10 ms·

Does anyone have first-hand experience with the pinephone as daily driver? I'm thinking about getting it, but I'm worried I wont be able to do my usual stuff, i

by pablo1 6y ago

Does anyone have first-hand experience with the pinephone as daily driver? I'm thinking about getting it, but I'm worried I wont be able to do my usual stuff, including using things like Signal or WhatsApp. Would be very interesting to hear some practital experiences!

kop316 6y ago
I have it and I like it (Convergence edition on Mobian). My issue is MMS has been non-functional, and because of that, I can't use it as a daily driver. Mobian has Anbox functional (though it is still experimental), so you can install apps on that. WhatsApp and Signal with without play services so that shouldn't be an issue.
- BuildTheRobots 6y ago
  Slightly off topic, but I'm curious why the lack of MMS is a show-stopper for you. Personally I've always found it to be a waste of time and money; there's better and cheaper ways of transferring both text and images (especially images due to the compression). Obviously you do have a use-case; please don't think I'm trying to say it's invalid, I just honestly don't understand what it would be and would really like to be enlightened.
  - 0_____0 6y ago
    No MMS means you can't do group texts at all unless everyone you're messaging has decided to use a different app. Certainly a show-stopper for myself.
    - igetspam 6y ago
      Because I'm a grump, I stuck with google voice for years specifically because it didn't support MMS. It cut down on a lot of spam from my family. I did manage to push people to email for group conversations. SMS/MMS are interrupts where email has a some what built in understanding that replies will not be immediate.
  - kop316 6y ago
    Like the other reply said, it's the only way I can do group texts with most of my friends/family.
  - cjbconnor 6y ago
    I'm from the U.S. and everyone I know uses SMS/MMS to communicate, including a few MMS group messages. Practically no one I know uses whatsapp/telegram/etc.
    - BuildTheRobots 6y ago
      Three followup questions if you don't mind: Does MMS make it easy to have a group conversation, or does everyone have to remember to do the equiv or "reply-all" (add everyone's number in) when sending a message to the group? Do you get free SMS/MMS included in your plan? (My American Aunt has always insisted SMS was obscenely expensive and refused to use it to communicate.) Do you get Data as standard with the plan? (Eg is it that people can't easily use WhatsApp because they don't have data when out and about or is it that people just won't agree which IP product to use in the first place?) Really appreciated; thank you :)
      - easton 6y ago
        - Most MMS/SMS apps treat a MMS group as a threaded conversation, so you only have to set it up once (or it’ll automatically populate all the numbers when someone sends you a text from a mms group) - MMS has been free and unlimited for the last decade or so on most major carriers (maybe more like ~7 years but we got it waaay before unlimited data made a comeback). - Data comes standard most of the time, most people have at least a gig or two a month, going all the way up to unlimited. It’s not a problem of data use (since you’d be hard pressed to burn through two gigs of text and meh resolution images), but it’s that MMS is a lowest common denominator. Everyone has it, so you know you can reach them (except for the 10% of the time a message doesn’t go through and you don’t know about it :P). I’m in the US, and I don’t know anyone who uses something other than MMS or iMessage (which is invisible and acts exactly the same) for most of their communication. Some of us have Discord but we only use it on desktop. I think my parents may use Facebook Messenger for something.
        BuildTheRobots 6y ago
        Really appreciate the reply - thank you. It's always intriguing to see how the other half lives, as it were. MMS never seemed to catch on in the UK and never seems to be included in the free allowances which probably doesn't help (eg I have unlimited calls, sms, >100gb data but MMS still costs me 50p each). I think the only time I've seen it used in years is very occasionally when I ask an iPhone user to send me a photo and they don't realise I'm on Android and won't automatically have it funnelled via Apple, so instead I get badly compressed unreadable photos of printed letters.
