This might be a long rambling post but bear with me. Had a conversation yesterday here about smartphones, decentralisation and the way in which we all seem beholden to either Android or Apple. I've been going over and over in my mind an idea about a self sovereign smartphone. I'll call it a smart device from now on because I think the phone aspect of our devices is not the most important now. So.....this device, what should it do? Well a device, maybe in kit form like a raspiblitz, that contains all the hardware like touchscreen, camera, mic and necessary parts to allow connection to the internet. The OS is unique and would at minimum allow users to use a lightning wallet, nostr type client (and all the derivatives of nostr which I am sure we have yet to see), maybe a bitcoin core wallet. I'm just thinking aloud and would like to hear opinions on this. Would you as a bitcoiner be happy with a smart device like this with, maybe only initially, such limited function compared to your current device? Obviously most apps wouldnt run on the OS but perhaps it would be enough that only bitcoin centric ones worked with the OS developers and came up with the new OS version. Well, I've done my best to elucidate what is swimming in my brain. Thoughts?
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I have an iPhone and a de-googled Android. CalyxOS and GrapheneOS are both excellent for Pixel devices. I’m actually using the iPhone more often now primarily because of Damus for Nostr.
I have wanted the type of device you’re describing since mobile phones got keyboards , well before “smartphones”.
The challenge for a DIY type of device is the costs associated with the individual components and the supply chain challenges of making it small enough to be practical.
Combine that with the current incentives for large corporations to compete and centralize power and you get proprietary hardware and closed software. For example, Android may be open source, but Google’s software stack isn’t. On the hardware side, 128GB - 256GB max storage on newer Pixels vs 1TB on iPhone, primarily because Google’s business model needs you to store everything in their cloud, not “your” device.
My dream solution would be a base hardware platform like Raspberry Pi that was open and others could design companies for, like a photography oriented camera or a basic camera suited to your preferences. You could swap it later if you wanted. For software, a fully open source Start9 or Umbrel type solution where you had a public “App Store”, but also the ability to side load or develop your own applications for it.
While an amazing idea, the challenges are larger than they seem at first glance.
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