It really is a shame how phones are made. Firmware has to be signed by the vendors, so you CAN’T upgrade it. I mean, if there was a big community they maybe could handle the Kernel maintenance, but not the Firmware.
I highly recommend you getting a Pixel 8 with GrapheneOS. It has very long lifetime, even though Google kinda sucks when it comes to hardware features. Their a models seem to have actively crippled Cameras (comparing a Pixel 6a to a 4a, it is worse! Not to speak of a Nokia 7plus which is years old).
But they are the only good one poorly, as they fully support running a Custom OS on it, including all hardware features. Samsung actively blocks custom OSses from accessing those.
When using Graphene, is the camera app as good as the default Pixel OS? I seem to recall running the old AOSP, you didn’t get whatever secret sauce makes the Pixel phone’s camera so good.
As far as I know it does not include Google’s special sauce. You can install it back on in GrapheneOS but I believe that requires the Play Store. You also lose Android Auto in GrapheneOS
The GCam works without any sandboxed play service requirements. Note sandboxed Play Services. You can disable components, uninstall them again, give or restrict permissions, like normal Android apps.
On GrapheneOS you can also disable every App.
And Android Auto recently got support, fully sandboxed. But its crazy how much tracking that needs, I still have no idea what it is at all but it works.
I also tried Google Play Games, which is not available through their store, from Aurorastore, and with the sandboxed Play services it also works perfectly fine!
They literally preinstall the required libraries, although their camera is okay, you can install the “AI knows everything better than you” PixelCamera, you can install the LineageOS “Aperture” from the iodeOS repo, and you can install Opencamera.
I think LineageOSses Camera is better for photos as it has this “take an image from a video” thing so it works instantaneous. GrapheneOS camera may have better quality overall.
It really is a shame how phones are made. Firmware has to be signed by the vendors, so you CAN’T upgrade it. I mean, if there was a big community they maybe could handle the Kernel maintenance, but not the Firmware.
I highly recommend you getting a Pixel 8 with GrapheneOS. It has very long lifetime, even though Google kinda sucks when it comes to hardware features. Their a models seem to have actively crippled Cameras (comparing a Pixel 6a to a 4a, it is worse! Not to speak of a Nokia 7plus which is years old).
But they are the only good one poorly, as they fully support running a Custom OS on it, including all hardware features. Samsung actively blocks custom OSses from accessing those.
When the time to upgrade comes, I’ll probably get a pixel. But right now my main phone is holding up very well. Even though it’s allready 5 years old.
When using Graphene, is the camera app as good as the default Pixel OS? I seem to recall running the old AOSP, you didn’t get whatever secret sauce makes the Pixel phone’s camera so good.
As far as I know it does not include Google’s special sauce. You can install it back on in GrapheneOS but I believe that requires the Play Store. You also lose Android Auto in GrapheneOS
No and no.
https://grapheneos.org/faq
The GCam works without any sandboxed play service requirements. Note sandboxed Play Services. You can disable components, uninstall them again, give or restrict permissions, like normal Android apps.
On GrapheneOS you can also disable every App.
And Android Auto recently got support, fully sandboxed. But its crazy how much tracking that needs, I still have no idea what it is at all but it works.
I also tried Google Play Games, which is not available through their store, from Aurorastore, and with the sandboxed Play services it also works perfectly fine!
Oh cool! I was out of date on all of that so thank you
Yeah its always easy. There are a TON of misconceptions about GrapheneOS.
I am doing a writeup of a “GrapheneOS Kickstart” guide currently, nearly done. Includes many of those questions, although impossible to include all.
If a person says to you they know everything, you get 100% security or privacy, they are lying.
They literally preinstall the required libraries, although their camera is okay, you can install the “AI knows everything better than you” PixelCamera, you can install the LineageOS “Aperture” from the iodeOS repo, and you can install Opencamera.
I think LineageOSses Camera is better for photos as it has this “take an image from a video” thing so it works instantaneous. GrapheneOS camera may have better quality overall.