Smartphone sales fall for the first time, says Gartner
I&#x27;m at &quot;peak phone&quot;. I can&#x27;t go to a dumb phone and I&#x27;m locked into apple and google&#x27;s ecosystems, but I am underserved by them and actively working on moving away from them. I&#x27;ve been buying small computing platforms and testing out PCIe LTE modems as well as playing around with the LimeSDR LTE[1] networking getting ready for 5G mesh networking with the next model.<p>I want to carry a brick that I control in my backpack or pocket and use my own input and display devices[2][3]. I don&#x27;t need another $1000 light up rectangle &#x2F; digital leash. I haven&#x27;t played a mobile game in years, none of the apps on my phone are increasing my enjoyment of the tool. Basically it&#x27;s there for banking and so I can check Slack if if I&#x27;m running errands and something else happens.<p>I made the decision to start working on the DIY phone project when I found out the iPhoneX used the primesense depth camera on the front. It&#x27;s 100% for more tracking and advertising stuff without any of the cool AR&#x2F;Depth stuff that I want. Also potentially SUPER creepy social control when you have thousands of high detail copies of everyone&#x27;s face because they posted them with goofy masks on them. As if the instagram to Deepfakes pipeline was too complicated. Then google mothballed Tango a couple weeks after I got a ZenPhoneAR.<p>The emperor has no clothes at this point. We don&#x27;t need their phones and they don&#x27;t want us to know it yet. I have a $300 Firefly[4] board that dual boots Ubuntu and Android and has HDMI in. I&#x27;m working on automating my control of an external iphone through HDMI and a hacked together capacitive touch overlay so I can control it with a mouse like stylus so I won&#x27;t have to deal with the communication gap from iMessage being so wired up to my life. I&#x27;m pretty sure I can virtualize iOS or OSX with a bit of work to solve that problem too then just work on migrating out. There are starting to be very appealing X86_64 tiny computers like the LattePanda[5].<p>The walled media messaging garden between iOS and Android bugs the crap out of me. If I send someone a phone vid from iOS to android they get a thumbnail that looks like a 1996 RealPlayer DVD Rip.<p>I want an Ono Sendai but cooler, the tools are here now. Fuck the adslabs.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.crowdsupply.com&#x2F;lime-micro&#x2F;limenet" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.crowdsupply.com&#x2F;lime-micro&#x2F;limenet</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theverge.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;2&#x2F;5&#x2F;16966530&#x2F;intel-vaunt-smart-glasses-announced-ar-video" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theverge.com&#x2F;2018&#x2F;2&#x2F;5&#x2F;16966530&#x2F;intel-vaunt-smart...</a><p>[3] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bosch-presse.de&#x2F;pressportal&#x2F;de&#x2F;en&#x2F;mobile-world-congress-2017-new-bosch-microscanner-bml050-for-interactive-laser-projection-90624.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.bosch-presse.de&#x2F;pressportal&#x2F;de&#x2F;en&#x2F;mobile-world-co...</a><p>[4] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;shop.t-firefly.com&#x2F;goods.php?id=64" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;shop.t-firefly.com&#x2F;goods.php?id=64</a><p>[5] <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.lattepanda.com&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.lattepanda.com&#x2F;</a>