These prices are insane though. Just absurd.

I used the OP15 in the meantime and its ram management and (ironically enough) performance in day to day apps was somehow much worse. It unloaded apps, skipped notifications, apps took longer to open. Google have put in a lot of work into software ahead of the rampocalipse.

Yes they all run in a sandbox, but there's a permissions system that they can exploit.

> I.e. why do apps need stores and websites don't? your browser is, in a way, the store for your websites. You're only as protected from the site's fuckery as the browser is. And generally modern browsers are very well protected.

Hobbyist are cool and all but I'm sure google got sick of one update publishers a long time ago and decided to only allow apps that can actually attract any sort of public.

Is your imagination actually that limited? Go on wikipedia and look up the list of incurable illnesses and go through each one. Go check the evolutionary tree of dinosaurs and check that as well.

Couple of things here. Android was never that open to begin with. There were always (and still going) issues with the kernel sources being withheld indefinitely, AOSP side changes are almost never released at all, iirc only Google released anything. Bootloaders were always an issue, not all manufacturers had unlockable (or easily unlockable) bootloaders.

Ironically, Google were always the spearhead of the standartization in the Android world. Project Treble and stuff resulted in the fact that almost any Android device released these days can run a generic Android image, it's not gonna be as functional as the original Android, but it's something.

Yes, I am on the younger side, that's why I know how it was in the Android world. Nobody is interested in reinstalling OS-es on their phones because the amount of effort to create an Android ISO that's as usable as what's preinstalled is truly gigantic. Android flavours are heavily customized for the needs of the OEM, and for the hardware that they're gonna run on.

It's a niche, always was and always will be. A niche powered by a few large players like LOS or GOS, that actually get paid somehow or heavily work for the idea, and an army of teenage unpaid maintainers, who quit the maintainership as soon as they get a properly paying job that takes most of their time (me).

> there's 50 apps you don't need Where are you getting your pixels? Mine came with all the essentials, I don't remember disabling anything in particular. No game demos, no preloaded meta cancer, just the normal google suite.

> The OS feels super bloated compared to GrapheneOS.

When was that ever not the case? When was a stock OS lighter than a custom flavour on any phone? You can't ship Android in the state that custom OS-es do, you won't pass the certification to get Google's goodies like OTA service and preinstalled play store. Don't quite get the Gemini argument either. You're buying a Gemini phone that touts AI everywhere on its promotional page. What do you expect?