
PostmarketOS: Aiming for a 10 year life-cycle for smartphones - ollieparanoid
https://ollieparanoid.github.io/post/postmarketOS/
======
kasbah
> Alright, so there is the LineageOS community, which provides weekly updates
> for an impressive number of smartphones. They provide a practical solution
> today, and I am very grateful for that. However, such Android based projects
> will always run behind Google and the phone industry, fixing only symptoms
> but never the root-cause.

I think it's very ambitious to not base this off of the work being done on
Android but of course would love a proper GNU/Linux distro on my phone as
well.

Lineage OS (formerly CyanogenMod) will run on a Samsung S II which is 5 years
old. It might support some older devices that I am not aware of. I could see
it still being supported 5 years down the line.

[https://download.lineageos.org/](https://download.lineageos.org/)

~~~
StavrosK
Wow, they have up-to-date images for the previous version of LineageOS for the
Google Nexus, even.

Has anyone tried it on such an old phone? Is it dog-slow?

~~~
kasbah
I don't know if you count it as an old phone but I use it on a Samsung SIII
(Wikipedia says that launched 2012) and it's snappy as heck.

The current images are nightlies so I have encountered a few bugs. Previously
was running CyanogenMod 13 on a stable image and that was fine (but the
CyanogenMod company folded so it wasn't going to get security updates).
Looking forward to a stable release of Lineage.

~~~
StavrosK
Very interesting, thanks. Which Android version is LOS 13?

~~~
kasbah
~I don't think Lineage OS 13 exists.~ (edit: it seems it does for some
models). CyanogenMod 13 was Android 6 I believe and Lineage 14 nightlies are
currently 7.1.2.

~~~
voidz
It exists. But I guess I get why you might be thinking this: with CM13 there
were nightly builds for lots and lots of devices, but with LOS13 they heavily
reduced the amount of devices for which they build nightlies.

I'm not sure if this means that they ceased to support LOS13 for these devices
entirely. But it does seem that way, on account of how long it's been since
the device tree ('DT') and kernel for my phone have seen any update. (HTC One
M9, a.k.a. _himaul_ )

Nowadays I just build LOS13 myself every once in a while, because it still
receives generic updates and fixes, and luckily the current kernel and DT
still work fine. It's just that, while the DT also wasn't updated that often
back on CM13, iirc the kernel did receive updates and fixes fairly regularly.
With that no longer being the case is why I suspect they halted supporting it
at all.

My reason for staying on LOS13 rather than to upgrade to LOS14 is that the
Xposed Framework does not exist for LOS14 / Android N. So that's what I'm
waiting for. I wish the LOS13 would recognize how many people want to use 13
on the M9 and provide updates even if it's just once a month. Or maybe they do
recognise this, but they just don't have the manpower, resources, or heck
maybe there were too many problems when users switched from CM to LOS... I
don't know.

There is just one really annoying error which I don't know how to fix, which
is that the default camera app crashes, I suspect because of face detection. I
thought they fixed that on CM13 ages ago. I guess he bug snuck back in. The
OpenCamera does _not_ crash, thank heavens, but it's still a nasty issue I
wish would be addressed.

Anyway. My point was that it's still possible to build LOS13 for many devices.

~~~
gant
Not all of the maintainers came over to LOS. They only support devices with
volunteer maintainers.

[https://wiki.lineageos.org/faq.html#my-device-is-not-
officia...](https://wiki.lineageos.org/faq.html#my-device-is-not-officially-
supported-but-id-really-like-to-give-lineageos-a-try-can-you-support-my-
device)

------
jancsika
Why is "phone interface" buried down at the end of the page under "future
goals"?

