/linux-amlogic/list/
[1] https://github.com/steeve/linux-amlogic
[2] http://www.cnx-software.com/2016/08/19/amlogic-releases-linu...
For some fun reading, 357 CVEs in the linux kernel in 2017, 191 of them remote root, 95%+ of the total in closed source ARM drivers. (basicly everying labeled broadcomm and qualcomm).
For those keeping score, 2017 ALONE has produced 1/3rd of the linux kernel vulnerabilities ever observed.
We need to demand vendors do better.
Who owns Javascript? ECMA is a public standard.
> // Polyfill for creating CustomEvents on IE9/10/11
> function EmailInput(e,t,i,n){function r()
but it does contain some proprietary code from GreenSock.
https://blockmetry.com/blog/javascript-disabled
LTDR; Supporting non JS users tends to be very cheap, so it's often well worth the investment.
Even at 1/20 I don't think people who turn of JS would make the best kind of customers. I'd expect them to be cranky and demanding...
>LTDR; Supporting non JS users tends to be very cheap, so it's often well worth the investment.
Spending opportunity cost time because there might be some users missing out in Taiwan or some Android tablets? Bah...
The Xiaomi Mi Mix from 2016 contained more innovative features.
The Essential phone is just another large, high end Android very similar to the Samsung S7/S8 or Xiaomi Mi6 or new LG - Very nice, but not a major innovation.
I really don't understand this sentiment.
I've still got my iPhone 6 Plus. I haven't seen the need to upgrade yet. It does absolutely everything I want.
At this rate, the only reason I'm going to upgrade is if I destroy my phone somehow (I've yet to even put a major scratch on any of my smartphones over the years) or if a vendor comes out with some feature where I'm like "yeah, I could really see myself getting use out of that"
>> Technology should assist you so that you can get on with enjoying life.
It's a smartphone for crying out loud. It's a platform designed for communication. Bonus points for having a camera in my pocket and some apps which help me for various tasks.
> The first actually open platform phone is the one that will have longevity.
Exactly, I feel that we're kind of getting there with all of the recent phones that have come out in the last couple of years. There's no real killer feature anyone's come out with, just nice things to have.
Not the parent, but that's pretty new. I used a 4s earlier this year and there were several apps that couldn't be upgraded and/or stopped working.
In case of tablets, my partner is still using her iPad 2 and Netflix has a version of their app that still runs on that.
The core software on her tablet, like the core software on my older phones that were given to family members still work fine.
Its the 3rd party apps that seem to be abandoned by software developers. That's going to happen regardless of what phone manufacturer's want.
So in my view it's a bit of both. These devices could have a longer life with manufacturer support, but the app developers are the ones driving the obsolescence.
From (solo) developing an sms based app in 2017 there was little incentive to target an API level lower than 19 (KitKat), which provided a standard API for SMS.
The majority of devices support it so what's the incentive to support legacy software?
Now if there are breaking changes introduced to telephony in the future I'll probably maintain 4.4 support and add a check for API level. That isn't feasible for every app, though...
The Nexus 6 reached it final OS update with N but the 6+ is about to get iOS 11.
The iPhone 5s is about to get iOS 11. If it weren't for the 64-bit transition I wouldn't be surprised if it had gotten on the iPhone 5 as well.
Apple gives about 5 years of iOS updates, which makes keeping the same phone a lot more feasible. Meanwhile my Google sourced Nexus barely makes it two without landing on security patches-only.
Maybe I got really lucky with both of my iPhones but even though I hate to pay this ridiculous premium price for iPhones it kinda evens out in the end considering I use the phone for 4-5 years.
I used an iPhone 4 up until late last year, my dad is still using it. Now I upgraded to an iPhone 5s.
The annoying part is generally apps that require a higher OS, which is the app developers fault. But even then you don't always necessarily /need/ the absolute newest version of an app.
Planned obsolescence by big fat arse.
That's hardly an old phone. Do you see yourself still using it in 3 years time?
They were all either broken, at yard sales, given to me my clients / contacts that don't want them, or were <$20 on ebay.
In general four things kill these devices:
* Touchscreen breakage. It is almost never worth trying to replace if the screen cracks.
* Flash burnout. Shitty flash chips don't last forever. I've binned almost every older phone than this crop because the flash memory dies.
* Charger port wear. Microusb sucks, replacement parts vary wildly depending on model - I can get an S series charger for <$5 most of the time, but trying to replace a Droid phone charger once was impossible because the charger harness was soldered to the pcb.
* Software. I generally outright ignore devices without a ROM scene and an unlocked bootloader, but even then it is entirely volunteer how long Cyanogen/Lineage/Paranoid/etc are willing to keep supporting these fossil kernels. The S3, Note 2-3, and original Nexus 7 are all on their deathbeds because of lagging community support for these devices. It is worth mentioning, however, for the Samsung devices they have gone community supported far longer at this point than their official support periods lasted. Great job Samsung.
Batteries are usually a non-issue. You can buy shitty Chinese knockoff batteries (or if you are lucky Anker) that don't hold a charge and don't last long, but you can keep these devices running on bootleg parts for a while.
The software is the ultimate killer. What should be the easiest to maintain is the hardest, because corporate greed and hunger for control trumps customer respect. All my mobile devices are cheap, used, or broken when I get them because none of these exploitative abusers are worth giving a direct cent to.
I have never experienced this before, what are the signs that the flash chip is going sour? Slow to load? Losing information? Is there anything you can do about it ?
* Sector reallocations. As flash stops writing or reading the package will reallocate data. This process is intensive and usually lags out the phone. If when moving large amounts of data into / off the flash the whole phone is freezing, it can be due to this.
* Stunted read / write speeds. As the flash degrades and more sectors go bad, your read and write performance suffer. Fragmentation gets worse as working sectors dry up. If your phone was benching ~80MB/s read or write speeds the day you got it and is down to ~20 5 years later, it is likely nearing a failure point. This is usually a gradual aging thing, but you do often see a steep slope of sudden performance crash before the whole chip becomes unusable.
* Crippled access times. The former was data rate, this is data latency. The latency should always be consistent and not age much throughout the life of the chip - the ability to access flash almost always stays near-constant over the lifetime of the chip. If this starts going, for very small data sizes, the chips controller can be dying. Which happens, because in phones a lot of corners are cut, and flash mmus are often really, really cheap.
There is also the really rare chance you find a corrupted file you cannot open that used to work, which can in extremely rare circumstances mean that your phone has ran out of unallocated sectors and is now losing capacity including written data, but that is highly unlikely - flash almost always becomes unwritable way before becoming unreadable, and your phone will fail before unreadability starts manifesting en masse.
It would be useful if we could get A. lifetime write averages for the flash chips in popular phones and B. trace such a number throughout the lifetime of the device, but we don't have those, so you are almost always flying in the dark on when your phones memory will die.
I was almost convinced it was a problem with the flash chip as symptoms were exactly what you describe here.
My wife has a four-year-old Windows phone, the Nokia 1020, which is completely fine in all aspects other than suffering from this.
My vision isn't great, so I upgraded from my iPhone 4 to the 5 because of the larger screen, and the 5 to the 6+ due to a larger screen.
Really, the screen size has been the main driving factor in my phone purchase decisions.
My 4 & 5 have been passed down to my mother, so they're still in use. Hell, I was still using my 1st gen iPad until just over a year ago when the screen just failed.
In the smartphone business, it's practically an antique.
you mean like openmoko?
Genuinely curious - I'm actually trying to answer this myself at the moment. The best I've come up with is, go to >2 fabs, have them deliver wafers but not saw them, scan and compare the wafers using trusted equipment, then take the wafers back to the fab for sawing.
The last step is the biggest issue; you could be bait-and-switched. Sawing doesn't sound as expensive as actual photolithography/etching kit, but I suspect it would still be prohibitive for most.
Thing is, you could tamper with a small number of chips on the wafer image in such a way that a quick but unlikely interaction with the end device would easily spot the tampered units. Then it would be a simple matter to insert a "picker" into somewhere in the manufacturing/shipping logistics to find the tampered device(s) and reroute them.
For the prior, I imagine going there and observing QC procedures is the only hope. For the latter, I imagine it involves keeping discrete critical components isolated -- firmware from silicon (and beyond), using different factories so that neither independently has a functional device.
