This is why I'm looking at an iPhone as my next device when my current phone gives up the ghost. If you're going to force me into a walled garden then I might get one that offers the most "social interoperability" where I live, and has a nicer (imo) ecosystem built around it.
The section on copy pasted designs really hit home for me. Android phones used to be the wild west of experimentation and phones that were cool tech in your pocket, not just mini computers. I think part of it is because phones are required for day to day living so they've converged onto a single design style. LG had some of the coolest experimentation but never really stuck with one or ever fleshed out any of their ideas. The G5 was awesome and I wish they had pushed it more for it's modularity. I had one until it got run over and upgraded to a G8, which is fine I guess? It's a very boring phone, no IR blaster, and no subtle curves leading up to the camera and fingerprint sensor.
Some of the coolest phones I've ever see were the ones that were sold with Caterpillar Inc. Rugged phones that could survive a lot, and some of them had thermal cameras, which seems like a gimmick but were incredible when you needed it.
I won't be replacing my android phone either. But I'm also not going to the iPhone. I don't find anything in that ecosystem any more attractive than android.
Instead, I'll be forgoing a smartphone entirely. I've been keeping close track on my smartphone usage, and there is literally nothing I use it for that is actually necessary, so giving it up seems like an easy win.
How are you doing MFA, or don't you need it?
I only use one-time code stuff, and I don't need a smartphone to do that. Even if I expand to other MFA types, I can't think of one that actually requires a smartphone to perform. A smartphone is a convenience, yes, but not a necessity for me as near as I can tell.
I'm in the same boat as well, my current Android will be my last.
The hardware keeps falling further behind on specs while it cuts features and raises prices.
The software is quickly becoming forced AI gimmicks that stop being supported in the next update and change for the sake of change for worse and bugs galore. I pretty much dread when Android updates now; the best case scenario is everything gets a bit uglier, but the typical case is instability for a couple months.
So do I, but to be fair, I dread all software updates on anything these days.
This is exactly why I left Android. If you're going to become the iPhone and cost nearly as much, I'll just buy the real thing.
Wait what?
Android phones are more open than ever with the recent EU laws and Google anti-trust rulings. Android and iOS are not at all comparable in that aspect.
Android phones receive longer updates than ever.
Android phones are more innovative than ever with all these foldables.
Android phones consistently have better specs than iPhones at the same price point.
Specs peaked years ago. I don't want anything new phones have to offer, other than maybe a screen that isn't cracked, or a newer battery, etc. New Androids are a downgrade in functional hardware features and software customization compared to older flagships. I don't need a screen that folds, built-in AI, or a marginally better camera with heavier post processing.
When the day comes that I'm forced into buying a new phone again, I'm with the others above. I'm not getting an overpriced Google branded iPhone clone sold by an ad company. I'd rather finally make the move to get an actual iPhone or go back to dumb phones.
100%. I miss the days when my phone was my phone, not Google’s.
And of course nowadays a Windows computer really belongs to Microsoft, and an Apple computer belongs to Apple. At least my Linux box is mine. Well, mine and Lennart’s.
Linux is going super strong in 2025, I'd say we're in the best health we've ever been. Totally usable on desktop, so many vibrant distros that all bring something different.
The phone situation is so tragic, they're so central to our lives but so utterly awful.
I was sooooo interested in Linux phones over the last couple years. Following the Pinephone and various other Distro that were tailored for mobile and it just didnt go anywhere.
Even with things like Waydroid that allows to run Android Apps on top of the distro. Im very hoping that in years, this will change. I love my OnePlus 9 + Murena OS with its built-in tracker blocker.
I've always been rather happy with Android in the form of certain versions/ROMs like Cyanogen in the past or GrapheneOS nowadays. The latter is lean, not bloated, secure and - IMO - very usable. Installing it is easy and there are also easy and well documented methods included for enabling all sorts of Google functionality which (some) users might be missing from the default state (like the Play store, "enhanced" location services and all those sorts of things).
I also have an iPhone as a work device and I've had different personal iPhones in the past. iOS is fine but Android can be much more flexible (and easy access to an open source "App Store" like F-Droid is awesome).
I don't think I agree with this article at all. Yes, it's true that the modding scene has largely gone away, and that's a shame. But Android is still the platform that things are tried out on. There are cheap phones like the Nothing phone doing stuff with customization and LED lighting. There are flip phones and foldables. Android gets the more interesting camera stuff before Apple does. Some things have gone away or gone the same path as the iPhone, especially if you look at Samsung who are Apple's main competitor. My most recent Android phone is from Oppo and has the best camera I've had on a phone, a really fantastic battery life, and it was cheaper than the last 3. And I can still install the browser I like with full ad-blocking, I can still replace the launcher, and I can still use alternate app stores.
