@rik Have you considered selling iodé merchandise as well, e.g. T-shirts? (Does the iodé team themselves sell any branded T-shirts?)
P.S. With the company’s authorization, of course.
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I have run this in the past, but no phone calls in 3G-less land over here at the time (and group MMS messages didn’t work at all… sadly USA users need these due to iOS infestations :-). There may be one or 2 handsets that possibly support VoLTE now but I know it is still fairly unreliable. Anyway, point is that Droidian or Ubuntu Touch, mainline postmarketOS, or Sailfish are all possible for a tinkerer. Only FuriOS is polished enough I suspect and even then may not daily driveable just yet depending on use case (OK sorry now I am the one off topic!)
There are some serious downsides for anyone that feels the need to run MicroG I accept, but if you are used to getting every thing you need via webapps and you are only using Waydroid for FOSS apps then most all the functional snags are at least mitigated if not completely eradicated.
Only major downside on my system is that I can stream video but can’t record it. Some what ironic after what I was saying earlier about Sony and their camera tech’. I accept that it is going to need a lot of serious development before it will have any appeal for those that want to keep a foot in both camps, but I have a feeling that even they will have to bite on the privacy bullet at some point in the not too distant future if screwgle continue to have their way with android.
Thanks for the explanation! Especially the last point makes it a lot more understandable for my side.
I love the sustainable part of iode to give lots of devices a second life because they support the hardware of a variety of phones. Lately I switched most of the ones I own to the cleaner L4M with faster updates.
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Yes, L4M is great for taking LineageOS and preinstalling microG. I contribute there (a bit behind on my contributions), and @petefoth is the lead there. We at L4M don’t have device relocking which personally not a big concern for me, but I think my customers prefer to not be warned their device may be compromised every time they boot . Also there are some extra bits of iodéOS like microG being able to report that the “CTS Profile” matches and also be seen as “bootloader locked” (even if it isn’t ) that we weren’t successful in implementing with L4M. iodéOS having these bits means it is a bit more compatible with some of the more “fussy” banking apps (but of course not all of them).
L4M also makes userdebug builds which means you can get full backups via adb root that aren’t possible on iodéOS (which makes user builds and thus no adb root availability).
I guess my point is that L4M is great, there are a few + and a few - to each, and we (L4M and iodéOS) collaborate together.
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Thanks for that thorough explanation!
Is Iode based on L4M or LOS actually?
As I mostly have Samsung phones which bootloaders can’t be relocked theres no difference there right? They get the warning everytime.
But it’s not possible on samsung phones right?
That sounds pretty interesting to me, how does that work? Only with rooted devices, right?
No, iodé uses their own build process, but it pulls in upstream LineageOS sources and vendor sources just the same as the others. The los4mg (l4m) build process is used to make the unofficial iodéOS builds for Sony devices (@petefoth ) and Pixel devices (me). Here is how that build process works: Home · lineageos4microg/docker-lineage-cicd Wiki · GitHub
Correct. Only if devices are able to be re-locked (manufacturer dependent) is that possible. Pixels, Fairphones, Motorola(?) yes, but several others “no” (Sony, Samsung?)
Using iodéOS (even with an unlocked bootloader), if you have the various microG SafetyNet bits enabled, many apps that think they are verifying the bootloader is locked will succeed, it is a bit of the part that iodé has that l4m doesn’t have. But you have to test to see what works or doesn’t work with both iodéOS and los4mg to confirm.
No root is needed. adb root runs on non-rooted userdebug builds (but not on user builds like iodé official builds). Here is the project commonly referenced that people use for full backup and restore (note I haven’t used it before myself): GitHub - AndDiSa/android_backup_project
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How is the business going? I hope it’s going good.
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Thanks for checking back. To answer, I believe the very few customers are quite happy but I have not yet broken the marketing / awareness raising gap to raise that much interest. I can say the *few* people contacting me actually lead to a very high “contact to sale” ratio .
