Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS • Hacker News Board

Re: Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS

#361

Post by Hikikomori » Mon, Mar 02, 2026, 1:49 PM UTC

AlienRobot wrote: post #259

pentae wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A quick search resulted in this: "Android malware saw a 67% increase in 2025, with over 40 million downloads of malicious apps targeting banking and stealing data, frequently hiding in "Tools" and utility apps on the Google Play Store." So no, I don't think that's a small amount of risk, even if there's billions of Android users in the wild. Especially considering how much money can be stolen from peoples bank accoun…

Much of this could be solved if the base system simply came with basic utilities. Windows XP had an audio recording app and most people didn't even have microphones. Now we have smartphones that don't have a way to record audio as a file or even write text notes built into the system, forcing you to use third-party tools that can be maliscious.

Comes with keep notes and the recorder app?

Re: Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS

#362

Post by kelvinjps10 » Mon, Mar 02, 2026, 1:50 PM UTC

neya wrote: post #216

BatteryMountain wrote: post #108

If anyone from Motorola reads this thread; the market is beyond ripe for a good shake up. Going full open source and pushing updates & openness, user control and freedom, you will gobble up a good chunk of market share. Make MDM easy & first class (no third parties...), and a ton of corp will roll it out too. We need you more than you think.

This is just developer fantasy. The average consumer doesn't care even one bit. Is the phone smooth? Does it have a good camera? Does it have a good battery? Does it last more than 2 years? Go to some developing countries around Asia and you'll be surprised how people prioritise features when buying a phone vs developed ones. The developing countries account for most of the sales of most phone manufacturers. Phones t…

But this seems like it's mostly for corporations and businesses that they're doing this feature. It's the same as Lenovo Thinkpads which also have good Linux integration,and are catered to business. So if they're able to make business from this open products from corporations, and I as user benefit from a computer that allows to run open software. It's a win-win for everyone

Re: Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS

#363

Post by nebalee » Mon, Mar 02, 2026, 1:50 PM UTC

madduci wrote: post #58

I really hope that the partnership involves support for low-end devices and not only high-end ones. Would be great to have a €200 Phone running GrapheneOS (e.g. G56)

Yes, please. It's a shame that privacy as a feature so often comes with a hefty price tag.

Re: Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS

#364

Post by cogman10 » Mon, Mar 02, 2026, 1:52 PM UTC

actionfromafar wrote: post #295

coldtea wrote: post #269

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Banks shouldn't have custom apps that are not mobile websites, accessible via the mobile browser just as well.

Apparently there are special auth apps storing things in secure-enclave-ish parts of the OS. Not a great match for websites.

No, that's just BS.

The web has a secure storage standard and OAuth + MFA is just as secure as anything your bank could cook up in an app. In fact, I'd be shocked if banks did a better job of security in their apps vs what browsers and standard auth flows provide.

Banks just like selling the idea that "if it's encrypted, it's secure". But trust me when I say this, bank security across the board absolutely sucks. The company I work with does financial data ingest and... yeah... There's more than a few institutions where we had to pull teeth to get them to send stuff through an encrypted transport (SFTP, for example, they want to just use FTP).

Re: Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS

#365

Post by kelvinjps10 » Mon, Mar 02, 2026, 1:54 PM UTC

rcxdude wrote: post #268

bayindirh wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this translates to longer device retention (if you enable battery changes, a current gen device can easily last a decade), people will care. $200 phone that you can use for 5+ years without handicapping the user will be a much bigger hit. This translates well to the boots paradox. This can change "cheaper is much more expensive in the long run" to "cheaper is a bit more expensive on the long run". This, of course,…

This is one of the advantages apple currently has: Staying on the bleeding edge of or buying an iphone is cheaper than you would think, because iphones in general retain their value longer than the average android, due to apple's relatively long OS update period (and yes, it would be better if they were more open and less control freaky, but they still beat their competition). And even the android brands that do have…

Samsung and pixels Almost match it. Something about ¡Phones it's outside of the us or in developed counties I might say they're expensive compared to android. The price difference between what they cost in the us and in other parts is a lot. When I came to the us that I realized that buying an ¡Phone is not that dumb, as here the price are reasonable, for example Samsungs phones cost the same.

Re: Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS

#366

Post by drewfax » Mon, Mar 02, 2026, 1:54 PM UTC

zouhair wrote: post #245

Now do Samsung

Samsung phones and TVs have tons of adware built in. I'm pretty sure they won't want GrapheneOS on their phones. Motorola, on the other hand, has always shipped stock OS with minor customization. The only problem with Motorola is that their support is very short (like 2 years).

Re: Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS

#367

Post by BlueSialia » Mon, Mar 02, 2026, 1:55 PM UTC

I have degoogled my devices wherever I can. One of the main reasons I don't use an open source ROM is because I use my phone as my laptop thanks to lapdocks. Motorola's Ready For is the Android Desktop I use daily and I'd love to use a GrapheneOS-like ROM with that included.

Re: Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS

#368

Post by throawayonthe » Mon, Mar 02, 2026, 1:56 PM UTC

10729287 wrote: post #19

Back in the days, I switched from Iphone 3G to Motorola Defy in order to benefit from more customisation. I'm now back into Apple ecosystem since iPhone 6, actually on iPhone 13 but i'm very tempted by GrapheneOS. Going back to Motorola would please me, as I loved this little Defy. Do you think there's any chance to have RCS messages without Google involved ? I want group messages without having to install Whatsapp a…

afaik RCS does work but only with google services

Re: Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS

#369

Post by aesh2Xa1 » Mon, Mar 02, 2026, 1:57 PM UTC

@strcat, you've mentioned GrapheneOS will have access to internal code to do hardening below the OS layer. Does this mean Motorola devices will offer stronger security than Pixels, where you're limited by what Google exposes?

Is Motorola contributing engineering resources directly to GrapheneOS, or is the partnership purely about hardware enablement on their side?

Re: Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS

#370

Post by 71bw » Mon, Mar 02, 2026, 1:58 PM UTC

szszrk wrote: post #298

71bw wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because the 8sg3 is a terribly botched chip, to the point where it requires comically overengineered cooling to function properly.

Yeah... and it's still a great cpu. What are consequences to the user? I failed to find a use case where it makes a sweat. It's insanely good price to value ratio.

Battery life and thermal performance.