I mean, if a project wanted to put a "10 year life-cycle" on an IoT blender by
porting Gnu/Linux to it, you'd think the _first_ order of business would be
writing a Gnu/Linux program to, you know, blend things. Getting 10+ years of
running performant Weston demos would be a very distant 2nd to that.

~~~
jampa
That's is what I think is one of the huge problems with GNU/Linux and OSS
projects, design being an afterthought rather than one of the core features.

I mean there is a ton of linux distributions that run better on my PC, but I
still rather Hackintosh it due to the linux distros interface design and I bet
others do the same.

I know this is a new project, but in order to ever hit the mainstream, it
needs to have a interface at least as good stock android/TouchWiz. Otherwise
people will be driven away, I ask people about Ubuntu and they won't ever say
"the design is bad". But they said they switched back to Windows because "they
couldn't get a hang of it", because the interface made them feel confused.

~~~
ollieparanoid
I agree with the "interface at least as good as stock Android" part. I
wouldn't even mind if someone re-created the Android UI with native GNU/Linux
libraries instead of the ones from Android.

As long as the user choose the interface, this would surely make it easier for
people to switch from Android to postmarketOS and users who'd like to use
something different could freely do so.

~~~
ucaetano
Will never happen (well, with 99.9% confidence).

It would require replicating all of Google's Android APIs and keeping them
constantly up-to-date with Google's, forever.

Extremely well-funded Amazon and Samsung tried, both gave up.

~~~
ollieparanoid
Wait, I did not say that it needs to be compatible with anything. Just
recreating the top bar, that you can drag down to connect to your Wi-Fi etc.
and the three buttons at the bottom working in a similar way would make it
very easy to migrate without any compatibility requirements.

But as ocdtrekkie has noted: > At the point where the phone OS can't make
calls yet, worrying about style is a bit premature.

------
jacquesm
There is one small fallacy in the decade old PC versus the decade old
smarphone comparison: PCs are not status symbols but smartphones are and
fashion is a _huge_ component in why smartphones are replaced.

Another driving force is that a smartphone made a decade ago would simply not
be able to use many of todays apps because it is missing certain sensors.

so while I hope this will take off I see some obstacles. Happy owner of a 10
year old Nokia here that serves me well, I've tried quite a few smartphones
over the years but I never found anything that I really needed that would make
me give up 5 day battery life and being 100% drop proof.

~~~
wvenable
The other factor is if the phone doesn't have a user-replaceable battery then
it has a short self-life regardless of the software situation. Batteries don't
last.

~~~
danjoc
Anecdote: I'm getting ~9 days to a charge with my Nexus 5. Battery life
improved after I moved from CM to LineageOS. Max was about 7 days on CM. I
know batteries don't last forever, but the hardware is still perfectly good.
Google doesn't care about Nexus 5 owners anymore. It's sad really. They should
at least open source the drivers if they don't want to support it anymore.
Even if I purchase a new phone, this one could still make someone happy for
many more years. It doesn't belong on a rubbish heap.

~~~
bschwindHN
Is that 9 days idling? That's fantastic for a nexus 5! Mine is running stock
Android, it's over 2 years old, and the battery lasts maybe 16 hours with
normal daily usage. It's still a very capable phone, but it's a shame it's
becoming unsupported and slowing down as makes their apps more sluggish. I
switched to an iPhone SE recently, Google's apps run much better on iOS in my
opinion.

------
drcross
I hope this takes off. I was happily using a note 4 for years, occasionally
buying a new battery because it allowed you to change it by removing the back
(remember all the phones that used to do that?). The only reason I had to
retire it was because I needed security patches but each update made the phone
progressively slower. My new phone has exactly the same features and if I
factory restored the note 4 it would run as fast as my new one but phone
manufacturers don't exactly like that, and it's something that should change.

~~~
tzakrajs
Totally random but you probably would like the LG V20.

~~~
frogperson
Yes, and its older brother the v10 is under $200 now. Very nice bang for your
buck.

------
evv
This is fabulous! There are millions of old phones out there with decaying
versions of iOS and Android. Google and Apple are ignoring them, so these
devices are just plummeting in value. This is the perfect market for an
actually-open-source mobile OS!

If somebody can get React Native to run on PostmarketOS, then we could start
building up an ecosystem of non-walled-garden apps that are compatible with
iOS and Android!

