Hell yeah! I was really hoping they were teaming up with Motorola when they teased about this earlier!
Love my g54.
Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS
541–550 of 930 posts
Re: Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS
#542Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Motorola makes great hardware too Do they? I genuinely don’t know because I don’t think I have ever seen a Motorola smartphone in the wild and their heavy involvement with the police and surveillance state has my attention piqued a bit. I’m just saying GrapheneOS partnering with possibly the biggest police state surveillance solutions provider? What’s that all about?
The Motorola phones are generally good performers and value for money. My only gripe is that they cannot have their batteries replaced easily - even by phone repair shops. I understand that this is because you have to disassemble / un-glue the phones through the front and remove the display. For this reason, the repair shops I have asked have said they don't 'do' Motorola phones because there's too much risk in break…
Yeah, this is one of the more frustrating industry-wide trends, and Motorola isn't alone in it
Re: Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS
#543If 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…
Developer fantasy? Here's the consumer fact: people do not like the race-to-the-bottom extractive practices installed on their computers non-consentually. People do not like the union-style collective barganining of duopolies following each other's anticonsumer practices after the bolder one tests it. Everybody complains about this stuff nonstop, and adapts by reducing their attention span on a fundamental level. The demand for a respectful computing environment is enormous.
Re: Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS
#544Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apple is doing a marvelous job of destroying the whole “it just works” or “it’s easy to figure out how to ____” thing they had going on. I would get over on an android 10-12 years ago and get exasperated about even trying to send a text message on the damned thing. Which, unfortunately can also now be said about the Apple experience. Apple doesn’t care what I think about their battery draining bloated garbage softwar…
The problem is as bad as Apple has become, it has a long way to fall before it reaches the depths of Google/Android. We could have six more iOS 26 style disaster releases and I suspect it would still be better than putting up with Android. I tried to switch to graphene for similar reasons to you. It just wasn’t viable, as you’re discovering. And if you want to even attempt to have a modern smartphone experience, you’…
That's where I'm at too.
For now, Apple is still the best in a bad situation, and at least for now they aren't primarily an ad company.
I am glad about the Graphene+Motorola partnership though, it always felt ironic to me to have to give Google money to completely escape Google.
Re: Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS
#545The motorola phones are neat, especially razr's, but practically disposable with their dismal update support lasting in some cases only a year or a major version I'd read. Selling me a $1500usd flip phone that is practically disposable oob for updates is a non-starter. Now put GrapheneOS on it with better support than the vendor can provide, now that's highly appealing. I wanted to get a used pixel 9 pro xl to update…
The update story has definitely been Motorola's weak spot
Re: Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS
#546Earlier 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,…
> 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 Would it? Most people, including in the developing countries, like changing phones. It's one of the small consumerist joys they get, plus they show the Joneses that they can kee…
Changing a phone means days of annoyance as you find one more thing that didn't transfer. Or one more thing that doesn't work the same as the old phone, but not in a good way. Or one more thing that you have to dive deep into settings to express that you do actually want your communication apps to run in the background so you can communicate. Or one more pocket the new phone doesn't fit into. More annoyance if you had to change phones because the old one can no longer accept input.
I remember a time when a new phone meant exciting new capabilities, and my current phone does have a new radio vs the old phone which is nicer than I thought it would be ... but at the end of the day, it's pretty much the same but different. Even though there are approximately 10,000 android phones released per year (hyperbole, I think), only a handful have my must haves (appropriate bands, headphone jack, reasonable cpu) so I don't actually get to shop on my want to haves; there's not so much joy there.
Re: Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS
#547Earlier quoted context omitted.
They do make one with a 4" display! I'm a small phone liker. After spending years on an iPhone 13 Mini and wishing it was a little smaller, I got a Motorola Razr Ultra last year and I've been very happy with it. It has a fully functional 4" external display, and unfolds into a full-size smartphone/phablet display for when you need it. I use the little external display probably 80% of the time, but it's handy to unfol…
Flip phone user for five years, will never get a slab again. It's weird to me more people don't use them, I guess they're expensive still.
Have you been using the same foldable phone for those 5 years? It’s the price, but it’s also a question of durability.
Re: Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS
#548If 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…
This is just a pessimist's 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 many people are sideloading apps, which is part of the reason Google tried their bullshit with developing countries first.
You're right that people mostly care about if it works, but when they have more choices they care about more things IF all else is equal. The "2 years" thing is definitely not correct either, especially as budgets are getting tighter.
The time is right for this change, as the reality is that the market has stagnated. Even cheap phones have good cameras, good batteries, and run smooth now. There's been very little innovation in phones over the last 5 years that the average person actually cares about. But the average person is frustrated with surveillance capitalism, but feels like there's nothing they can do about it. Don't confuse exhaustion with apathy. They look similar, but are very different.
Re: Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS
#549Earlier quoted context omitted.
The HN crowd is not representative of the entire market. Most people don't care about the operating system and only want something that 1) is simple to use 2) they already know 3) they happen to already have (most people keep their phones for many years) Also, the largest phone market in the world is the developing countries market. Cheap phones are supreme right now
"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." - Commonly misattributed to Henry Ford
Yeah I don't think the common consumer thinks that the leap from a regular Android or Apple smartphone to something 'more open' is the leap from a horse-drawn carriage to an automobile. That's fantasy thinking.
Re: Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS
#550Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
It's not just the average consumer. I continue to be surprised that so many developers and other tech nerds - the type who post on HN - chose and continue to choose the iPhone over Android when Apple dictates what apps they can install and locks third-party accessories out of certain features. Current times do present the opportunity to raise awareness of the issue though. App store bans for apps like ICEBlock, and v…
I'm continued to be surprised that people carry around devices that are controlled by targeted advertising firms