As noted by the news release from CalyxOS and Mastodon thread from GrapheneOS, Google did not release the Pixel device-specific source code alongside their Android 16 AOSP release like they usually do. I think many of us, including myself, are hoping this will be published in the near future, but considering they moved AOSP development behind closed doors earlier this year, it’s more likely Google has stopped publishing this section or their code altogether, making development of custom ROMs for Pixel devices significantly more difficult. Sad news for the Android ecosystem, and for open source in general.
So, hear me out, but what if we all go back to feature phones? Smart phones are convenient, but do the pro’s weigh more than the cons at this point? I am also including mental health into this btw.
“feature phones” all still run Android, to my knowledge.
Not all, but there are several ones with android
Which ones don’t? I’d be very interested.
Honestly is rare to find a feature phone that runs android around here as most run some other java based software.
In any case, here are 3 (although there are more):
The Doro runs MocorOS, which, while not Android, is closed-source and proprietary. So technically yes but I’m not sure it’s any better.
The Nokia runs KaiOS (AKA Android)
The Punkt seems like a suitable option. Although $300 seems like a difficult pill to swallow for such a simple device.
Yeah, I’ve seen some other alternatives (including Java) but I don’t have time to search them all.
KaiOS is one alternative, it was FirefoxOS. It’s pretty sluggish though. Maybe on more decent hardware with some optimizations it’d have a possibility. A lot of Nokia feature phones run it.
KaiOS is Android.