Unfortunately my idea would have both the layout and the (OTP-fused) firmware fully open. I'm learning a lot about the challenges of "transparent security" as opposed to security by obscurity...
Also, I'm not 100% sure that two fabs would actually produce optically identical chips; would there be process differences?
Very good point about process differences. That totally makes sense, and would likely require human verification to handle, which for big chips would be, at the very least, hilariously expensive.
"Instead of adding additional cir- cuitry to the target design, we insert our hardware Trojans by changing the dopant polarity of existing transistors. Since the modified circuit ap- pears legitimate on all wiring layers (including all metal and polysilicon), our family of Trojans is resistant to most detection techniques, includ- ing fine-grain optical inspection and checking against “golden chips”. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our approach by inserting Trojans into two designs — a digital post-processing derived from Intel’s cryp- tographically secure RNG design used in the Ivy Bridge processors and a side-channel resistant SBox implementation — and by exploring their detectability and their effects on security"
Thanks. But ugh. That is both absolutely amazing and... well, what did I expect. Of course there are going to be process attacks :)
Hmmm. I guess the only defenses against this are
- trying to design the layout to get good "route coverage" via test routines (sounds hard)
- aiming for super-simple designs that make it difficult to constructively alter the design (pathological simplicity is one part of my idea; yet to determine viability)
- trusting the fab (ha!)
I wonder if using a huge process like ~30nm (or even bigger) would mitigate at all.
Edit: Small work fixes, added sentence
If you really want to carry on down this route, I would say the most effective approach would be to regard fab interference as a strange form of "single event upset", and borrow high-availability techniques such as lock-step mode across duplicated processors or subsystems.
Lock-step sounds interesting but really really hard - the basis of my idea is security through simplicity, and packing everything onto the one chip so only signed encrypted data comes out. Breaking the design down so that lock-stepped processors would reveal tampering would probably violate integrity and likely have blind spots too.
Yes. This means no Google services.
> Premium materials and true craftsmanship shouldn’t just be for the few.
Then maybe they should not have priced it in line with the iPhone?
> we’re working around the clock
Why are they working around the clock? It sounds like they are running late and/or don't know what they are doing.
FairPhone is trying to do that, in software, hardware and way beyond: https://shop.fairphone.com/en/
https://forum.fairphone.com/t/is-it-worth-to-buy-a-fairphone...
when was that written?
Doesn't have a removable battery...so, how exactly is this going to last me any longer than anything else?
A press push for environmental reasons has made sure most smartphone batteries aren't glued in.
Now MacBooks and Surface Books, on the other hand, do tend to have glued-in batteries on newer models, so more pressure is needed there. We can still replace them, but they're a pain, and glue is not environmentally friendly at all.
To play the devil's advocate here, you could also blame Linux for not providing a stable driver ABI and instead tries to force all vendors to adapt their coding practices if they want to play along.
Many companies don't want to take the burden to rewrite their code if the Kernel maintainers have a different opinion on how things should be done.
Of course, it would be preferable that companies support their hardware in (open) software themselves (like Intel and AMD do for their GPUs / wifi / ethernet / ASM extensions), but we don't have anything close to that right now in mobile.
I hear that a lot, but rarely see it work out that way in practice.
To be fair though, Sprint is one of the easier carriers to work with after T-Mobile. I can't imagine them releasing a phone on AT&T or Verizon, as their process is grueling. I guess since they're selling an unlockcked version of their phone, it doesn't really matter to power users. However, most sales for smartphones are from contracts sold directly from carriers so it'll be interesting to see how they'll do in the market with their current strategy (similar to One Plus One).
Props to them though. It's not just about carrier certification. Releasing a smartphone is a long complex process. Some engineers at Sprint were briefly talking about how great the phone was, so I have high hopes.
I'm kinda sort interested in this device, but honestly I'm in the sit and wait given that Sharp isn't exactly a name brand anymore.
Man, if you actually tried to sell your phones, Sharp, they might have sold? Funny concept.
If this phone is indeed a Sharp creation, I'm all over it.
This is classic Japanese market electronics. Rather than increase bottom line, add loads of niceties to compete.
My phone was a smartphone, a mobile wallet (osaifu-keitai, tap-to-pay), my train pass (osaifu-keitai is different hardware to android pay, as it works on turnstiles, even when the phone is dead/off, and has been a thing since 2004), a television (over the air!), an answering machine (no messages stored by carrier; the phone picks up if you don't answer and records it to the SD card), had those privacy filter things, and a really responsive camera.
Sadly, it has a non-replaceable battery and refuses to update android unless it can connect to a docomo tower (I think docomo hosts it's phone's system updates on internal network only, not internet). I had to retire the phone long before the hardware gave out.
I'm pretty much stuck with the phone's stock android because A) It's sharp, so the android hacking community hasn't heard of it. and B) I don't think any ROM would have drivers for any of the galapagos features. (especially I need osaifu-keitai, which as well as being a wallet and my train pass, has all of my arcade top scores associated with it (whenever I go, I just tap the phone and the arcade machine looks me up - unlocks all the bonuses I've achieved and my prefs))
Oh, wow.
> Anyone looking from the side will instead see a floral pattern, butterfly pattern, or something else I forget (stars?), depending on your setting.
Wow.
> (You can't pick beyond these three because each pattern is physically its own layer it looks like)
I see.
> This is classic Japanese market electronics. Rather than increase bottom line, add loads of niceties to compete.
TIL the Japanese are still ahead of us with stuff that's really nice, and the rest of the world succumbed to being flooded out with high-fructose corn syrup laden toy electronics that hack our attention spans.
> My phone was a smartphone, a mobile wallet (osaifu-keitai, tap-to-pay), my train pass (osaifu-keitai is different hardware to android pay, as it works on turnstiles, even when the phone is dead/off, and has been a thing since 2004), a television (over the air!), an answering machine (no messages stored by carrier; the phone picks up if you don't answer and records it to the SD card), had those privacy filter things, and a really responsive camera.
Wow.
I can't find it now but I remember seeing a Japanese phone that had OTA TV, a GPS, and even a fingerprint reader on the back. I checked the date, and the thing was made in 2008. Shakes head
> Sadly, it has a non-replaceable battery and refuses to update android unless it can connect to a docomo tower (I think docomo hosts it's phone's system updates on internal network only, not internet). I had to retire the phone long before the hardware gave out.
Hah.
> I'm pretty much stuck with the phone's stock android because A) It's sharp, so the android hacking community hasn't heard of it. and B) I don't think any ROM would have drivers for any of the galapagos features.
Mmmm...
> (especially I need osaifu-keitai, which as well as being a wallet and my train pass, has all of my arcade top scores associated with it (whenever I go, I just tap the phone and the arcade machine looks me up - unlocks all the bonuses I've achieved and my prefs))
_wow_ that is absolutely awesome.
What's really sad is that if this sort of integration ever came to the US I know it'd be used in the most invasive ways possible :(
I wonder if there are any videos documenting any of this out there. I wouldn't mind seeing this stuff in action, especially the game console bit. That's awesome.
The problem with the US market is that reviewers look for any superficial reason to slam you.
Smartphones are a brutal business to be in, especially in North America, where Apple and Samsung have basically locked up the high end of the market and everyone else is fighting for the scraps (and usually losing tons of money in the process). Probably Sharp just realized there was really no way to break in, especially considering they'd have to start from scratch with channels like carrier partnerships, retail presence, and advertising.
OnePlus has none of these and seems very successful.
- Asking when accessories would be available on their site (car chargers and screen protectors were out of stock)
Supposedly Lineage runs well on them btw.
These problems are not acceptable for a modern phone company.
On the plus side I plug my dash charger in and forty minutes later I've got a charge that will last the day.
But agreed that if I forget to bring it on overnight trips it's annoying.
And the phone has worked flawlessly for my needs.
Huh? The phone ships with the screen protector already applied.
I was referring to tempered glass protectors. I didn't realize that people still use plastic ones.
Again, I can assure you from personal experience that this isn't true.
Also, the phone came with a screen protector which is still on after 1 year of use.
The phone is great in every way except ergonomics. It's so fat that holding it hurts my hand. Apparently they had a smaller model for the generation before the 3, but the OnePlus 5 is absurdly fat only; I'm not going to be able to keep buying their phones.
Patents and different cellular bands (meaning radical antennae design).
