> This is required for some baking apps throwing a tantrum if you use your phone.

Is this a common behavior? Do you know why?

I use it on multiple devices, including an Android 11 e-reader which doesn't support the capability to auto-update natively.

As for newer Android versions I don't remember exactly what my issues were, but I think it had to do with a manual confirmation for update or non-background updates. To be confirmed though.

It only works with new versions of android. It's a feature.

That's a nice theory but no.

There are several different kinds of configs.

The phone is global and not carrier locked, and you can make calls and sms and data.

It "works", just poorly. It works at a basic level, just not full coverage, not full speed, and not all features available.

Different countries use different radio bands, and so a phone that is nominally sold in a given country only enables those bands that are legal in that country.

So this phone is nominally for HK, which is the model with greatest overlap of supported bands with at least some US carriers. The hardware can do everything but the config that prevents it is sort of like a virtual hardware difference. In the past there might be different radio hardware, and now there is one hardware that is made to act like different hardware through firmware.

Without all available bands, you get less coverage and more contention with other users for available bandwidth. And your choice of carrier makes a big difference. Some of the mvnos only provide 2 or 3 bands total, while others might have a dozen.

Shizuku can not fix that particular problem. For that you have to be able to root the phone and edit some files in the rom. The term to search is "mbn hacking".

This has not been done for this phone yet, but apparently all the pieces are there to make it possible because the bootloader is unlockable and there is a way to unpack and repack a firmware.

I have unlocked my bootloader and tried to flash a modified bootloader to get magisk working, but it refused to flash the partition even though it's supposedly unlocked. So I don't have root and can't edit anything in the rom.

For another example, although basic 4g gsm works, there is no volte, vowifi, or vonr, simply because the carrier doesn't explicitly recognize or support the make & model.

But you can use Shizuku and Pixel IMS to enable all of those and they work fine. The settings in this case are tied to the sim. Once you set the settings they survive reboots and you can even uninstall the apps, but if you change your sim you lose the settings.

The author intends it to be a modified Apache 2.

   2. Grant of Copyright License. Subject to the terms and conditions of
      this License, each Contributor hereby grants to You a perpetual,
      worldwide, non-exclusive, no-charge, royalty-free, irrevocable
      copyright license to reproduce, prepare Derivative Works of,
      publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, and distribute the
      Work and such Derivative Works in Source or Object form.


  
    For the project as a whole, it is not free. You are FORBIDDEN to distribute the apk compiled by you (including modified, e.g., rename app name "Shizuku" to something else) to any store (IBNLT Google Play Store, F-Droid, Amazon Appstore etc.).

It is NOT open source, it violates freedom 1:

Freedom 1

   The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.