~~~
epoch1970
> If somebody can get React Native to run on PostmarketOS, then we could start
> building up an ecosystem of non-walled-garden apps that are compatible with
> iOS and Android!

What leads you to believe this would actually happen? PhoneGap/Cordova have
been around for ages, and they could have already enabled such an ecosystem to
have formed, but we haven't seen that happen. Of course, there are other
similar technologies out there, too. Even Firefox OS failed, and that was with
the backing of Mozilla and its eager community. What's different about this
case?

~~~
evv
Good question. I think there are two big reasons this is more feasible now
than it has been in the past.

1) Proliferation of compatible devices. Firefox OS attempted to launch with
zero compatible phones. (The dev device I bought would crash on boot, every
time). Postmarket OS is launching with hundreds of thousands of compatible
devices already in the wild, many of which are sitting unused in people’s
drawers. If it gets much contributor momentum, there will be millions of
devices ready to switch.

2) As a React Native contributor, I am totally biased, but I think it
represents a big shift in mobile development. Personally I don’t think
ionic/cordova apps feel very good, especially on older devices. RN is the
first open-source xplat mobile app environment that allows you to produce
high-quality apps. Or at least, by the standards of FB, Airbnb, and Microsoft.

------
ghostly_s
> postmarketOS is a GNU/Linux distribution, so there's no problem in having
> multiple phone interfaces (just like KDE/Gnome/XFCE/...) and let the user
> choose.

IMO, there is a _big_ problem with that. The WHOLE reason the smartphone space
finally took off was because Apple came in and rationalized the interaction
model and implemented a robust, responsive UI. Android is successful largely
to the extent it faithfully aped that model. Treating this as a secondary
thing your project doesn't need to be opinionated on is a recipe for failure.

~~~
morganvachon
> _The WHOLE reason the smartphone space finally took off was because Apple
> came in and rationalized the interaction model and implemented a robust,
> responsive UI._

I see this "fact" thrown about all the time by under-30s who only ever knew of
the iPhone since they were teens.

The iPhone OS interface, as it first existed, faithfully aped the Palm Garnet
OS, which was the latest iteration of Palm's highly successful OS going all
the way back to the late 90s. Before there were smartphones there were PDAs,
and while it's debatable that Apple invented the PDA with the Newton, the
platform didn't become a commercial success until US Robotics released the
PalmPilot and PalmPilot Professional. When Handspring successfully melded the
Palm OS with cellphone hardware creating the Treo, the touch controlled, icon
based, modal fullscreen app "smartphone interface" as we know it was created.
Palm bought Handspring and pivoted to improving the Treo line of smartphones,
culminating in the Treo 600 and 700 series.

Speaking of responsiveness, while Palm's own devices were fairly standard and
could be sluggish, Sony's Clie line made Palm OS feel almost as fast and fluid
as the modern iOS interface. The hardware was expensive but it was the
absolute best handheld computer you could buy in the early to mid 2000s. The
first time I used the original iPhone I still owned a Clie NX70V, and the Clie
was less jittery than the iPhone if I had a lot of apps open on both devices.

That's not even touching on Nokia's Symbian, arguably the best selling
smartphone OS in history, but Symbian never resembled Palm OS, Android, or
iPhone OS until after those systems became widespread.

So no, Apple never invented anything in this space; they took what already
existed, polished the hardware, correctly implemented multitouch, and applied
Jobs' marketing magic. I drank the Kool-aid and bought the original iPhone
soon after its release. I ended up promptly selling it and going back to my
Treo to get real work done when I realized the iPhone was nothing more than a
(arguably excellent) mobile web browser. It wasn't until Apple finally started
allowing apps (something Palm supported from the beginning) that the "modern"
smartphone revolution really began. Even then, hardware improvements were
driven by Android based devices, with Apple always playing catch-up.

~~~
wilg
Here is a picture of Palm Garnet OS which apparently Apple "faithfully aped":
[http://www.palminfocenter.com/images/palm-garnet-
vm-1.jpg](http://www.palminfocenter.com/images/palm-garnet-vm-1.jpg)

Do you think that both interfaces are the same simply because they are "touch
controlled" and "icon based"?

Also, saying there were other worse phones before the iPhone came out does not
refute the point that the reason the space "finally took off" was because of
Apple.

