I use Session Messenger, on the Oxen network. Love it on principle even tho the implementation is a bit lacking in places.

And there’s Tor… Which is what it is.

There are a lot of phones that have some of the features - Sony has punchless displays, some cheap phones have headphone jacks, all the Motorolas have two SIMs, some phones have SD cards in shared slots, Pixels and some others have unlockable bootloaders, it’s just basically impossible to get one with all of this…

My bad here, I didn’t mean AAC, but ALAC (lossless) and other Apple’s own mp4 variants. Indeed not sure how’s the support in core Android, although I’d guess ALAC should be since it’s part of mp4 specification.

I haven’t goofed around with it in a while, but some ~10 years ago when I was doing tech reviews I was looking into ALAC quite a bit and was surprised how nice it is, and apparently easy enough to implement that even lots of hardware devices supported it without even advertising it. Also 3rd party audiobook players can often deal with Apple’s audiobook DRM.

Basically, Apple did surprisingly well with audio formats while also supporting some open formats (at least in hardware), so maybe that’s also a reason why I’m not so adamant about formats being 100% free from the start, as long as they get the codec ball rolling.

But again it’s been 10 years since I was looking into this closely so I’m very fuzzy on the details.

Screen with no holes, physical dual SIM cards and mSD card, headphone jack, somewhat trustworthy manufacturer with no ads and bloat, easily unlockable bootloader. There should still be one German-made phone that still has all that and some more, if it still exists, although if I ever get to getting a new phone we’ll probably all be using brain implants so it may all be moot by that point. Don’t worry about it, I’m not looking for recommendations or anything, I know everyone thinks my demands are crazy.

Well this was a 150 € phone when new so that’s a pretty different category than what you’re looking at. I wouldn’t be surprised if 32b was still a thing in the cheap Chinese phones.

If I ever get a chance to replace it, it will be extremely tough because it has a bunch of things which are indispensable for me that newer models simply don’t have.

Not for a while, I have an oldish Motorola with Android 9, probably one of the last phones with 32b OS

(Don’t anyone dare tell me to “upgrade”)

Okay

I only use Bromite at this point for some streaming stuff which don’t work so well on FF based browsers, and Mulch always pauses playback when minimised… Bloody annoying. I didn’t want to use Brave, but I guess I might have to try it.

Can’t use it as I have a 32bit phone and the dev refuses to provide a 32bit binary (and won’t explain why, referring to some nonexistent past discussion)

Guess it’s time to finally retire Bromite

Aye so bottom line, we’re stuck with what exists until new formats are forced upon everybody… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Ed:

was under the impression raw was universally supported

Raw isn’t a format, it’s supposed to just be unaltered stream from the imager, so every camera model is unique in that regard. But DNG is a way to describe that data so it’s more readable to programs unfamiliar with the specific model. And well, some makers prefer to use their own proprietary models.

Although it’s gotten better now that nobody buys standalone cameras so the makers can save money by not developing their own software.

Ed2:

none of apple’s formats are supported outside of apple devices (and i guess itunes for windows)

Actually AAC is mostly Apple’s format and support for it is pretty great. I’m not super familiar with the details but it sounds like a similar situation as with webp.

It’s gonna be funny if i15 becomes the bestselling iPhone due to USB-C. And shareholders will be like dude, these open standards actually sell, just go with them next time instead of all the proprietary shit

if i make an image then upload it to the internet - the only software that’s involved is on my side (gimp, ps, whatever[^1]) and the browser of the person viewing it.

It’s not. The web site you’re uploading to has to support it to allow you the upload in the first place, and to process it to make previews or lower-res versions for the web pages or apps.

Well unless you’re uploading directly through ftp and share only the link, but again that’s not how people use pictures.

Then if the person on the other side wants to download the picture, set it as wallpaper, send it through messenger, then those programs need to support it too.

Heck now that I think about it, browser support isn’t even that critical because web sites can make media available in whatever format the browser supports. The important part is the backend, and local apps.

meh, i haven’t seen any in the past ~5 years apart from ones specifically chosen for that 256 colour æsthetic; but i will believe you

Do believe me, recently I’ve started converting those I want to keep to mp4 and I’m saving gigabytes.

Recently I’ve had some debates here with people looking for better support for gifs, or how to encode them better or whatever, and I nudge them towards webp at least. Because simply, if the web site supports only jpg, png, gif and webp uploads, then I definitely prefer webp.

it did get places. it has got places. again, it’s very new and is already well supported

It’s not all that well supported in lots of those cases I mention. And where it did get, it only got because Apple has actually billions of devices out there and has the power to make the format default among them with one worldwide update. Yet it still has to convert to jpg when sharing elsewhere by default. That’s how huge the resistance is.