  - cortesoft 6y ago
    It is a classic network effect scenario; if your friends and family are using MMS, then that is what you need to use, regardless of quality.
- ryukafalz 6y ago
  >WhatsApp and Signal with without play services so that shouldn't be an issue. I know Signal can now, but can WhatsApp notify you of incoming messages without Play Services?
  - kop316 6y ago
    Yep it does.
- OneLeggedCat 6y ago
  I've been waiting on Librem 5 for years, and had hope for Pinephone too. Broken MMS is a big deal, because it is widespread in the U.S., and I can't communicate with family without it. It looks like MMS is still a long way out, and is not really being developed. I finally gave up and ordered my first iPhone last week.
  - kop316 6y ago
    Yeah it is honestly frsutrating for me too. I did a bit of work to figure out how feasible it is to get MMS to work (all of the pieces are there, but the actual framework to get it to work with Chatty is missing). I really wish Pine64 would step in to help with these sort of base issues, or have a bug bounty for it.
  - fsflover 6y ago
    MMS is being developed: https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=11994 https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=11994
  - silly-silly 6y ago
    I never knew MMS was a big deal in the US. I don't know why it just feels so, quaint.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- hutzlibu 6y ago
  How do WhatsApp and Signal run at all? It is not a Android OS. Through a android vm? I thought that does not really work yet, at least not on the pinephone.
  - kop316 6y ago
    They run through Anbox: https://anbox.io/ https://anbox.io/
    - hutzlibu 6y ago
      Stable?
frzj 6y ago
I guess you could setup a matrix bridge[1] and search for a sane client[2]. [1] https://matrix.org/docs/projects/bridge/mautrix-whatsapp https://matrix.org/docs/projects/bridge/mautrix-whatsapp [2] https://fluffychat.im https://fluffychat.im
blihp 6y ago
I've had one since July and unless your needs and expectations are very low, it still has a long way to go to achieve daily driver status for me. If you only need it to replace a very low end smartphone (i.e. just making phone calls and text messages with very low expectations for apps/web as you might use a sub-$100 smartphone for) then it might work for that definition of daily driver. What it is right now is an excellent mobile Linux device that is perfect for me in many situations that I'd previously consider using a SBC or don't want to lug a laptop around for a few minute task. It will get there eventually, but the software still needs a lot of work and the hardware probably needs to advance a generation or two. For a daily driver, I literally just went out and picked up a new Android device this weekend because I can't see the Pinephone being able to take on that role for me from a software standpoint for quite some time or with this generation of hardware.
novia 6y ago
> Does anyone have first-hand experience with the pinephone as daily driver? I'm thinking about getting it, but I'm worried I wont be able to do my usual stuff, including using things like Signal or WhatsApp. I don't have the first hand experience, but I was doing research on this very topic earlier today. https://www.github.com/nanu-c/axolotl https://www.github.com/nanu-c/axolotl looked promising. (ubuntu touch only) As others have mentioned, anbox is another alternative. I ended up going with the xcover pro instead, but I'm still highly considering getting a pinephone to do dev work on. There's exciting stuff to reinvent over here!
8bitsrule 6y ago
Here's a first-person report from someone who just got his. Heavily-commented post. https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/jl6q6w/pinephone_arrived_today/ https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/jl6q6w/pinephone_arr...

