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4.3 Billion People Now Own Smartphones (www.gizchina.com)

submitted 1 year ago by L4s@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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4.3 Billion People Now Own Smartphones::Find out how smartphone ownership has reached 4.3 billion people worldwide. Dive into the GSMA's Mobile Internet Connectivity 2023 Report.

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[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Exactly. I keep looking at small Linux devices, waiting for the day when I can replace my phone with one of those.

Sadly, more and more, an android phone is made quasi mandatory for a number of things (like banking auth), and I'm not sure how to work around that yet.

[–] smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 year ago

First really important thing to do is to refuse anything that locks you in.

[–] btaf45@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

An Android phone is a small Linux device. Just install termux.

[–] smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's not. It just has really heavly modified Linux kernel and the similarities end there. Termux uses a hack that was already patched, so if Termux ever update to newer API level it won't work.

I hate how files, the UI and overall services managment work on Android. I cannot mount a drive, access app's files and their configs, I cannot change the UI environment or system theme (besides basic setting of app launcher and dark/light), I cannot update beyond manufacturer support and swap OSes like on PC and the list goes on...

[–] btaf45@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Termux uses a hack that was already patched, so if Termux ever update to newer API level it won't work.

I got a brand new phone and installed Termux a few weeks ago.

I cannot mount a drive, access app's files and their configs,

That is a problem on normal Android. But with Termux and certain other programs that have the right permissions, like the "File" app that came with my Samsung, you can access the entire OS and network drives.

I cannot update beyond manufacturer support and swap OSes like on PC and the list goes on...

If you root your phone you can do anything.

[–] smileyhead@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I got a brand new phone and installed Termux a few weeks ago. Because of backwards compatibility of Android, you can install older apps. But Termux was not updated in ~2 years and no app targeting modern version can use permissions that Termux needs.

That is a problem on normal Android. But with Termux and certain other programs that have the right permissions, like the “File” app that came with my Samsung, you can access the entire OS and network drives. Also not what I ment, I see you haven't used Linux for longer, but it has a concept of mounting. You mount some virtual or real drive to a diretory and then this directory behave like a "portal". By this way you can for example mount online storage drive as it was a physical and for example install programs on it.

If you root your phone you can do anything. Not true. This is in theory, in practice you are very limited by Android messed up nature and lack of documentation from manufacturer side. Look up PostmarketOS, a real Linux distribution that community maintain. You can see how short is the list of supported phones, it needs to be ported for every device separately and takes huge amount of work. Look up PostmarketOS, it is a real mainline (means without much modifications) Linux-based OS. You can plug a monitor in and there would be no difference between PC and this, can install desktop apps.

[–] btaf45@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I see you haven't used Linux for longer, but it has a concept of mounting.

Dude I've used Unix for 40 years since before Linux existed. I had an Android tablet, in which I installed termux on, and mounted my shared network drives using Samba on termux. I literally used the Linux "mount" command to mount it to my termux linux filesystem.

You can see how short is the list of supported phones, it needs to be ported for every device separately and takes huge amount of work

And it was a huge amount of work to port Unix to various hardware back in the day.