Prospects for an accessible and open version of Android?

[Linux for blind general discussion]

On the issue of planned obsolescence, I had my iPhone 4S for over five
years, and it got updates from Apple through that whole time. I paid it off
long before the five years was up. It was getting long in the tooth at the
end, and I did notice a significant improvement in performance when I
replaced it with an S7 from Samsung, but it was still usable when I retired
it.

--
Christopher (AKA CJ)
Chaltain at Gmail

> -----Original Message-----
> From: blinux-list-bounces at redhat.com <blinux-list-bounces at redhat.com> On
> Behalf Of Linux for blind general discussion
> Sent: Sunday, June 21, 2020 10:55 AM
> To: blinux-list at redhat.com
> Subject: Re: Prospects for an accessible and open version of Android?
> 
> While I agree price is an issue(even at it's minimal specs, the Meerkat is
about
> 5.5 times the price of a 4GB Pi 4 with case and all the needed accessories
to
> power the Pi from a wall socket, and all you really get for that extra
money is a
> SSD for holding the OS, a second 4GB of Ram and the greater flexibility of
> running an x86 distro), but I don't really get the size argument. The 10cm
cube
> engraved with a 1cm grid I keep around for making rough measurements won't
> fit in my pocket, but a plastic container I have that, comparing it to the
cube is at
> least 4.5 inches wide, 5 inches long, and two inches thick fits no problem
and the
> Meerkat is only 4.5*4.5*1.5 inches if I remember correctly. Hell, I'm
pretty sure
> the Meerkat is smaller than a Nintendo DS classic and Playstation Vita
combined,
> and if I were to pull those out of my box of old hardware, I have no doubt
both
> could fit in the same pocket.
> 
> Now, admittedly, maybe I'm just lucky to have decently sized pockets and
> normal pockets really are as tiny as implied, but I don't hold my Pi 3 in
my hand
> and think"I wish this thing was smaller), and while the only Smartphone I
own is
> a dinosaur from the Android 2.x days, whenever I think about trying to
> repurpose the old thing, if anything, I wish it was big enough that the
keys and
> key spacing on it's built-in keyboard where on par with a TI-83 graphing
> calculator and that it had a full-sized SD slot and everytime I hold
someone else
> smartphone, I tend to think along the lines of "would it kill them to add
enough
> bulk to fit a higher capacity battery, physical keyboard, full-sized SD
slot or any
> of the other things that have been sacrificed in the name of
miniaturization as a
> terminal goal?
> 
> That said, it'd be great if planned obsolescence didn't render phones
borderline
> unusable by the time the average person has paid one off and if Android
wasn't
> stuck in proprietary driver hell that prevents all but the most popular
models
> from ever getting aftermarket support.
> 
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