Been keeping a casual eye on Pine64 updates over the past year and this is is the most impressive so far IMO.
The new RK3566 SoC looks really promising - once it eventually makes it into the next generation PinePhone, it's going to make it very attractive as a daily driver.
Their involvement with the larger community is great; collaboration with KDE, donating to pmOS, incentivizing contributors to make truly open wifi and bt a reality.
Pinephone state and ecosystem seems to be continuously improving.
And at long last some news on the SOEdge module.
I kind of wish I could buy shares in this company :P Keep up the great work!
> The new RK3566 SoC looks really promising - once it eventually makes it into the next generation PinePhone, it's going to make it very attractive as a daily driver.
I'm not looking forward to that. For example, mainline lowlevel software stack for RK3399 used in Pinebook Pro still doesn't support suspend to RAM, and RK3399 is quite popular, with many devices based on it. There's barely any recognizable community around RK SoCs.
I agree .. I've been hacking away on the PineWatch as a platform for the last few months, mostly to teach myself baremetal Rust, and it is an extraordinarily satisfying circumstance to be able to tell time on a watch running my own code. The hardware is decent for the price (very cheap), and it is so very, very refreshingly open.
I will pick up a PinePhone as soon as possible, based on this experience, and I'm probably going to be a Pine stalwart for the next few years, at least, as a general platform. These guys are finally delivering devices that we developers can be happy to get involved in.
I say that as a dev with years of iOS experience, where I am currently fatigued with having to keep up with yet more proprietary bollocks from Apple: the future of these devices is open.
I don't want them to focus on RISC-V. Only time will tell how appropriate RISC-V can be technologically in a smartphone application, and why would you want the company that focuses on open source to invest themselves into it? Are you aware that Riscv being an open ISA has absolutely nothing to do with open source (either software or hardware)?
I certainly feel like migrating to a PinePhone in near future but where can I view the list of the apps available anyway?
The most important app I need (I wouldn't even need a smartphone otherwise) is Telegram - it's the major way we communicate in the company and in the family. Is it there?
Telegram Desktop works fine when tweaked as described on the Mobian wiki.
For other apps may be https://LINMOBapps.frama.io can help you to get an idea.
Check for AArch64 binaries if you want to run something closed.
Personally I would avoid that, so in that case it's mostly whatever is in the distro you're using plus maybe whatever the developers responsible for the port added. (ex: postmarketOS is based on alpine, but includes some extra stuff like gnome maps and phosh.)
I love the concept and would buy it in a heartbeat, even at Apple level premiums, but that spec sheet.... 2/3 GB RAM is not enough in the Android world of 2020/2021. And eMMC storage instead of UFS? Oooof.
Shame, I really want to support the own your phone initiative(user replaceable battery, no more walled gardens, no more telemetry out the wazoo) and willing to pay the premium but I also want my device not to be a huge downgrade on my daily driver and go back to 2012 Andorid hardware.
The kind of ecosystem that Pine are trying to foster tends to produce much, much leaner software though. Of course, at the moment there are simply some apps (like Telegram IIRC) that are thin wrappers around a web app. But taking f-droid as a reference, compared to the play store, I have great hopes to end up with a less bloated stack.
Cynics would call the apps on f-droid feature poor. But for me, the FOSS apps that I use day to day tend to just do the thing you need them for, no more.
There's no telemetry overhead, they tend to use fewer dependencies, are less likely to be built on heavy frameworks like electron. Of course there's heavy sampling bias involved in this since I specifically select apps that feel snappy and light.
But this has always been true for linux desktop apps, too.
My favourite comparison is the size of pdf viewers. I have never lacked a feature from the Adobe pdf reader. The 400KB binary of evince totally sufficed, and it used much fewer resources at runtime, too.
I really hope that this ecosystem can push the boundaries of what's possible with lower-spec hardware, even if just to hold the mirror to the big platforms.
It has to start somewhere, with hardware where it IS possible to run open-source software without too much reverse-engineering and fighting NDAs and so on.
Supporting them NOW means that later, what you want, will be possible. It's an investment into a better future..
The Pinephone thus far is mostly for tinkerers. The super low price point is what will enable the community to form. It's not really a mainstream daily phone yet.
Maybe the Fairphone is something for you? It's 3x the price but still far from premium pricing gives you a decent 4G/64G Android phone without fuss. I had their first phone which was good enough for an everyday phone and support in Lineage was great. Removable battery, 3.5mm jack, and they try to keep spare parts around for at least a new years.
