For those of you new to the forums or just don’t know me, I do not like limits imposed by device manufacturers and even the companies behind the software that runs on said devices. I want to do with my device what I want, not what the manufacturer thinks I should do. I’ve been an Android user since I was 12 years old and I noticed that while devices are getting more powerful and letting me do many things I couldn’t before (running Windows 7 Enterprise in a PC emulator hugely comes to mind here), there seem to be tons of lockdowns. For example, rooting some devices now is a pain and ends with needing a stock reflash (Galaxy Tab S3 on stock Pie when I tried a few months ago was a DISASTER of a rooting attempt, so much so I didn’t even mention it on the forums at the time). Also, many of the countless XDA tweaks and mods I was able to do on my first Android device are not possible. Another thing are locked bootloaders that in some regions or on certain devices are not unlockable or aren’t an instant unlock process. I know they claim “security” reasons, but there is something more to it. If there were any “security” issues, laptops and PC’s would’ve done it a long time ago. Manufacturers want us to buy their devices, frequently upgrade, use exclusively their ecosystems and services. Well, I want to keep the right to combine hardware, software and services that I want, get my digital content from whichever source I want, and so on. I want to have FULL desktop PC style control over my mobile devices out of the box, install whatever I want, as I will NEVER buy into dumb locked down all-encompassing ecosystems that force you to use them for everything. I know this might sound like a pointless rant, but I’ve been using computers since I was pretty much a baby and I remember the good old days when I literally could do anything I wanted and the computer would just do it, not hide anything under the hood from me, etc… I consider my cellphone and tablet to be mini full-fledged computers and that is why I stuck with Android. And don’t even get me started on the whole removable battery situation…
Bottom line is that I don’t like, and will actively and passionately oppose this new trend of mobile devices (and heck, things like smart TVs and smart home devices) slowly becoming more and more locked down and forcing you to use the “integrated whole” that the manufacturers want you to use. I am a very nerdy person who likes to tinker, who likes to make “ultimate” setups on all my mobile devices (think like the cellphone version of those “ultimate” console setups that have everything and anything you want with zero limitations). The whole reason I use Android is because it lets me do most everything I want, and Android Pie is the LAST version of Android I will even remotely consider to be “true Android” because Google starting with Q is slowly getting rid of legacy direct file access which I still use with a number of legacy apps that are a lot better than their modern counterparts (I still have and use some VERY EARLY android apps that I’ve mostly scavenged from parts of the internet that can only be found with Russian search engines). If Google takes away ANY MORE major freedom features from Android than they already have, I honestly don’t want to even remotely imagine living in such an epicly broken world as it would be too boring for me and tech would not be nearly as interesting as I don’t like my stuff being a “black box” that I am supposed to use for what most non tech-savvy people consider “normal”.
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Bottom line is that I don’t like, and will actively and passionately oppose this new trend of mobile devices (and heck, things like smart TVs and smart home devices) slowly becoming more and more locked down and forcing you to use the “integrated whole” that the manufacturers want you to use. I am a very nerdy person who likes to tinker, who likes to make “ultimate” setups on all my mobile devices (think like the cellphone version of those “ultimate” console setups that have everything and anything you want with zero limitations). The whole reason I use Android is because it lets me do most everything I want, and Android Pie is the LAST version of Android I will even remotely consider to be “true Android” because Google starting with Q is slowly getting rid of legacy direct file access which I still use with a number of legacy apps that are a lot better than their modern counterparts (I still have and use some VERY EARLY android apps that I’ve mostly scavenged from parts of the internet that can only be found with Russian search engines). If Google takes away ANY MORE major freedom features from Android than they already have, I honestly don’t want to even remotely imagine living in such an epicly broken world as it would be too boring for me and tech would not be nearly as interesting as I don’t like my stuff being a “black box” that I am supposed to use for what most non tech-savvy people consider “normal”.
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