Motorola Partners With GrapheneOS
- Reference: 0180885210
- News link: https://tech.slashdot.org/story/26/03/02/178237/motorola-partners-with-grapheneos
- Source link:
GrapheneOS is a privacy and security focused mobile OS with Android app compatibility developed as a non-profit open source project. It's often referred to as the "de-Googled OS" because Google apps are not available by default. However, users can install them via a sandboxed version of Google Play Services.
[1] https://motorolanews.com/motorola-three-new-b2b-solutions-at-mwc-2026/
[2] https://motorolanews.com/motorola-three-new-b2b-solutions-at-mwc-2026/
thank you very much Motorola (Score:3)
about time. sick and tired of our digital overlords, overlording us.
Thou shalt not install what you want.
Yeah, fuck you google.
Saves me a lot of horseshit, de-googling, or getting past locked bootloaders.
Motorola in my future (Score:1)
I will be switching to this for my next upgrade.
I'm a Moto fan (Score:3)
I was a Motorola fan, had several triplets phones and a couple of RAZRs (which were just slimmed versions of the same thing at the time) and after they sold out to Lenovo I cautiously tried them again and... still great. If you buy an unlocked phone, which remains affordable, they come with zero crapware on the system partition. Any bundled apps are therefore uninstallable. Moto Actions remains the most convenient way to control your phone's special features, like shake for flashlight, twist for phone, face down for do not disturb.
If you combine that with this you're going to get the most reasonably priced and reasonable to own Android phones that exist.
I use a lot of non-play-store apps (Score:4, Informative)
And with the upcomming restriction of the Android Platform that Google annonce for this year, I'm very glad at Motorola / Lenovo to bright this option, I hope that other major manufacturers follows.
I also hope that the first Motorola GrapheneOS will be out in Canada before the Googlerestriction on third appstore software.
Long live to the OSS
Long live to f-Droid
And prospert
Re: I use a lot of non-play-store apps (Score:2)
It would be nice if f-droid worked. It consistently fails to download updates for me, let alone install them.
A post Google world is a better world (Score:5, Informative)
Thanks to Google overstepping by attempting to exert control over what is allowed to be executed hopefully there will be much more of this.
[1]https://keepandroidopen.org/ [keepandroidopen.org]
[1] https://keepandroidopen.org/
didn't Motorola exit the market? (Score:2)
I thought they stopped making phone like a decade ago
Re: didn't Motorola exit the market? (Score:2)
Motorola sold their phone line to Lenovo. It's now called Moto. It's still good.
Re: (Score:2)
The name was bought by Lenovo, but their phones with Motorola branding are not bad phones. I have a Z3 play still going over six years. I will buy another Moto when it is finally time.
a step in the right direction (Score:2)
I am so through with Google's Playstore because of all the datamining spamware that is shoved to the front of any search query of something your looking for, I already decided my next purchase will be a small GPD laptop and wipe windows off for a vanilla Slackware install, google has enshitified their product enough to make me do this (iPhone is just as guilty)
Re: (Score:2)
Well, as an Australian, my data is already surveilled by the 5-eyes. I then share my details with President Xi by buying Lenovo - the best of both worlds!
The downside of Moto, in the low end at least, has been the lack of OS updates. In that case, Moto hand-balling updates to Graphene it might be an improvement. At least if you're encouraged to unlock the bootloader and install Graphene then at least you'd be getting regular patches. And I'm not so much worried by the Deep State (above) but by hackers explo
I read the linked announcement... (Score:3)
... and it seems quite unclear what this "partnership" actually means. They do not mention any specific measure, like for example "providing GrapheneOS developers access to firmware and hardware documentation" or such. I wonder if this boils down do anything more than "well yeah you can unlock the boot-loader to install GrapheneOS".
Android is slow (Score:2)
Can we move away from Android? It’s still a laggy OS that uses brute force processing to hide its lag and lack of responsiveness. It was originally designed as a blackberry clone. Just try using it on a slower, cheaper phone and you’ll see what I mean.
Dammit! (Score:2)
And I just replaced by dying Motorola phone with a Samsung. Had I known about this, I'd have held off.
I don't care if Motorola supplies GrapheneOS, as long as they provide a way to install it and all the hardware works.
Might Be Something, Maybe (Score:3)
This might be something. It depends on which App Store they permit access to.
If they restrict it to some pathetically limited GrapheneOS or Motorola App Store, then it's DOA.
Re: (Score:3)
They are going to want it to run normal apps, so it is going to come with Play Services.
Even if they don't, you will be able to add gapps, and get access to the Play Store that way.
Google might lock that down in the future of course, but it remains possible. And that would be a detriment to Google, but that doesn't mean they definitely won't do it of course.
Re:Might Be Something, Maybe (Score:5, Informative)
GrapheneOS allows you to install Play Services and its store. They run as unprivileged apps in a sandbox. I run GOS on a Pixel and it has ~99% compatibility.
Learn more at their [1]Frequently Asked Questions [grapheneos.org].
[1] https://grapheneos.org/faq#google-services
Re: Might Be Something, Maybe (Score:1)
> They are going to want it to run normal apps, so it is going to come with Play Services.
GrapheneOS would never come with any preinstalled app stores aside from the one used for updating it's own built in middleware (think calculator, vanadium, etc), let alone Google play.
I don't imagine you'd ever see grapheneos preinstalled on any phones -- more likely, you're going to see an unlockable bootloader with open source divers, which pixel seems to be moving away from.
Either way, this isn't the kind of phone that somebody like you would benefit from, nor would that be the intent.
You too can read the summary to the end. (Score:3, Informative)
It's says it right there, in last sentence of summary.
Re: (Score:2)
It was not clear to me what a sandboxed play store might be. Full content, partial content, vetted content, restricted content..?
From the more helpful comments of others, I am gathering that it is the full Google App Store catalog. But, perhaps there are steps to enable it like adding a repo in Linux.
Re: (Score:2)
I presume this wont appeal to normal chumps who promiscuously install social media and other garbage apps.
For people who just want a phone, this is very welcome.
I'm pretty sure I'm an outlier, but I do know factually, there are many people like me who have zero social media, zero garbage apps, no games.
i.e. all my clients. Other than base utilities, I just have web browser, email, a few messaging apps and even a regular mobile number and sms. Bam. I'm done.
Fairly sure that's what a lot of people want... and
Re: (Score:2)
What you say. Unfortunately I do need WhatsApp, because of family, 2FA for security and my bank insists on having their app on my phone.
That and Wordament, a word game on Android, to entertain me while on the toilet. I could not care less about Facebook, Instagram, TikTok or any other of the socials. I removed these from my current phone.
Other than that, I use my phone as you seem to do. Dreadful interface and too small of a screen to be remotely useful, in my opinion. Especially when I have 2 desktops and