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GrapheneOS' rewritten Messages app is released

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Re: GrapheneOS' rewritten Messages app is released

#241
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those of us out of the loop, could someone summarize the situation?

> Fairphone has said they don't plan to add a secure element. It can be seen from their current devices that they don't fully keep up with privacy/security backports and lag a year behind on shipping yearly OS releases. They skip over the monthly and quarterly releases entirely. They replaced their own non-GMS Fairphone OS with a dramatically less secure /e/OS option in partnership with Murena. They clearly demonstra…

It should be noted that GrapheneOS had similar criticisms about almost every smartphone vendor, including Motorola before their upcoming cooperation IIRC.

Most of their criticisms are valid, but they seem to be absolutely unwilling to make any compromise at all.

Not sure if they want to protect their brand, if any of those criticised issues would increase the work needed by them significantly, or why they are like that.

But I would prefer to have a slightly less secure GrapheneOS on many phones, that helps many many more users than just Pixel owners, over the current all or nothing situation.

Re: GrapheneOS' rewritten Messages app is released

#242
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/117225561294973728

Thanks! I noticed on one of my phones that RCS breaks once the Messages app is out of date by a certain amount of revisions. I hope this is an arbitrary decision by Google to invalidate older versions, given that the RCS protocol hasn't changed. I wouldn't want the Graphene team to have to keep up with each change Google makes with their Messages app, and instead is a security oversight Google has found in their own…

We definitely will have to keep up with the changes. We already do in order to provide support for using RCS via Google Messages on GrapheneOS. Recently, they made a change which broke it on GrapheneOS and we had to quickly fix that in under a day.

Re: GrapheneOS' rewritten Messages app is released

#243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I realize that the official stance is that it isn't grapheneos without the security features. That doesn't change the fact that someone who won't have the security features either way (and presumably doesn't care because otherwise he would switch to a different piece of hardware) might want the option of using a build of grapheneos that isn't officially condoned by the maintainers. (That's kind of the whole poin…

> might want the option of using a build of grapheneos An OS without the core features and updates of GrapheneOS clearly isn't GrapheneOS. It's not permitted to refer to it as such. > That's kind of the whole point of FOSS, right? No, the point of FOSS is that you can take all of our code and use it for other purposes. Calling an incomplete port to another device GrapheneOS is misleading users. It isn't GrapheneOS an…

No one was suggesting that your trademark should be infringed when marketing to users. If I do my own custom build of firefox referring to it as such in casual conversation is entirely separate from marketing it under that name for others to use (see ex icecat).

Honestly while grapheneos is a useful thing that I'm glad exists you're being absolutely insufferable.

Re: GrapheneOS' rewritten Messages app is released

#244
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you! Though I still wonder: > Iirc they said something like 2 million in donations in 2025. That's not enough for 14 devs, plus infrastructure, etc. > There's estimated 500k users so if 25% donated 10 dollars a year that's 1.25 million. Unfortunately, 25% would be extraordinary for any project. They should make their financing public (and maybe they do), being a non-profit and also asking people to trust them w…

Our server infrastructure costs around $200/month. All of our dedicated servers are sponsored. If we had to replace all of the current sponsored servers then we could scale it back a bit and keep the cost around $2000/month for the bare minimum we need. We're paying around 10 full time developers along with multiple other people. That includes someone in a CFO/COO role and several people who handle community manageme…

Thanks for responding.

> Why do you think we wouldn't be able to afford this?

Very few FOSS projects receive seven figures in donations, and dependably enough to budget for them. Good for you; you guys do great work.

Security depends on trust, as you know: Very few users can audit GrapheneOS's code for themselves, and of those people, very few have time to do it. People must trust you to use GOS and for the world to benefit from your efforts. Everything you post on HN relies on trust - almost nobody is checking on it.

IMHO trust requires naming funders, for any organization; secretly funded organizations bringing in millions raise lots of questions. If you don't want to name exact amounts, you could follow many non-profits' practice and name them in ~ logarithmic tiers: $1-100, $101-1,000, $1,001-10,000, etc.

> Cape

Cape is part of the Thiel family (or maybe extended family) of companies. That doesn't condemn them; I'm not expressing an opinion; but realistically it's not a confidence-builder for many people (which is too bad because Cape seems like the most secure service provider I've seen).