OS seems to have gotten much slicker-looking in addition to a host of exciting updates. Been following these guys for a while and it's really great to see them releasing a cheaper phone. Excited to see what's next!
Why they cannot use something like Snapdragon? I am contemplating buying a new phone, but it seems like most of the new ones have call recording disabled, so a phone with an open API and privacy conscious is something I could pay for, but it seems like this one is lacking in the hardware department. If I bought it that would certainly be a downgrade from my current old Samsung phone (which is running old OS and call recording works fine).
I've seen this explanation coming up quite often in discussions around Qualcomm or other similarly sized players: you have to be ordering (very) large numbers to be able to get their attention.
Documentation is provided under NDAs I hear, and if you'd let's say, decide to buy a small(er) number of boards off the grey market (from one of their direct customers), you'd still have the problem of lack of support (firmware/code, docs, etc).
Isn't it more important for the community to fight against closed drivers at the level of legislation than engage in these endless reverse engineering battles?
Why don't all these Pinephone fans put more of their time and their money into funding an international effort to reverse closed blobs instead of repeated crowing over the success of their reverse engineering efforts and how willing they are to fork out good money on outdated hardware?
Personally, while that sounds appealing, I think we also still need the RE efforts. Hardware that's built to run free software out of the box is important, and it would be ideal if all those blobs were gone and we didn't have to worry about them. I'd absolutely be on board with an effort to enforce free drivers for the hardware we buy.
But... in the short term, given that's not currently the case, we still need a way to move forward, right? And it's much easier to demonstrate why free drivers are important if you have working software to show for it. ("Hey, there's this whole phone OS and app ecosystem that we could run on this hardware if it had free drivers!")
That said, yes, the endless reverse engineering required to keep the devices you've bought secure beyond the 2 or 3 years that the manufacturer supports it is ridiculous. I wish it weren't so. But given that that's unfortunately the situation we're in, I applaud anyone contributing to the RE efforts. (But I sure am keeping an eye on hardware that doesn't require it!)
I think dino has patches for it to run better on small devices. the default texting app runs on libpurple so it has support for jabber, i dont know if it constitutes decent though, I have nobody to talk to on jabber :(
Wonder when the 8GB one will release. Main concern for me is the sms/call being reliable and if it will "just work" on carriers like Boost mobile.
Also when using as a "desktop" be nice to have some simple toggle to reduce GUI load by going into something like i3-wm
Does anybody know if the PinePhone has NFC? I looked at all the specs and didn't see it at all. That would tell me that (1) the phone does not have NFC, or (2) NFC is such a given so why would they list it, because "duh"?
[+] [-] 3np|5 years ago|reply
The new RK3566 SoC looks really promising - once it eventually makes it into the next generation PinePhone, it's going to make it very attractive as a daily driver.
Their involvement with the larger community is great; collaboration with KDE, donating to pmOS, incentivizing contributors to make truly open wifi and bt a reality.
Pinephone state and ecosystem seems to be continuously improving.
And at long last some news on the SOEdge module.
I kind of wish I could buy shares in this company :P Keep up the great work!
[+] [-] megous|5 years ago|reply
I'm not looking forward to that. For example, mainline lowlevel software stack for RK3399 used in Pinebook Pro still doesn't support suspend to RAM, and RK3399 is quite popular, with many devices based on it. There's barely any recognizable community around RK SoCs.
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] the_duke|5 years ago|reply
They are really helping the Linux phone by providing a dev platform, partnering with different OS implementations and mainlining as much as possible.
I do wish they had a Pinebook Pro and Pinephone with a bit more oomph.
And for them to focus heavily on RISC-V in the future once that becomes viable, which sadly seems a few years off.
[+] [-] somesortofsystm|5 years ago|reply
I will pick up a PinePhone as soon as possible, based on this experience, and I'm probably going to be a Pine stalwart for the next few years, at least, as a general platform. These guys are finally delivering devices that we developers can be happy to get involved in.
I say that as a dev with years of iOS experience, where I am currently fatigued with having to keep up with yet more proprietary bollocks from Apple: the future of these devices is open.
[+] [-] unwind|5 years ago|reply
Really looking forward to it, it has been schedule-slipping for as long as I've been tracking now (this fall, basically).
[+] [-] fsflover|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] josteink|5 years ago|reply
The new SOC they say they have planned for their 2021 lineup seems to be just that.
I wonder if I will be able to buy a simple mainboard upgrade to my existing PinePhone once they have something shipping.