~~~
wilg
I feel its my duty to report that after looking at that image of Palm Garnet
OS it shows an app called "DiddleBug", which is apparently a note taking app.

Its website still exists
([http://diddlebug.sourceforge.net/](http://diddlebug.sourceforge.net/)) and
indicates it contains "IntelliBooger™ extensions".

I am certainly glad Steve Jobs applied his sinister marketing magic to
whatever this is so that no one has to be inserting IntelliBoogers into their
DiddleBugs on their PalmPilots just to take a note.

~~~
Roritharr
Yes, things like these remind me to take our Product and Marketing guys more
seriously, because, left alone in a cellar, I too probably would call things
DiddleBugs and IntelliBoogers.

------
jekkar
This is awesome and I've been waiting for something like this to come along
for a long time. It's crazy how easy it is to get Linux on an ARM based
Chromebook, but nearly impossible to get it on a phone.

Android is a security nightmare and most of us are aware of that at this
point. On top of that, Android has been moving functionality off the device
and into their services for years making their AOSP offering weaker and
weaker. Keep up the good work!

Edit: At some point it'd be nice to use a GuixSD or NixOS configuration file
as your "one custom package" instead of an Alpine package. Any Linux on bare
metal though would be welcome of course.

~~~
bitmapbrother
No, real security nightmares are reserved for things like WannaCry and all of
the compromised Linux based IoT devices. You know, things that actually do
real world damage at massive scale. As for the state of Android security,
unfortunately the analysis and numbers don't really back up your baseless
claims.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9_ytg6MUP0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9_ytg6MUP0)

~~~
jekkar
OK, there are millions of Android users and most users put their personal
information on their phone. I think any breach here would be considered
gravely significant.

Non-Google branded phones get updates far later than their Nexus/Pixel
counterparts if at all. Google and carriers drop devices from updates
eventually (2ish years) so if you continue to use your device after that,
you're playing with fire.

That's just covering the delivery mechanism, not the inability to set a
encryption password separate from your pin, or the vauge permissions groups,
or the fact that all apps can see your global clipboard, etc. If users can't
get the newest version of their OS software, then you kind of fail at security
101. Any bug fix only fixes a small subset of your users. At least Windows XP
device users knew how long they'd get security updates and had a clear upgrade
path afterward.

Linux IoT suffers a lot of the the same problems. No one updates embedded
devices.

You can draw the "nightmare" semantic line wherever you want, of course. IMHO
it's not even remotely secure unless you only and always buy the newest Pixel
phone directly from Google. Then we can talk about modern Android security
issues.

~~~
bitmapbrother
There are over 2 Billion Android devices that access the Google Play Store
each month alone - and I'm not even factoring in all of the Android based
devices that don't even have Google Play Services like China. Where are all of
these nightmares? When you have the #1 OS in the world, by a large margin,
every nefarious organization is targeting you. And how much damage have they
inflicted on all of those devices compared to the damage inflicted by Windows
and Linux IoT devices?

Incidentally, Apple just released 40 security updates recently. 21% of iOS
devices aren't even using iOS 10. Is there going to be a security nightmare
for them too?

------
yeukhon
I don't like Android. I prefer iOS because there is a single vendor for
managing the sales and the development of both the hardware snd the software.
This pro does come at a premium cost but I don't want my phone to stay on
Android 2.X because AT&T does not want to release upgrade, then the only
option is only going to be flashing and installing a new version on my own.
That wipes my data and I probably will break my warranty worh ATT by flashing
(I never checked).

iOS has bugs and performance issues too. But overall it is quite solid. The
app store experience as a consumer is nice too.

