Using 3rd party app stores - not Google or Apple? [US]

[pjp]

Is this possible any more in the US? I don't imagine Apple has ever allowed it. I believe Samsung's bootloader isn't unlockable. And there don't appear to be many other major brands of cell phone

I won't bother asking about replaceable batteries or slots for external storage. My previous phone was one of the last remaining few that offered those :(
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Quis separabit? Quo animo?

[fedeliallalinea]

On my android device (Nokia X20) I changed all base sistem app with Simple Mobile Tools, you can find them or in Play Store or on F-Droid.
For uninstall base app I used the Fitzcarraldo's method with adb.
A list of FOSS application on https://github.com/offa/android-foss.

For Apple I don't know.
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Questions are guaranteed in life; Answers aren't.

[psycho]

Hi PJP.

I haven't come across any Samsung phones that can't be rooted... maybe I'm buying them a bit later than you are (i.e. allowing time for folk to develop the methods for rooting them), but in my experience nearly all Android phones (be they Samsung, HTC, Motorola, Nokia, Sony or whatever) can be rooted and then you can do what you like. At long last I'm on a stock phone OS (Android 12 on an Asus ROG phone 5) that provides enough basic, head-slappingly-obvious functionality (like being able to edit the app names on the home screens and customize the panel shortcuts and so on) that I'm happy without rooting it... but most of my phones in the past have had their crappy unusable stock OS swapped out for LineageOS or whatever within a day or two of buying them and being frustrated by all the basic stuff they refused to do.

On the other hand if you're talking about secure, officially supported/vetted (by the phone companies) alternatives to Google's and Apple's app stores, the only one I'm aware of is Huawei's... and that's perhaps abusing the definition of "secure" (the Chinese government probably has full unrestricted access to all the info Huawei handles). If by "slots for external storage" you mean micro SD cards, perhaps the US market is different, but here in New Zealand there are still plenty of models offering that. Samsung's A13, A53 and A73 are on retail shelves at the moment here, and can use SD cards, and it looks like a few other brands like Nokia and Oppo (and the Asus ROG phone 6) support them too. Also, whereas it's obviously too inconvenient for always-available storage, modern phones without SD slots do still have "slots for external storage" in the sense that you can stick a USB drive into the USB-C slot (the same one you use to charge the phone). It used to be a deal-breaker for me, that phones had to support micro-SD, but (as with the precious stereo audio jack) I have to admit I'm getting less precious about that stuff as the other tech gets better (e.g. my current phone has my entire music collection stored on it locally... and it still has well over 400GB of internal storage available, so the only reason I'd need more storage would be for recording lots of high-quality video... and I don't think it would be unbearably inconvenient just to plug in a USB stick at the end of the day to offload the video).

I don't know what the story is with replaceable batteries though... don't think I've seen that for a while... but battery life and resilience get better as the tech improves, so if you buy a model with great battery life to start with, it should last so long before the battery life's a nuisance that you won't feel too bad about upgrading the whole phone (as the new phone will probably outgun the old one in lots of ways, maximum battery life included).

[szatox]

I stumbled upon this:
https://shop.fairphone.com/en/buy-fairphone-4
Not really to my taste, but at least they kinda bring the old-school PC philosophy to the cellphone market.

Pinephone is good for hacking, but WAY too power-hungry to be considered mobile; it just munches through this massive battery in no time, so just "movable".

[pjp]

[fedeliallalinea]

[pjp]

[steve_v]

[pjp]

[pjp]

[szatox]

[psycho]

[steve_v]

[fedeliallalinea]

[pjp]

Believe me, I didn't want a Samsung. There really weren't many options. I think the Pixel, a few from Motorola, and a flip phone were the only non-standard options.

I've "uninstalled" / disabled most of what can be. I may eventually try to forcefully remove some stuff. If the nag screens stop, then I won't be as motivated to attempt a forceful intervention :)

The best thing I can say about it so far is that I have a phone when I need one.


What I'm most surprised about is how similar they all seem. Samsung devices seem slippery and made of cheap plastic. I suppose they presume you'll drop it to need a replacement or put it in a case. It was about $100 less than a flip phone.

I haven't stumbled across an option to allow F-Droid, so I'm guessing I'll have to do some magic incantation if it is supported.

Oh well. Thanks for the feedback.
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[arnvidr]

You can uninstall anything you want through adb (dev-util/android-tools). That's how I've removed bloat from the last few phones I've bought.

I currently have some kind of Sony Xperia, and my previous one was a Sony as well. They've both survived quite a few silly drops to hard surfaces, even one from a bike in motion. Previous one was only replaced because I borked the charging port beyond usefulness.

I believe the procedure to open up side-loading is similar in all variants of android, and you'd need to do the same to use adb as well, which requires activating "USB debugging" or similar, but well worth it in my estimate.
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[pjp]

Thanks. I'm not sure when I'll try that. There appears to be an option to "Install unknown apps." Options then include Bluetooth, browser, email, some other apps, and "My Filies." So I suppose I'll have to copy it to the phone via USB or use the special paperclip to eject the flimsy microsd/sim tray.

At this point, I'd be as happy to replace the timer / clock app and the messaging app for useful versions. Though I have no idea how messaging works on phones and if that's practically possible.
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Quis separabit? Quo animo?

[arnvidr]

On android you can replace all of the "basic" apps, caller, messages, contacts, keyboard, etc. no problem. I've done so many times before, but right now I'm content with the regular apps that came with my phone. I think they might be the plain ones that come with android. If they are, they've gotten a lot better through the years.
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[pjp]

Good to know. I suppose it is likely to be a bigger issue to find a suitable replacement on F-Droid (sometimes it seems like a place for abandon-ware or test projects before they're put in the Play store).

With my previous phone, the basic stuff just worked well. Obviously there's a degree of that's what I adapted to, but it also seemed to be an easy UI that wasn't "in my way." I presume the new apps are from Samsung (mainly messaging, contacts and lightly editing photos. Oh, and the clock/timer/alarm, including sounds). Maybe they're Android. Either way, they're awful. Everything seems more difficult and less intuitive. Maybe the apps I was using were made by LG, which would be a shame since they exited the market.

On the plus side I do even less with the phone than previously. And since I lost what non-critical data I had, I'm likely going to keep notes on paper. That was the one secondary use I found useful. Oh well.
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[arnvidr]

Yeah, I had an LG at one point, I remember liking that one. I've never liked what Samsung does to their phones, so I've never owned one of those.
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