I do have a few older damaged devices (cracked screens) that I am testing repairs on (replacing the glass only not the digitizer) as I am realizing that cracked glass Pixels (with working digitizers) are a place I could get devices to then resell for lower prices. Full non OEM replacement screens are often not good enough quality (low refresh rate, low resposiveness, getting fingerprint sensor working correctly, and washed out colors etc.), but genuine replacement screens often nearly match the entire device price, so basically if it is a broken screen it is sadly nearly a disposable device 
.
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Hi
If you want to go to the repair crack glass on screens you could check these:
I’ve bought a few of their kits but did not have time to check them..
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Yup, that is exactly the kit I purchased to test with a Pixel 3a XL: First to test on a totally dead display which went well to separate the glass, next when I get more brave is to do it on another Pixel 3a XL with a cracked screen but working display . Having kids that return phones to me when they have issues means I have a few of these to experiment on
Well, my “separate the broken glass from the digitizer” attempts using the kits from ExpertCellDIY failed (I had a few to try on, alas it is a tedious job and I did read that the glue used on older devices such as the Pixel 3a XL I was testing on was a lot harder than newer glue… possibly this caused the problem, but the result was I thought I was successful on one but when powering it on I was greeted with the 1000 sparkles and flashing colors of a broken digitizer )
For these older devices, however, I was able to obtain refurbished (so genuine but not new) full OLED displays (with no scratches) for about $45 USD. I also obtained new batteries (3rd party but larger capacity than original, reputable 3rd party manufacturer) for under $10. So for $55ish each device I now have 3 Pixel 3a XL with scratch free beautiful screens and fresh batteries.
Now that I have set up “OTA updates” for my Unofficial Pixel Builds, this means these phones will get OTA updates too. So I think they are at the level that I am happy to offer them for sale. It won’t be as cheap as if I would have replaced the glass without replacing the full OLED display, but they still will be a good bit cheaper than other devices I have listed.
Look for them in the coming week-ish on https://openmobile.us
In addition, since iodé doesn’t have capacity to offer an official Pixel Tablet build, it is a good opportunity for me to sell them as well. De-googled tablets are not that common. And again I have OTA updates for them using my unofficial builds.
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I tried adopting a similar strategy in order to try to offer later models of Sony’s during summer last year but it didn’t work for me either. Ended up restricting my action to just the early models of Xperia 1 and 5 for which replacement displays aren’t that expensive. Xperia 10’s (the current low end Sony range), are a little easier as they don’t come with the expensive 120hz OLED display so can afford to replace the display up to and including 10 v, providing I can buy for almost nothing. It’s just too bad iode only officially supports 1 v & 5 v models for which you are looking at around the £200 mark for genuine replacements.
I have only done a few as picking them up for £30 - £40 doesn’t happen every day but it is happening more often lately as the overall prices in the used Sony market continue to fall. OTA updates will help me too for which I need to thank @petefoth for. Pete’s commitment to continue maintaining these old Sony’s is fantastic. Having created 50+ new iode users it needs to be said that it could not have been done without his builds and general support.
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Hi @rik … just thought I’d give you a knock to see how sales are going with the replacement screens? Things at my end of the pond have really cooled down this past couple of months compared to the back end of last year. Can’t give away anything less than 64gb either at the moment which is a little surprising as the XA2’s have always been the best sellers up till now So I’ve decided to drop them once the last two I still have in stock are sold.
Other than that the only other development has come about from using Droidian. I’ve been dailying my droidian Xp’ 5 for the past 3 months and although despite having a full Debian suite to draw down on I tend to only use the same couple of packages. As far as the phone side of the experiment goes it’s….. hmmm…. kind of clumsy, being the only words I can think of to describe it. Occasionally things don’t work as you would expect which adds to the phone’s character I guess 
but it does come up with the goods in the end. Which IIRC is loosely how Pete Foth described it would!