If this project is aimed to bring freedom software to users on mobile with thr
goal of running on phones for 10-years, great. But for mass adoption I am
going to be bold: it won't happen. Firefox OS failed because (1) device spec
is poor (Mozilla wanted to market it in countries where smartphone was not
common), (2) not enough apps, (3) the influence and trending look of Android
and iPhone.

~~~
delecti
> I prefer iOS because there is a single vendor for managing the sales and the
> development of both the hardware snd the software

If that's really your only reason for preferring iOS, Google has been making
phones for over 7 years. There are obviously valid reasons for that
preference, but the single one you've mentioned isn't.

~~~
yeukhon
I am aware of Google phone. But is it Google who's also rolling out the
upgrades to users directly? iphone does not care carrier's upgrade schedule.

~~~
delecti
The carriers do in fact have a say in the upgrade schedule. I know that (at
least for a little while) they stopped being able to release updates _quite_
as quickly once they released the iPhone for Verizon in the US.

And yes, if you buy your phone directly from Google, you'll get your updates
directly from Google with no delay (other than their staged rollout process).

------
IshKebab
This seems stupid. Android is hard to update because of closed source drivers
- especially really proprietary stuff like Bluetooth, the RIL and graphics.
That combined with the lack of a stable Linux driver interface means that only
the manufacturers can really update the kernel.

I'm guessing this "fixes" that by just disabling everything.

~~~
fixmycode
The Linux community is already past the problems of proprietary drivers. We
are talking about people that reverse engineered a full network stack, graphic
cards, audio devices, you name it.

If you build it, they will work.

~~~
rubatuga
This statement is horribly wrong. The sad state of even wireless ac drivers in
Linux today show that there is a severe lack of driver development. What makes
you think that a more proprietary and more guarded cellular modem will have
better driver support than the current state of driver support? Isn't this
just wishful thinking?

------
znpy
12/10 would install on my aging Nexus 5.

One thing though: it doesn't​ state if it's possible to make/receive calls/sms
using a phone. You know, I'd appreciate my phone to be able to do such things.

~~~
ollieparanoid
Not yet, it is in a pretty early state:

> Most drivers don't work so you can't make phone calls or use the WiFi.

[https://ollieparanoid.github.io/post/postmarketOS/#prototype](https://ollieparanoid.github.io/post/postmarketOS/#prototype)

EDIT: SMS also do not work. In other words, what works is the touchscreen with
Weston so far. But the underlying tooling (pmbootstrap) is pretty far, so
that's why I have released it now.

~~~
znpy
Thanks.

I still think tgis project has a huge potential.

------
butz
Good idea, I hope it gets developed much further. To cover the lack of apps
you should concentrate on providing native internet browser with good PWA
(progressive web apps) support. That way only a few native apps will be needed
by user, e.g. dialer, SMS messenger.

------
ollieparanoid
In reaction to people who are confused, that this is not a finished product, I
have added a note saying "(Not usable for most people yet!)" at the beginning.
The summary at the beginning did not make that clear before.

[https://github.com/ollieparanoid/ollieparanoid.github.io/com...](https://github.com/ollieparanoid/ollieparanoid.github.io/commit/6a86986780e9001155ca3f07a6d43ca54c88a1cc)

------
wernercd
How does "Project Treble" affect this "issue"? The extra layer of APIs that
Android will be built on should solve the "Fork for Every Device and Every
Build" problem, yes?

[https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/05/google-hopes-to-
fix-...](https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/05/google-hopes-to-fix-android-
updates-no-really-with-project-treble/)

~~~
ollieparanoid
As I see it, project treble will improve the update process, but not
completely resolve the endless forking. You will still have the "vendor
implementation", which is different for every device. It will contain at least
the kernel and drivers (kernel/userspace), for which you, as a user, depend on
the manufacturer to keep it updated, and which will probably not be mainlined.
This means, that after two years or so, when the support runs out, you will
still have a device, that does not get updates anymore. Only for a smaller
component of the operating system.

