> You got your calculator and SMS app but that's about it.
Well, thankfully it's not the case. The heart is a ARM processor with plenty of code already ported to run on it, and the surrounding hardware isn't that different from many single board computers that already run complete Linux distributions. As an example, Firefox, GIMP and Libreoffice -the real ones, not dumbed down versions- already do run on the Pinephone.
Keep in mind that the video is one year old, meaning old phone model with less RAM, very young OS and likely no code optimization for apps to run on a phone rather on a desktop PC.
Actually I wouldn't be surprised at all if one year from now we would have more software available for the Pinephone compared to Android. Sometimes it's just a matter of recompiling (huge argument in favor of Open Source).
As another example, if Lazarus (lazarus-ide.org) would run on it (it already does on the Raspberry PI and many other ARM boards), one could develop native GUI apps directly on the phone. Probably not comfortable, still possible.
The only problem in my opinion would arise from the unavailability of phone specific apps, particularly closed ones or those depending on proprietary servers whose owners wouldn't give a damn about recompiling their client and are particularly anal retentive wrt allowing 3rd party apps accessing the services, for example Whatsapp. In that case one would have to attempt to emulate a different platform in which run the original proprietary app, which very likely would make things too slow to be useable.
With regard to Whatsapp, it should run on Anbox (Android emulation for PinePhone), because Whatsapp does not require Google Play Services and runs on vanilla Android.
Do you have any data on performance? Having Whatsapp run at acceptable speed on Linux phones would represent a great bump for their acceptance among normal users.
Well, thankfully it's not the case. The heart is a ARM processor with plenty of code already ported to run on it, and the surrounding hardware isn't that different from many single board computers that already run complete Linux distributions. As an example, Firefox, GIMP and Libreoffice -the real ones, not dumbed down versions- already do run on the Pinephone.
https://liliputing.com/2019/11/pinephone-smartphone-can-run-...
Keep in mind that the video is one year old, meaning old phone model with less RAM, very young OS and likely no code optimization for apps to run on a phone rather on a desktop PC.
Actually I wouldn't be surprised at all if one year from now we would have more software available for the Pinephone compared to Android. Sometimes it's just a matter of recompiling (huge argument in favor of Open Source). As another example, if Lazarus (lazarus-ide.org) would run on it (it already does on the Raspberry PI and many other ARM boards), one could develop native GUI apps directly on the phone. Probably not comfortable, still possible.
The only problem in my opinion would arise from the unavailability of phone specific apps, particularly closed ones or those depending on proprietary servers whose owners wouldn't give a damn about recompiling their client and are particularly anal retentive wrt allowing 3rd party apps accessing the services, for example Whatsapp. In that case one would have to attempt to emulate a different platform in which run the original proprietary app, which very likely would make things too slow to be useable.