2 - I used a friend's phone; I didn't like the fingerprint scanner on the back. ymmv.
These are obviously nitpicks, but the Pixel is $900 out the door (128g, tax, case, etc.)
The first part about SIM support seems much more relevant than the second part about their state-of-the-art radios. The Nexus 6 came out in November 2014. Carrier oligopolies are the reason for this as far as I can tell.
Is this still true? I just bought a new phone (on Verizon) and they didn't even have a contract subsidy option anymore. I know T-Mobile also dropped this a couple years ago.
There are 10 man companies in China making custom phones from reference designs. On my own memory, there was a company that managed to make a phone in under 3 month in 2011
In the meanwhile, I'll keep buying $120 phones (Moto G4 with Amazon Ads FTW) and keeping them for ~2 years until they break or software updates stop. Even though as a Catholic (Laudato Si, Rerum Novarum) it kills me to waste all those materials every couple of years and be part of the environmental degradation of our planet.
Also, being able to fine-tweak app permissions is a huge plus for getting Android 6+ phone.
I've switched to Nexus 5x at the beginning of this month. Current price is around 250€, and I basically gained all the features of flagship models (fast charging, good camera, up to date software, security updates for a year from now etc).
But, up until that point, I refused to install apps that I would be scared of what would happen if they were compromised (so, nothing business-related) and apps that are asking me permissions that I don't want to allow them (as an example, no Facebook app what so ever).
Been that way ever since I became a smartphone user, which, because of my privacy fears and dissatisfaction with current market options didn't happen until like two years ago.
Regarding someone stealing your phone: I don't understand what this has to do with OS or hardware updates. You can put a PIN on your phone and encrypt it. Perfectly possible on older versions of Android.
Regarding fine-tweaking app permissions: Privacy Guard and XPrivacy do the same thing. Why necessarily update the OS? And in any case, why constantly keep updating the OS past Android 6 where this feature was introduced?
Or fixes that close doors left open.
(Also Android got some additional security/privacy features after Android 4)
I don't know of any critical examples of #1 that I would need to protect against where upgrading is my only solution (maybe I'll upgrade if I find one). #2 can be mitigated at the app level (see my reply to the other comment here) and probably faster so than the update you'd receive. #3 can't really be mitigated by phone updates. #4 is impractical since cells are behind carrier-grade NATs and don't have dedicated IP addresses to be reachable via the internet. And #5 just involves updating the app, not the OS or hardware.
If you can give me an example of an actual attack that cannot be prevented without upgrading the hardware or the OS, I would find that far more convincing than a hypothetical.
Otherwise, how is this a justification for upgrading your phone? It seems like you may have forgotten what the argument even was. I was arguing against routine 1-2-year upgrades, not against the entire concept of upgrading for something wiht a serious security vulnerability. If a serious exploit appears in the wild and your only solution is to upgrade -- by all means, go for it. But is that the case here? And this happened periodically every 1-2 years for you to justify upgrading equally often?
B) Yes, in Android patch level July 2017 and iOS 10.3.3.
You're on Android 4, so your phone is vulnerable. If you use your phone for anything important, I'd suggest getting that new phone ASAP.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagefright_(bug)#Mitigation
What? Chrome and Firefox protect against it [1]... do you not use either?
[1] https://www.howtogeek.com/225834/stagefright-what-you-need-t...
A good chunk of he video on the internet is mp4, so how would you know if you were playing an mp4 or not?
So just for 2017 there are:
- 326 code execution vulnerabilities
- 221 memory overflow bugs
- 114 memory corruption issues
- 309 privilege escalation bugs
http://www.cvedetails.com/product/19997/Google-Android.html?...
Granted, I'm sure a lot of these CVE are very low risk, and some are duplicates (because CVE). But there were a couple of notable really bad security issues. But this is just the Android, not all the of dependencies Android has.
StageFright was already mentions, and there has been a couple of iterations of this already, stemming from different bugs in a parsing library used with MMS. Included in this is a remote code execution and an privilege escalation.
Another fun one is Broadpwn, which is rather new one and was disclosed as BlackHat US this year. Its effects both iOS and Android and can be wormed trivially. It targets a widely used Broadcomm wifi chipset, and does not require _any_ user interaction. A malformed SSID broadcast allows for remote code execution. And when I say any user interaction, you can walk by something broadcasting this and you're infected.
To put it another way: if you learn of a very serious exploit like this in the wild and an upgrade is the only way to solve it -- by all means, go ahead and upgrade. I'm not saying you should never upgrade, nor am I saying serious security vulnerabilities cannot pop up. But neither in any way implies you need a periodic 1-2-year hardware/OS refresh. A refresh could be justified in 1 day or in 10 years; it just depends on what the actual threats and mitigations are. Remember what the original discussion was about: it was about whether the periodic refresh is justified.
As for the rest of those (StageFright and other attacks) -- I've addressed them in other comments. See here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15040745
This is the same reason why I don't run a computer OS at home that isn't patched to the latest security updates. I am not going to run windows XP at home and just disable / find workarounds for every single one of the probably-thousands of risks. That's insane.
The ol' security through tech press approach. Seriously though, you can't have the security of your devices dependent on whether or not someone has come up with a catchy name for their exploit. The exploits with names like broadpwn and stagefright are the exceptions, not the rules, there are plenty of critical CVE's that have never had cool names or tech articles written about them. Even if an exploit has a cool name and some press, what if people don't upvote it when it gets posted here (or reddit/wherever)?
As you're clearly entirely clueless about security, how do you know this?
If you primarily get your security news via the press, how do you know that they aren't simply missing most things?
No, this is fucking stupid. Most security related bugs get zero visibility, Linux for example still has a policy to quietly patch them.
Well, now I'm definitely convinced...
> Most security related bugs get zero visibility, Linux for example still has a policy to quietly patch them.
Most security bugs don't need your attention either, because they don't have widespread exploits.
Read the prior comments; don't just curse in reply to a single sentence while ignoring all the prior context.
But if you do anything interesting with your life this simply isn't an useful argument.
1. Android is kind of tricky though, as firmware updates generally come from the carrier not the manufacturers, and even if its from the manufacturers its still down stream of the actual patches. But the factor is kind of moot if a phone isn't getting security upgrades.
2. Google has been trying to decouple security and firmware updates, but this is only on more recent phones.
As for how much of an issue this is. Its kind of impossible to tell. It been out for less than a month at this point. And of course there are all the devices that are now unsupported and will not receive updates.
Ok for StageFright. Do you have those enabled? How many users do you think will?
For StageFright: I assume by "enabled" you mean "disabled"? Yes, I've already mitigated; it took me like 30 seconds. See this comment [1]. I'm not claiming laymen would or should do this, but I wasn't making that claim originally either. I was responding to someone on HN who presumably understands something about technology and who felt guilty about buying phones and polluting the planet periodically just for the security updates. I'm saying he's most likely already more than capable enough to solve that problem without any tangible negative effects to himself. I'm doing that myself and it's working fine for me, I'm not losing any time to this at all, and I don't think I'm any better with phones than he is. It's completely possible and won't really cost you anything at all (it'll save you money and save the planet garbage); you just need to find the willpower. For a non-techy person the story might be different.
But you've got a point about newer apps becoming more demanding of the CPU. Ideally, this trend continues to slow down (Moore's law is essentially over) and software engineers start to find ways to do more with less. There's plenty of room to optimize most software out there, but historically very little incentive to do so. That's changing, or it should.
In the meanwhile, an expensive long-lasting phone should make it possible to upgrade the CPU and/or GPU in a phone for a fraction of the price of the whole phone, so that the phone can be used at its full potential for its complete lifetime. A similar provision applies to batteries, which usually die after a couple of years and would need to be replaced once or twice during the lifetime.
Frankly, I haven't been able to keep a phone long enough for the software to become obsolete because the hardware breaks after 1-2 years. So I want Essential to succeed. A long-lasting phone made with durable materials and with many years of guaranteed software updates is the product we need, if someone dares to make it.
yeah, I feel bad for taking a similar lifetime on my phones - I wish there was a company with the kind of reputation for craftsmanship and long-term support that Apple has that would offer stock Google Android devices.
I am not that convinced that it is in their best interest though .. Last time I got saw numbers on this, non-geeks did not care at all about updates.
Project treble is a major platform change.