Companies make what they think people will buy. Not enough people cared about certain features so things moved on.
I'm in the process of switching to Graphene OS. So far its a very capable system with minimal tinkering to get basic functionality. I'm seeing how far i can get without the sandboxed Play Store, there's a lot of great FOSS and alt "playstores" for rapid trial and error. Reminds me a bit of the early days of smart phones when you could sample whatever apps were trending without fear of ads and micro transactions, and play around with the device to get it just right.
I can point to my phone as being one of those devices that's _lost_ functionality over the past ten years.
Losing functionality is not bad in and of itself, if I stand to gain something in excess of what I lost, but that hasn't happened. Consider when I made the switch from a Treo 650 to an HTC Sensation (yes, I had that Treo a _long_ time): I sacrificed the hard keyboard and exceptionally easy-to-use operating system for Wi-Fi, a decent quality camera, fast-at-the-time 3.5G network connectivity, and the entire Android ecosystem.
Then I broke the screen, and got an HTC M9. I gained a bigger screen that I didn't want, an IR blaster that I never used, faster CPU, more memory, more flash... for a device that I didn't do much with. Worse, I lost the replaceable battery - I actually had multiple batteries before that.
Then I broke the screen on _that_, and got an HTC 10. I again gained a bigger screen that I didn't want, I lost the IR blaster that I never used, and again got a faster CPU, more memory, and more flash for a device that I didn't do much with.
Then the battery went flat, and I got an Asus Zenfone 8, which gained me basically nothing over the HTC 10 except 128GB of storage that I don't use. In this trade, I lost having a good camera in my pocket - the Zenfone 8's camera is atrocious, and even my HTC Sensation took better photos than it does. It has a headphone jack, but it's died and I haven't fixed it... which is a shame, because I have an 80s car with the cassette deck adapter, so effectively that feature's as good as gone as well.
My next phone will probably be a headphone jack-less, swappable battery-less, SD-card-less, possibly even SIM-card-less monster of a 6-inch-plus phone. At least I'll hopefully end up with a better camera in that trade.
Re cassette adapter- get a aux to Bluetooth adapter, power by cigarette lighter. I did this with my old 2009 Honda and the cd/aux - worked well either pairing. The adapters don’t cost very much.
Android lost its edge when Huawei was denied access to the Play Store.
Huawei was the driving force behind true innovation in the Android ecosystem and one of its biggest contributors.
Even today, my 2019 P30 Pro holds its own against the latest flagships—a testament to the kind of progress we lost.
>Huawei was the driving force behind true innovation in the Android ecosystem and one of its biggest contributors.
>Even today, my 2019 P30 Pro holds its own against the latest flagships—a testament to the kind of progress we lost.
What "innovation" are you talking about? Comparisons to other phones released alongside the P30 Pro doesn't show as it being better in any meaningful aspect. Camera performance is basically the same as an iPhone[1][2], and CPU performance is about the same as other flagship Androids[3].
Your last paragraph is evidence how nobody in the smartphone sector, including Huawei, has innovated in the last 6 years.
IR blaster was so damn useful. Not sure a single production phone still has one.
I have a Xiaomi Redmi Note 13, and it comes with it. But I've been unable to find a way to freely record/send IR commands without using their application :/
Somewhat shamefully, this is probably what like a good 60% of my use for my flipper zero has devolved into. If we're going to be surrounded by IR controllable devices, give us the ability to control the dang things!
My Honor Magic V3 does, which was a pleasant surprise.
Oneplus still has IR blasters. I just use it to turn the TV off when the volume is too loud and the kid has lost the remote.
A Gnu/Linux phone with Android in a container using WayDroid or AnBox gives you the best of both worlds.
When I first heard that Android was based on Linux, I thought, "Great! I'll be able to use my phone the way I use my desktop, with shell scripts, cron tasks, etc."
The reality was quite a disappointment. I suppose I could do at least some of the things I'd like to do with it if I rooted it, but I don't want to become a full-on hobbyist; I just want to do basic things that I routinely do in seconds on a normal PC.
Not quite on par with a proper programming environment like desktop Linux, you can still do some useful things with Termux on a non rooted device. Only recently got into it, but it's quite cool to be able to ssh in and write scripts, use Termux API plugin and other things Worth checking out.
I wish Android dev wasn't such a pia and tied to Android SDK. I just want to "make" and "./main" without 10gigs of Android crap to get a hello world app.
This is why I'm looking at an iPhone as my next device when my current phone gives up the ghost. If you're going to force me into a walled garden then I might get one that offers the most "social interoperability" where I live, and has a nicer (imo) ecosystem built around it.
