[LWIRVoltage]

I recently took a flight with family- on a budget airline that did not have Wifi, so we could not hop on WiFi and message each other using Signal. I wondered what other options there would be in the air- and remembered Bluetooth Communication apps- and had everyone install Briar- it came in haandy!

I like the built in Bridge option as well, (when the app communicates over the internet) to help avoid revealing the traffic is Tor traffic.

I have been impressed by the range of Briar- with a clear line of site, easily hundreds and hundreds of feet- i tested it to well over 500 outside- and on the plane , my family was scattered, but that was no issue at all. (More recently though i've detected my own Bluetooth MotoTag trackers from my luggage in Cargo holds while on planes, so Bluetooth indeed works well on planes.)

-I have heard of but have never used BridgeFy, which I know was a well known famous Bluetooth app that competed with Briar in the past. To my understanding it isn't quite as secure or open source.

There is a informative post here https://old.reddit.com/r/Briar/comments/gxiffy/what_exactly_... where a developer noted Briar's capabilities at that time- it seems due to some changes on the OS/phone Hardware end, and whatnot- and due to the phones only passing messages to contact nearby - Briar is not a true mesh networking app. It is a shame- i feel a true Bluetooth mesh networking app would be unstoppable in availability -though it might be a bit of a battery drain.

It is a shame Briar isn't on iOS also -

I also wish Signal would eventually consider communicating over any medium accessible- they would probably run into similar issue Briar has.

What will it take to get a Peer-to-Peer capable Bluetooth/Wifi/Celluar network using/(more possibly in the future)- proper optional mesh networking, Tor capable, VPN friendly, wholly end to end encrypted ,perfect forward secrecy including, fully open source App providing messaging (with the 'accounts' that Briar uses?), for Android and ios?(And Let's throw in PC Mac and Linux, so laptops could have a extremely user friendly user accessible way of doing this as well.)

Better yet, add Calling capability- i don't know how rough doing video calls would be over some methods like modern day Bluetooth- but even a rough capability would be used a little and be worth adding to the collection of things one could do(Briar is only Messaging at the time of this post- which is something notable for sure,as very few apps let you transmit solely thru Bluetooth<I have not heavily looked into the shared Wifi communication abilities of Briar at this point in time> - but more could be added in some form...I observe apps do exist that allow for Bluetooth calling or act like "Bluetooth" Walkie Talkies)

[mmwelt]

Unfortunately, iOS simply does not allow apps like Briar to run reliably in the background[1]. Unless Apple changes its thinking about iOS, Briar or other similar apps would never work reliably.

[1] https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/685525

[Zambyte]

People have the power to not use iPhones, and should exercise it.

[ctm92]

Switching ecosystems is a huge pain, I started with iPhone and eventually moved to Android and back again to iPhone. When you use a lot of the Apple/Google Services, it's not really easy to just switch over

[immibis]

It's only Apple that does this lock-in thing, IME. Google also has services, but they're not as important or inseparable.

[meristohm]

I guess it's easy if a person cares enough about it? I'm the relative PITA in my family because I prefer to put everything on a paper calendar and mostly use my phone for Signal, iMessage, occasional email, some photos, and internet, including toe-dips into this forum as my social media engagement. I'm in my 40s, grew up with a Commodore64, and am disenchanted with computers now (while still using them for a few things- life's messy, and that's okay). Surveillance capitalism is more of a threat to much of what I care about (includes partcipatory democracy and mutual aid), and it makes sense to both push back and find a better path.

Humans have done okay for a hundred thousand years+ without computers, with some dark ages here and there when people get greedy.

[the_clarence]

Honestly with Apple not producing folding phones I think in a few generations everybody will have naturally moved to Android

[Kirby64]

This is such a weird take. Folding phones are a tiny market and they all have considerable durability downsides.

Also, if the market did shift Apple could easily build one. I’m sure they’ve prototyped a few already.

[the_clarence]

People said the same thing about bigger screens years ago

[Kirby64]

No larger screen has ever had issues with permanent damage from regular use. They just aren’t a good fit for most people in their current durability state. Anyone who totally baby’s their phone can use them, but that’s about it. Also, they’re pretty much all in an extreme price bracket. You could buy a small tablet and a regular flagship phone for the price of one of the galaxy folds.

[devilbunny]

People didn't like the OG Xbox "Duke" controller. They complained left and right.

I'm a tall adult male. Every other controller is tiny to me.

My max phone size is just about right on the ProMax iPhones. They should be a little smaller - but only a little, like 1-2 mm width. I've got big hands, and I love a big screen.

[Kwpolska]

If only folding phones weren't prohibitively expensive, fragile, and most notably completely pointless...

[the_clarence]

They're basically going to replace your phone and tablets. But people have a hard time seeing into the future

[brokenmachine]

I don't want one unless they can make the screen completely perfect where it folds. Which they won't be able to.

[account42]

Will that be before or after flying cars?

[meristohm]

huh? Those things are a novelty. I may be aging into fuddy-duddy land, though. If I keep using a mobile phone, I like the smaller ones that easily fit in one hand and most pockets, I want it to last a decade or more (this iphone is from 2018, I think), and I like it just powerful enough for communication, browsing, and photos. Done with games.

To try to see another view, though, if the tech is there and not too harmful (that's relative- I think our venture into computer-land is immensely harmful in many ways) and durable enough, it seems nice to protect the screen? Except if grit gets between the glass?

[browningstreet]

I don’t trust Android.

[guillermin]

What do you not trust of AOSP? How can you trust a proprietary closed-source OS more than an open-source one?

[immibis]

Android isn't AOSP, and Android isn't open source.