Also keep in mind, that this will work for newer Android O phones only. We
already have more than a billion phones (the number could be much higher, I
did not google it right now), which will never get that improvement. They can
be saved from being electronic waste with projects like postmarketOS.

------
kungito
All the new versions of Android are very much similar to an average user and
my gf is always surprised when I'm so happy one of my devices is getting an
update because getting "more fine grained permissions" or "customizable quick
settings" are things about which an average user doesn't ever think about
anyways.

It's mostly for us power users and people who just want to show off how they
got something only cool/rich/smart people have. There were big differences
between older versions of Android but apart from split screen which I used 3
times so far I don't see a reason to update.

I'm pretty sure the reason they don't port back the features to older androids
is either because the old devices are lacking the specs or because they only
want to have something to show as "new".

I know my friends avoided updating their iPhones for years because the new OSs
only slowed the devices down.

------
jdietrich
The original iPhone launched almost exactly 10 years ago. It had a 412MHz
single-core processor, 128MB of RAM, a 320x480 screen, 2G data and no GPS.

Will anyone want to use an iPhone 7 or a Galaxy S8 in 2027?

~~~
nradov
Expect the rate of improvement in smartphone hardware to gradually decline
over time, just like it already has for desktop and laptop computers. At some
point even low-end smartphones will be "good enough" for the vast majority of
users, and then device vendors will shift most of their innovation efforts to
whatever is the next new hot form factor like AR glasses or whatever.

~~~
catdog
> At some point even low-end smartphones will be "good enough" for the vast
> majority of users

I think we are more or less already there, maybe not the lowest of all ends
but buying high end already feels like buying that more shiny expensive car
with more horsepower which is hardly more useful because you are unable to
leverage it.

------
super-io
Like NetBSD but for mobile.

Easy to port.

Is it true the "Android" project rose from the ashes of an earlier company
"Danger" who produced a NetBSD based mobile OS for the T-mobile Sidekick?

If true, why did founder of Android use NetBSD for the Sidekick, not Linux?

Microsoft acquired Danger.

"You know if you ever got me, you wouldn't have a clue what to do with me." \-
Being John Malkovich (1999)

Maybe easier just to collect on Android sales via threatened patent assertion.
IDK.

------
joemccall86
I like the ambition. I've had a tinfoil-hat theory for a while that phone
hardware is only built to last roughly 1.5 - 2 years gnerally before they
physically begin to degrade. I've flashed new roms to a Galaxy S3 but it
tended to reboot (i.e. hard crash) a lot still.

------
salem
It would be great if phone makers commit to something like this as part of
their environmental plans

------
wtracy
I would very much like to find a way to use something like this on old devices
that have locked bootloaders that prevent third-party kernels from booting. Is
anyone looking at a way to bootstrap a system like this underneath the
manufacturer's Android kernel?

------
acd
Thanks supporting phone devices longest is good for the environment instead of
buy and throw.

------
anigbrowl
That'd be nice. I bought a MOTO X last year, don't do much on it besides using
the camera and FB (hence my choosing a lower end model) and I can't use it for
more than a couple of minutes without hiccups and app restarts.

------
deleted_soon
Could anyone explain what a "chroot zap" is (from the 'effective caching'
feature)? Googling it just brings me to the same page.

~~~
ollieparanoid
It means: remove the chroot folder (safely, with umounting everything first).
You can do it with "pmbootstrap zap", it will ask interactively, which chroots
you want to delete.

~~~
deleted_soon
Ahh I see, thanks!

------
505
Great idea for a wicked problem.

Phone manufacturers will be against it, telcos, retailers, and many consumers.
Maybe we could get Green movement groups on board?

------
LostWanderer
Will it be possible to revive the old Symbian button phones through this or
some similar project?

------
bArray
_Disclaimer:_ I'm fully behind this idea, but I think there are some issues to
be ironed out.

