I love graphene, but I hope they’re planning to also roll out some very strong stock software - or else this will make for a very rough first impression on a large audience of normies and hurt graphene’s long run chance of success. The camera, gallery, and app store in particular will not come up to many users’ standards.
My impression from the article is that the Motorola phones ship with default Android, but flashing to GrapheneOS is officially supported. So it would only be people who would be flashing GrapheneOS anyway.
Yeah by “switch to” they probably do mean flash. I could have sworn they had plans to ship Graphene phones but maybe that’s a later phase.
I could have sworn they had plans to ship Graphene phones
They do. They say it in their roadmap:
Hardware and firmware security are core parts of the project, but it’s currently limited to research and submitting suggestions and bug reports upstream. In the long term, the project will need to move into the hardware space.
Would you trust a pre-flashed phone though?
I guess with GOS they have integrity checkers.
At least for right now I would trust one that had the backing of the Graphene devs. Them and Signal are probably the two most rock solid trust sources right now. (Of course this must constantly be reevaluated)
There are some third party vendors online that ship pre-flashed GrapheneOS phones iirc, but I don’t believe there has ever been on with it factory installed.
There are some really talented people working on the camera systems for Apple and Google etc. what I don’t get is surely there are some equally talented engineers (in image processing) who love open source so why aren’t they working on an open source camera platform?
It seems an itch that’s not getting scratched.
Signature? So when - In January?
Please Moto, make a not gigantic 6in slab of a phone. Please make one ~5in with good specs.
6 inches is gigantic?
That’s what I have and it doesn’t feel quite big enough. Close but not quite.
Never once thought it felt too big in my hand or my pocket…
This will apply to 2027 flagship Motorola devices, starting with a regular non-folding device, according to GrapheneOS developers who hinted at it being the successor to the Signature.
Thank goodness it won’t just be one foldable. I was worried for a bit.
All of them are foldable, many times, some just get the power button jammed at like 4 degrees and break a bit around 12 or so.
whistles
They make a $2,600 smartphone?
I’d bet that about half the price is just the RAM soldered onto the thing
Can confirm recently got a box of 440 unsoldered Micron DDR5 memory ICs at work.
It was $140k. Not DIMMS but the chips soldered to the DIMM.
Interestingly, Motorola itself is doing “a large portion of the work of porting GrapheneOS to their devices”.
…and Motorola is owned by Lenovo, which is effectively controlled by the Chinese state.
I love GrapheneOS but jumping into bed with the CCP is bad, bad idea.
Edit: I’m not a fan of US tech either, and this isn’t an “I hate China” post. They are both awful countries.
Your argument is extrapolating way too much. You constructed this overcomplicated chain of thought that supposedly proves GOS sold out because… They got a manufacturer to build hardware that meets GOS requirements?
This is no different from ZOG, deep state or Blackrock conspiracy theories.
You constructed this overcomplicated chain of thought that supposedly proves GOS sold out
Actually, that’s not what I’m saying. GOS is a small team, and they’ve confirmed that most of the work has been left to Motorola/Lenovo. Given what we know about the Chinese state, its not a stretch to imagine that interference has happened.
And I’m not arguing anything. All of what I’ve said is possible based on what we know (through verifiable information in the public domain) about the activities of the Chinese state. If you choose to call that a conspiracy theory thats up to you.
Damn the CCP for building secure hardware!
I just got a pixel 9 refurbished for 350CAD and, a part from the irony of needing a phone made by google to have a degoogled phone, Graphene is a great OS. It just does what any basic phone os should do, and that’s make it gold in the current dystopia.
Sorry to be the party pooper but they’re also expected to be above 1200$
Which flagship isn’t though?
My question is, what support will there be for NFC contactless payment? The convenience of being able to not have to carry a wallet full of cards is one of the biggest things holding me back from fully embracing GrapheneOS.
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What are the other wallet options?
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They need to support it on the Moto G phones so people can actually afford them.
iirc, as of right now, its only the expensive processors that meet the security standards GrapheneOS has. Therefore only being available in the future high-end Motorola phones.
Yup its exactly this. And with supply shortages, itll take a while to filter down in price unfortunately.
it would take a while without shortages. with shortages, it will take a long while
I was looking at the lowest end pixel for Graphene (Pixel 7) and they are still nearly $400 on the aftermarket. It’s insane.
Where are you looking? I see Pixel 8s, used and unlocked, on ebay for $200-300.
Man, I would be all over the is of it was on lower end models so I can run graphene as my sketchy international travel phone. But I don’t really want to pay flagship prices for that. And I still believe in having a curated primary digital fingerprint.
I 100% understand and support why the moved away from google.
And Motorola was a good choice. But they really should have supported some budget phones.
A pixel series a could easily be found for under 500€ new. These flagship motorola phones are all way over 1000€.
And the developer clearly said they had currently no intention to support cheaper motorola phones. Among other things because Motorola won’t offer 7 year updates for anything but these flagships.
So, I get it. But let’s face it that people on a budget will keep using pixels for GOS while they are maintained.
They didn’t specifically disregard budget phones. The budget phones just won’t have the hardware required to meet GrapheneOS requirements. They’ve states that as the next gen flagship hardware trickles down to the budget phones, there’ll be more options.
I keep hearing this thing about the necessary hardware.
What is this exotic piece of hardware that the GrapheneOS needs? Please, someone tell me what it is.
Searching would probably have been quicker than commenting :)
(nothing I am about to say is necessarily personal; I am genuinely grateful for the link!)
Is there a table of these requirements as columns and vendors as rows?
I think most of this list is acquired by having a modern CPU or SoC, no?
Much of the list is software requirements.
There is one item that sticks out:
- Support for disabling USB data and also USB as a whole at a hardware level in the USB controller
Just how much of the hardware list is satisfied by say having a Snapdragon SoC?
I would prefer if people said such and such vendor is missing such and such feature which we need. Always NAME the SPECIFICS. A link to a web page with the exact specifics missing for the most popular phones would help, imo. This is clear and educational. Instead we get “they don’t got no good hardware maaaan.” It’s annoying. Looks handwavy even when it is not.
I understand the annoyance of just having the list of requirements without having vendors, models, etc as it puts the burden of effort on the reader.
On the flip side, the list would be crazy and more work for the devs, plus the definition of “most popular phones”. Having that list would be informative but I don’t know that it would be that helpful considering it wouldn’t make a difference with regards to the devices that Graphene supports?
I’m still looking for a solution after https://keepandroidopen.org/
About 50% of my apps are from F-Droid (the others are specific local apps and especially bank apps, which is difficult …)
Will this affect graphene os?
if developers stop developing apps, that will affect GrapheneOS, yes
yeah i need my banking, only thing stopping me from using a non-googled phone. everything else can fuck off
my bank app works well within a containerized user with google play services installed
