from Hacker News

Librem 5 July Update

by pksadiq on 7/12/19, 4:56 PM with 21 comments

  • by dmix on 7/12/19, 7:05 PM

    Interesting, they are building their own mobile compositor based on wlroots: https://source.puri.sm/Librem5/phoc

    This is the right way to do an open source phone by adopting existing modern desktop Linux tech. Instead of going your own Androidy path like Sailfish/Jolla is doing.

  • by evross on 7/12/19, 7:17 PM

    Always enjoy reading these updates. It's refreshing for a company to explain their progress in this kind of technical detail, another bonus of a free/open source product. Congrats to the Purism team for the progress, looking forward to seeing the new Linux phone.
  • by adrusi on 7/12/19, 9:01 PM

    Does anyone who follows this more closely know what mapping support there will be? I worry that it will be hard to match the quality of Google/Apple Maps with free software. I've tried using OsmAnd, but it's just a terrible experience compared to commercial map apps. This is a big deal for me and I imagine many others, because losing the traffic data and turn-by-turn navigation of commercial map apps is a dealbreaker, but allowing me to get rid of these most invasive apps would be a huge selling point, and would probably get me to buy the device all on its own.
  • by woodrowbarlow on 7/12/19, 7:44 PM

    the latest shipping update is still Q3 2019 (so 2-5 months away) and yet the marketing page still has a lot of hardware that is TBD: memory, cameras, and battery.

    who wants to bet it will be pushed back to 2020?

  • by mikece on 7/12/19, 8:10 PM

    Have they said anything about PWA support? If PWA is supported and on par with Chrome on Android this would allow a lot of PWA-compliant web apps (like Twitter, Gmail, and many more) to be ready to go right away. While not "native" the app ecosystem would at least have a chance to be there at the time of release.
  • by alexkavon on 7/12/19, 6:24 PM

    It looks like the UI is coming together nicely. My only question is what battery life will look like on these phones. I'm guessing terrible for the first gen.
  • by nixpulvis on 7/12/19, 8:39 PM

    This is so exciting! I can't wait to buy one.