I don't think the OS is really the bottleneck here. I think getting a _mobile_
device's hardware to run for this long is. There are a few things that make
this difficult:

* Batteries - These currently only have so many cycles. A 10 year phone would need to provide a largish battery holding area allowing for two wires of varying voltages to be supplied. It would then in turn need to be able to charge at these various voltages through those two wires. I think voltages ranging from 1V to 24V would be a reasonable guess at where future battery tech would stay. Any person could then feasibly change their battery for some future tech.

* Connectivity - In just a few years, we've gone from only really having 2G to having just 3G/4G. In 10 years time, I think it wouldn't be unreasonable to think that maybe 4G will be switched off. I think it's unlikely that WiFi will remain for the next 10 years too. You need some robust connectivity module that hackers could connect to an arbitrary home-brew hacker's module. Something like UART/Serial/I2C/SPI.

Other things could burn out over time, but replacing those things becomes way
too difficult. The processor, GPU, RAM, case, buttons and screen are just
things I think that need to be the core phone.

Another place that could be interesting to explore is converting old,
arbitrary phones into useful everyday devices. For example, I'm looking at
converting my old HTC wild fire phone (the screen is small) into a permanent
low-power alarm clock. It'll sit on the WiFi and if it sees my laptop/phone on
the WiFi it will schedule the alarm, otherwise not.

I have another slightly newer phone with a larger display, so I was thinking
or either making some notification board for my office or some very cheap VR
headset for watching YouTube videos in bed without holding my phone up.

That said, there's no reason why all of these new "smart" devices couldn't
reuse old technology. I think a small technology company that recycled old
mobile devices into new smart devices would be pretty awesome. People pay
loads for a recycled pencil for example, why not a recycled electronics
device? On the far end of the scale I've seen some awesome coasters made from
old motherboards.

I would love to see offices and schools buying more second hand kit too.
There's no reason why thin client software can't run on an old mini-intel
board, or even a semi-old smart phone. Kids don't need this year's laptops to
write a report in Word. I think there's a big space for reuse here.

~~~
Brakenshire
>>In just a few years, we've gone from only really having 2G to having just
3G/4G. In 10 years time, I think it wouldn't be unreasonable to think that
maybe 4G will be switched off. I think it's unlikely that WiFi will remain for
the next 10 years too.

I'm using a Nexus 5, which was launched almost 4 years ago, that uses 4G. A
reliable, widespread 5G network is at least 2 years distant, probably more.
Barring breakage, and changing the battery, the Nexus 5 could almost certainly
be used 6 years after launch, and still work well. The barrier for that sort
of lifetime is software, not hardware.

I think you're right that 10 years is pushing it.

But, firstly, bear in mind the range of smartphone users there are. Really
large percentages of people have never installed an app for instance. There
are grades of users on their technology demands, and just as there will be a
percentage that always want a brand new phone, there will be a percentage that
just want something that is stable. There are a substantial percentage of
people that are more worried about the UI changing underneath them than
whether or not they're using 3G or 4G.

Secondly, even if 10 years is unlikely, the prospect of being able to run a
functioning device indefinite ly allows the lifetimes to increase by more
realistic but still significant amounts, 10 years is niche but 4 or 5 isn't.

~~~
bArray
>I'm using a Nexus 5, which was launched almost 4 years ago, that uses 4G. A
reliable, widespread 5G network is at least 2 years distant, probably more.
Barring breakage, and changing the battery, the Nexus 5 could almost certainly
be used 6 years after launch, and still work well. The barrier for that sort
of lifetime is software, not hardware.

My prediction for the communications modules not lasting is also trying to
take into account that the rate of developments is likely to speed up - not
stay the same or slow down.

>There are a substantial percentage of people that are more worried about the
UI changing underneath them than whether or not they're using 3G or 4G.

I'm talking about simply being cut off from the rest of the world. Many
Countries have now fully retired 2G networks. In less than 5 years, I can see
the same likely to happen for 3G.

>Secondly, even if 10 years is unlikely, the prospect of being able to run a
functioning device indefinite ly allows the lifetimes to increase by more
realistic but still significant amounts, 10 years is niche but 4 or 5 isn't.

