Motorola is releasing with Graphene OS soon.

You don't need to wait for confirmation someone else is doing x before doing x yourself. Take the first step!

In bizarre legislation systems like the US and the UK if I understand it correctly. I hope the EU will find some non BS thing to do stopping this crap.

And that graphene os will come to good cheap phones 😬

Honestly this, I thought the windows phone was really good. That said I'll never forgive Microsoft for buying nokia and effectively killing Meego (yes I know sailfish is a thing but it's pretty stunted growth wise)

I was a windows phone user and the last Windows version is to blame for killing their phones. They released a half baked platform that literally required SOAP for all network traffic. No raw TCP or UDP access just SOAP... a horrible standard based on XML with like 10x the overhead. 6.1 was probably the best but even that was plagued by compatibility issues.

Yes an alternative to play protect/play integrity.... But at very least not vendor locked

I don't care for cardless payments, but I do use internet banking, you cannot do without at least here, and government apps too are useful and doing with out is just.... Impossible.

Mobile banking is mandatory here, if not able to do mobile banking then you can use non free SMS messages, which sucks.

Government apps mandatory I mean that without, you are cut from most digital government services, which is not practical at all. Survivable, but a pain.

For me its maps. Getting directions is mostly why im still on /e/. I would love a linux phone! But im stuck at the moment.

Quit internet banking? That's the only form of banking available when the banking offices only have open on every other Tuesday, during the full moon between 11-12:30, closed for an hours lunch.

I beg to defer on the device drivers. Maybe you don't remember, but it's been decades before Linux would adapt, reimplement or convince manufacturer to provide drivers for it.

Modems first. Graphics card next. Wi-Fi networks also. Winprinters. They all come to my mind. And it's only by time and effort that now looks just works everywhere.

And now while graphene indeed is doing a great job that I appreciate very much, at the same time they are not developing an operating system. Google is.

There is a huge effort behind developing a full operating system, and it also requires standardization and somebody who defines what the standards are.

At this point, Google is the only one doing that. And if they go closed doors, no open source AOSP clone could keep up with Google changing standards and still be compatible, which would end up as an incompatible operating system.

My point is that currently Android needs Google, and there is no fooling around. We are years away of being independent from Google, whatever the great effort other developers are doing.

I appreciate everybody's work and I have been a lineage supporter and maintainer myself.

There are tons of issues that we need to solve to be really independent from Google. Forking he's the least of those.

Given an open certification process anybody could apply and achieve that, at least in theory. Something that with play integrity you cannot being obscured and proprietary.

So who knows, maybe one day even a Linux phone could. But not unless we get an open certification approach.

I agree with most of everything you wrote.

But banking apps and government apps is not a convenience, is a requirement, especially because, well, by law, they are required to provide an app and there is no choice around it. At least here.

I could indeed go back to bicycle everywhere I want to go and take in the train, but that is not convenience, that is life, so I need a car.

My point is that Google controls Android, whether they graciously allow us to have our foss Android and recompile it from sources is nice, but we still depend on Google and this is not good.

This is what needs to change, and there is no way around it.

While play services are mandatory for play cartification, the opposite is not automatic. In fact, bootloader and device fingerprint play an important role and when you replace the stock OS usually play integrity fails by design.

Do you know first hand that you can achieve play integrity with Graphene and no strange tricks like spoof signature or root?

I am sorry to say that forking AOSP is not an easy solution.

I cannot talk for Grafene as I don't know much of that organization, but I have been part of the Lineage Os organization for a little bit as a maintainer, and I can tell you that nobody is actually able to start working on such an effort as an AOSP fork.

I would gladly be happy if such a work would actually be maintained and supported long time, but I'm skeptical that anybody but a big organization has a power and a resource is to do so. After all even Linux is actually brought along by lots of organizations and also commercial organizations.

Yes, we need an open source trust platform, and I believe that is the only real way forward. I would vouch for a Linux mobile operating system, but indeed, air truly open, Android would be good as well.

They're not wrong.
Of course you can fork and have full control over your fork, but Graphene and company want to be able to keep merging AOSP's code to keep up with features and improvements.
Merging code from a divergent codebase is harder the more divergence there is, and with big codebases it can easily overwhelm small and medium-sized teams.
It's the same reason there aren't lots of chromium forks with manifest v2 support, while it is technically feasible, it requires a bigger effort than most projects can afford.
Keeping an open AOSP fork is not a bad idea, but it's not clear whether GrapheneOS or any other project will be able to keep up with that workload.
Of course Linux phones require a lot of work too, but it's work oriented towards making it work instead of towards undoing whatever sabotage google ads to AOSP, so it might motivate more people or be easier to do.
Also, both approaches are compatible.
Linux phones can use waydroid, which depends on AOSP, to run Android apps.

