As you may know from our announcement, members of Phosh.mobi e.V. were present at CLT 2026.
Seeing the interest in breaking free from the current mobile duopoly was a total blast. Running a fully Free Software Linux system with Phosh as a touch- and mobile-friendly interface under users' control - not big tech’s - sparked a lot of excitement.
Given this year’s motto, “Sovereign Digitality”, we expected some interest. What surprised us was that even people who (in their own words) have been fully immersed in the 🍏 ecosystem for 15 years considered alternatives after trying our demo phones for just a few minutes.
That left a strong impression - and gave us a lot of motivation to continue on our path.
We demoed six different smartphones (OnePlus 6, FairPhone 5, Google Pixel 3a, SHIFT6mq, Purism’s Librem 5, and PINE64 PinePhone) and a tablet running Phosh 0.53 on Mobian Forky. For each device, we had a small info card with the supported functionality so people could get an idea of what works well on each device.
This helped to set expectations about the maturity of each device’s support and which phone could be a good pick to get started. Interestingly, only one visitor tried an actual phone call (which, of course, worked).
The main interest was in relatively cheap used devices to try things out, but there was also considerable interest in using a sustainable, repairable device like the SHIFT6mq or Fairphone 5.
We also gathered insights into expectations and needs for making the switch, which will give us some things to think about and implement over the coming months.
It was also great to finally attach faces to some nicks one usually only knows from, e.g., Matrix. Some of our association’s members even met in real life for the first time, which was especially nice!
There was huge interest in having the user interface in German (which we could demo), but also in having a place to ask questions in German. We therefore set up a Matrix room for that. Drop by if you like!
Thanks to all who supported our work through a donation at the booth or via the online form.
We hope to see you next year at CLT2027!