I always thought Pixel was the platform to have for fucking around with the OS and stuff. Of fucking course I was an idiot.
Don’t be too hard on yourself, they definitely put money and effort into influencing opinions in all the subversive ways they can manage. But also, let this be a lesson to always check alternatives and their reason for existing. I consider it part of best practices.
“Embrace, Extend, Extinguish”. When have they ever done otherwise.
Point of order: That was Microsoft rather than Google.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Yeah, I’m aware that Microsoft coined that phrase, but Google seems to be doing something quite similar.
Google embraced the creation of an open-sourced Android project, extended its capabilities with centralized software distribution, and is now extinguishing by forcing developers to comply with its new requirements and banning third-party app stores.
Anyone have a wild guesstimate on when this will be available?
When the phone comes out lol /joking
Fr tho i think they reveal new phones every April? So if not April this year then April of next year.
If it wasn’t because of this
As it stands today, GrapheneOS is exclusively available on Google Pixel devices. Whatever device Motorola is building with GrapheneOS, it’s beyond even the Motorola Signature’s specs, which is currently the “flagship” in Motorola’s lineup, as even that doesn’t meet the needed requirements.
I thought first maybe one year, but that statement made me very sceptical if that is possible.
Wait not like that!
I want Graphene but with none of the Moto features.
They spotted an opportunity
Good. Now if only they could make the Edge+ with the same relative spec sheet and ditch the curved glass in 2027. I’d buy it in a heartbeat for Graphene. My next phone WAS going to be a Pixel for the broader case/screen protector support, but that would make me reconsider cause I would really miss the chop chop flashlight.
Chop chop flashlight?
Motorola phones have a feature that allows you to “chop” with your phone twice to turn on/off the flashlight. It sounds super mundane, but it is way more convenient than you can imagine. Especially for me as an athletic trainer when I’m testing pupil response during a concussion evaluation. They also allow you to twist your phone twice to open the camera, but I don’t find that as convenient since double tapping the lock button also works.
That’s pretty cool. Did you ever find it activating accidentally?
No. You have to be pretty deliberate about it. Honestly, its pretty impressive how well tuned it is.
Now I need to try it somehow
If you have tasker on Android or GOS there’s a download for it called ‘chop to flashlight’ and can adjust the sensitivity so it doesn’t turn on in your pocket or bag.
Just tried it on my razr, had no idea it was a thing but that’s not surprising given I don’t really set up accessibility features on my phones. You do have to be quite forceful with it, kind of whipping it back once at the end of a swing. Neat.
While the Motorola/GrapheneOS news is interesting, it’s a shame that GrapheneOS’s lack of root access continues to be a significant limitation. For users who prioritize data ownership and the ability to create full, local backups (Swift Backup being a prime example), it’s simply not a viable option. Security is important, but so is control over your own data.
Have you seen the “Shizuku” app? It utilises the debugging api to give some extra permissions that regular apps wouldn’t usually get. Works on GrapheneOS and can give SwiftBackup a lot more power on devices that can’t grant root access. You might find you don’t need full rooting.
Seems like a good move. They need some market they can dominate, even if it’s a small market at the moment. But, the only way this works is if we buy their phones. I wish them luck, and maybe they’ll make my next phone. I want to get out of Apple and Google.
Let’s see if it gets released before GrapheneOS and unlockable bootloader get outlawed
OEM, they can lock the bootloader. So at least there’s that
That’s the point, right? Google is trying to lock down Android even more, and third party vendors can see the increasing risk. If they fork now, they can maybe undercut the increasing monopoly efforts.
I am sure they are also seeing a growing demand for more privacy, the only reason own a pixel is because of GrapheneOS. If I could buy a phone with the OS pre installed I would, don’t know if they are going to do that. Also, by patterning with GrapheneOS they don’t has the development cost and they can trade on Graphenes name
Trying to capture the street criminal demographic
Today’s peaceful protester is tomorrow’s criminal.
(Because even peaceful protests will become outlawed)
Just because criminals value their privacy doesn’t mean that everyone that values their privacy is a criminal.
No but the people using GrapheneOS by and large are.
Guess I know which brand my next smartphone upgrade will be.
If they did some nice 7" tablets too, that would be perfect.
Lenovo/Moto is weird about that… The android phones and android tablets have next to nothing to do with each other.
I do have a couple of their tablets and like them well enough, but you might as well consider them an entirely different vendor versus the Moto phone part of the business.
Well, fuck. I really hoped they would pick FairPhone. Motorola is… Okay. I guess they made the Nexus 5 ; which was one of the best phones ever.
I hope they make a SMALL one, I am so tired of this GIGANTIC pixel 9.
I think LG made the Nexus 5, though.
Fairphone isn’t available everywhere while Motorola is. It’s pretty easy to understand why they chose them.