Ask you friend if the McDonald app works out of the box.

I know, I don't care for McDonald app as well, but it's an easy example of a stupid app requiring play certification to work....

This is a totally unrealted point. This applies to the age verification requirements and not the freedom to install apps outside Google control

they can't if your device is rooted or running a different rom

Pretty much, that's just where we are at. What made Android preferable to me was the freedom it offered and Android vendors kept chipping away at that for years. With this change implemented Android will be nothing more than cheap iOS, by then you may as well raise money to get the real thing or cheap out harder by buying a feature phone if doing so is an option.

It's what I did when my bank app stopped working with my custom ROM and Oneplus's final update to the phone made the stock ROM unbearable. At that point - might as well have the convenience of iOS (also I did like that it used the full screen on Carplay whereas Android Auto was limited to 2/3 of the screen and the rest was an Android Auto logo).

That said, Linux phones support seems to be getting pretty good on Fairphones which is great because it used to be that you'd have to have an old phone to have any real Linux support (like my Oneplus 7 pro was too new, whereas the 6/6T are supported by PMOS and Ubuntu)

Android was just in a place of "it's not freer enough over iOS to be worth it anymore" for me and still is.

Also I do run hacked YouTube now on iOS as well, which was literally the biggest thing I missed from my Android days lol, ad-free YouTube without paying.

How much more locked down will iOS even be in comparison at this rate though? iOS may not let you do whatever you want, but neither does modern Android. As time went on vendors restricted the system further and further.

Using a custom rom now is basically impossible, Google now releases AOSP source code only as snapshots and no longer accepts outside contribution, and now they almost fully killed sideloading and only made this concession after near universal backlash from online spaces. Do you really trust Google won't try to pull this kind of move again?

Android only becomes more closed as time goes on, at this rate it'll be little more than a budget iPhone anyway. At least with Apple you get longer software support and a fancy SoC. A community maintained Android hardfork or a Linux phone would be the ideal options here. But the former doesn't exist, and no smartphone I can get my hands on runs the latter. So iOS it is, or a feature phone.

You are taking the flagship phones. If you want a simple, functional phone, you can find some decent ones for a price as low as 200€

Why make this a table instead of a list?

Pretty much. My bank imposes transfer limits on the web portal vs the app, since there's purportedly more security in the physical device rather than a web page accessible from any system.

While I don't necessarily disagree with this, it means those apps also have to be searching for things like "Is USB debugging on? Is this running in an emulator? Is the device rooted?"

None of these are bad checks to make from a security perspective, but by relying on the app on a single device as a defacto MFA hurts the ability to manage personal finances when you're in a position like this, with Google defining the security requirements of their ecosystem at a higher level than any single app.

Obtainium is an app store of sorts

Ya, this is their new workflow for people who dont authentic themselves.

Turn on developer mode and choose the right setting, reboot phone, wait 24h, then you can install anything. You have the option to stay like this, or revert to 24h wait after 7 days.

Edit: they just announced it in the past few days.

I know. Some people might have missed that.

There was already a Linux phone and even a Firefox phone, but with no wide app support it's going to be a failure, just like it happened with Windows Phone.

And I'm saying this as a person who would love for a true Linux phone alternative to succeed.

2127....

2227...

2327...

2427...

Surely 2527 will be the year of the Linux phone...

The website linked above lays out the change https://keepandroidopen.org/

https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2026/03/android-developer-verification.html

Or we stop babyproofing the world for fools. Imagine a car that only ran gas from approved gas stations because someone was caught inhaling unapproved gas when someone else told them it would heal their sickness.

For a start, there's no reliable way to detect when the screen is "being monitored". You're presumably thinking of remote control apps but they use the accessibility API which is something many users with visual impairment have enabled all the time, for things like screen readers.

This entire flow is delivered through Google Play Services, not the Android OS, meaning Google can modify, restrict, or remove it at any time without an OS update and without any user consent. The advanced flow has still not appeared in any Android beta, dev preview, or canary release. As of the date of this update, it exists only as a blog post and UI mockups. The community is being asked to accept a product announcement as a functional safeguard five months before the mandate takes effect.

Until Google provides a shipping implementation that can be independently verified, our position remains unchanged: all apps from non-registered developers will be blocked once their lockdown goes into effect in September 2026.

Rolling back usually means to revert it fully.

The advanced flow (which includes a 24hr wait time) is not rolling back and I wouldn't call it stepping back either. It's obviously designed to kedp friction high so thst no one even bothers with freedom and privacy protecting apps that dont want to or can't go through googles verification process.

