I never liked the idea of giving money to buy a Google phone so to get away from…Google. I think the irony is strong in this case so GrapheneOS was never that much appealing to me.
As for Motorola, I also wasn’t crazy excited about the deal but I was hoping for a cheap phone with GrapheneOS. It seems that it will be only available on flagship phones. Which means paying more for having a flagship with better security and privacy but some basic broken services (It’s not 2002 any more, I need to do contactless payments with my phone. And don’t tell me it’s not Graphene's fault, when I pay more than $1000 for a phone, I don’t care whose fault that is).
And at this very point, I pretty much lost interest on anything GrapheneOS has to offer. Put GrapheneOS on a $200-$300 phone and then we'll talk
Unlocking the pixels also requires an internet connection, to determine whether the device has any restrictions on it.
From the grapheneos installation instructions:
"""
On device model variants (SKUs) which support being sold as locked devices by carriers, enabling OEM unlocking requires internet access so that the stock OS can check if the device was sold as locked by a carrier.
"""
Last time a custom Android distro (CyanogenMod) made a deal with a manufacturer, everything went belly-up. I have little faith that the same won't happen again. :-(
> Who did CyanogenMod partner with and what happened?
They partnered with OnePlus globally, then signed an exclusive deal with Micromax in India, catching OnePlus by surprise as they had to now stop selling their CyanogenMod-loaded phones in India.
If you want to stick with a pixel maybe skip the Pixel 11 if you want to run GrapheneOS. There is some question whether P11 will actually support the MTE cpu extension which GOS requires for all devices it supports.
> ... There's a decent chance usable MTE will ship in Android 17 QPR2 and we'll be able to support it. We can't promise that since it's not up to us and no information has been provided about why MTE was unavailable at launch and still disabled in 17 QPR2 Beta 4.
GrapheneOS is also saying some suspicious stuff on Mastodon in which they are failing the vibe check. They are suddenly very AI obsessed, which is the antithesis of their platform.
>GrapheneOS is also saying some suspicious stuff on Mastodon in which they are failing the vibe check.
Using "failing the vibe check" as your first argument fails my vibe check.
>They are suddenly very AI obsessed, which is the antithesis of their platform.
1. If you're talking about their post defending the use of AI in development, and that the reviews are still done by humans, that hardly seems "very AI obsessed" to me, unless you subscribe to r/antiai or something.
2. How is the use AI "the antithesis of their platform"?
- The Motorola flagship costs too much and he's worried it will no longer run on the Pixel 7a that he got for $200 or that there will be any cheap options.
But they said already there would be cheap options, and Motorola has a Moto G series that it would likely use.
- Worried about other stuff that existing Motorola Android phones do, like privacy violations.
...that definitely won't be in GrapheneOS, they wouldn't allow it.
- More things Motorola does as a company that are bad.
The current option being Google means, despite that, Motorola is probably better.
I'm nervous because of how articulate, reasonable and numerous grapheneos's posts have been on HN recently. From experience it has a smell of getting a very good corporate comms person on staff, and that's a sign that a rugpull might be in the works. They shouldn't be able to afford somebody that good.
But of course, that's a can't win catch-22 situation; the comments really are very good and reassuring. I'd feel a lot better if they were partnering with 10 different Chinese manufacturers than Motorola, though.
edit: I want to see Graphene on $100 phones. That this is not a target is concerning, because if the average person had a choice between a $100 phone that had the guarantees of GrapheneOS and a $100 phone that had anything else on it, they would choose GrapheneOS. They'd be a household name in seconds; it would take government action to stop them from being the default and changing the expectations of the entire environment.
As for Motorola, I also wasn’t crazy excited about the deal but I was hoping for a cheap phone with GrapheneOS. It seems that it will be only available on flagship phones. Which means paying more for having a flagship with better security and privacy but some basic broken services (It’s not 2002 any more, I need to do contactless payments with my phone. And don’t tell me it’s not Graphene's fault, when I pay more than $1000 for a phone, I don’t care whose fault that is).
And at this very point, I pretty much lost interest on anything GrapheneOS has to offer. Put GrapheneOS on a $200-$300 phone and then we'll talk
tl;dw:
1. it's expensive
2. requires online connection and account to unlock bootloader
3. lenovo (the parent company) had shady behavior in the past
From the grapheneos installation instructions: """ On device model variants (SKUs) which support being sold as locked devices by carriers, enabling OEM unlocking requires internet access so that the stock OS can check if the device was sold as locked by a carrier. """
https://grapheneos.org/install/web#enabling-oem-unlocking
That's horrible. I'm surprised the GOS team is okay with this.
2. This sucks but is basically required to protect against phone theft (though phones could be shipped in an unlock-once state, until you set them up)
3. So what? What company has never been shady?
They partnered with OnePlus globally, then signed an exclusive deal with Micromax in India, catching OnePlus by surprise as they had to now stop selling their CyanogenMod-loaded phones in India.
Last thread about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49536384
Latest tweet by @GrapheneOS on the topic (today): https://x.com/GrapheneOS/status/2097219485937660272?s=20
> ... There's a decent chance usable MTE will ship in Android 17 QPR2 and we'll be able to support it. We can't promise that since it's not up to us and no information has been provided about why MTE was unavailable at launch and still disabled in 17 QPR2 Beta 4.
I would recommend being very careful with them.
Using "failing the vibe check" as your first argument fails my vibe check.
>They are suddenly very AI obsessed, which is the antithesis of their platform.
1. If you're talking about their post defending the use of AI in development, and that the reviews are still done by humans, that hardly seems "very AI obsessed" to me, unless you subscribe to r/antiai or something.
2. How is the use AI "the antithesis of their platform"?
Benefits are massive if you have the discipline to stay as master and don't let AI overtake everything and make you lazy.
- The Motorola flagship costs too much and he's worried it will no longer run on the Pixel 7a that he got for $200 or that there will be any cheap options.
But they said already there would be cheap options, and Motorola has a Moto G series that it would likely use.
- Worried about other stuff that existing Motorola Android phones do, like privacy violations.
...that definitely won't be in GrapheneOS, they wouldn't allow it.
- More things Motorola does as a company that are bad.
The current option being Google means, despite that, Motorola is probably better.
But of course, that's a can't win catch-22 situation; the comments really are very good and reassuring. I'd feel a lot better if they were partnering with 10 different Chinese manufacturers than Motorola, though.
edit: I want to see Graphene on $100 phones. That this is not a target is concerning, because if the average person had a choice between a $100 phone that had the guarantees of GrapheneOS and a $100 phone that had anything else on it, they would choose GrapheneOS. They'd be a household name in seconds; it would take government action to stop them from being the default and changing the expectations of the entire environment.
Let me reassure you?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49591796
- GrapheneOS is only supported on Motorola's flagship devices, which the author deems too expensive
- Motorola historically has made unlocking the bootloader difficult, and GrapheneOS has not yet confirmed that this will become easier.
- The author does not trust Motorola.