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Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS

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Re: Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS

#751

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.

Only if they can make it easy to use without compromising on what makes GrapheneOS what it is. I’m in the Apple ecosystem, but was curious about it after hearing so many people talk about it. Linus Tech Tips made a video on it a while back and for those who don’t want to tinker, it sounded like it could be a bit of a nightmare. At my age, I’m not looking for my phone to become a hobby. This generally means sensible d…

> At my age, I’m not looking for my phone to become a hobby.

I have been trying Linux on mobile. This is a hobby.

I have been using GrapheneOS... honestly it's just like a normal Android after two steps:

1. Install GrapheneOS (their installer is incredibly good, it just works).

2. From the GrapheneOS store, install the Play Store (it's like 3 taps).

After that it's a normal Android, except it's more secure and you get updates (meaning that you are on the latest version of Android, always).

Re: Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS

#752
post #636

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Before my iPhone I had Android with custom ROMs, tricked out UI, bunches of system automations, etc. Now I want to spend exactly 0 seconds a day on any of that, and would never buy something that caused me to exceed that 0 seconds. I want an appliance in my pocket, when my car breaks down or I need to be in touch. I do my fun stuff elsewhere.

It's weird to me that people keep saying that. How on Earth is iPhone more "appliancy" than regular Android? If anything, it's more annoying than Android with all the Apple inconsistencies. The settings UI, for example, is just plain broken. The gesture UI is finger-breakingly inconsistent, while Android has a simple reliable 3-button bottom bar.

The most appliance thing about it is continued updates for and switching to a new device.

If you stick with Samsung, the issues I've had probably go away.

> gesture UI is finger-breakingly inconsistent

I'm not familiar with this, at all. The app switching is actually my favorite feature about iPhone. So easy to flip between two apps. I don't use a case, so maybe that's related.

Re: Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS

#753

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree strongly with this. I would ditch my iPhone in a heartbeat for an open source alternative.

I'm sure the enthusiasm is appreciated but Graphene is very different even from stock Android. It's not simple enough for mainstream, and UI is odd. I'm typing this on an iPhone and my pixel 10 graphene is just to my left. It's my favorite Android distro but I wouldn't daily it. I love how boring and quiet the OS is though. It doesn't try for engagement. Battery life remains very good. The distro is close to being wh…

> It's not simple enough for mainstream, and UI is odd.

It's exactly the same UI as Stock Android on a Google Pixel. If you find GrapheneOS' UI odd, then Android is just not for you, I guess?

Re: Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS

#754
post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Contactless payments already work on GrapheneOS via Curve Pay, PayPal and the apps of many European banks. Solving the duopoly between Apple and Google for smartphone tap-to-pay in the US isn't something GrapheneOS can do. Regulators / legislators can force Google to let GrapheneOS pass the Play Integrity API checks and Google Pay will start working.

Google isn't letting anyone else get on their platform, because it's the exact reason why they got ruled a monopoly and Apple wasn't. If you let competitors on your platform, you must also let them compete on your platform. If you don't let them on your platform, well then they can kick rocks.

People have been saying that because it's such an outrageous dichotomy, but it's also not really what happened in those cases.

To begin with Epic picked a disadvantageous test case because mobile is only ~6% of Fortnite with the large majority on PCs and consoles. So when Apple banned it on iOS, most of the iOS users just bought their Fortnite stuff on their PCs and consoles instead and Apple could say "see? not a monopoly" which got them a market definition that included Google Play. The market definition is about the single most important thing in antitrust cases.

But it wasn't really Google Play that people were switching to after Apple banned them and that could turn out a lot different for apps primarily used on mobile rather than trying to go after a mobile company over an app primarily used on consoles. That was the main reason Epic lost against Apple -- Epic had an app where people would actually switch to something other than iOS and Apple had enough evidence of that to convince the judge.

In principle that could have been the case for Google too, but they got a different judge, a jury trial instead of having the judge decide the facts, a correspondingly different market definition, and then it went the other way.