Good luck!

Re: GrapheneOS' rewritten Messages app is released

#245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t know what else to say here I guess you and the others here know more than Tim Cook does.

That's a weird statement. Do you think knowing the most about something inevitably leads you to a specific decision? It doesn't. And this isn't something that would affect their revenue particularly much. So while it's possible I've missed an important factor, even if I'm 100% right it could make sense for most people to say "do the option that leads to more happy customers, while still making boatloads of money", wh…

I would argue that it’s weird to expect that Apple should maintain a product that sells less when people have consistently shown that they will buy the better performing product anyway instead of not buying at all.

Like this isn’t a hypothetical, Apple literally released the Mini and it was the worst performing item in their iPhone lineup by far. If it was profitable enough, Cook would’ve kept it.

Like ultimately I don’t necessarily disagree with what you’re trying to say, but like this:

> “do the option that leads to more happy customers, while still making boatloads of money", while a CEO says "we have enough happy customers, go for the extra sliver of money".

The consumers do take some blame here cause they did take the Mini away and people just ended up buying the other more expensive iPhones instead of not buying one at all. Why would Apple do anything different in that case?

The obsession with the Mini is something that is only really popular within an online bubble and isn’t reflective of real life trends, people here are being extremely disconnected from the public with this (and this is coming from someone who wants Apple to add a desktop mode to iOS). The only time Apple seems to maintain lagging product lines are with things like the Air which seemed to essentially be an R&D product for the Duo.

Re: GrapheneOS' rewritten Messages app is released

#246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of fossify's apps I've tried have been better than the stock apps.

Their phone app doesn't have visual voicemail.

That sounds like a feature to me.

I don't know anyone under 70 that even has their voicemail set up.

Re: GrapheneOS' rewritten Messages app is released

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't a hypothetical, Fairphone supports alternative OSes. Heck, you can even buy it with /e/OS in their store: https://www.fairphone.com/the-fairphone-gen-6-plus-e-operati...

Can I flash my own?

Yes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49667725

Re: GrapheneOS' rewritten Messages app is released

#248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know this isn't the solution you are looking for, but there is a fairly simple workaround and IMO it is superior: set up a Samba server or a Nextcloud instance, either at home or in the cloud, place it with behind a Wireguard tunnel, and don't store anything on the phone itself other than apps and things like maps for OsmAnd that can be redownloaded if lost. The Nextcloud app can automatically sync photos or other…

You're right, this is not a solution. And I'm syncing some of the app data already, but that is not a replacement for the OS apps. Most of the data cannot be synced like this.

> Most of the data cannot be synced like this.

Isn't it because of lack of the root access?

Re: GrapheneOS' rewritten Messages app is released

#249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right, this is not a solution. And I'm syncing some of the app data already, but that is not a replacement for the OS apps. Most of the data cannot be synced like this.

> Most of the data cannot be synced like this. Isn't it because of lack of the root access?

You could say that.

The lack of root is only significant because unlike in other vendors the built-in backup doesn't work reliably, and you can't use third party software.

But I'm very hopeful, recently they released this Messages update, they're working on introducing native RCS somehow (no idea how but I wish them well), and they recently made a first-class automated call recording.

Re: GrapheneOS' rewritten Messages app is released

#250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a weird statement. Do you think knowing the most about something inevitably leads you to a specific decision? It doesn't. And this isn't something that would affect their revenue particularly much. So while it's possible I've missed an important factor, even if I'm 100% right it could make sense for most people to say "do the option that leads to more happy customers, while still making boatloads of money", wh…

I would argue that it’s weird to expect that Apple should maintain a product that sells less when people have consistently shown that they will buy the better performing product anyway instead of not buying at all. Like this isn’t a hypothetical, Apple literally released the Mini and it was the worst performing item in their iPhone lineup by far. If it was profitable enough, Cook would’ve kept it. Like ultimately I d…

Customers shouldn't have to boycott to convince companies to make a good product. Companies should value millions of happier customers over a negligible change in product design cost.

Also do you think people wouldn't buy just about as many iphones if they killed a middle model? That's not by itself a good reason to kill a model or they wouldn't have as many as they do. Like, I'm sure pro and plus each get tons of sales but you could cut one with nobody being upset and redirect that budget to mini.

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