This isn't what you think it is... it's barely conceding when the friction remains this high.

Yeah the real issue is ease of access and simplicity. GrapheneOS is appealing to me, but 1. I don’t want to buy a google pixel just to get it and 2. I don’t have the confidence to replace the OS, no matter how easy the guide says it is. If I had someone in person to help me I’d maybe consider it, but I’m just so worried I’d mess it up and brick the phone

I was planning to get an android phone in a few months since I unfortunately still have my old iPhone, but with this GrapheneOS Motorola phone coming out in 2027 I might see if I can make this phone last till that comes out if android is gonna be locked down too

Other ROMs are usually very bad at security with many being late to secuity updates, not supporting bootloader relocking, and not using the secure element. I would not trust them in the hands of someone who isn't tech savvy or is at high risk of hackers.

It would really be about MDM.

With most MDM solutions there's an owner app that actually owns the device and can install apps directly.

No offense, but you're part of a niche audience there. The vast majority of consumers just want their photos to look good (even when good means "not like reality"). "I need it to have a good camera" ia something you hear over and over again when people tell want it is important to them in a phone.

Camera is a big deal for me.

Define good? I mean if you look at the work they've been doing over the past decade, as such a tiny company, it's objectively awesome (sheer size, but also quality)! But I myself turned away from the first Jolla phones frustrated from all the kinks that were never fixed (in that time frame while that hardware was still viable - some were probably fixed in the meantime, some not). The experience remains a compromise: you get freedom from Big Tech, but you do not get several other things you've been taking for granted, because of Big Tech. Just one example, you can run Android apps, but if your phone has a fingerprint sensor (the last Jolla community phone didn't), Android apps can't use it. There is the camera issue that I mentioned (Jolla is not a camera company). It's always something, so you have to be okay with that if you want Jolla or Sailfish OS. But I will still mention that it is the most mature, full-featured mobile Linux out of all the mobile Linux efforts that have sprung up these past years. Jolla was first, and they remain ahead of the curve in this space.

Looking at the hardware it almost seems like they are using the same rear camera:

Motorola:

50 MP Sony Sensor - LYTIA ® 700C f/1.8 Blende 1 µm Pixelgrösse | Quad-Pixel-Technologie für 2 µm Quad PDAF Optische Bildstabilisierung (OIS) 13 MP Kamera mit Ultra-Weitwinkelobjektiv (120° Sichtfeld) Macro Vision f/2.2 Blende 1,12 µm Pixelgrösse PDAF 10 MP Teleobjektiv 3x optischer Zoom f/2.0 Blende 1,0 µm Pixelgrösse PDAF Optische Bildstabilisierung (OIS)

FP6:

50MP Sony Lytia 700C sensor, 1/1.56", 1.0μm pixel size Quadpixel Autofocus, 10 cm minimum focusing distance, time of flight sensor Up to 10x digital zoom Optical (OIS) image stabilization Ultra Wide camera: Image sensor: 13MP, 1/3.06", 1.12μm pixel size ƒ2.2 5 elements Autofocus, Macro Mode, 2.5cm minimum focusing distance, time of flight sensor Electronic (EIS) image stabilization

But I am no expert, I'm sure there are differences due to software.

I'm not one for taking pictures, so I can't really comment on that, sorry.

What I can say, compared to my previous phone (Iphone 14), is that the front camera is a little worse than that of the Iphone 14. I notice it during Video Calls.

Not camera specific, but it's maybe worth mentioning that it sometimes also runs into small issues. For example it will sometimes not connect to my WiFi and I'll have to restart the phone in order for it to connect again. Not a big issue, since it restarts quite fast, but for someone coming from a well established phone brand it might be a little irritating. (And it also might just be a problem for me specifically)

But these downsides are well worth it (for me) in order to have a more privacy focused mobile and also not be supporting big American Tech Companies.

This includes not in the Google play store so like f-droid or like how people would get software from a places website or GitHub or sourceforge or wherever and installing it like you can on Windows or a Mac or Linux

Rhis isn't related to payment systems, which mostly have kyc requirements and extensive capacity to claw back money.

If it was only a question of publishing on the Play store, then I think that would make some sense. That's not what's happening here.

Once and done. It'll be an option on Developer Mode with a 24-hour cooloff and forced reboot (to disconnect any ongoing scam calls).

You have a fair concern but I do want to say it is possible to get the phones secondhand. Even if someone does buy the phone just to install GrapheneOS then at least they only get a small purchase vs a lifetime of selling your data and continuing to profit off of them long-term.