It’s not all that new either, heif was introduced in 2017, webp even earlier and people still bitch that they can’t use it because their oddball app doesn’t support it.

Meanwhile x265 has been a common thing for years, and every few years before there’s been a new generation of video codec, and nobody ever bats an eye when there’s a new update.

jpeg2k failed because of licencing and royalty issues. heif hasn’t spread because of licencing and royalty issues

I’m not advocating for these formats specifically (definitely not jpeg2000 haha), but I’m saying licences and royalties aren’t that super important when it comes to how supported something becomes.

Hell look at Apple… Everything is proprietary.

Or when it comes to formats, mp3 is still the most widely supported audio format (non-free), and DivX has been the most widely supported video format for much longer than anything else… Also non-free.

jpe group have a considerable amount of sway so i’m sure they could persuade most camera manufacturers to support it

Haha hardware camera makers are the slowest dinosaurs when it comes to technology. Took them fucking ages for some to support DNG raw format, and before h264 was already getting grey, most would record videos only in mjpeg.

But it’s more about phone cameras anyway. And well with those we’ll only have webp and heif at most, so I guess we have to deal with that anyway.

Maybe if Mozilla had not abandoned their FF OS, maybe that would’ve been a camera supporting jpegxl now.

i gave those because they’re the most pertinent programmes for people dealing with creating & editing

That’s not how people use images. For an image format to be viable, you need your camera to support it, your gallery app/program to support it, the web sites you upload it to, the messaging platforms you share it through.

If there’s a break in the chain, people will screenshot the picture as png and bitch to you that you’re using something weird.

I’ve been trying to get people to use or support image formats for 15 years, previously as a tech journalist too, and the resistance is totally absurd. “Why change what works”, “just because it’s new doesn’t mean I have to use it” are the typical responses you get from everyone.

i really don’t think many people use gif.

Oh you’d be surprised… Gaming videos on Steam, screen recordings, porn clips by amateurs, or just random clips, the amount of low-res gifs with 10s of MB in size is crazy.

jpeg2k had major issues other than a lack of support - jxl has deliberately avoided those pitfalls

Sure, it’s shitty of Google to drop the support, but from experience I’m still unfortunately 100% sure it wouldn’t have gotten anywhere.

Heck, Apple has been using HEIF for years and that’s a trillion dollar company with a huge market share, and you still get shitton of places where you can’t use it.

jpegxl actually has pretty good support - affinity, photoshop, gimp, krita, etc. all support it fine

Sorry, 5 graphics programs isn’t “support”. You need support from the millon mobile apps, web sites and image and web libraries. A format that you can only use by yourself or with a handful professionals is useless in practice.

Ed: look at the list of formats supported by XnView

holding back truly open formats i’d say that doesn’t really matter

There’s been hundreds of new image formats in the last ~20 years, and none has gotten anywhere.

Even PNG needed a decade for some things to support it properly, and that one really had a brand new massive use case.

People use gif to make videos for crying out loud, and bitch about webp all the time, that’s how massive the pushback against new formats is.

Do you really think jpegxl would get anywhere by itself? No, it would be the same as with jpeg2000 and tons of other formats - first supported by a handful of programs, but not used by anyone else and then forgotten.

Problem is, it takes a huge brand like Google or Apple to push a new format for something basic like images. Do you know how many alternative image formats exist that have tried to be the next jpg/gif/png? Hundreds.

I just really wish people would stop clinging to these old formats, especially gif. Maybe when the tech giants get some traction with webp, more open alternatives can get popular as well, once people realize that jpg and gif aren’t the end of everything, and app developers get off their fat asses and start supporting other formats too. It just needs to start somewhere.

Just like ogg probably wouldn’t be a thing if commercial mp3 didn’t pave the way, or we probably wouldn’t have divx/h264… without Real Media and Quick Time. Signal wouldn’t be so popular either without the likes of Skype and Viber.

Of course I’d prefer open, free standards from the start, but you can see how fucking lazy people are (both users and developers) to support new formats.

That said, it’s not like webp is closed or anything, so I’m ok with it.

Well I hate your stupid png screenshots

Pretty much, people stick to an ancient format from the stone age and then bitch to people who want to change it.

Get ready to be called names if you say the truth.

Sigh, just when I really switched over to making memes in webp

Maybe don’t use programs from 1996

(Or when you do, don’t complain that new shit doesn’t work.)