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by chadzawistowski 3739 days ago
I echo the sentiment but think Android doesn't go far enough; especially as apps migrate to relying on the closed/proprietary Google Play Services framework rather than vanilla Android.

I'm anxiously awaiting the https://neo900.org/
2 comments
jrcii 3739 days ago
I'm a big fan of this project, too. However I'm disappointed that the final price is going to come out to about $1200 http://neo900.org/estimate

There seems to be a fair amount of money and attention being invested in secure messaging, Mark Cuban's Cyber Dust, Blackphone, the various things by Moxie's Open Whisper Systems, etc. However the Neo900 as far as I know is the only solution offering a sandboxed baseband which is critical.

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dTal 3738 days ago
The Pyra Console [https://pyra-handheld.com/] has a sandboxed baseband (in that it's a seperate chip controlled by tty with no direct access to anything), and at 500 Euros to obsolete my netbook and my phone in one go, I will certainly be getting one. Pre-orders should be opening any day now.
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gr3yh47 3738 days ago
What is it going to need to make it function as a phone?
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dTal 3738 days ago
Well, it runs stock Debian- so I imagine either the freesmartphone.org stack or oFono (both packaged), coupled with a relevant user interface. Really the UI is the hard bit, you can send and receive SMS just by cat-ing stuff to the tty device. Ubuntu has a lot of oFono-based UI stuff that can be stolen, though there's quite a few dependencies. Given how the Pandora community rallied around their platform, I've no doubt that we'll end up with a plug-and-play solution before long.

Also it'll probably be awkward for phone calls without some sort of headset (or just putting up with speakerphone all the time), but I hardly ever make calls anyway and it'll more than make up for that by being awesome at texting.

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rtkwe 3738 days ago
> especially as apps migrate to relying on the closed/proprietary Google Play Services framework rather than vanilla Android.

Blame the manufacturers, Google started moving more and more functionality into the services instead of the base OS partially because manufacturers were being so horrible about updating their phones. With functionality in the Services instead of the base OS they can update functions without manufactures deciding that it's not worth their time and holding things back.

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chadzawistowski 3738 days ago
I don't blame anyone, I just find the result undesirable.
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