[friend_and_foe]

Android (more strictly, AOSP) is an open source linux based operating system that can be used standalone with no google shenanigans whatsoever. I don't like google either, but at least I can use whatever software I want on my machine. To say android is as restrictive or more restrictive than Apple is to be disconnected from reality. To say that using Android is less cyberpunk than using a completely vertically integrated system like the iPhone with it's thousand dollar accessories because "evilcorp" is absurd.

[photonerd]

Sure. It’s nice to have. I absolutely give google (limited) props for ASOP. Tho it’s “open” in mostly the “you can see & download the code” sense, not the “we’re open to contributors from the community” sense, but still… it’s great they did that.

But it doesn’t make using the “open” software that’s completely controlled by the giant corporate empire any more “cypherpunk”, does it?

[friend_and_foe]

A little more, yes. Of course, ideally, I'd love a BSD mobile operating system that runs TUI applications I made myself. But it's a world of compromise, so I compromise.

From my phone (in Minecraft), I run an IPFS node, I communicate over distributed encrypted channels, I share files over BitTorrent, I probe networks, I zap people on nostr, I do all sorts of things the big powers would rather me not be doing, even though they aren't necessarily illegal. I can run literally any sort of software that I like, period, with nobody's permission or even knowledge of the fact. In computing, I take into consideration absolutely nothing that these corporations would prefer that I do. That's pretty cypherpunk, even if I do it all without google explicitly giving me an AMOLED black theme in their operating system. I use one of those too anyway.