My OnePlus 9 Pro mobile phone is about 3.5 years old; the battery is showing its age, and will go from 35% to 1% in a few minutes.
I've spent some time shopping around this weekend, and wow... the mobile phone situation is pretty awful. It is no longer possible to purchase an Android phone (with an up to date version of Android) that isn't filled with AI features, including Google's Gemini AI which has access to private data even if you indicate that you don't want it to have access to that data.
I could make the gigantic shift to an iPhone, which at least has some better privacy management (although still loaded with AI crap I don't want).
There really aren't any other practical options, because there are various apps that I definitely need to use which are not going to be available (or operable) on a de-Googled version of Android like /e/OS, or an OS that isn't iOS or Android (postmarketOS or various others).
There was a time when I felt like using Android was providing some amount of support to the FOSS community since Android is based on Linux and relies on many FOSS projects, but even that is changing, as Google is reducing the amount of content they push into AOSP. Within a year or two it will effectively be another proprietary operating system.
#Android #iOS #MobilePhone
Kevin P. Fleming
npub1ca…2209l
2025-06-30 00:32:11 UTC
Author Public Key
npub1cay7rqkh6kyjg9svtqx936phg7r3w0gtaaxxq7d25npnuae8uj6qj2209lSeen on
wss://relay.momostr.pinkPublished at
2025-06-30 00:32:11 UTCEvent JSON
{
"id": "81266d8043e77ab092bb1b2f6c24761dab58842ac3295f071c2ac92f229e2281",
"pubkey": "c749e182d7d58924160c580c58e8374787173d0bef4c6079aaa4c33e7727e4b4",
"created_at": 1751243531,
"kind": 1,
"tags": [
[
"t",
"mobilephone"
],
[
"proxy",
"https://mastodon.km6g.us/@kevin/114769496089797122",
"web"
],
[
"t",
"android"
],
[
"t",
"ios"
],
[
"proxy",
"https://mastodon.km6g.us/users/kevin/statuses/114769496089797122",
"activitypub"
],
[
"L",
"pink.momostr"
],
[
"l",
"pink.momostr.activitypub:https://mastodon.km6g.us/users/kevin/statuses/114769496089797122",
"pink.momostr"
],
[
"-"
]
],
"content": "My OnePlus 9 Pro mobile phone is about 3.5 years old; the battery is showing its age, and will go from 35% to 1% in a few minutes.\n\nI've spent some time shopping around this weekend, and wow... the mobile phone situation is pretty awful. It is no longer possible to purchase an Android phone (with an up to date version of Android) that isn't filled with AI features, including Google's Gemini AI which has access to private data even if you indicate that you don't want it to have access to that data.\n\nI could make the gigantic shift to an iPhone, which at least has some better privacy management (although still loaded with AI crap I don't want).\n\nThere really aren't any other practical options, because there are various apps that I definitely need to use which are not going to be available (or operable) on a de-Googled version of Android like /e/OS, or an OS that isn't iOS or Android (postmarketOS or various others).\n\nThere was a time when I felt like using Android was providing some amount of support to the FOSS community since Android is based on Linux and relies on many FOSS projects, but even that is changing, as Google is reducing the amount of content they push into AOSP. Within a year or two it will effectively be another proprietary operating system.\n\n#Android #iOS #MobilePhone",
"sig": "22fe5fcbd13ca2213eacc19b4564e448cefc985eedc32ea2c27c0bf011759e4a8a391beb425a9f4697a60e64567a7ed18c77cd71e40a421be3ddf40a6f0b170f"
}