OEMs need to get onboard though.
I would love to see Google ship the Pixel 2 with a ten years support warranty.. that would show the way but I will believe it when it happens
The Nexus 6P is a perfect example of this:
https://m.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/01/google_eol_for_nexus_...
I've had mine a year and a half, and it doesn't even feel close to struggling with things. Performance is great.
Yet, it's going to be artificially deprived of the latest Android releases starting one month from now, and won't even receive security updates after September 2018. It's absurd.
That being said, three years seems like a ridiculously short "guaranteed support" lifetime... especially considering the iPhone 5 (released nearly 5 years ago) is losing support this year.
It's not your Catholicism that makes you feel bad for polluting, it's your humanity. If Pope Francis turned around and said there's no climate change and we should all have tyre bonfires for christmas, would you be on-board with that?
Also, despite the Catholic church's hierarchical structure, a large portion of the church does not blindly follow the Pope's every decree. 86 percent of catholics find birth control to be "morally acceptable", according to one survey ( https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/25/opinion/sunday/frank-brun... ).
I don't want to get caught up in a religious argument, but I think its far more likely that people attribute a particular view to their religious beliefs as a way of validating them than they believe the environment is precious solely because the bible told them.
So if Francis came out and said climate change is not a concern I would actually pay pretty serious attention to that. And I'm not even Catholic.
Are you paying pretty serious attention when they claim that dinosaurs bones were sprinkled around the world by their god to test our faith?
Buy an (old) iPhone.
I've got a 5S -- still perfectly fast for what I use it for (email, youtube, brokerage account, general internet, some small games), and is getting OS updates and security patches until IOS11. It's $120 on eBay; a new screen can be had for $13, a new battery for $11. it's solidly designed and there's a gigantic field of accessories and apps.
Maybe titanium and no bezels are worth a price premium, but there's no way it's worth a 5x increase in price.
I love the look of the 5S/SE. It looks premium, it feels nice in your hand, it's solid, and those chamfered edges are so nice.
It's a shame they went from that to the iPhone 6 design and stuck with it all this time. It might make bigger phones easier to hold but man it just doesn't look as nice IMO. It looks like a generic round phone. Nothing stands out about it at all.
My favorite is the curved back, as is on most Motorola's and some LGs. Personally, I stick with cheap LG phones ($100 or so) that are rootable/rommable. If the phone gets damaged or I want a newer phone, no skin off my back, biggest concern is just moving Signal Private Messenger over to the new phone I get :P
That's an OS-independent problem ;)
You have to contact Apple and provide proof of purchase for the device to have them remove the iCloud account.
The issue is allowing that to happen in the first place, instead of locking it centrally. That's either a limitation in your MDM's capabilities, or its setup. ;-)
We would just send the phone number to our Verizon account manager and he'd send us proof of purchase for that device and we'd forward it to Apple. Wasn't a terribly difficult process, at least in my experience.
The iPhone SE can do 700 MHz, FWIW...
Also, what do you mean by "atrocious"? I get 1-2 days with heavy use.
Finally, the 5 phones I've seen this week seem snappy enough, and so does my 6 plus. It really sounds like your phone is screwed up.
One caveat to this though: If you do buy an old iPhone, make it at least a 5. The iPhone 4 was cut off at iOS7 and can't run most of the apps in the store as they require iOS8 or higher.
But controlled obsolescence kills me. The real feature that improves in phones the past few years for me is the software and apps, not the hardware.
My wishlist:
- Give me a lighter, snappier OS. Not something clunkier and slower and uses more ram, gpu/cpu (aka battery life).
- Actually support updates to the things for longer than 2-3 years.
- (Not related to this phone) Use stock android, unless you're removing bloat. Why? Because inevitably there's going to be apps. What I want is a nice flat surface that includes wifi, bluetooth, and nice API's and permissions for those apps to plug into.
- The biggest feature you can give me on a phone? Battery life, Replaceable battery, Data/Cell reception, Speaker/Microphone quality.
- SIM card that's easy to get out.
- Actually, Dual SIM's.
- Support for carriers globally.
- And physical keyboards. Something for SSH'ing with.
Biggest thing I want is no aux port but __two__ (or more) usb-c ports instead. That way you can do stuff like plug in a keyboard/monitor or other standalone usb devices. I don't want to be forced to use weird all in one hubs for specific use cases. I want the UNIX philosophy with my hardware.
If anything it would make it way easier.
Sure I can work around just about any problem, but I'm gonna say fuck you for making me.
EDIT: someone should fund me to make the ~11mm no speaker, no aux port, 2-4 usb-c port, dual sim, large/fast storage, beefy battery, rooted, juicy ass laptop killer that nobody knew they needed.
This comes to mind: https://xkcd.com/1172/
Now if we are going to talk about manufacturers saving a few bucks for the only reason of trying to be the bigger idiot we should take about the headphone jack.
headphones and charger
A usb hub also doesn't fit into my pocket. What if I'm walking around and want to plug two things in? Well fuck.
EDIT: Also that is not a relevant xkcd. I'm not suggesting to break other peoples usecase in favor of mine. I just want two ports.
Though the motorola Z phones has what you want. Add the turbopower mod and you get the powerpack and an additional usb connection that can be used for charging (not sure if that mod allows that usb-port for anything else), leaving the original unused.
The Z-line is also the closest you can get to a replaceable battery so that is pretty neat as well.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/keyboard-mod-a-physical-k...
Also - give me the new iPhone 7 camera without having to get the "PLUS" size.
Also - for international carriers. Take a good look at t-mobile. International data+texting on their plans means I don't tough SIM cards ever anymore.
I wouldn't even mind using FBterm for everything and not having a "modern" webbrowser, I don't think I've ever gotten anything usefull done on a mobile browser anyway.
There is no market for this product. Nobody wants it except a tiny fraction of the market who work in IT.
If "people who make software" could really influence the market, Linux dominance would have happened between the 90s and 00s.
Er, the vast majority of computers run linux
To that end, they've always been very vested in improving web development for everyone.
Software is far, far, cheaper than hardware. Building bespoke hardware for a tiny fraction of your customer base is insanely expensive, because the larger players have sewn up all the component orders. Once you build your hardware you are stuck with it forever. There is no "Day 1" patch for hardware.
If you needed further evidence you only have to look at the number of hardware Kickstarter projects that fail miserably because they grossly underestimated the cost and complexity of actually making a physical thing.
1) Google is an advertising company. They're not good at making products. If they were, they'd have a lot more profit come from places other than AdSense. They have literally dozens of products, and very few of them impact the bottom line. Clearly they do need to figure out what people want.
2) Dev Tools in Chrome is a way to get developers to target Chrome. This means Chrome is going to work better when browsing than other browsers.
3) Google has so much engineering bandwidth that Dev Tools is a tiny investment. It was useful enough (at the time it was released) to keep it entirely internal, honestly. Letting the public use it was just gravy.
4) Web developers are far, far more common than people who need to use SSH from a phone. Not all developers use SSH and not all developers have a reason to use it from a phone.
We've constantly chosen form over functionality. Larger sized phones, fragile build materials(glass over plastic), lesser battery just so the phone can be thinner. The keyboard was given up to make room for a bigger screen and thinner body, and now writing anything more a few sentences on a phone is a pain in the ass.
Atleast in the era of dumb phones, for all the weird shit (Nokia's taco phone) that came out that time, at least the phones were distinct, you could tell them apart just by looking at them. Now they are all the same generic rectangular glass slabs that cater's to single demographic who want large screens for media consumption. What if you are not in that demographic? Well, tough luck.
I know am in the minority and it's not really Apple's fault that everyone decided to ape them, but a part of me wishes we hadn't given up the variety just to pander to the largest common denominator, even a little variation among phones would be a welcome change.
But for cellphones, lots of values of "niche audience" end up with, "pick zero." Here are some examples:
1. Hook up a keyboard to ssh into the device. 2. Hardware switch to turn off the baseband OS. 3. Software toggle to turn off the baseband OS. 4. Sandboxed baseband OS that isn't proof-of-concept or impossible to buy and use in the U.S. 5. Free software baseband OS. 6. Open source "tivo-ized" baseband OS. I.e., user can read the source but cannot run modified version. 7. Just glue together a damned RPI with a baseband OS and ship it to me in working order.
