Usability-wise, they are no match for Android and iOS—or even versions of them from five years ago.
UI/UX is costly, and most FOSS projects cannot get it right without massive investments from enterprises (e.g., Red Hat's UX designers heavily contributed to GNOME) or startups (e.g., Zed, Element, Bluesky).
Projects without that backing are mostly unusable, at least from a Gen Z perspective.
> Usability-wise, they are no match for Android and iOS—or even versions of them from five years ago.
They're also no match for the privacy or security of iOS or AOSP. They're bringing the lack of privacy/security model and protections on desktop operating systems and hardware to mobile. It's a massive regression for privacy and security despite being marketed in the opposite way.
Biggest problem is banking, rideshare, airlines, various other service provider apps- for example, if a cell phone service requires a particular app, etc. It's not as much of a problem in the United States (besides banking), but I've noticed that in Singapore, for example, all sorts of things are tied to mobile apps.
I agree that the usability is behind, as we would expect. For me mainly is about missing apps and some hardware support. But in terms of UX for example I liked using SailfishOS, although I'll admit the UI needs some getting used to.
But I prefer this to the feeling that I'm being limited on what I can do on Android/Apple, and the worry of being in a duopoly that allows the companies to worsen their products without ever fearing competition(as far as they do it in small chunks).
Aren't you much more limited by not having access to the vast majority of apps built for Android and iOS? The limitations imposed by Apple and Google have led to thriving software systems. Being free to hack as you want on the system won't help most people if they don't have access to the software people want.
Yes that's true, that's the main limitation for me at the moment, and I hope with more people using it and with time we'll get enough apps, like what happened for Linux on desktop. Meanwhile to compensate on Linux mobile we have access to many programs from desktop Linux - not adapted for mobile screen, and many people use Android emulation - which should work very well on official SailfishOS but has limitations on other distros. If I recall correctly I think it might also be possible to have a dual boot Android/Linux for some devices.
Personally I have them separate, an Android phone and a Linux phone.
Sadly the Android one is still my main driver, mainly because I chose a not-fully-ready distribution like PureOS on a Librem5, and the battery duration is still too limited for me.
Regarding the thriving software systems of Apple and Google, I think is more due to the popularity of mobile phones than to specific limitations they made on their OSes. I think even on a very open OS, as far as there is a good "famous" framework for development, you can gain the same amount of software.
> Red Hat's UX designers heavily contributed to GNOME
Well, IMHO Gnome has worse UX than other linux environments like KDE, Niri witn Dank Materials Shell, etc. That is obviously a matter of opinion, but I don't think you necessarily need a large budget to get decent UX for an open source project.
Usability-wise it's hard to make too general statements - for me the killer app on mobile is the ability to independently adjust app volumes which is unavailable on mainline Android/iOS (it is supported by a few vendor branches like Samsung's, though)
FWIW, I use my smartphone as an MP3 player, SMS messenger and TOTP auth. iOS and Android did that fine 5 years ago, I don't need Instagram or 8 Ball Pool to survive in life.
UI/UX is costly, and most FOSS projects cannot get it right without massive investments from enterprises (e.g., Red Hat's UX designers heavily contributed to GNOME) or startups (e.g., Zed, Element, Bluesky).
Projects without that backing are mostly unusable, at least from a Gen Z perspective.