Recently I started exploring and building things for Ubunbu Touch, and I intend to test a couple other mobile systems in the upcoming months.
The reason was that late last year, I came to the realization that we really need a viable alternative to Android and iOS. Before that, I still believed that using Degoogled ROMs such as LineageOS, GrapheneOS, or others would be enough. You would just install F-Droid or another alternative app store, enable the developer settings, and then you would be good to go.
Recent events and the trends we can observe tell that things are moving in the opposite direction, the direction of people (users and developers) increasingly losing control over their devices and their apps.
iOS was always closed, and Apple has more control over your device than you. Android was supposed to be the open alternative. Deep down in theory that is still true, in practice, Google is trying very hard to close that gap gradually. Users have been losing control for a while, and recently we found that to run software on your devices you will need to pay for Google’s permission. It gets worse; even paying you will need to follow a cumbersome process to install software that can take 24 hours.
A movement was started to try to stop this, but I think it is a losing battle.
The above is completely the oposite of the freedom we still have on our computers, where one can easily change the software their device uses with little control from the supplier. You bought it with Windows, but you can replace it with Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, ReactOS, Haiku, etc. And then run your or another person’s apps as you wish (the device is yours).
On mobile you are locked down, and they are trying to make it increasingly difficult to run anything else. Even app developers and companies are incentivized to lock their apps to only these 2 systems for “security” reasons; alternative ROMs are being blocked.
Our lives are now dependent on these mobile devices (almost everything is an app or requires an app); that’s a fact of modern times.
Ahead of the disenfranchisement of people without a smartphone or people with the old phone, we are close to witnessing a person being required to become a customer of two foreign companies to be a citizen in their own country.
And I just don’t want to get started on all the digital sovereignty aspects of it. They affect people, organizations, and governments, and it is clear that they nowadays are more important than ever.
What would an alternative look like?
The truth is that I’m not 100% sure, but I do know we need one. I guess it would be nice that it would be open-source (at least the core of it), with multiple stores or ways to provide/get software, and with a clear focus on interoperability.
It shouldn’t also be a copy of the existing ecosystems. This means a Windows Phone (belonging to Microsoft) wouldn’t be a real alternative, since it would also be closed and belong to a foreign big tech company.
Tiny and completely distinct systems, popping like mushrooms, wouldn’t also be a real alternative, since they would fail to get any sort of traction and attention. They might be interesting for hobbyists to experiment with, but nobody will invest in them if there aren’t sufficient people using and building for them.
Starting from scratch is also very hard; we have a few examples of failed attempts.
So, our best bet is to put the weight of all the people who are uncomfortable with this situation behind something that already exists, that already has some community, that can be developed independently.
The best candidates I could find are:
- SailfishOS
- Nura (previously called PostmarketOS)
- Ubuntu Touch
These will be the ones I will be exploring, testing, and perhaps contributing to. Regardless of my preference, I don’t mind which one wins; I just think one of them needs to take off.