Anyway, got to thinking about it and decided that it would work better the other way around with iode taking care of the phone/messaging/camera/ FOSS apps side and linux permanently loaded in the RAM with just the packages I want/need available on demand in a container. With iode too it takes up 2.9Gb of RAM in all so it really needs a 4Gb device to run smoothly. Testing it on an XZ Premium as a daily driver and so far I’m loving it, but whether including it as standard will create any interest or not remains to be seen.
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I have one of the replacement “curved glass 120Hz screens” on my daily-driver Pixel 7 Pro. It is mostly good, but occasionally it really gets glitchy (if I “sleep it then wake it” it is back to normal). I am OK with it, but I am not fully confident it is ready for sales to other customers.
Well I also should note I don’t even put it in 120Hz mode because I don’t want to drain my battery, I guess I should test for a few days to confirm no issue there.
But brightness, clarity, etc. are all excellent. Too bright in fact even at full dim I have to use an overlay app (Red Moon) at night to reduce brightness so my retinas don’t burn out
To device sales, it has been very slow for me as well. A few requests for “BYOD” installation service (one was very tricky on a LG G5 device that required lots of shenanigans to take advantage of a Dirty Cow exploit in order to unlock … probably that one wasn’t worth my time but was a good challenge )
I have added the Samsung tablets that iodé now supports, and also I have made unofficial iodéOS builds for the Moto G 5G (2024) since that is readily available in the US (even available NEW still) and added that to my store.
A few things I debate about with pricing are the following:
- My prices include sales tax (that I pay to purchase the device) and the Paypal 3.5% to sell it. But that then makes the price I list it at look a bit more than it should. I have to see if I can adjust that. But the USA is a pain as each state has different sales tax rates (effectively I am NOT collecting it at all and just “eat it”… if volume is not big enough then I don’t need to pay it to the states I believe… but again I am paying at my state’s rate to obtain the devices).
- Similarly, I liked the idea of “free shipping” but I could cut the prices about $8 if I charge that later.
- My prices are still way lower than other 3rd party sellers, and I am am “endorsed by iodé” whereas they aren’t so maybe all this trying to shave down the “sticker price” isn’t really what I need to focus on.
A few things I debate about apart from pricing are the following:
- How to get more backlinks? It seems those are important to improve search rankings. Make a wikipedia page? Look for some privacy advocates with their own sites to mention me?
- Possibly list my devices on eBay? That would then take a bit of a “multi-step” process to adjust prices, etc. but could be worth it. I do see at least 1 other seller in the USA to buy iodéOS phones from on eBay.
- “Yuk idea”: do I really post them to Google Merchant, etc.?
- More Social Media posting? I really don’t want to create FB account for this, or Instagram (I made one for this but it is dormant).
- Videos (YouTube, Tiktok?). Both aren’t of interest: that takes quite a bit of production work.
I guess overall I prefer to remain above the fray of the “yuk” of normal business marketing (Facebook, TikTok, Instagram, etc.) but I may be just ethically sitting in my ivory tower over where people don’t know I exist . Where to put the effort though?
PS. There is a possibility I can negotiate with iodé to become an “official partner” that will give a bit more prominence without having to dig through their FAQ to find out there is someone they recommend as a USA based reseller
Same with myself at the moment I’m thinking. The number of degoogled devices generally on ebay has definitely increased this past 18 months since I started offering sony-iode’s. The Alpine Linux container idea was really just an idea to try to add extra value to the iode product making it more attractive to potential users. Was thinking last night that it would make more sense to maybe offer the container as a ‘filth jail’ for meta products. 
Keep your iode device sqweeky clean by using the container for all your guilty pleasures such as wotsap, facebook etc, etc. Would be a far easier way to get the message across rather than the usual Linux blah, blah, blah.
On this business with iode, I had already assumed that you were an ’official partner’. Probably not for me to say any more as I haven’t a clue as to what iode’s longer term commercial strategy is.