Those are just the niches that interest me. Only #8 looks feasible in the near future and its apparently still in the planning stage:
https://www.crowdsupply.com/arsenijs/zerophone
So I think your "niche audience" needs an asterisk that says, "most niches not yet supported."
Also, you're missing #8.
I am not active in the porting side right now, but am prototyping a mobile computing device that runs pmOS. It's kind of a neuromancer style ono-sendai portable deck: A rectangular box (approx 11x29x3cm) that you can opem up and velcro your linux phone into and have a full-sized, stainless steel, porclean, or plastic mechanical keyboard and foldable mouse with slots for extra memory and battery life. It is designed to be as compact and as durable as possible, while staying true to the postmarket name by sourcing from reused materials whenever possible.
My hypothetical market is mainly highly mobile autonomous individuals residing in developing world megacities, but I'm interested to know what someone from the US or Europe thinks about the idea.
Oh ya, one more thing, the profits go to pmOS, to scale up a re-wilding project, and to getting these hackable linux devices into the hands of children forced to work in the supply/waste chain of electronics manufacturing.
How's that sound?
Just speaking for myself, obviously, I'm sure other people may have different experiences.
1. Ability to use the phone as a emulator machine. I had a Xperia X10 Mini Pro few years back. I used for playing Snes, Genesis, GBA/C, NES games. Playing the same games with a touch keyboard is almost impossible. Not to mention native Android/iPhone games are just gimmicks at this point due to being crippled by having only touch based input.
2. It's easier to enter arcane commands and text with the physical keyboard. Useful for things like SSH, fiddling with the terminal etc.
Edit: forgot tracking cookies, telemetry, and an animated paperclip assistant thing
Over the last few years I've been trying to limit my smartphone usage to exclude everything but productivity and communication apps that are pretty much required for my employment, friends, family, sustainance etc. I think an e-ink only device would be a huge benefit in that regard.
Wonder if there's a market for a device that is essentially designed to be all work and no play?
As I try to avoid becoming anymore of a smartphone zombie('living in the matrix') all of you connivingly clever SF/SV tech bastards just come up with sneaky new ways to increase Session Engagement, Duration/CTR/Time on Page... I'm stuck in a never ending attention war;-)
I haven't gone to any nuclear options yet: flip phone, massager pigeons.
It's like I'm craving some parental authority, take all of my toys, no TV, no video games, no comic books, no desert.
Sure would like some type of: [You can either read quietly in my room, or you can go to bed!]-type of smartphone!
I'd like to ssh sometimes, but mostly I want to send text and emails like everyone else.
Shame that few companies have the guts to break the monoculture. It is vaguely ridiculous that most phones look identical.
You are describing cars. There is no market for cars which are driven with more complex mechanisms than steering wheels. The world has percolated around the optimal solution, and it is a touch screen.
Touchscreens suck for typing. A smooth glass surface without haptic feedback can never be an optimal solution for that. It is only better for pure media consumption, if having only a touchscreen means having a bigger display.
The size a device must be to have both a keyboard and usable touchscreen puts it squarely out of the optimal solution category.
Yes, as I said, I find typing on a screen difficult and I've put plenty of effort into trying.
To draw a close parallel, dyslexic people have been forced for years to use conventional mass market writing equipment and told that they were stupid for finding that difficult. Mercifully people have stopped doing this. Same applies to left-handers if you want a broad example.
I find this dogmatic "everyone must be the same" and "there's only one way to make a phone / writing tool" quite bizarre and a bit paternalistic. We're not all clones. We don't all have exactly the same needs, or requirements for 'optimum solutions'.
I'm happily typing this on my BlackBerry Passport, which wider than some other people's phones, and sometimes draws comment. But it does the job I need it to so I'm happy.
The Motorola Droid managed to do it, and fit in my pocket. Scale it up a little to keep pace with modern phones, and you get screenspace and an even roomier keyboard.
And there have been no mass market cars with joysticks but there have been a number of phones with keyboards.
They are alive and kicking everywhere else.
I think it's got more to do with negative perception. Keyboards found their way onto cheap (read: awful) Android phones and better (but app-less) Blackberry phones and the mindset carries the perception home.
If Apple were to come out with a keyboard phone, the rest of the industry would be doing it overnight before the sales numbers were in.
If you have a heavy use of the symbols we find on common keyboards, sure a physical keyboard might be better... But then once again good luck if it's not the layout of your heart.
I don't there's an easy solution for these glass slabs but I think that software keyboards have gone quite a decent way from what they were 4 or 5 years ago.
Well, Moto Z Play easily survives a day with 70%+ battery left. Of course Lenovo decided that that's untenable, and had to make Moto Z2 Play thinner and reduced battery capacity to be the same crappy one that we know from iPhones and other Android phones.
(It also has/had dual sim tray, SD card tray and the ability to add an additional battery package if three days weren't enough for you).
The current mobile phone "market" is downright terrible. Calling a market is perhaps an overstatement - you have a choice of marginally different 5,5" slabs with pretty much the same capability, battery life, screen. Want smaller display? Nope. Want more battery? Nooope. Want keyboard? Naaah.
While not as good, the Z2 play still has amazing battery life.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/keyboard-mod-a-physical-k...
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.pocketwork...
Worth noting that global carrier support is an extremely difficult feature if you include all the wacky US carriers that don't use GSM. In the Pyra's case, there are actually two versions - the "US" version and the "everywhere else" version.
The Mac complaint is fair, but you can build and run your own apps outside of the store with a free developer account as of a couple years ago.
Edit: Also, a capable Mac development machine is closer to $1500 than $3k.
That doesn’t really help when you want to use the apps with a few friends. Honestly, Apple and Google can have whatever they requirements they want for their stores, but they should be forced by law to allow alternative stores.
And you’re right, the cheapest MacBook at 1499 EUR is around 1800 USD. That’s not nearly 3000 bucks, but an entirely different story than the 600€ I paid for my thinkpad or the 700€ I paid for my desktop. And I don’t want it anyway, I’d only use it for Apple development. And I’d already have to pay extra for the iPhone.
More like $700ish. The Mac Mini is perfectly capable of doing iOS app development.
That's assuming that you don't already own a Mac but a lot of people do.
Phones with the Apple logo on the back do this job best. Their security posture is just so much better and you don't have carrier-enforced forced obsolescence from the software side. You literally can always run the latest iOS until the hardware _just can't_.
I'm an open source guy only as much as it makes sense.
That means you're not really an open source guy. You're just using whatever is best on the market at the time.
That kind of option doesn't really exist with phones because of market forces. This idea that Android is some better moral choice is a delusion.
If I go apple again, I no longer have the ability to sync my phone, since my Mac died under a glass of wine and I "replaced" it with a Dell Precision 5520 running Arch because the MacBook Pro lineup was untenable.
I'd go apple again if I could actually backup,sync,etc my phone. It's a good device in isolation. But don't dare step out of the apple ecosystem.
I now upgraded to a refurbished SE and it's really nice so far.
There are some small pocket sized keyboards but with no way to attach to my phone they are not very useful.
----
For battery life I have been pretty impressed with my phone (xiaomi redmi note 3 pro) I only plug it in at night and can easily go 2 days without charging. It also charges extremely fast.
First phone I have owned since my nokia flip phone that I almost never think about battery life.
The apps you[1] install are what use up all your RAM & battery. The OS itself is light, fast, and efficient.
[1] Well, that either you installed yourself or that your carrier/oem "helpfully" bundled for you.
Good thing they're not doing that!
> We also plan to release new wireless accessories (like our snap-on 360º Camera) every few months. That schedule ensures that the latest technology will always be in the palm of your hand without having to replace your phone. These accessories will also work with other products like Essential Home.
Spoke too soon.
No, it's really not. It's literally just a tool I use for communication.
People seem to believe they can infer a very weird amount from a smidgen more than 1 bit of information.
That you likely don't just own an iPhone, but also an mac laptop (or desktop), as well as at least one Apple TV. (i-devices don't integrate well with non-Apple ecosystems)
It's also likely that you have tens to hundreds of dollars invested in the iTunes and App stores.
In short, it says you have money. A commitment to around $100 a month on a phone, plus the implied other devices and digital purchases, is not a trivial outlay if you're making less than your average individual.
It's also entirely possible that you simply value projecting the impression of money to others enough to justify the outlay of money for the iPhone, but that still relies on the impression of money.