The section on copy pasted designs really hit home for me. Android phones used to be the wild west of experimentation and phones that were cool tech in your pocket, not just mini computers. I think part of it is because phones are required for day to day living so they've converged onto a single design style. LG had some of the coolest experimentation but never really stuck with one or ever fleshed out any of their ideas. The G5 was awesome and I wish they had pushed it more for it's modularity. I had one until it got run over and upgraded to a G8, which is fine I guess? It's a very boring phone, no IR blaster, and no subtle curves leading up to the camera and fingerprint sensor.
Some of the coolest phones I've ever see were the ones that were sold with Caterpillar Inc. Rugged phones that could survive a lot, and some of them had thermal cameras, which seems like a gimmick but were incredible when you needed it.
I won't be replacing my android phone either. But I'm also not going to the iPhone. I don't find anything in that ecosystem any more attractive than android.
Instead, I'll be forgoing a smartphone entirely. I've been keeping close track on my smartphone usage, and there is literally nothing I use it for that is actually necessary, so giving it up seems like an easy win.
How are you doing MFA, or don't you need it?
I only use one-time code stuff, and I don't need a smartphone to do that. Even if I expand to other MFA types, I can't think of one that actually requires a smartphone to perform. A smartphone is a convenience, yes, but not a necessity for me as near as I can tell.
I'm in the same boat as well, my current Android will be my last.
The hardware keeps falling further behind on specs while it cuts features and raises prices.
The software is quickly becoming forced AI gimmicks that stop being supported in the next update and change for the sake of change for worse and bugs galore. I pretty much dread when Android updates now; the best case scenario is everything gets a bit uglier, but the typical case is instability for a couple months.
Meanwhile, Apple's ecosystem keeps getting better.
> I pretty much dread when Android updates now
So do I, but to be fair, I dread all software updates on anything these days.
This is exactly why I left Android. If you're going to become the iPhone and cost nearly as much, I'll just buy the real thing.
Wait what?
Android phones are more open than ever with the recent EU laws and Google anti-trust rulings. Android and iOS are not at all comparable in that aspect.
Android phones receive longer updates than ever.
Android phones are more innovative than ever with all these foldables.
Android phones consistently have better specs than iPhones at the same price point.
Specs peaked years ago. I don't want anything new phones have to offer, other than maybe a screen that isn't cracked, or a newer battery, etc. New Androids are a downgrade in functional hardware features and software customization compared to older flagships. I don't need a screen that folds, built-in AI, or a marginally better camera with heavier post processing.
When the day comes that I'm forced into buying a new phone again, I'm with the others above. I'm not getting an overpriced Google branded iPhone clone sold by an ad company. I'd rather finally make the move to get an actual iPhone or go back to dumb phones.
100%. I miss the days when my phone was my phone, not Google’s.
And of course nowadays a Windows computer really belongs to Microsoft, and an Apple computer belongs to Apple. At least my Linux box is mine. Well, mine and Lennart’s.
Linux is going super strong in 2025, I'd say we're in the best health we've ever been. Totally usable on desktop, so many vibrant distros that all bring something different.
The phone situation is so tragic, they're so central to our lives but so utterly awful.
I was sooooo interested in Linux phones over the last couple years. Following the Pinephone and various other Distro that were tailored for mobile and it just didnt go anywhere.
Even with things like Waydroid that allows to run Android Apps on top of the distro. Im very hoping that in years, this will change. I love my OnePlus 9 + Murena OS with its built-in tracker blocker.
I've always been rather happy with Android in the form of certain versions/ROMs like Cyanogen in the past or GrapheneOS nowadays. The latter is lean, not bloated, secure and - IMO - very usable. Installing it is easy and there are also easy and well documented methods included for enabling all sorts of Google functionality which (some) users might be missing from the default state (like the Play store, "enhanced" location services and all those sorts of things).
I also have an iPhone as a work device and I've had different personal iPhones in the past. iOS is fine but Android can be much more flexible (and easy access to an open source "App Store" like F-Droid is awesome).
I don't think I agree with this article at all. Yes, it's true that the modding scene has largely gone away, and that's a shame. But Android is still the platform that things are tried out on. There are cheap phones like the Nothing phone doing stuff with customization and LED lighting. There are flip phones and foldables. Android gets the more interesting camera stuff before Apple does. Some things have gone away or gone the same path as the iPhone, especially if you look at Samsung who are Apple's main competitor. My most recent Android phone is from Oppo and has the best camera I've had on a phone, a really fantastic battery life, and it was cheaper than the last 3. And I can still install the browser I like with full ad-blocking, I can still replace the launcher, and I can still use alternate app stores.
