Volla Phone 22 Runs Ubuntu Touch Or a Privacy-Focused Android Fork Or Both (liliputing.com) 22
The Volla Phone 22, a new smartphone available for preorder via a Kickstarter campaign, is unlike any other smartphone on the market today in that it ships with a choice of the Android-based Volla OS or the Ubuntu Touch mobile Linux distribution. "It also supports multi-boot functionality, allowing you to install more than one operating system and choose which to run at startup," writes Liliputing's Brad Linder. Some of the hardware specs include a 6.3-inch FHD+ display, a MediaTek Helio G85 processor, 4GB of RAM, 128GB storage, 3.5mm audio jack and a microSD card reader. There's also a 48-megapixel main camera sensor and replaceable 4,500mAh battery. From the report: While Volla works with the folks at UBPorts to ensure its phones are compatible with Ubuntu Touch, the company develops the Android-based Volla OS in-house. It's based on Google's Android Open Source Project code, but includes a custom launcher, user interface, and set of apps with an emphasis on privacy. The Google Play Store is not included, as this is a phone aimed at folks who want to minimize tracking from big tech companies. Other Google apps and services like the Chrome web browser, Google Maps, Google Drive, and Gmail are also omitted. The upshot is that no user data is collected or stored by Volla, Google, or other companies unless you decide to install apps that track your data. Of course, that could make using the phone a little less convenient if you've come to rely on those apps, so the Volla Phone might not be the best choice for everyone.
Volla OS also has a built-in user-customizable firewall, an App Locker feature for disabling and hiding apps, and optional support for using the Hide.me VPN for anonymous internet usage. The source code for Volla OS is also available for anyone that wants to inspect the code. The operating system also has a custom user interface including a Springboard that allows you to quickly launch frequently-used apps by pressing a red dot for a list, or by starting to type in a search box for automatic suggestions such as placing a phone call, sending a text message, or opening a web page. You can also create notes or calendar events from the Springboard or send an encrypted message with Signal. The phone is expected to ship in June at an early bird price of about $408.
Volla OS also has a built-in user-customizable firewall, an App Locker feature for disabling and hiding apps, and optional support for using the Hide.me VPN for anonymous internet usage. The source code for Volla OS is also available for anyone that wants to inspect the code. The operating system also has a custom user interface including a Springboard that allows you to quickly launch frequently-used apps by pressing a red dot for a list, or by starting to type in a search box for automatic suggestions such as placing a phone call, sending a text message, or opening a web page. You can also create notes or calendar events from the Springboard or send an encrypted message with Signal. The phone is expected to ship in June at an early bird price of about $408.
Re: (Score:3)
There is such thing as being required to go online to unlock basic functionality for a reason that both does not serve the end user and does not immediately facilitate the basic need
This is encouraging (Score:4, Insightful)
I bought a phone 2 years ago for this price and it's slightly better specs than the Volla 22.
When I'm ready to upgrade, there will be a much better phone around the same price running an open source OS which affords me independence and flexibility.
Thank you to the groups who are interested in producing and supporting these phones. Thank you to the users who are interested in buying them.
I think I may end up taking a small downgrade in specs to get a massive upgrade in control and privacy.
Re: (Score:2)
It is not great though.
I'm with you. In a few years time I'll be buying something like this.
Just one correction (Score:2)
Any other phone? Are you sure? (Score:3)
...unlike any other smartphone on the market today...
With the exception of the Pine Phone. It's quite a lot like the Pine Phone. In fact, it is almost exactly like the Pine Phone.
Rather than yet another fork, how about Graphene (Score:2)
Rather than yet another fork it would be better if they contributed to Graphene OS and made the necessary modifications to compile it for their new phone.
Re: Rather than yet another fork, how about Graphe (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You could say the same thing about just about every Linux distro in existence. There's a kernel of truth to that (pardon the pun), but it's also an advantage of Linux that you have such a choice.
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Exactly. It is a balance between diversity and a common core of functionality. Has so far served the *nix community very well. Eventually we will get a real linux that will work well as a phone OS and then, soon after, we will have several because the tricky bits get copied and shared. As phones have basically stopped evolving some time ago, I hope that time is not far off.
Volla has been around for years. (Score:2)
And their PureFOSS/ZeroGoogle Android and Ubuntu touch OS options for their phones have been too.