- I'm currently buying a new ThinkPad.
- I have never owned an Apple TV. My iPhone integrates just fine with my Sony TV.
- I have never bought anything in iTunes.
- My phone plan costs 10€ per month.
Seems like stereotypes aren't that simple.
WRT iPhone integrating with Sony TV - how? Not something I've ever heard of before.
And somewhat off. My phone is two generations old, so the amortized per-month cost of the phone is rather lower. Cheap, last-gen macbook Air[1], but no Apple TV. I've bought exactly one album from iTunes, but yes, apps. You've basically caught me mid-migration away from the ecosystem. It takes a while.
[1] At this point, the only things keeping me from switching entirely to Linux are backing up the iPhone and running OmniFocus. And when I have time to noodle with it, I'm liking orgmode.
Somehow, I still manage to write free software that I care about, release it for free, and contribute to other FOSS projects. Caring about free software doesn't mean I have to use ONLY free software.
What you're doing with that argument is called gatekeeping http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Gatekeeping
For example, you have a good chance of wearing boots rather than sneakers, because they can deal with mud puddles or snow or whatever. They cost more, but they are simple and reliable in all environments.
You are expressing those values, other people pick up on it. just because you don't cultivate an image, you still have an image.
It's a statement a large share of poeple would say, so it doesn't mean much.
In other words, if he states that's why he got a particular phone, then yes. However, just by having a particular phone, nobody can draw any significant information from it other than he owns a phone.
There is always the significant chance that the person did not choose their phone (e.g. work phone).
I like functional black slabs that don't try to be "trendy"
Ie, if OP uses a flip phone from the 90s, s/he may clearly not care about their phone and may not use it as a form of expression. Nevertheless, I'll be damned if it doesn't express something about that person. That person is deviating from the norm, which is always an expression of something - knowingly or otherwise.
So I'd argue that even if they wanted to be needlessly pissy in these comments about how untrue the statement is to their own personal self - I'd argue it's still accurate. It may not be an intended form of personal expression, but it's definitely one of many things that informs the nearby public. Everyone makes external "book cover" readings, after all - to one degree or another.
edit to clarify: What statements can you (anyone, not just personally you) make about the expression I'm making with any degree of accuracy or confidence?
If you were to get this phone, I'd hazard that you're interested in supporting this kind of brand and what it stands for, even if only a small aspect of it.
edit: Actually you could only assert that I have a cigar. I could have purchased it as a gift for someone else, or am currently being asked to transport it, or maybe I found it on the ground... etc. It certainly does not with any certainty make a 'public expression' about me.
I think I can safely say that offering a variety of colors would not be an appealing feature to you. I also feel safe guessing battery life is a bigger factor in your purchasing decision than the brand of the phone. You're probably not very influenced by which celebrities use which phone. You also probably don't buy new phones on release day.
- Maybe it's a work phone and I had no choice in the matter? - Maybe I have a specific requirement (like a specific app I need) which requires a specific platform? - Maybe my preferred phone recently broke and I could only immediately afford the phone in my hand? - Maybe the phone was a gift and I had no say in the matter?
There are lots of not-unlikely scenarios like the above which mean any conclusion you might try to draw would have a very low level of accuracy.
I'm not interested in defending/participating in your particular evaluation of whatever phone you think I might have, I'm just making generic points that those guesses are essentially worthless, except for making internal musings and assumptions about me (which you could do about anything).
But it sounds like all my conclusions are still accurate in all your hypothetical scenarios. I never tried to guess which phone you had. Only a few basic things that would be prime targets for advertising. Such as in every hypothetical you mention, the fact that <pick a celebrity> uses a certain phone has no influence on the purchase. Except maybe the gift, but then it's not about your thoughts on phones, but the one purchasing the gift (hopefully they know you well enough that you prefer function over form).
> I'm just making generic points that those guesses are essentially worthless
Not at all. They may not 100% apply to your directly, but a company isn't selling to you. They're selling to a statistical distribution including you.
The guesses are only worthless now that you're offering hypothetical scenarios. Your earlier comment is definitely telling about your decisions in using and purchasing a phone.
I guess I'm just complaining out loud because I don't like the idea of every product that is pushed at me trying to claim that it somehow defines me as a person and what I stand for.
J'interdis aux marchands de vanter trop leur marchandises. Car ils se font vite pédagogues et t'enseignent comme but ce qui n'est par essence qu'un moyen, et te trompant ainsi sur la route à suivre les voilà bientôt qui te dégradent, car si leur musique est vulgaire ils te fabriquent pour te la vendre une âme vulgaire. Or, s'il est bon que les objets soient fondés pour servir les hommes il serait monstrueux que les hommes fussent fondés pour servir de poubelles aux objets.
So that it doesn't break as easily if it falls down? At least that's my reason.
> Devices are your personal property. We won’t force you to have anything you don’t want.
I'm curious, wouldn't that imply you're not the demographic they're seeking? So are you basically saying, "I'm not in their demographic"? Or is there another point to your comment that I'm missing. I ask because often I see people get pissy about statements like this, almost as if they think the web page was curated for them.
I could make a webpage targeted at guitarists with something like "Your guitar is something you cherish", and clearly that statement isn't true for someone who neither owns a guitar nor plays. So what purpose is a statement like this?
I don't make snarky comments at bra commercials on TV about how I don't have breasts and therefor am not concerned with support. Do you (assuming you're male, of course haha)?
"This product stands for freedom! You stand for freedom don't you?"
The guitar analogy is not accurate - your statement about cherishing the guitar is evaluated internally and is true or false. It's not the same as saying the guitar publicly and externally (and deliberately!) defines you and what you stand for.
"There goes lolsal - now there's a guy that really stands for non-branded personal compute devices!" Give me a break.
For someone buying a mainstream product like a Samsung or Apple phone, I'd agree that it doesn't mean very much. To someone buying a niche product like this though, it definitely says something about the person's values.
> There’s a reason titanium is used to build rockets and replace bones. Unlike aluminum, which is what most phones are made of, titanium doesn’t scratch, dent, or bend.
The reason why titanium is used to replace bones is not its strength (though it certainly doesn't hurt). It's because titanium is the most biocompatible metal and has a capacity for osseointegration. Meaning the bone around it will fuse with the titanium.
(Thanks for the interesting tangent, btw)
Often times Titanium is just a marketing ploy. Like titanium cards. Titanium bracelets. Etc.
Too bad, they were really cool at the time they were introduced.
https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-T400-T500-and-newer-T/...
[1] http://www.fishercast.com/downloads/FisherCast_Magnesium_Whi...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardnesses_of_the_elements_(da...
Not to mention, very few use pure titanium. Most use an alloy like 6al4v, which gives it the best of both worlds.
Seems unnecessarily narcissistic--tell me about the phone and it's features first and sell me on your product.
I don't really disagree with your response, but I do think there is something nice about humanizing the design and production of technology.
> Essential Phone will get guaranteed Android OS updates for 2 years and will get monthly security updates for 3 years, so your phone will always be secure and have the latest features.
I do not think the word "always" means what they think it means :)
(Sorry, not a native English speaker)
Granted, third party roms are not for the average user but it amazes me how few on HN seem to run them and instead whine about why their 3 or 4 year old phone is no longer getting the latest greatest. People here like to point to Apple/iOS but really, how many of the iPrecious users are still on an iphone 4 or 5? Seems that crowd rolls over every 12 to 18 months so what difference does it make?
(with protection plan) $5 per week for 3 years for security updates
$7.60 per week for 2 years for OS updates
Why, if it still works fine?
//Nexus 7 (2012) user here
I have a moto g3 quadcore and 1G(maybe 2G)RAM. I cannot reason about slow performance for non gaming / pixel heavy stuff.
https://i.imgur.com/9dnRrA0.jpg
When I bought the extended battery kit it lasted from 3-5 days. 3 major Android releases later it is rivaling some dumbphones.
Not having to worry ever about battery life has been life-changing and I'm not going back.
It still works fine, although I do use Firefox with ad-blocking extensions. I doubt I'll need to replace it for at least another year.
I also have a first generation Moto G (~2014) and an app I have here (OS Monitor) reports 70% battery health. In practical terms, the battery lasts a day of normal usage.
