Is it possible to use Android apps on the Librem 5?

Thanks! You’re response tells me that I’ve vastly underestimated the complexity of what you’ve done. Your modesty becomes, you – good work :wink:

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I never had much problem with it when I was using OmniROM without Google Play Services on my (now stolen and destroyed) old phone. Most of the apps I use today are also open source, other than Google Docs/Slides/Sheets and Discord, but those can be run online.

I love opensource. We need a video here!
Can I get steps to duplicate?
Can I download your android image (Feeling lazy)
How about 3d acceleration in snap?

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What’s wrong with seismometers? I have an app for one on my home screen in case I am unsure if there is an earthquake or I am just on a shakey surface, so I think they are relatively important.

nothing wrong with them . but ya know if youre having an earthquake youre probably going to be well aware of it …which is why i think they are kinda gimmicky

Gimmicky only in the sense that if you are having a big enough where you are at that moment. But put them on a network, like the Berkeley developed early warning and measurement, and those can detect early signs and warn others before they are hit with the tremors. Or just make additional observations for science about the characteristics of the quake. Or just curiosity: know what you are dealing with - and a lot of messaging after quakes enquire after magnitude, and less unhelpful messaging there is to flood networks the better.

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Would you be able to run docker on the Librem 5 with an android container?

What about docker? Could you run docker on the Librem 5 then run some sort of android container?

Of course, Docker already works fine. No idea how sensible would it be when it comes to Android though, especially when Anbox already exists.

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10 k views :sweat_smile:

Why on earth would you buy this phone in the first place if having Android apps was a priority for you? Strange.

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The user (long gone) explains that in his post. For all its deficiencies, the post is logical.

Another answer would be: because a phone where you determine what software the phone runs, rather than the phone manufacturer determining that, is always going to be able to run Android apps.

It is just a question of how much work it is and who does the work.

The user did say that Android apps are needed at Day 1 - which is incompatible both with my answer and with the reality as stated by Purism at the time of the original backing.

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Because of banking apps. Here in Sweden, its almost impossible to live without “Bank ID”. And its not available on Linux. Even the government requires it, I find disgusting that I have to buy an Android, iOS or Windows computer to exist. But right now I don’t have a choice. So for me it would be awesome to be able to run Bank ID on my Liberm :smiley:

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Just out of curiosity, what are the implications of not having one? I already heard that it’s very hard to pay cash in Sweden but aren’t there any cashless methods which offer at least a little amount of privacy, like prepaid cards which could be charged by cash? I’m happy that cash is so widely used in Germany btw, unfortunately COVID-19 lowers the perceived acceptance…

Sorry for off-topic.

Paying for services is usually fine with either cash or creditcard. So for that you don’t need Bank ID. Its more for banking services, they use it for signing documents. And you use it for paying tax.

The last two issues I had, was to fill out my tax form a couple of weeks ago, so I had to install bank id on an old phone. And I changed jobs about half a year ago, I needed bank id to sign for everything and also get my recommendation letter.

But if you want to use something like Swish, which is the most popular app in Sweden for transferring money between people, then you also need bank id, there is no way to do that without it. I worry that stores and restaurants will start using that system only… because that app doesnt exist for Linux either (which wouldn’t help I guess, since bank id doesnt).

Thanks for that information. It’s very sad to hear that such governmental enacted vendor lock-ins exist. I had the impression that this doesn’t comply with EU law. So Android application support is very important for such closed source apps which are hard to circumvent. Fortunately, there has been made progress with Anbox.

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we’re just a technology company …

Actually to my understanding, Sweden is breaking EU law with Bank ID. There were a couple of news articles about it 1-2 years ago. But they don’t consider it important, so they ignore it. Implementing EU surveillance, there they instead blame EU why they have to implement it. Funny how things that are good for the people are so easily ignored, but bad stuff are always implemented…

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Yes and no - “sudo apt install snapd” is no prob but you will get errors trying to install just about anything:

$snap install argos-translate
error: snap “argos-translate” is not available on stable for this architecture (arm64) but exists on other architectures (amd64)

How about the Tor Browser? It has an ARM64 build on Android. I linked it below for convenience, and if you are interested, you may also verify the signature with the other link:

https://dist.torproject.org/torbrowser/10.0.12/tor-browser-10.0.12-android-aarch64-multi.apk

https://dist.torproject.org/torbrowser/10.0.12/tor-browser-10.0.12-android-aarch64-multi.apk.asc