Terrible news ofc, but I hope no one panic buys a different phone or anything (assuming they already have one). This is just to say, your phone isn't immediately obsoleted right now, so give it a little while before you switch anything out.
this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2025
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While this was an inevitable move, it makes me curious if they are hitting a point where Gemini is becoming so integrated in all their software stacks and they're just insanely paranoid about any precious "AI" code leaking that they just decided to close the gates early.
Probably for the best long-term. Having this weird dependency on the generosity of a corporation was always a liability. Whatever comes next can hopefully avoid it.
Hopefully someone like the EU, to combat ewaste, eventually requires all hardware manufacturers to sell their mobile hardware with bootloader/firmware flashing unlocking requirements. The work then will be for the community to write support for all these various makes and models of device, but the endgame being actual device freedom. Although with the world seemingly leaning hard into Authoritarianism and Fascism, it might not end up being the right time and freedom will remain underground.
A pity too, all phone hardware at its core is generic ARM computers with various devices connected to fairly generic interface busses. They just encrypt bits of code so the sauce to make things work is hidden.
I remember a couple of months ago it was reported here that Google was making Android closed-source and I commented that this will be the end of custom rom's and this was received by the community poorly as many stated that they would still be releasing the code but not their AOSP apps (or something like that) but I already see the writing on the wall. Google doesn't want to be open-source, they where in the past because that gave them free coders to fix their shit and make them more profitable, but now they just want our data and the open-source community is against that, so they are closing doors to the community in order to be able to truly make money with people's information. Wouldn't surprise me if the next Pixel in the works is going with a similar approach as the iPhone and only allow for an eSim as well.
that Google was making Android closed-source
That's disinformation.
From reading the rest:
- You released misinformation ( Google is just open sourcing the releases, but not the dev builds of AOSP. nothing about Apps, nothing about Closed sourcing)
- You failed to read the comments on your post and imagined something here again
- And now go on a rant about eSims.
To be honest, I think the problem here is not Google, but your inability to read.
theres more profit to be like apple.
Google is slowly closing access to everything. It's a boiled frog situation. All the red flags are there. We're fucked.
keep the faith - we are not fucked, we just need to move to different systems entirely.
There is currently no alternative to android. Every alternative is both less secure and less usable.
As Android continues to enshitify more people will be interested in alternatives, which will drive support.
If there were other systems I'd be using them already.
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Bought a Pixel 7a for GrapheneOS recently. Wanted to buy a new Pixel tablet for the same. Too bad, no more Google hardware for me.
i almost got a 7, but look at how bad thier uses of exonys chip, battery drainage and obsession with AI, i went OP instead, a brand new OP will be my future purchase once this one craps out.
OP being what?
OnePlus probably.
Useless for GrapheneOS then. I'm in the market for a decent tablet soon (on a LineageOS Samsung right now), and effectively I'll have to settle for a used Pixel tablet. Orelse it's Linux tablet time, which is probably nonexistant as well.
Linux phones are looking more attractive every day now.
I'm using an Ubuntu touch device as my main driver these days (currently on volla Quintus)
It's good, but it's not there yet in terms of ease of use. If you're not a Linux enthusiast, you will likely have a bad time on UT (can't comment on sailfish, though I'd imagine it suffers in a similar way).
The largest problem is app support... By a mile. Most apps I use are just web apps I've had to manually setup. You can emulate an android and boot into it with waydroid, which will allow you to install apks; But honestly that feels like a cop out... which is why I try to make use of web apps where I can. (It also destroys your battery life... As you're essentially running two phones).
I figured it's not quite there yet. I hope market forces will solve this eventually. If Google manages to make android bad enough, demand for an alternative should arise. I'm already running Linux on my desktop quite happily, thanks to windows 11.
Yeah I think you're right. This will be the main drive behind adoption; even as an enthusiast I was sceptical to try a Linux phone; but google's predatory policies ultimately forced my hand; it's only a matter of time before more end up feeling like they have no choice.
Android isn't the bastion of open source freedom it once was. We need a new (or GNU heheh) approach.
This is really concerning for the Android ecosystem.
It will make development much harder and slower for CalyxOS and Graphene - which is very bad news as they are tiny teams.
As I understand it this affects all models to a degree, even Fairphone, as source code for Pixels made it easier to see how code could be adapted to support new Android features/APIs/etc for third party phones.
Whelp guess I'll be hoping Linux phones rapidly improve in quality and availability.
Less reason to buy a Pixel, then.
Which would help how? If they are really going to make it much more difficult for custom roms it doesn't matter what phone you choose.
Uhg then what? Samsung's got too much of their own shit data harvesting crap on top of the Google stuff. All other phones basically have shit cameras. Time to go to iPhone? Seems they're all the same at this point 😜
Sideloaded apks are the only difference left.
If you're in Europe, Fairphone is an option. I'm pretty happy with mine.
Graphene is centered around security. I've heard bad things about Fairphone in that regard - the Graphene team even talks about them in the replies on that thread.
Respectfully to the Graphene team, they say that about literally every other OS.
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Sony mostly pass the camera quality test†, the "fit and finish" test, and ship a relatively clean Android OS.
You also get options to have otherwise-long-forgotten features like 3.5mm headphone jacks and MicroSD slots, and Sony's waterproofing is second to none for phones that you wouldn't naturally describe as "ruggedised".
There are unavoidable issues around pricing (high) and availability (low), but by most of the metrics people would choose to measure phones' quality, features, performance, etc, they are actually doing a great job with their products (at least now that they also offer a respectable duration of OS updates and support).
If you are looking for it too, they tend to be at the upper end of manufacturers for open-source code and documentation availability: https://developerworld.wpp.developer.sony.com/open-source/aosp-on-xperia-open-devices, though with that said due to the relatively small audience for their products, availability of other people's custom ROMs will not necessarily be extensive.
I'm on my fourth of their phones (Z2 2014, XZ Premium 2017, 1ii 2020, 1vii 2025), every upgrade time I've looked around, and every time I've failed to find something I want to own more than another one.
† The caveat here is they're highly skewed toward operator control; you're very much expected to participate in the photo-taking process and I'm painfully aware that's not what most people want these days. Low assistance provided, basically zero "AI" processing, just lots of rope with which to hang yourself. It'll take beautiful pictures once you get accustomed to it though, whaddaya gonna do?
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Honestly if Google is going to close all their shit, then yeah, absolutely.
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the silver lining to all this - devs & users might start turning their attention to linux phones:
Are they ready for prime time? Because I'd love a Linux phone but it's sounds like it's be such a step back in usability. But perhaps that's a feature
Not even close from what I've seen, basic stuff doesn't work right.
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I havent even had one with grapheneos for a year yet, what the fuck google...
Same. It's about a year for me. And it's not like the phones are cheap.
You've got to be kidding me man, I wanted to buy a phone that I could put a custom ROM on for years to come, I originally got an ASUS Zenfone for the same reason, and JUST as I get them both, they start locking things down. At least I was able to get lineage on my pixel for now, but who knows about updates!
Without this source, lineage is cooked too.
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