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by rixthefox 155 days ago
In this economy? /s

The other more compelling reason why people would have a rooted phone is to run ROMs that may still be providing OS support where the stock OS has been abandoned or EOL'd by the developer.

Having an unlocked bootloader at the minimum would be required in those scenarios. It actually saves hardware that still works from ending up in landfills.

edit: spelling
2 comments
roughly 155 days ago
The first time I walked past a homeless person on a smart phone it took a minute to process - phones are effectively free at this point.

(The first time I walked past a homeless person using a VR headset, on the other hand, was a fucking trip.)

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SketchySeaBeast 155 days ago
That sounds like a Silicon Valley bit.
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roughly 155 days ago
That show didn’t hit Black Mirror levels of existentially uncomfortable, but man, I recognized too many of those scenes.
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bsimpson 155 days ago
I have a cache of old devices, largely the freebies Google gave out at I/O in the early days of Android. Was prepping them to sell last week and saw most are running Cyanogen (the first big community Android fork). Even then, root was a popular way to gain more functionality and add features that haven't been released for a device.

Incidentally, if anyone wants some collector's edition Google/Android devices...

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zozbot234 155 days ago
> Incidentally, if anyone wants some collector's edition Google/Android devices...

Please get in touch with the postmarketOS folks, since any phone old enough to be running CyanogenMod proper is most likely not supported there yet. (It would be super nice to even have a proper list of all devices where old CyanogenMod was officially supported at some point, with device specs for each. We're lacking even that at present because the transition from the CyanogenMod name to LineageOS was so messy.)

Of course, the combination of extremely limited hardware specs (512MB RAM + 512MB built-in storage was a common spec), old ARM32 SoCs and the ongoing 3G/2G mobile network phaseout means that many such devices will only really be useful as glorified palmtops or for even more minimal uses. But it might be worth experimenting with nonetheless.

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