Six years ago the entire Linux enthusiast space was super excited for the PinePhone, then everything fell apart. What went wrong? Was PINE64’s favoritism towards Manjaro the sole issue or were there other problems?
The only reason why consumers like you and me get to enjoy free software on modern PC hardware is because of the expectation of open standards and interoperability set way back when the industry was still growing and computer users gave a shit (or rather, when only the people who gave a shit owned a computer).
Much to the industry giants’ enthusiasm, mobile hardware stacks were developed without this baggage, and so unless something fundamental changes, all mobile devices trying to focus on free software will be doomed to failure by abysmally poor hardware support and aging hand-me-down hardware.
I own the original PinePhone, and it’s nice to tinker with, but honestly it’s far too slow to be usable on a regular basis. Perhaps the PinePhone Pro is slightly better, but most likely still not good enough.
Couple that with the other issues described by @carzian@lemmy.ml , and it’s pretty clear why it failed.
So I think there were a few issues.
- the original pinephone was basically too slow to be usable
- there were a few hardware quirks that had to be fixed in software but made mainlining drivers for it difficult
- the lack of community updates (and you could argue overall community management) caused some developers to move away while also impeded pine64s ability to attract new developers
- the lack of any sort of funding for developers made it difficult for people to work on as any more than a hobby (not necessarily pine64’s fault, but it’s the reality)
- poor battery life (better idle and sleep support would have been software issues but the hardware was designed to be cheap instead of really useful)
- daily driving Linux on a phone is a poor experience - not pine64s fault but there’s a bunch of support missing in Linux that needs to be developed before early adopters can really use Linux phones. Modem power management, audio switching between Bluetooth and speaker, MMS support, camera support, etc.
Made with low end hardware
its so slow that it feels worse than a gen 1 iphone. even with a super stripped down alpine based os it’s unbearable even just making calls or text and not using any software beyond basic phone apps.
