It's not sad in terms of numbers. It's sad in terms of the implementation. It's pretty much only the kernel... Yes I know all the utilities and applications is really GNU and not Linux, but that's what people think of when they say they run Linux.

So yes all android phones technically run Linux, but you're not getting a Unix flavoured experience at all. It might as well not have been linux.

Hence the sadness.

[–] ulterno@programming.dev 0 points 1 day ago

The point being that it doesn't matter whether it is Linux.
Because when we talk about Linux, we don't attribute the name just to the kernel, but to the openness that comes along with it.

In case of Android phones, the user:

is unable to install their own version of the OS, based on their own compiled version of the Kernel. Because locked bootloader and all
- They might even be unable to use the Google's stock OS if they wanted to on another vendor's device.
has to use components of Android studio, if they want to build anything for Android phones
- Even if the code is C++
- Although, it seems to be possible to use the NDK and Gradle locally, so maybe this particular concern is unfounded.
most often, is lead to believe that they don't have much else to use other than what is available on the App store that is there by default on the phone.
- and what is that full of anyway? I send a plain text file to others on their phone and they say they can't open it. I open the Play store and try typing "plain text" and the top applications are ad-full
  - Would you pay/watch ads on your Linux computer to open a txt file?
  - btw, check out "Simple Text Editor" by maxistar. That seems legitimate to me. Others had suspicious permissions (then there is a Text Viewer by pangola, which seems to be good with 0 permissions, if you only want to look at the file)
- The Phone app removing useful features with iterations

Ok, I've written enough... bye

[–] RogueBanana@lemmy.zip 7 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Not sure if this is sarcasm but do you actually think android is great? Their comment is not about the numbers but the state of android and how google ruined it.

[–] YurkshireLad@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Not sarcasm, I was commenting on the number of installations.

[–] HelloRoot@lemy.lol 5 points 2 days ago

the number makes it more sad