What confuses people is that Google partially got in trouble for things like forcing third party OEMs to install Google Play on the home screen of their Android devices, which is not a good look, whereas Apple isn't forcing third party OEMs to do anything because they don't have any third party OEMs. But the thing they got in trouble for wasn't having third party OEMs, it was strongarming them, which is obviously not the same thing.

And -- this is probably the most important part -- locking down the device isn't what gets you out of a market definition of "aftermarket for customers of that OS". It was more that Apple presented evidence that customers would actually switch to alternatives specifically in the case of Fortnite and their judge bought that but a jury in a different case didn't.

If anything the lesson for Google here should be to not strongarm third parties, because that's plausibly what pissed off the jury. And I'd be interested to see a case against Apple where the plaintiff is doing >50% of their business with iOS users instead of a single digit percentage, i.e. the ones where they actually have market power, though of course you then have the irony that those are the ones most afraid to bring the case.

Re: Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS

#755
post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bear in mind it will solely be future devices which are supported. They're being developed and aren't launched yet.

Any chance of having a finger print scanner on the back of the phone? I personally really dislike the screen ones. They're slower, less reliable and the location is unnatural.

Mine (really cheap G05) has it on the power button, much better than the back where it used to be on older models. Motorola have been innovative with the UX. It lights up when I pick it up, shake twice to toggle flashlight (extremely useful when looking for dog poop) and so on. Only brand I've considered for about a decade.

Re: Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS

#756
post #610

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't underestimate tech-savy users' influence either. I could easily add 7+ people to the user base next replacement cycle.

I could add 3 off the top of my head. Probably a couple more. Privacy conscious people who aren't techies. Some have tried Linux, some don't know what a "browser" or "SD card" is. If features like phone calls, SMS, the camera and most regular apps work (especially banking apps, sadly), they'll be happy and receive free indefinite support from me. I wouldn't use banking apps myself unless they open source them, but I'…

Would it be better for privacy? I just can’t imagine a world where our “intelligence” blows up elementary schools and runs child rape rings and somehow telecom companies are allowed to make a product that doesn’t have access for “white” hats.

Re: Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS

#757
post #752

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's weird to me that people keep saying that. How on Earth is iPhone more "appliancy" than regular Android? If anything, it's more annoying than Android with all the Apple inconsistencies. The settings UI, for example, is just plain broken. The gesture UI is finger-breakingly inconsistent, while Android has a simple reliable 3-button bottom bar.

The most appliance thing about it is continued updates for and switching to a new device. If you stick with Samsung, the issues I've had probably go away. > gesture UI is finger-breakingly inconsistent I'm not familiar with this, at all. The app switching is actually my favorite feature about iPhone. So easy to flip between two apps. I don't use a case, so maybe that's related.

I've been using Pixel devices for a decade. I don't remember any issues with moving? I think the only bothersome thing was re-authentication in some apps after the move.

It typically took me maybe an hour to move devices? Including moving to a non-Google phone once when I broke my phone during a foreign trip and had to get a temporary replacement.

> I'm not familiar with this, at all. The app switching is actually my favorite feature about iPhone. So easy to flip between two apps. I don't use a case, so maybe that's related.

I can't get it to switch consistently. On Android it's dead easy and reliable with a nav bar. On iPhone it's often not registering a gesture if I swipe too fast or don't start swiping from the very bottom.

Re: Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS

#759
Please have physical disconnect switches (Bluetooth/Wifi, Modem, Power, Microphone/Speaker), and integrated lens cover like Lenovo laptops (at least for the front camera whereas a case can cover the rear cameras).

(Triple active SIM would be amazing, but one can dream.)

Re: Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS

#760

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Perhaps €200 is too low as price, but I don't get why generally only flagships (900+) are considered the only citizens to get that support. I remember the time only OnePlus flagship phones got the best LineageOS support back then, while older, cheaper ones hadn't

Lineageos support depends on volunteers. If no volunteers have the device and nobody donated one to someone willing to do the work, then it doesn't happen.
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