## 08 A journey in the past of Smartphones

I have recently made a kind of journey into the past. No DeLorean or Time Machine but just an old smartphone to bring back to life. To be more precise, it was not a dead smartphone but just an old device from 2015 with Android 5.0 (initially 4.4). Android was just 7 years old and the 5.0 is from 2014. It seems an eternity in this dumb world of IT and connected devices. That old Motorola E 2nd Gen works perfectly well with a strong battery, no major sign of wear and starts more quickly than recent smartphones. So, what's the problem with it ?

Because of that Android version, you are unable to use your Google account, unable to use the Play Store, unable to use the google apps and ... even unable to use an old version of F-Droid, the alternative "store". Just because they changed the format of the database. The old opera mini browser on it was also unable to work. No email client, but the phone works, the SMS works. It was also unable to synchronize contacts and agenda. So, how to make it work with old apps ? I had some backups of old apps on my NAS (and thanks to total commander installed years ago, I was able to use it). But there are also many websites with old versions of all the major apps, of alternative apps. I had to save it on a PC and then on the NAS to make an easy transfer (or to plug it with USB). Easy !

That's where it's very important to keep archive of software because there are so many devices able to work but thrown away because of the lack of software, apps, etc... There are websites with official or unofficial backups but sometimes it's with some risks. I am very disappointed about F-Droid and the lack of old versions for many software. Github or Gitlab are useless too. It is something that developers should understand. Of course, Google, Apple and all these platforms are only interested in new versions, as you can also see in Search Engine results. Dumb ! So if you can save your apps, it can save ...the world of smartphones.

With all that, I had to chose my apps. For the EMail, both FairEmail and K9 were too big for that. I had to avoid Gmail account of course and it was a good reason to migrate some emails in another Mail Provider. It was the same for Calendar, Agenda and that old DavDroid/DAvX still works well. So I have chosen a simple service like Mailo to do that. And for the apps, I have used the Calendar and Contact from Fossify and the Mail Client SimpleEmail in F-Droid. That's enough to do a multiple account email. For the Web browser, I have tested a lot of old browser but the only one which works fine is ... ViaBrowser, a lightweight browser with a nice GUI. Sorry for Firefox focus or OperaMini, it's not working fine now.

My main issue was specific to the person using the phone : To have a note synchronized between his/her other phone. Forget Nextcloud, it's not working with old versions. Forget also SimpleNote, StandardNote ... because it's not working with Android 5 or 6. So I have to find a cloud service to put the note files and a sync app. It's with Foldersync (before v3.0) and that old FTP that it worked. And I have chosen a lightweight text editor to do the notes as txt files (it works with markdown also). Just because ColorNotes is working only with google accounts.

I know that there are some security breaches with this kind of old devices. So I will not say it's useful for someone who is using a lot of Websites. The person who uses that phone is using another phone when she/he needs to go to a website. It's only a kind of dumbphone with more possibilities like MP3 player, Ebook reader, ... And to send an email when it's useful in "mobility". I'm happy to save some old phones like that and I will make my own App Archive (maybe online in the future...or on archive.org) for old phones when there are major Android versions (5, 6, 8, 11, ...). My next phone will be a quite old phone but I need it for some bank issues. Stupid world !I have seen so many working old smartphones on the market that it's really a problem of our modern world to throw away all those electronic items.

Think about it also in your work when you have old measurement devices which needs old software. You could need a virtualization...But that's another subject.

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Ressources:
=> https://f-droid.org/ F-Droid
=> https://github.com/FossifyOrg Fossify