I think phones should at least match laptops - there's no reason why not. I
think we should encourage a few things:

* Standardization of battery sizes - why is every LiPo pack completely different? If think this might even be arbitrarily pushing up the market value of the packs.

* Expansion ports - why is there no expansion port on a phone? Something just big enough to plug a small PCB with a standard connector. That way you could add something onto the internal bus to add functionality. For even common users, this could be slightly more battery, secondary processor, increased RAM, additional GPU, AI chip, VR chip, better camera, louder speaker, new communications, etc. Looking at the Intel Edison, if you can put an entire computer into an SD card [1], you surely could add value to your phone, either immediately or in the future.

* Unlocked - you should be able to easily load your own OS onto your phone with no consequences. This is the same with most laptops. Maybe somebody can't make a phone OS to last for 10 years, but I'm sure there will be some OS in the next ten years. Is it unreasonable to be able to swap your OS?

Completely unrelated, but another thing I would like to see is the use of
colour e-ink displays for phones [2]. Video is something that needs to still
be solved [3], but I think we pay too much energy for viewing static content
on a phone display.

[1] [https://software.intel.com/en-
us/iot/hardware/edison](https://software.intel.com/en-us/iot/hardware/edison)

[2]
[http://www.eink.com/display_products_triton.html](http://www.eink.com/display_products_triton.html)

[3]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24srQXX81Oc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24srQXX81Oc)

~~~
LostWanderer
something like a nintendo gameboy styled phone with ports?

------
746F7475
10 years is pretty long time. Like think about still using first generation
iPhone

------
jacob019
Smartphones only seem to last for two years before the hardware starts to
fail.

------
olivier1664
Great project! It will be cool to use our old smart phones as Raspberry pi.

------
aidenn0
I've never had my phone hardware last for 5 years, much less 10.

~~~
peterburkimsher
I'm still using an iPhone 4S 64GB from 2011, which my dad bought for me as a
graduation present.

Partly because I'm too poor to upgrade, and partly because it still meets most
of my needs.

The biggest problem I face is software rot in iOS 6. That would be the same
regardless of OS. I can't use WhatsApp any more, or Kakaotalk. Facebook used
to forward my messages to email, but now they demand that I use a Messenger
app. Instead, I just check Facebook's website using the browser.

There haven't been any really significant apps that I needed that have been
released in the last 5 years. I've made a list in case I ever update my OS. I
don't need BBM or Pokémon Go. The messenger apps are the worst for forcing
software updates, but I hope that people will eventually move back to email
and SMS, which just work.

~~~
aidenn0
I got my first smartphone in June 2009. Here's the list of what's happened (in
no particular order):

* 2 phones had their 2.4GHz radio die (no bluetooth, no wifi)

* 2 phones were damaged by water

* 1 phone had screen cracked

* 1 phone was lost

I'm now on my 7th phone in 8 years.

Ironically it was my first phone that lasted the longest (about 2.5 years
before the 2.4GHz radio died). Since then I've gone through about 1 phone per
year. Phones have gotten much more fragile as they've gotten thinner, though
water-resistance is now more common so that could solve at least some of my
problems.

I do get what you're saying though because my wife's smart phone lineup is:

Palm Centro

iPhone 4S

iPhone SE

Each upgraded because software that had previously worked stopped working.

------
bit-crazy-ivan
Is the source a credible github project?

~~~
ollieparanoid
What do you mean with credible? The source is all here:
[https://github.com/postmarketOS/](https://github.com/postmarketOS/)

But from reading through the comments, no one has analyzed it yet, if you mean
that. It has less than 2000 lines of code, and it is Python, so it shouldn't
be hard to read through.

Oh and there is room for improvement. Automatic Travis CI builds and what not.
Alpine Linux already does this for every package, so with some effort
postmarketOS could also do that.

------
nilved
This is a pretty cool idea. I think we really need something like this.