by pablo1 6y ago

kop316 6y ago

I have it and I like it (Convergence edition on Mobian). My issue is MMS has been non-functional, and because of that, I can't use it as a daily driver. Mobian has Anbox functional (though it is still experimental), so you can install apps on that. WhatsApp and Signal with without play services so that shouldn't be an issue.

BuildTheRobots 6y ago
Slightly off topic, but I'm curious why the lack of MMS is a show-stopper for you. Personally I've always found it to be a waste of time and money; there's better and cheaper ways of transferring both text and images (especially images due to the compression). Obviously you do have a use-case; please don't think I'm trying to say it's invalid, I just honestly don't understand what it would be and would really like to be enlightened.
- 0_____0 6y ago
  No MMS means you can't do group texts at all unless everyone you're messaging has decided to use a different app. Certainly a show-stopper for myself.
  - igetspam 6y ago
    Because I'm a grump, I stuck with google voice for years specifically because it didn't support MMS. It cut down on a lot of spam from my family. I did manage to push people to email for group conversations. SMS/MMS are interrupts where email has a some what built in understanding that replies will not be immediate.
- kop316 6y ago
  Like the other reply said, it's the only way I can do group texts with most of my friends/family.
- cjbconnor 6y ago
  I'm from the U.S. and everyone I know uses SMS/MMS to communicate, including a few MMS group messages. Practically no one I know uses whatsapp/telegram/etc.
  - BuildTheRobots 6y ago
    Three followup questions if you don't mind: Does MMS make it easy to have a group conversation, or does everyone have to remember to do the equiv or "reply-all" (add everyone's number in) when sending a message to the group? Do you get free SMS/MMS included in your plan? (My American Aunt has always insisted SMS was obscenely expensive and refused to use it to communicate.) Do you get Data as standard with the plan? (Eg is it that people can't easily use WhatsApp because they don't have data when out and about or is it that people just won't agree which IP product to use in the first place?) Really appreciated; thank you :)
    - easton 6y ago
      - Most MMS/SMS apps treat a MMS group as a threaded conversation, so you only have to set it up once (or it’ll automatically populate all the numbers when someone sends you a text from a mms group) - MMS has been free and unlimited for the last decade or so on most major carriers (maybe more like ~7 years but we got it waaay before unlimited data made a comeback). - Data comes standard most of the time, most people have at least a gig or two a month, going all the way up to unlimited. It’s not a problem of data use (since you’d be hard pressed to burn through two gigs of text and meh resolution images), but it’s that MMS is a lowest common denominator. Everyone has it, so you know you can reach them (except for the 10% of the time a message doesn’t go through and you don’t know about it :P). I’m in the US, and I don’t know anyone who uses something other than MMS or iMessage (which is invisible and acts exactly the same) for most of their communication. Some of us have Discord but we only use it on desktop. I think my parents may use Facebook Messenger for something.
      - BuildTheRobots 6y ago
        Really appreciate the reply - thank you. It's always intriguing to see how the other half lives, as it were. MMS never seemed to catch on in the UK and never seems to be included in the free allowances which probably doesn't help (eg I have unlimited calls, sms, >100gb data but MMS still costs me 50p each). I think the only time I've seen it used in years is very occasionally when I ask an iPhone user to send me a photo and they don't realise I'm on Android and won't automatically have it funnelled via Apple, so instead I get badly compressed unreadable photos of printed letters.
- cortesoft 6y ago
  It is a classic network effect scenario; if your friends and family are using MMS, then that is what you need to use, regardless of quality.
ryukafalz 6y ago
>WhatsApp and Signal with without play services so that shouldn't be an issue. I know Signal can now, but can WhatsApp notify you of incoming messages without Play Services?
- kop316 6y ago
  Yep it does.
OneLeggedCat 6y ago
I've been waiting on Librem 5 for years, and had hope for Pinephone too. Broken MMS is a big deal, because it is widespread in the U.S., and I can't communicate with family without it. It looks like MMS is still a long way out, and is not really being developed. I finally gave up and ordered my first iPhone last week.
- kop316 6y ago
  Yeah it is honestly frsutrating for me too. I did a bit of work to figure out how feasible it is to get MMS to work (all of the pieces are there, but the actual framework to get it to work with Chatty is missing). I really wish Pine64 would step in to help with these sort of base issues, or have a bug bounty for it.
- fsflover 6y ago
  MMS is being developed: https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=11994 https://forum.pine64.org/showthread.php?tid=11994
- silly-silly 6y ago
  I never knew MMS was a big deal in the US. I don't know why it just feels so, quaint.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
hutzlibu 6y ago
How do WhatsApp and Signal run at all? It is not a Android OS. Through a android vm? I thought that does not really work yet, at least not on the pinephone.
- kop316 6y ago
  They run through Anbox: https://anbox.io/ https://anbox.io/
  - hutzlibu 6y ago
    Stable?

frzj 6y ago

I guess you could setup a matrix bridge[1] and search for a sane client[2]. [1] https://matrix.org/docs/projects/bridge/mautrix-whatsapp https://matrix.org/docs/projects/bridge/mautrix-whatsapp [2] https://fluffychat.im https://fluffychat.im

blihp 6y ago

I've had one since July and unless your needs and expectations are very low, it still has a long way to go to achieve daily driver status for me. If you only need it to replace a very low end smartphone (i.e. just making phone calls and text messages with very low expectations for apps/web as you might use a sub-$100 smartphone for) then it might work for that definition of daily driver. What it is right now is an excellent mobile Linux device that is perfect for me in many situations that I'd previously consider using a SBC or don't want to lug a laptop around for a few minute task. It will get there eventually, but the software still needs a lot of work and the hardware probably needs to advance a generation or two. For a daily driver, I literally just went out and picked up a new Android device this weekend because I can't see the Pinephone being able to take on that role for me from a software standpoint for quite some time or with this generation of hardware.

novia 6y ago

> Does anyone have first-hand experience with the pinephone as daily driver? I'm thinking about getting it, but I'm worried I wont be able to do my usual stuff, including using things like Signal or WhatsApp. I don't have the first hand experience, but I was doing research on this very topic earlier today. https://www.github.com/nanu-c/axolotl https://www.github.com/nanu-c/axolotl looked promising. (ubuntu touch only) As others have mentioned, anbox is another alternative. I ended up going with the xcover pro instead, but I'm still highly considering getting a pinephone to do dev work on. There's exciting stuff to reinvent over here!

8bitsrule 6y ago

Here's a first-person report from someone who just got his. Heavily-commented post. https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/jl6q6w/pinephone_arrived_today/ https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/jl6q6w/pinephone_arr...