It's just this fresh third hardware option that's new about this.
Always with the "emphasis on privacy" (Score:1)
Ubuntu Touch isn't really Linux ... (Score:5, Interesting)
... or well, it is just as Android is - some Linux kernel at the bottom and some touch interface at the top but in the middle it's a mess you can't consistently get anything you'd normally expect from a Linux distro - some people on their forums even give you the "it's not a computer" thing, like there would be any reason why you couldn't have just Ubuntu with a different phone UI on top of it, with the regular partitions (except of course whatever initial arrangement needed to load the kernel and have some kind of recovery in case things go south), regular user-space package updates via a "normal" package manager, the regular demons (of course trimmed down and disabled by default to save the battery) and so on.
Basically for anything they're recommending to make a container - and I mean really anything - I just needed to run gatttool (which thankfully is present and working by default, that was the only saving grace of this OS) to gather some values from a sensor and to open an ssh connection and send home the data (and if needed to open back a shell for emergency access). Yea, it took a container for that and even so starting automatically was a big ordeal (thankfully in the end found that you can use /etc/crontab and bootstrap everything from there, never mind Systemv versus Systemd that's peanuts, this is like going back in time over 30 years).
Oh and the containers are managed accordingly to the documentation https://docs.ubports.com/en/la... [ubports.com] with libertine-container-manager or libertine-launch ... any should work but in fact only one does (forgot which one) and even there you need to wrestle a lot to just make a container and get a shell to it because the few simple commands there just fail. We aren't talking about getting some environment to run the latest Gnome or something, just getting the simplest shell.
Other than that you won't know how well you have it with modern phones until you don't have it anymore. Google is collecting all this location data and is so pushing with "scanning WiFi and Bluetooth even when they're disabled" thing but is giving some usability in return: you just get your position basically instantly, even in buildings. It's as expected a security vs. convenience trade-off to which many object but many don't realize how huge the convenience gap is. You can easily experience that with one of these non-Google OSes on your phone: https://docs.ubports.com/en/la... [ubports.com] . Assisted (with ephemerids downloaded over a data connection) GPS fix is said to be 1-4 minutes but a cold fix without data is said to last up to one hour (!!!). They even need to outline a procedure to set up your phone not to go to sleep, run some app that keeps the location on and everything for one hour and warn about leaving your phone in the sun for a typical "20-60 minutes"!
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It's as expected a security vs. convenience trade-off to which many object but many don't realize how huge the convenience gap is. You can easily experience that with one of these non-Google OSes on your phone: https://docs.ubports.com/en/la [ubports.com]... . Assisted (with ephemerids downloaded over a data connection) GPS fix is said to be 1-4 minutes but a cold fix without data is said to last up to one hour (!!!). They even need to outline a procedure to set up your phone not to go to sleep, run some app that keeps the location on and everything for one hour and warn about leaving your phone in the sun for a typical "20-60 minutes"!
It's curious USB GPS pucks and neo mPCIe cards always seem to manage to get fixes quickly without ANY external help. With smartphones it has long been like waiting for paint to dry to a comical extent. Once you take SUPL away yet retain advantage of XTRA and network clock the phone I had four years ago would take minutes to get a fix and even that would often be lost randomly. Put SUPL back and like magic GPS works. Imagine that.
Even an ancient GPS receiver... a water resistant reflexive grayscale jobbe
Vital app support? (Score:2)
In Sweden, one of the most important uses of phones is as online identification using a BankID app. It is used for logging in to authorities, banks, health services, online card purchases etc.
If I am informed correctly, this app was not possible to run on earlier incarnations of Volla. Hopefully they can get support on newer ones. Without BankID support, phone users would be considerably disrupted here.
Too Cheap (Score:2)
As much as 64K ought to be enough for anybody, sell me an 8GB model for more money so I can actually use it.
Mobile app developers don't care about RAM anymore and a 4GB phone used by a poweruser is just going to page all day.
And $10K is far too low of a goal IMO. $300K might be a reasonable seed but at $10K I fear this will fizzle.
German manufacturing is a fantastic feature. I wish they had chip fabs too.
voLTE? (Score:2)
If all you can do is communicate with your fellow conspirators on Signal without voLTE it isn't really a "phone" in the US, is it? Could just as well install LineageOS on an S5 and save money if this is what you want.