On the other hand, I have a ~2 year old Toshiba, and Linux here is reporting 0% battery health and a "last full capacity" of 0 mAh. If I unplug it, it goes under in 5-10 minutes (factory battery life was about 2:30 hours).
I read that the biggest battery killer is heat, not charge/discharge cycles.
Regardless, and if I am not mistaken, that figure of 1000 charge cycles is for cycles of 100% discharge (or as close as you can get before the protection circuits cut in) followed by 100% charge. This rarely happens in the "real world" and thus that figure will probably be much higher when adjusted for real world conditions.
(Off-topic) I still prefer Android with its volunteer ecosystem due to the freedom it offers me with respect to my devices. I have tried to switch to iOS a couple of times due to my perception of their stronger privacy policies but my use cases, which I have been familiar with since the days of Palm, are incompatible with non-rooted iOS use models.
Apple offers ~3 years of software updates included in the price of the phone.
Right now, Android companies COMPLETELY FAIL to match Apple's update value.
The idea that Android companies should switch to a paid update subscription model, while iDevices retain free updates for most of device life, would be a hilariously incompetent decision.
"They're better than us, we know it, so why not subscribe to us and pay us monthly to help us catch up to what they were doing a decade ago?"
I wouldn't mind getting an additional Android device, but two years of upgrades really isn't enough. It's nice to get a new OS upgrade every year.
Also five years for the iPhone 5 (2012-2017). since iOS 11 supports the iPhone 5s, it will also get its fifth years of updates. (Hopefully more! Mine is still going strong, the arm64 processor was revolutionary.)
Five years does not seem to be an outlier for iPhones anymore.
Launched October 2011 (w/ iOS 5.0)
Discontinued September 2014
Last OS update August 2016 (iOS 9.3.5)
OS becomes outdated September 2016 (iOS 10 released)
For reference, the September 2016 release of iOS 10 (which the 4S didn't get) corresponds to the iPhone 7 release. Software for the 4S was maintained through the releases of 5, 5S, 6, and 6S.
Granted it chugged a bit on the newer OSes and developers (especially 3rd party and web developers) started to waste enormous chunks of screen space because they collectively didn't give a shit about anyone who still had a 4" phone, but it's better treatment than you'd have gotten with any Android phone.
The closest apples-to-apples comparison would be Google's Nexus and Pixel lines to iPhone. In that case, the Nexus 5 came out in 2013 and received updates into 2016, before being dropped for Nougat. Pretty much all of their phones have seen similar support (N4: 2012-2015, N6: 2014-present, etc).
Sony seems to be nudging in that direction with their unified kernel, which should mean they at least only have to backport hacks once. They also have some vague attempts at mainline support.
Google provides core OS -> manufacturers add drivers -> done
(Of course this skips the "manufacturers add shitware" step).
But I've been told ARM just doesn't work that way and for whatever reason that I don't completely understand, hardware can't be abstracted this way on ARM.
> Devices shouldn’t become outdated every year. They should evolve with you.
Also the design looks much nicer than average cheap Android phones.
They only promised 3 years of security updates.
Make me a $200 phone with 3 years of updates and I'll be impressed, or an Android flagship with 5 years.
LineageOS is the continuation of CyanogenMod after Cyanogen Inc decided to close their Seattle office and pivot away from Android. The best way I can put it is "easily buildable Android for unlocked devices" (that is, assuming your device is supported - if it isn't, it's a bit more work). There are a handful of modifications but overall it's close to stock.
I don't get it, what's the draw here? Is it the accessories? A couple other phones already did that shtick, and the result was the same: release 3 or 4 gimmicky products and forget about it. They talk about maintainability, but there is no replaceable battery, no expandable storage... I don't get it, what's the draw?
To be honest I'm quite happy with my crap Moto G5 Plus phone. The screen and camera aren't that great, but hey at this price I won't complain.
EDIT: Er, did you mean pixel 1 or 2?
EDIT: Oh my god, it doesn't have a headphone jack! lol look at me eat my own words holy shit
This is totally subjective, but I don't get why anyone would buy a Pixel. It's overpriced, and one of the ugliest phones in the market. Sure the camera is the best available, but I just can't get past the looks.
Have they discussed whether the phone is designed to be rooted easily ? Like a nexus device, for instance ?
Phone > Specifications:
System Architecture / OS
Android
$699 may be as affordable as possible, but that doesn't mean it's not a a high-priced, out-of-reach good.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/6e6f48/exclusive_t...
Until 2 years passes...Apple supports their devices much longer than 2 years.
I mean, isn't this the price range for a premium phone and isn't this premium specced?
Except for the silly "Everybody should be able to afford craftsmanship" line, I am having a hard time understanding why people are flipping out about the price.
I for one welcome what looks to be a great premium phone with better software than most flagship phones.
Sorry, I was a huge Android fan for many years but I just can't take an OS serious where 50% of billiona of phones out there won't get any updates because manufacturers don't get this managed. This is just insane.
I am not active in the porting side right now, but am prototyping a mobile computing device that runs pmOS. It's kind of a neuromancer style ono-sendai portable deck: A rectangular box (approx 11x29x3cm) that you can opem up and velcro your linux phone into and have a full-sized, stainless steel, porclean, or plastic mechanical keyboard and foldable mouse with slots for extra memory and battery life. It is designed to be as compact and as durable as possible, while staying true to the postmarket name by sourcing from reused materials whenever possible.
My hypothetical market is mainly highly mobile autonomous individuals residing in developing world megacities, but I'm interested to know what someone from the US or Europe thinks about the idea.
Oh ya, one more thing, the profits go to pmOS, to scale up a re-wilding project, and to getting these hackable linux devices into the hands of children forced to work in the supply/waste chain of electronics manufacturing.
Oh, come on! It runs android. My phone and data belongs to google.
My phone is most certainly my personal property.
All of the attempts at differentiation seem muddled. It's upgradeable, not locked in, except the accessories use a proprietary docking system. It's high end, but that's an incredibly competitive space.
I would be shocked if this company last more than 5 years before acquisition/absorbtion.
I can imagine phones that could differentiate against Google/Apple... something super low end spec wise, that sips power and has a new OS built for speed. Maybe. I still think a Web Phone is a good idea. Maybe focus on niches like an exercise phone.
But... Any of this is extremely hard. Rubin just seems to be trying to beat Google at their own game, which I don't see going well.
On the other hand I can't charge and use an earphone at the same time which I often do during long journeys.
And I don't know how much impact will be transferred to the inside parts or the screen in case of a fall since it's not aluminium body or plastic (or this aspect is irrelevant?). But a slight fall the aluminium of iPhone SE takes one more dent or a tiny cut.
Plus, ceramic shatters on impact usually as does glass. Maybe I am missing something here. Hopefully they have done something to make it not too slippery. My iPhone SE keeps slipping and for the love of keeping the size and look as it is I haven't yet started using a case.
Though the clean and sleek look is very good. Hope it succeeds. Though I won't be waiting for it. I've moved to iOS and it's beyond my price and size range for a smartphone anyway.
Who can think of this as a good idea is beyond me
A common person uses the phone for "hello, how are you?" and social netowrking, games and some productivity. Anything more one would get a GoPro.
I have an iphone 6 and albeit its rather slow at times and receive iOS updates as the latest phones to an extend.
The android phones in the market takes about a year for an android update to be out in the market and one would have to be really lucky to get the update.
The phone manufactures in general can claim that the materials used are from the asteroid or whatever but the phone is actually limited by the OS & electronics capability
Not sure how Essential Phone is going to change any of this.
Treble is the framework which could potentially make 0-day Android updates possible.
This means every single required bloatware app Google requires in order to maintain their monopoly. And literally nothing else.
By what standard is this affordable?
Edit: Sprint is currently estimating August 28 on their shipping page.
- Dual cameras on back with depth estimation
- True monochrome images (digital B&W photography!)
- USB-C port
- Fingerprint sensor
- "full" display
Overall it's great to have a phone with foundational philosophy of keeping it clean, open and play with others nicely.
The biggest missing story is apps. Can I use Google Maps, Drive, Gmail, Now etc? Out of the box? Will Google Play Store be fully supported? Without all these apps, phone is just beautiful thin brick. Also, burning question is how this would stand up against Pixel.vNext which seems to have many (but not all) of same philosophies.
It also has a ceramic body and does hold up really well in drop tests.