I certainly wouldn't mind more "oomph" in my PinePhone and it would be nice not having to buy a new device entirely.
[+] [-] nsajko|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] amenod|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] qwerty456127|5 years ago|reply
The most important app I need (I wouldn't even need a smartphone otherwise) is Telegram - it's the major way we communicate in the company and in the family. Is it there?
[+] [-] Mediterraneo10|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fsflover|5 years ago|reply
[0] https://wiki.pine64.org/index.php/PinePhone#Operating_System...
[+] [-] linmob|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] swiley|5 years ago|reply
Personally I would avoid that, so in that case it's mostly whatever is in the distro you're using plus maybe whatever the developers responsible for the port added. (ex: postmarketOS is based on alpine, but includes some extra stuff like gnome maps and phosh.)
[+] [-] squeezingswirls|5 years ago|reply
https://open-store.io/app/teleports.ubports
[+] [-] ognarb|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] padraic7a|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ChuckNorris89|5 years ago|reply
Shame, I really want to support the own your phone initiative(user replaceable battery, no more walled gardens, no more telemetry out the wazoo) and willing to pay the premium but I also want my device not to be a huge downgrade on my daily driver and go back to 2012 Andorid hardware.
[+] [-] black_puppydog|5 years ago|reply
Cynics would call the apps on f-droid feature poor. But for me, the FOSS apps that I use day to day tend to just do the thing you need them for, no more. There's no telemetry overhead, they tend to use fewer dependencies, are less likely to be built on heavy frameworks like electron. Of course there's heavy sampling bias involved in this since I specifically select apps that feel snappy and light. But this has always been true for linux desktop apps, too. My favourite comparison is the size of pdf viewers. I have never lacked a feature from the Adobe pdf reader. The 400KB binary of evince totally sufficed, and it used much fewer resources at runtime, too.
I really hope that this ecosystem can push the boundaries of what's possible with lower-spec hardware, even if just to hold the mirror to the big platforms.
[+] [-] weikju|5 years ago|reply
Supporting them NOW means that later, what you want, will be possible. It's an investment into a better future..
[+] [-] xorcist|5 years ago|reply
Maybe the Fairphone is something for you? It's 3x the price but still far from premium pricing gives you a decent 4G/64G Android phone without fuss. I had their first phone which was good enough for an everyday phone and support in Lineage was great. Removable battery, 3.5mm jack, and they try to keep spare parts around for at least a new years.
[+] [-] swiley|5 years ago|reply
It's not running android, it's fine for GNU/Linux. I did a lot of homework in college on a raspberry pi with 1G of ram.
[+] [-] rjsw|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fsflover|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fartcannon|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] threevox|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _wolfie_|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] snvzz|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] christophilus|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ncmncm|5 years ago|reply
It's not my daily driver yet. Soon. Probably before I get my Librem 5, which I have already waited 2 years for, and expect will like less than the PP.
[+] [-] varispeed|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 3np|5 years ago|reply
> Open
Because these two are incompatible.
The new SoC for 2021 is a big step up over the RK3328, though!
[+] [-] drago-1|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] swiley|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] vfclists|5 years ago|reply
Why don't all these Pinephone fans put more of their time and their money into funding an international effort to reverse closed blobs instead of repeated crowing over the success of their reverse engineering efforts and how willing they are to fork out good money on outdated hardware?
[+] [-] ryukafalz|5 years ago|reply
But... in the short term, given that's not currently the case, we still need a way to move forward, right? And it's much easier to demonstrate why free drivers are important if you have working software to show for it. ("Hey, there's this whole phone OS and app ecosystem that we could run on this hardware if it had free drivers!")
That said, yes, the endless reverse engineering required to keep the devices you've bought secure beyond the 2 or 3 years that the manufacturer supports it is ridiculous. I wish it weren't so. But given that that's unfortunately the situation we're in, I applaud anyone contributing to the RE efforts. (But I sure am keeping an eye on hardware that doesn't require it!)
[+] [-] aitait|5 years ago|reply
Does Dino run on it? https://dino.im/
[+] [-] mouldysammich|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jcun4128|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NoSalt|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kop316|5 years ago|reply
What I would offer is it has 6 back bogo pins that speak I2C, so someone who wants to build it in can.
[+] [-] megous|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ncmncm|5 years ago|reply
Mobian is showing PinePhone an awful lot of love, so there is a lot to requite.
[+] [-] leafmeal|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ac42dgu|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] danielEM|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LibertyBeta|5 years ago|reply