Companies make what they think people will buy. Not enough people cared about certain features so things moved on.
I'm in the process of switching to Graphene OS. So far its a very capable system with minimal tinkering to get basic functionality. I'm seeing how far i can get without the sandboxed Play Store, there's a lot of great FOSS and alt "playstores" for rapid trial and error. Reminds me a bit of the early days of smart phones when you could sample whatever apps were trending without fear of ads and micro transactions, and play around with the device to get it just right.
I can point to my phone as being one of those devices that's _lost_ functionality over the past ten years.
Losing functionality is not bad in and of itself, if I stand to gain something in excess of what I lost, but that hasn't happened. Consider when I made the switch from a Treo 650 to an HTC Sensation (yes, I had that Treo a _long_ time): I sacrificed the hard keyboard and exceptionally easy-to-use operating system for Wi-Fi, a decent quality camera, fast-at-the-time 3.5G network connectivity, and the entire Android ecosystem.
Then I broke the screen, and got an HTC M9. I gained a bigger screen that I didn't want, an IR blaster that I never used, faster CPU, more memory, more flash... for a device that I didn't do much with. Worse, I lost the replaceable battery - I actually had multiple batteries before that.
Then I broke the screen on _that_, and got an HTC 10. I again gained a bigger screen that I didn't want, I lost the IR blaster that I never used, and again got a faster CPU, more memory, and more flash for a device that I didn't do much with.
Then the battery went flat, and I got an Asus Zenfone 8, which gained me basically nothing over the HTC 10 except 128GB of storage that I don't use. In this trade, I lost having a good camera in my pocket - the Zenfone 8's camera is atrocious, and even my HTC Sensation took better photos than it does. It has a headphone jack, but it's died and I haven't fixed it... which is a shame, because I have an 80s car with the cassette deck adapter, so effectively that feature's as good as gone as well.
My next phone will probably be a headphone jack-less, swappable battery-less, SD-card-less, possibly even SIM-card-less monster of a 6-inch-plus phone. At least I'll hopefully end up with a better camera in that trade.
Re cassette adapter- get a aux to Bluetooth adapter, power by cigarette lighter. I did this with my old 2009 Honda and the cd/aux - worked well either pairing. The adapters don’t cost very much.
Android lost its edge when Huawei was denied access to the Play Store.
Huawei was the driving force behind true innovation in the Android ecosystem and one of its biggest contributors.
Even today, my 2019 P30 Pro holds its own against the latest flagships—a testament to the kind of progress we lost.
>Huawei was the driving force behind true innovation in the Android ecosystem and one of its biggest contributors.
>Even today, my 2019 P30 Pro holds its own against the latest flagships—a testament to the kind of progress we lost.
What "innovation" are you talking about? Comparisons to other phones released alongside the P30 Pro doesn't show as it being better in any meaningful aspect. Camera performance is basically the same as an iPhone[1][2], and CPU performance is about the same as other flagship Androids[3].
[1] https://www.dxomark.com/huawei-p30-pro-camera-review/
[2] https://www.dxomark.com/updated-apple-iphone-11-pro-max-came...
[3] https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/compare_cpu-hisilicon_kirin_98...
Your last paragraph is evidence how nobody in the smartphone sector, including Huawei, has innovated in the last 6 years.
IR blaster was so damn useful. Not sure a single production phone still has one.
I have a Xiaomi Redmi Note 13, and it comes with it. But I've been unable to find a way to freely record/send IR commands without using their application :/
Somewhat shamefully, this is probably what like a good 60% of my use for my flipper zero has devolved into. If we're going to be surrounded by IR controllable devices, give us the ability to control the dang things!
My Honor Magic V3 does, which was a pleasant surprise.
Oneplus still has IR blasters. I just use it to turn the TV off when the volume is too loud and the kid has lost the remote.
A Gnu/Linux phone with Android in a container using WayDroid or AnBox gives you the best of both worlds.
When I first heard that Android was based on Linux, I thought, "Great! I'll be able to use my phone the way I use my desktop, with shell scripts, cron tasks, etc."
The reality was quite a disappointment. I suppose I could do at least some of the things I'd like to do with it if I rooted it, but I don't want to become a full-on hobbyist; I just want to do basic things that I routinely do in seconds on a normal PC.
Not quite on par with a proper programming environment like desktop Linux, you can still do some useful things with Termux on a non rooted device. Only recently got into it, but it's quite cool to be able to ssh in and write scripts, use Termux API plugin and other things Worth checking out.
I wish Android dev wasn't such a pia and tied to Android SDK. I just want to "make" and "./main" without 10gigs of Android crap to get a hello world app.