What if we made an alternative to everything on Android?
It's a big question. I know.
But given that we have the source code to Android (AOSP) and the community to collaborate with, couldn't we just create an entire ROM filled with the necessary applications and utilities, all open source, and with modern UI?
It'll take a shit load of time, and effort. Definitely. But maybe if we banded together? A unified OS running only open source software, with the option for Google Services via something like MicroG, so that we don't need to worry.
I'm no expert. I'm just floating an idea. But I'd love to know if this is possible, step-by-step...
Edit: I know custom ROMs are a thing. I use one. I'm just saying, what if we go ahead and make an open source ecosystem that runs under the same project, so that there's a set of services and apps that are free, open source and non-corporate.
Edit2: I forgot the Lineage project exists. Nevermind 🤦🏻♂️. Let's just try to support it. 🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼
The problem is manufactures are doing everything to sabotage users running custom roms on their devices. Frankly everything you highlight exists already, though there are very difficult problems on the image processing front. Personally I would much rather use a full Linux distribution on a phone, than AOSP without the play store.
Also micro G is not a solution. Having a desktop browser to access drive, docs and photos could be, especially if there were some unique rendering options for those things. (microG is bad, because Google can break it at their leisure)
Yeah - unfortunately the days of Android phones being totally customizable down to the root level are more-or-less gone unless you specifically buy the few models of phone that still allow this sort of thing.
Not gonna lie microg is not that bad, as everything as it's downsides, in my experience, indeed I'm writing this comment with a phone that has lineageos and microg installed.
Thing like gps are not the best not the worst either, bur every app I use work without any problem! And in the list there is even the app for my credit card.