Was this a big thing I somehow missed?
It's one of the many small things that hide the big thing. In 2027 android will be fully locked down, unnecessarily.
The big thing is whatever the lockdown is for.
this post was submitted on 20 Sep 2025
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Privacy
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This news makes me actually sad. I have had high hopes in the last years in the FOSS world, having myself and three other persons move to use Linux as daily driver on Desktop/Laptop.
My phone has FOSS apps only except for banking, health, transport tickets and 2/3 work rekated stuff. My messaging, files and pictures are handled by FOSS apps installed from third parties (F-Droid, Obtainium) on selfhosted servers... I was finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.
This news sound to me like the tunnel ahaead is collapsing.
I got the same alert on Gmaps WV (google map wrapper found f drood) Google is giving us more reasons to switch to a custom ROM
How easy is it to convert an Android app to a Linux mobile app of you're the developer? If it's written in JVM languages it shouldn't be that hard right?
Just use a custom ROM. This sadly will affect app developers. But if you are on a custom ROM without GMS it will continue to work just fine.
Google is trying to kill custom ROMs too. Also I thought the majority of modern phones aren't bootloader unlockable.
You can unlock the bootloader on just about every phone, just depends on how much effort you want to spend.
Ehhhh... sorta maybe. Ultimately they can't, but they can make development more difficult.
Also Google has nothing to do with whether or not you're bootloader is unlockable. Get a phone that is.
If you rally want to go down the whole FOSS path it does ultimately become a bit of a lifestyle.
End-users can use e.g. waydro.id to run Android apps on Linux.
I'm not deep into Android development, but I doubt it's possible to just port an app without basically a complete rewrite. Android has an own layer on top of the JVM, called Zygote, and there's presumably lots of system libraries which the Android apps implicitly depend on, for handling graphics and whatnot, which make tons of assumptions about running on an Android device.
Does anyone know if this will affect Android TV?
Wait you could install arbitrary apks on android tv?
You have an android tv and not smarttube? Your youtube experience will increase ALOT.
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Yup. I’ve installed a few that way
Where are you linux hardware manufacturers ?
Syatem76? The same company that made POP OS are making PCs and laptops They claim that they made the laptop with the longest battery life
Phones ?
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@Akip I got this message the other day. It sucks how the app won't work on certified devices next year.
Agreed. Google just didn't consent to you getting an app without ads. My hope is maybe we can circumvent it for a while with PWA or browser website bookmarks. Maybe long enough for alternatives to arrive or consumer protection to kick in. I refuse to give up hope even though I might need to abandon android. For now I guess I will just not buy another phone since androids time seems limited. Really hard to find something to recommend to family and friends that just works. My goto grapheneOS also seems more and more cut down with more and more apps refusing to work outside play store downloads or refusing to work on 3rd party OS.
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