>You deserve a phone that can resist the trials of everyday use. That’s why we made Essential Phone out of titanium and ceramic. These materials are harder, stronger, and more resistant to dents and scratches than the materials that make up most smartphones. And while costs for such finely crafted materials are usually reserved for high-priced, out-of-reach goods, we've tried to make our phone as affordable as possible.
I almost feel how hard he is forcing his engineer self to sound "markety"
Things I learnt: It uses an LCD(screams, I like AMOLED) and has no waterproofing. An update for the camera was pushed right before the review was release which improved it greatly. Seems like a good $500 phone not a $700 one to me.
https://www.theverge.com/2017/8/18/16165040/essential-phone-...
>Project Fi is available on the Pixel, Nexus 6P, Nexus 5X, and Nexus 6. Currently these are the only smartphones to support our network of networks. You must have the North American model of the above devices in order to use it on the Project Fi network.
However, I had problems with Project Fi sending my calls to random other peoples' phones across the country even when I was using my sim in my Nexus so I went back to T-Mobile.
0. http://arkienet.com/2016/03/fi-on-a-non-nexus-phone-is-like-...
Thank you!
no thanks, you are better off with flagship Samsung S8 which cost less
trying to use reputation of someone who was last time around Android in times of Jelly Bean release and who just copied iOS and completely changed original idea after release of iPhone, doesn't seem like that good idea for people who know facts
Of course the reason I'm not running Maru right now is that the used Nexus 5 I bought was a gigantic POS. This phone, plus Maru, would be fantastic.
that's when I stopped reading. does "always" mean "2 to 3 years"?
in any case, AFAIK, that's no better than the Google Nexus/Pixel phones.
What it has is a 2 year $99 extra warranty, on top of a $699 price.
I just feel like it's a rip off to ask me to shell out £500 every two years for new iPhone, £600 for new iPad and £2000 for new MacBook Pro (prices are my best guess, I think new iPhones actually go for as much as £700 with better specs). So I try to go using my current tech longer.
It's also environment friendly. Bad for companies if more customers start thinking like this because they depend on selling the same device over and over again with minor tweaks.
The OS runs a little slow on the 5's hardware now too. :/
Thanks to non-replaceable batteries, most phones will barely last half a day after 2 years. That was the only reason I upgraded.
The vast vast majority of people with access to mobile phones do not have the way or means to replace them at the rate you suggest.
That probably means:
- waterproof and dustproof
- shock resistant for drops from waist height to a hard surface
- replaceable battery
- stronger (heavier) frame
- a bezel around the screen that comes out a millimeter or two to protect it
- a back not made of glass
That sounds like a phone worth paying $700 for.
Probably a really nice camera though. Other than the look of the camera I would consider this phone.
Edit: Oh, it's an add-on. So it's like we're going back to the old Danger Sidekick days when they had that little camera dongle.
'Our phone is so thin! And has a projector and a great camera and a huge battery! You just need to carry a hand bag of accessories!'
https://www.xda-developers.com/one-class-action-lawsuit-agai...
1: https://www.amazon.com/BLU-R1-HD-Exclusive-Lockscreen/dp/B01...
I wonder if the magnetic attachment points will demagnetize your credit cards if you have them both in pocket or your purse?
At that price point, bollocks.
From the title and this subheading I was expecting something around 300, or at the very least sub-500, but nope.
Damn you Android guys have it bad. Apple pushes the software updates down your throats years after purchase.
Nah. I don't get why manufacturers stopped releasing 4" phones. Seems like a perfect screen size to me.
Verdict: pass.
No guarantee of software support for 3+ years either.
Of course we'll have to see if Essential can actually deliver on their promise...
So, my observation that Apple is no longer ahead of the competition (in terms of innovation, not volume) holds true.
But of course I am being downvoted into oblivion...
NEXT...
If that drop test is duplicated by a third party that would indeed be impressive.
Thanks for answering my question.
Woah. Tens of thousands? I would think a few thousand at most. There must be more to this story than I'm currently aware of. (This is the first I've ever heard of it.)
Of course, it's only being sold in the US. Do you know how awful it is for a single customer to try to buy something from another country?
Would you mind elaborating?
I once payed ~$30 import tax for ~$40 worth of books from Amazon. I ended up purchasing Kindle (no delivery inside of my country, so I had it delivered to another country + didn't declare it at the airport) just to avoid dealing with all of the above for book deliveries.
And I'm not living anywhere remotely inaccessible. I've lived most of my life like 500 meters + a river away from the European Union country.
In a previous life, I worked on a duty calculator, to help merchants inform their customers about any estimated duties, taxes and fees associated with the importation of goods.
Being in the US, it's pretty easy getting goods so cross border commerce pains is something we can't easily empathize with.
> Essential Phone will get guaranteed Android OS updates for 2 years and will get monthly security updates for 3 years.
That's honestly not much of an improvement, and I'm not aware of any current phones that are outdated after a year (unless you're one of those gadget fanatics who has to have the most cutting edge phone).
> we've tried to make our phone as affordable as possible.
$700 is affordable now? What world are we living in!? Silicon Valley, I guess?
> Simple is always better.
> we put nearly a year’s worth of development into making a camera that integrates into the body of the phone (without the tell tale camera hump)
Really starting to question their priorities at this point...
Maybe "essential" is the wrong word for what they're doing, because it seems like they spend a lot of time on things that aren't essential at all. Who needs a 360 camera? And who cares about a 1mm camera protrusion? And since when do we all agree that a 3.5mm headphone jack isn't "essential"?
> Devices should become outdated every other year.
if anyone told you that you would be using your own computer in "kiosk" mode with a root password you don't have, you would be laughing your ass off. but here we are, all using the 90s equivalent of a library computer.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gemini-pda-android-linux-...
Your phone is your personal property. It’s a public expression of who you are and what you stand for.
Just because we played a part in making it doesn’t mean you should be forced to advertise that fact to everyone in your life. Now you know why we don't have any logos on the phone.
They've thoroughly outclassed Apple in this and a number of other ways. I think they've put a lot of thought into matching the thoughts and aspirations of customers, and if the phone is anywhere near what it's cracked up to be, it's probably worth the price.
That said, 2 years is the standard replacement period for most postpaid carriers, so it might be that way effectively anyway for many customers.
Yeah, that doesn't seem that great at all. iPhones are 3-5 years. https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/53mizf/iph...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVME_l4IwII
To this customer, getting tangled in your headphones is a bigger problem than shit sound and $400 headphones that die after a year's use.
I just kept adapters on the ends of my two pairs of headphones and it wasn't an issue.
Then I got AirPods (any good BT headphones would work) and care even less.
I was a tiny bit worried, but it ended up being a non-issue for me.
At least with Apple, you can expect things like this because they're an (often annoyingly) opinionated company. No idea why all the Android companies followed suit, though. Wired headphones aren't going anywhere in the next few decades.
Please don't suggest Beats by Dre, or Apple. They aren't either.
Or the killer feature of knockabout earbuds: that they cost $10 or so you can use them without worrying about leaving them somewhere, and afford to keep a pair in every bag.
Slightly off-topic: my experience with Bluetooth does make me wonder how many people have been put off by Apple's Bluetooth stack. But given the alternative is a work-provided USB headset, I just plug the headphones in.
Also WTF at your username
https://www.amazon.com/s/?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywo...
Removing the headphone jack is a rediculous and unnecessary regression. We have plenty of choice among phones, and I won't compromise on something that could have so easily been included -- and is included by almost every competitor.
It's because 1) they want to save space inside the housing for other components, and 2) industry leaders want to move the industry beyond wired headphones.
Another audio device lacking the cheapest, most popular and reliable audio interface... No thanks.
Unfortunately, this is the maximum any vendor can promise to do right now, as anymore than that depends on the chip manufacturers and such to support their chips. So until Google changes that somehow by forcing manufacturers' hand, this will be the best we'll get.
They had an opportunity to experiment with offering a FOSS mobile OS, but instead they chose to go with design-by-committee's poster child.
I've dropped the iPhone a little more than a year ago. I got a Y6II for $179. Perfect performance, but didn't like Huawei's tweaks to Android.
I just got a Moto G5 Plus with nearly-stock Android and it's the best phone I've ever owned, and I paid only EUR 280 for it.
I'm not saying the phone isn't great, just a personal perspective.