[vbsteven]

I’m thinking about buying a degoogled Android phone to replace my iPhone. The main things I want are:

* Spotify needs to work over Bluetooth in my car

* WhatsApp needs to work (preferably with push notifications)

* I need the Fitbit app to work so my watch can show push notifications from my personal apps

* a network-based location provider to be consumed by my personal apps (I’m working on a personal data and automation suite that relies on frequent smartphone location updates)

Is this something that can be done with CalyxOS on a Pixel? Can other Android flavours like GrapheneOS or LineageOS do this?

And aside from Android, how far along are other “mobile linux” smartphones for use as a daily driver with regards to the above points?

[brundolf]

> Can other Android flavours like GrapheneOS or LineageOS do this?

There's a separate question you're missing: what your Google Services situation is

Distros like Lineage come without Google Services; if you want them, you install them yourself

"gapps" is the official one. It's straight Google everything. Lineage OS + gapps will give you a very clean and nice Android experience if you don't care about Google collecting your data.

If you do care about that, you have two options:

1) go without Services entirely (most apps will have problems; if you're lucky they just won't send push notifications or be able to use your location, if you're unlucky they will be flat out broken or crash)

2) use microG, which is an unofficial non-Google replacement masquerading to the rest of the system as Google Services. I've heard mixed things about how well it works, but that appears to be what CalyxOS comes with. You can install it on Lineage, but I don't know what extra hoops may have to be jumped through. Note that it's also walking a fine line with Google and I could see them intentionally breaking it at any time down the road. Depend on it at your own risk.

I care about privacy and I would not buy a degoogled Android phone today. I switched to iPhone a few years ago after roughing it without Google Services for a year and a half. It was fairly awful.

I once had to return some headphones because the app that went with them simply wouldn't work.

I had to use a combination of the Google Maps web app and OSMAnd (which was just atrocious) for navigation, which basically meant I didn't really have navigation.

Slack wouldn't send me push notifications.

I couldn't use my banking app.

Even Signal struggled to run in the background/send me notifications.

It was basically back to the iPhone 1 days where your phone could text, call, web browse, take pictures and play (local) music. Though even the iPhone 1 had a functioning Maps app.

[kelnos]

Thanks for the frank details about the downsides.

If I can't use my banking apps, Lyft, Google Pay, Photos, Maps, etc. with a particular mobile OS (with all features working), then it's unfortunately not for me.

It seems like most of the Android alternatives throw the baby out with the bathwater. I get that making a trusted OS based on Android is hard, especially with Google having moved so much core functionality into Play Services, but the value I get out of my phone is mostly from mainstream apps, using mainstream features (like push notifications and location services). If those don't work, to me it's not really a useful device.

I get that a lot of these apps aren't particularly privacy-oriented, but to me, my main concern is that there are a lot of Google-owned core components to the OS and userland that actively subvert my privacy. I'd really like to think there's some middle ground on Android where I can trust the OS and userspace core, and still run the apps I usually run.

[commoner]

GP seems to be describing a flavor of Android that does not have microG or Google Play Services.

CalyxOS has microG, and I have no problems getting timely notifications on Signal or Slack, nor do I have any issues using Lyft, Google Maps, Google Photos, or any of my banking apps on CalyxOS (or LineageOS for microG). The only exception on your list is Google Pay, which I don't use because it is extremely privacy-invasive (gives Google all of your transaction data). In my opinion, CalyxOS is a very practical OS that balances convenience with privacy.

[zozbot234]

> If I can't use my banking apps, Lyft, Google Pay, Photos, Maps, etc. with a particular mobile OS (with all features working), then it's unfortunately not for me.

These are proprietary apps, so it's a bit unrealistic to expect that they would support a free OS.

[kelnos]

I'm not asking for official support from the app developer, just knowledge that they "happen to" work on an alternative Android-based OS. Which they should, if all the APIs they depend on are there (including the Play Services ones, via microG or whatever). If they specifically look for "non-blessed" Android variants and deliberately fail to work, that's a shame, but if it's an app I need, that rules out that OS for me, unfortunately. That's just the reality of the situation.

[nobodywasishere]

Currently been using LineageOS for three years now, latter half without GApps/Play services.