It's safe to assume that every large tech company is spying on everything you do - including Apple. (Remember they're legally required to do so in the UK, and probably in more countries but it only leaked in the UK)

Android is more trustworthy not because of that but because it lets you install apps that haven't been approved by corporate overlords first.

[browningstreet]

I don’t blindly trust Apple either, but I believe enough of what they say and consider the gaps when they don’t say something. They fight things like the UK E2E encryption requests… but also, having owned both Android and Apple devices, and managing my own iOS devices and the Android devices my parents own, I definitely feel like the iOS devices are more secure and less prone to bad actors via App Store. I think safari is more anonymizing than chrome.

The (US) government already has too much access to us, and I think Android is more open to them than iOS. The government has cameras in public and access to our banking data, I’m not gonna protect myself from them by choosing one platform more than the other, or one bank more than the other.

What I don’t want, though, is to be annoyed to death or scammed. My choice is more front loaded by that consideration. If I find out that Apple accedes to backdoors though, I’d have to live without both Android and iOS.

[genewitch]

Accedes is a good word, I don't think I've ever seen it before.

[doublerabbit]

Okay, buy me an Android then.

[ParetoOptimal]

If you bought an iPhone you could buy an Android.

[doublerabbit]

But I don't want an Android. So if you desire for me to use Android, buy me an Android.

[pessimizer]

Advice is not desire. I advise you to keep batteries in your fire alarm, but I don't personally care enough to buy you any.

[lostmsu]

I actually have an app in iOS store that completely executes in the background: https://itunes.apple.com/app/id6737482921?mt=8

Never had it stopped by iOS. So not only there's no fundamental restriction, the App Store itself allows some apps to do that.

[monocularvision]

What API are you using to keep running in the background? Most likely you are misusing it on some manner and have yet to get caught by App Review.

[idle_zealot]

I've seen this bypassed via background audio and background location.

[lostmsu]

The app does background audio, and its use is legitimate. It is an audio app.

But the point is - there's no fundamental restriction from the OS itself.

[redserk]

You contradicted yourself.

Whether you want to call it a “restriction”, “a lack of permission without being X type of activity”, or “it works because the app exhibits Y behavior”, it’s all functionally a restriction.

You can run some background activities that are not audio apps, but you’re at the mercy of iOS’s decision to keep your task active or not. If you’re off the charger, all bets are off. iOS’s dev docs make this very clear.

[lxgr]

Another way of phrasing this: There is a fundamental restriction, with a carve out for a few specific things, including audio playback.

[forgotpwd16]

Not sure what you mean with fundamental. As mentioned in the thread parent comment links to, the issue lies in enforced limits and lack* of general mechanism available to developers to allow background execution for any kind of app or/and purpose. No one said iOS itself lacks the functionality for background execution.

*In the same thread, it is noted that this lack is by choice and special-purpose mechanisms are preferred instead to prevent abuse.

[tough]

There's AltStore sideloading, would that enable it?

[ivanmontillam]

It's not an issue of sideloading or censorship in iOS. It's a product decision related to background apps (they kill the running process with no recourse to bring it up again on its own).

[dlenski]

As I understand it, only Apple's own apps get the magical blessing to run in the background whenever they want.

[gkbrk]

Hmm, seems anti-competitive.

[immibis]

In Europe it's been ruled that since Apple makes no pretense of being competitive, they don't have to be, while Google has to actually deliver on their open platform promises.

[actionfromafar]

Anti trust enforcement was tried briefly at the turn of the century but was deemed unprofitable for oligarchs, so it is no longer in fashion.

[mikepurvis]

This affects other Bluetooth-using apps too, like the Fitbit app needs to be periodically restarted in order to get data synced from a tracker.

[stevenwalton]

  >  so we could not hop on WiFi and message each other using Signal.

I have a feature request for this actually. I think if it got a harder push they would consider it. It's not full decentralization but does still prevent the concerns that Moxie and Meredith have stated.

It is like you say: I too wish Signal would allow for communication over any available medium.

https://community.signalusers.org/t/signal-airdrop/37402

[lhamil64]

Have you seen Meshtastic (https://meshtastic.org/)? It seems like a similar concept but using dedicated devices and unlicensed ISM frequencies, and it's a proper mesh network (so you can even setup repeaters to provide better coverage for an area). I guess they wouldn't work too well if you're travelling to another country since you'd have to get the right radios for the country but it's a neat idea.

[myself248]

Furthermore, the latest build of Meshtastic mentioned some LAN networking, so nodes that don't have radios can still exchange messages if they're connected by some other means.

That seems just a hop skip and a jump from having a Bluetooth WPAN/WLAN that lets many phones share one or zero Meshtastic radios but still be able to talk to each other...

[brokenmachine]

I've been checking out https://reticulum.network/ which does the same thing as meshtastic, but encrypted. Looks like it's in the early stages though.

[Karrot_Kream]

How was your actual UX with Briar? I tried to get family to use Briar during a flight and it was pretty poor. Messages wouldn't show up and we were worried about disconnecting from personal Bluetooth headphones while keeping using Briar. It worked okay and at one point my partner and I chatted about landing plans when the person next to us was asleep. But we found that just passing the phone around with typing worked just as well. It worked okay for the other family but again, was a pain.

[LWIRVoltage]

It worked well! Most messages did go through! The caveat- I don't think anyone was also using Bluetooth headphones

500 feet outside was the test i did with a clear sightline- the inside of the plane was not quite as far, but the messages did go through - and we couldn't have passed the phone around when one family member was 5 seats behind me, the next was about 20 rows in front of me