Jerboa also won't work with Android older than 8.0 though that's less of a problem for server ops. But it still seems like reliance on unnecessary shiny tech. My 5yo Android 7 phone still works perfectly well and I plan to keep using it a while longer, so I can't use the official Lemmy app. I wonder how fundamental Jerboa's dependence on Android 8 is. Anyone know?

By keeping backwards compatibility that far back you give up on a large set of features. My guess is that Jerboa needed some feature that only exists from Android 8 and above and they didn't want to reinvent wheels.

Probably it would be best if you try to get a used phone with an more up to date Android version.

I've gotten to the point that I think that any new software release of something like Android or Firefox is likely to make it worse than before. Reddit was another example. So I resist. What feature could they possibly want from Android 8 that wasn't in earlier versions? If it was the dev kit (Jetpack) then I can sort of understand, but Android 7 has plenty of user level features, and apps such as RedReader that work fine. I'd be delighted with a RedReader port for Lemmy.

The idea of buying another phone and making more e-waste just to deal with version churn is distasteful to me. I might get interested if I can find a phone that supports Lineage really well, but otherwise I'd rather keep using what I have until it falls apart (it is getting there).

Thanks though.

What phone do you use? You can try out the custom roms that can upgrade your phone and help you avoid e-waste.