Google maps (from Aurora store) works perfectly fine on my phone without it.

Telegram notifications work perfectly fine.

My banking app works fine.

Apple Music and Jellyfin work great.

I use nextcloud for contacts/calendar/cloud/photo management.

[ineedasername]

I once had to return some headphones because the app that went with them simply wouldn't work.

Kind of awful when we're at a point where a pair of headphones requires a specialized app to use them.

[scns]

True. Mine run over bluetooth just fine. The app enables configuration, checking for firmware updates and a hearing test which creates a custom equalizer setting to counteract individual deficiencies.

[wintermutestwin]

X >will give you a very clean and nice Android experience if you don't care about Google collecting your data.

I must be confused here, but isn't the whole point of installing any OS besides Android on an Android device preventing google from collecting your data? Why else would anyone deal with a non-standard OS?

[brundolf]

The above are all distros of Android

The other reasons to use a non-stock version of Android are:

- Much longer updates lifetime than you get from the OEM

- Removal of OEM bloat

- Addition of features that are actually good

[alfiedotwtf]

Not sure why nobody was is here's comment is greyed, but yep I'm in the same boat - LineageOS works fine and am using Spotify and Audible without any issues. There are some apps that haven't worked, buy I'm fine with that.

[WorldPeas]

heres what i do and it works great: use the regular google build of android BUT on a fresh install, disable all google apps sans chrome, use it to install fdroid, then uninstall that, from there use TrackerControl to prevent google and others from phoning home, use the aurora store for apps, use organicmaps for maps, signal for sms florisboard for keyboard, etc. you'll have a google-free experience which you can exit for 10 minute periods using the button on the trackercontrol dialog, and things like google pay and notifications will still perform quite well. I've been using this for a year and loving it

[kemenaran]

Interesting setup.

Do you have any resources about how efficient TrackerControl is at preventing Google to collect data from the phone various system services?

[nonplus]

I would also like to hear more on this, a quick look at TrackerControl's readme tells me it mainly functions as a blocklist. Which (I would think) the moment you turn off tracker control to use google maps (or whatever play services app you wanted to use for a moment), said app will send a flood of queued location data that it has been collecting in the background if allowed.

I suppose that setup could work if the user is disciplined about not letting apps that use play services run at all when not in active use, but at that point I don't see the advantage to using tracker control at all.

[Aachen]

> the moment you turn off tracker control to use google maps...

No, it works per app. I'm also a TC user, it's quite great. Per app you tell it whether it should allow talking to various motherships. You can toggle on broad categories (for a given app) or also more fine-grained. It also logs which services applications tried to contact, so I can see that Spotify that I pay for is trying to send god knows what to Facebook (and that TC blocks it).

It takes a bit of setup because a ton of apps talk to a ton of centralized services (Aurora store and Newpipe obviously need to talk to Google, for example), but after that I'm a lot less bothered by apps including the Facebook sdk or something because it'll be stopped anyhow.

I'm waiting for the day that apps/websites stop telling your phone/browser to rat on you and they start doing it server-side. Lot less gdpr trouble because nobody can check what you're doing and goodbye blocklists. But so far it seems things don't yet work that way.

[nonplus]

Played with TC for an hour or so this evening, and what I stated above (possibly poorly) still stands. I chose google maps in particular, because it is an application that requires telemetry data to function; but it is reasonable for an individual to not want to be tracked when not using google maps.

If I block infinitedata-pa.gogleapis.com, maps will not function, but google maps will continue to collect telemetry data on my phone if it is running and has permissions. It will save that collected data until a user unblocks essential monitoring in order to use maps (Unless the user clears cache/data, or uninstalls maps, before unblocking).

That is the case I am pointing out, tc is a stopgap (and a welcome/useful one) but it does _not_ provide users a way to prevent _collecting_ of telemetry data to be sent off the device. It just delays the sending until the applications use is more valuable than the users privacy.

Edit: Things that could help with that:

1. Physical kill switches for radios (I know, that's not going to happen from any major arm cpu maker, the SOC is integrated, but it's the most practical solution.).

2. Granular permissions settings for androids network location provider. As an example, A permission that if app is running in the background send spoofed location data back (Once again, it's not that simple telemetry data is coming from many sources, I'm just listing what solves the problem.).