That’s not the reason, the real reason is Fairphone doesn’t take security seriously. The GrapheneOS devs have called them out numerous times on that.
Who haven’t the gosdevs called out? Not even OpenBSD are as callous and their work is rock solid.
But if they partnered with GrapheneOS, there could have been a concerted effort to remedy that.
Depends on if Fairphone wants to take security ‘seriously’ by Graphene OS opinion.
I don’t know the details of these specific folks, but sometimes a security team can be wholly unreasonable and advocate for breaking useful capabilities. E.g. there are some security folks that would say the entire possibility of unlocked bootloader is an unforgiveable security no-no. They can even argue with each other, I know a security team that says password managers are a no-no and humans should remember every credential that they would have otherwise put in a password manager, while most security folks would agree a password manager is totally worth it for using randomized passwords.
So I tend to reserve judgement on disagreements between a ‘security authority’ until I hear nuance of specifics on both sides. I could easily believe GrapheneOS wants some things that are fundamentally at odds with what Fairphone wants rather than just Fairphone being sloppy about it or something.
Also a good reason but you can’t get Fairphones in North America which is a huge market.
Motorola gets a little bit of love from me because they were (maybe still are?) the only ones who allowed me to shout “COMRADE MOTO!” to wake my phone up
I will not say “Hey Google” in a million years. I refuse.
SOVIET ANTHEM PLAYS IN THE BACKGROUND
That’s definitely worth a fair few points. Always rubbed me the wrong way that you couldn’t change it to whatever you wanted.
Actually LG made the Nexus 5, Moto did the Nexus 6, developed while Google owned Motorola and released a few weeks after Lenovo bought them.
Depending on your definition of ‘small’, your only hope might be if they did Razr and you used it folded up. That’s credibly small, though I don’t know if Graphene would be game for bothering to do that sort of multiple display work.
Motorola is a major supplier of communication equipment for the IDF and produces bomb fuses used in IDF’s bombs. It also donated money to Project 2025.
The good one is the one shipping Google spyware and not updating their devices.
The funny part is that’s actually the least bad thing they’ve done.
do you mean Motorola Solutions or Motorola Mobility(the one Lenovo currently owns)?
Motorola Mobility was spun off from Motorola in 2012 and sold to Google. Then Google sold it in 2014 to Lenovo, the Chinese company that had also previously bought IBM’s entire personal computer business.
Original Motorola, renamed Motorola Solutions, retained the rights to the Motorola name in everything except cell phones, and continued to manufacture radio and communications equipment and other signal processing equipment (including stuff like cable TV boxes). They remain a major contractor for militaries, law enforcement, and fire/EMS emergency responders.
If we’re talking about Motorola cell phones, we’re talking about the Chinese owned company, not the American owned company.
Thank you for educating me.
Now I can simply not buy their devices because they suck.
Oh man I never realized there was a separate non-phone Motorola company that remained where it was. Thanks for the explanation.
That’s another Motorola. The one making phones is Lenovo who bought the brand to put it on phones.
The same Lenovo that got caught using rootkits to keep their software installed on PCs? https://www.zdnet.com/article/lenovo-rootkit-ensured-its-software-could-not-be-deleted/
that was in 2015 though
like 10-11 years ago (as of march 2nd 2026)All the major companies have too many ghosts, and will do things I do not like.
I really want to support more ethical organizations
I still haven’t forgiven Sony for shipping malware in their CDs, Lenovo will never get approval from me.
you mean like Sony shipped DRM?
Yes and when sued they provided a removal tool that put a new malware on pcs.
Ohh I see.
But thank God DRM is no longer kernel level.
Are there any companies left that haven’t done some shady shit in the past?
A few small ones.
How will they be able tackle the play integrity checks and all those things?
Who? Grapahen OS? The same way they do now I guess. Nothing changes for the OS. It’s the hardware that needs to fulfill some extra requirements for Graphene OS team to support it.
But some apps dont work, so motorola will have to exclusively say that these banking apps, or gpay will not work, or they will have a dolution for this?
I don’t think it’s clear that Motorola will actually sell phones with GrapheneOS. If they do I’m pretty sure they will not offer them in normal stores, next to other Android phones.
I think most people here don’t really understand what’s going on here. Graphene OS is an Android mod with some extra security features designed to run on a hardened hardware. The main goal of Graphene OS is to protect users from some very specific attacks like some devices police uses to unlock phones or some targeted hacks by state actors. Unless you’re worried you may be targeted by such an attack and have some date you need to protect from them you don’t really need Graphene OS. You can run any of the other deGoogles Android mods on any hardware that supports it. You can already buy phones with pre-installed /e/ of iode ROMs. Many other phones support Lineage OS. Also, let’s keep in mind that GrapheneOS only supports Pixel because they don’t want to allow people to run their OS on hardware they don’t think is secure enough. It’s their choice not to support other phones.
Also, Google still controls AOSP so this does not solve any of the bigger Android issues. Motorola forking AOSP and providing the resourced needed to keep the development going would be amazing news. This is just one phone maker promising to fulfill the security requirements of Graphene OS. It’s basically like Dell offering Ubuntu laptops. Good news but it will not have a big impact on the ecosystem.
If you live in the united states, then you DO need protection against police and state attacks.
I never said you don’t. I’m saying that if you DO need it you should be running GrapheneOS on a Pixel already. If you can wait a year or two until this phone comes out it’s clearly not a “must have” for you.
Fair point. I really do wish it were more than “Pixel, or MotorolaSoonTM” for hardware choices. Who knows, though. Maybe other manufacturers will join the party.
This is nonsense. Everyone needs the most secure phone possible, especially considering it’s the only device some people will ever own. None of the other de-Googled offerings come close to the security features that Graphene offers, some of which are custom built solutions. They go above and beyond what the typical ROM does, which is why it even supports a lot of banking apps that would normally be blocked.
There’s a good reason people talk about GrapheneOS a lot lately, and not any of the many alternative Android ROMs that exist.
Also, let’s keep in mind that GrapheneOS only supports Pixel because they don’t want to allow people to run their OS on hardware they don’t think is secure enough
Obviously. That’s the point: Graphene isn’t just any de-Googled ROM, it’s specifically a product designed for security-conscious users. If someone doesn’t care about security and just wants to dick around on an old Android device, they can use one of the many toy ROMs out there (like iodé)
The main goal of Graphene OS is to protect users from some very specific attacks like some devices police uses to unlock phones or some targeted hacks by state actors.
That’s simply not true. It does do those things, but that’s not “the main goal”. Not sure where you got that from?
This is nonsense. Everyone needs the most secure phone possible,
This is nonsense. GrapheneOS is like 0.00001% of the market. Almost everyone in the world manages to survive just fine “dicking around on an old Android”. Only people that can be targeted by state actors really need GrapheneOS. Most people when forced to choose between unlocking their phones or being denied entry to a country, being stopped from boarding a plane or simply spending some time in jail will quickly unlock the phone and hand it over to police. Having extra secure OS is meaningless to them.
I understand you have some sensitive data on your phone and you would rather be detained than unlock it and that’s fine. Graphene OS is for you. I’m sure you’re already using it on a Pixel device. Motorola will offer you more options but that’s it. Not much will change.
Reproducible builds and lack of telemetry, plus hardening against compromise (by any actors) is my personal use case. I only run free/libre infrastructure privately, and hope to move on to open/libre hardware in future.
Yes. Controlling telemetry data transmission is why I run GrapheneOS.
But how is that significantly more secure than LineageOS? I have read through countless blog posts from GrapheneOS developers and have not yet encountered an explanation that is sufficiently convincing. Outside of additional security hardening, which is definitely a big pro, GrapheneOS doesn’t have many things that LineageOS doesn’t. LineageOS is fully FOSS and telemetry-free. They introduced the “Trust” control panel for managing all sorts of privacy and security matters. They have PIN scramble.
The only major, obvious security vulnerability lies in the proprietary driver blobs from the device vendors / OEMs. But AFAIK Google Pixels also have those, right? So outside of doubtlessly valuable measures like restricting malicious reprogramming / access through the USB port, in what ways is GrapheneOS actually more secure than LineageOS?
Nice try officer.
If you’re worried about police getting your data you’re already using GrapheneOS on a Pixel device. This is good news for you because you will have more options when changing phones in the future but not really a game changer in any way.
It’s not just degoogling is the reason for using grapheneos. There are many other user friendly controls. For instance, you block apps from network use, so your click farming game doesn’t track everything about you.
iode has a build in app that let’s you automatically block trackers for each app. You can manage internet connection and allow specific trackers separately for each app. I think internet access is a basic Android permission, any ROM can just block internet access for apps. I’ve used iode before, I’m using Graphene OS now. If restoring all the apps wasn’t such a pain in the ass I would go back to iode. It also had a nice ‘long press’ navigation button shortcut feature, pattern unlock for the lockscreen and automated backups to self hosted ownCloud instance. Graphene OS is good but it’s not a game changer.
Great play, Motorola. And I’m not even against it. Take my money.!
Looks like my next phone is going to be a Motorola. Having been on Graphene for 2 years now, I can’t go back. My wife is still on stock and its cringe for me now.
Just bought a Motorola because it was the best price of the 3 phones I found that had most of the features I wanted. This makes me feel better about that purchase. I’m also pretty happy with the phone so far.