[cdesai]

I can confirm that,

* Spotify over Blueooth in a car works.

* WhatsApp works, with notifications

* I'm not sure about FitBit, per https://plexus.techlore.tech/applications/fitbit it might not but things may have changed.

* We include some providers by default and you can install more from F-Droid.

[vbsteven]

Thank you, that sounds very promising.

Is there a specific device you would recommend for long-term CalyxOS support?

[cdesai]

The newest Pixels are the best given that's what Google will support the longest, and with every Pixel generation they make a lot of improvements.

https://calyxos.org/about/faq/device-support/#update-timefra...

Pixel 6 is right around the corner, however it'll take a few months for us to get it all going (getting the phone, porting Android 12, making changes for Pixel 6)

[jszymborski]

I don't use WhatsApp, but I bridge my other chat apps through the Matrix client Element.

It appears that WhatsApp does have a bridge for Matrix, though I've not used it.

https://matrix.org/docs/projects/bridge/mautrix-whatsapp

[neop1x]

I have been using LineageOS on Xperia XZ2 Compact for about a year with a smaller bundle of official Google Play Services.

Almost everything works fine! Some apps didn't like it or detected root but Magisk + MagiskHide helped to hide root for those specific apps. Even Google Pay works with basic SafeNet attestation - that required "MagiskHide Props Config" Magisk extension and selecting a proper fingerprint.

The only problem encountered was that I couldn't connect PS4 controller and use it as an input device. Probably a driver issue related to bluetooth but other bluetooth devices I use work normally.

Optional F-Droid privileged extension makes F-Droid able to install F-droid app updates automatically like Play Store does.

Overall a very positive experience.

[hadrien01]

For you first two questions: Spotify will work with Bluetooth, and WhatsApp will have eventual notifications (real-time if the app was recently opened, up to seven hours later otherwise, at least on my device)

[cdesai]

We're very close to getting the notification issues fixed.

We've sent some patches to microG to address them at https://github.com/microg/GmsCore/pull/1483

I'm running it on my device since a few weeks now and it has been quite reliable so far.

[hadrien01]

I don't use microG, the delay is WhatsApp waking itself up

[prox]

If you degoogle yourself but then hook into FB whatsapp, isn’t that just defeating a bit of the point?

[kelnos]

Sure, "a bit", but I don't think a phone that is entirely broken except for a few open source apps that don't do useful day-to-day things (like order me a Lyft, let me do my banking, pay for stuff at a cash register, navigation, etc.) is all that useful.

My ideal would be to have a base OS and core standard library that I can trust, and then I get to choose what apps I run on top of that. Sometimes I will choose to install an app that doesn't have a great privacy track record, but I will rely on apps like TrackerControl, Blokada, and Bouncer to mitigate my exposure somewhat. It won't be perfect, but we don't live in a perfect world where there are feature-identical, privacy-respecting clones of the mainstream apps. Until that time, I can decide what are acceptable risks to my privacy.

Unfortunately, I don't have that choice right now: either I live with the privacy minefield that is Android (as I do, and try to mitigate privacy leaks as well as possible), or the nanny state that is iOS (which I -- for now -- consider the greater evil).

[Aachen]

Perfect is the enemy of good.

[corty]

I don't know about Fitbit stuff, but LineageOS can do everything else you named. Have been using it for years.

I guess other alternative Android distributions shouldn't be too different there.

[_1]

> * I need the Fitbit app to work so my watch can show push notifications from my personal apps

It's going to hard to degoogle your phone and stay attached to your Fitbit.

[vbsteven]

Is there a specific reason for this? Does the Fitbit app rely on Play Services?

I don’t care too much for on wrist calls or anything like that. I just want to use the Fitbit app to sync stats and mostly display notifications from WhatsApp and my personal apps.

[_1]

I don't know how the app works under the hood, but Google owns Fitbit

[vbsteven]

I should have know that. Now I understand what you meant in your first comment.

As long as the app doesn’t rely on Play Services it shouldn’t be a problem. By “degoogled” phone I mostly mean taking Google out of the critical (privileged) path in the OS for software and app updates.