one less reason to buy a Pixel, well done Google!
this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2025
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AOSP isn't dead, but Google just landed a huge blow to custom ROM developers
(www.androidauthority.com)
I don't have any actual research, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Pixel itself doesn't really make money at all. One of those "get people hardcore into the Google ecosystem to get their money/data" things.
The absolutely criminal dark patterns that they pull on people via Google photos auto backup is insane.
Just in my own orbit 2 of my friends wives, my parents, and my in-laws all wound up paying Google because they thought they had to or lose all their photos. We helped most of them disconnect the autobackup (that they didn't even know was activated) and move it to offline safely. But that was the most downright evil shit Google has ever done and literally a fire in me for manipulating the elderly and less tech savvy so blatantly.
devil's avocado: this move has saved many people's cherished photos from disappearing by having them auto save. before Google photos I'd run into cases (I used to do home IT support) where people had years of family photos disappear because they didn't back them up properly. Having to communicate what happened was never fun.
is Google photos perfect? No, but it's a great solution for people who don't want to manage their data.
Yes, but that shouldn't explicitly opt in, and they shouldn't marry that product to Gmail and Google Drive if they are going to push it to enable by default.
Again, it's really insidious. They push it so aggressively I had to disable it on my personal device twice, and I can't just not use Google Photos app because it's tied to the camera itself on pixel phones.
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The company says this is because it’s shifting its AOSP reference target from Pixel hardware to a virtual device called “Cuttlefish” to be more neutral.
This actually probably make sense, but they could still be cool and have pixel drivers be open source in a different repo if that was the only reason.
Yeah, just that this has shit to do with the stated reasons. Google hasn't been an open source ally for quite some time now
Yup, the entire culture of Google has nearly changed. It used to be coder- and innovation-driven, and open-source was a natural thing to support. Make more money by growing the pie, creating markets with new tech.
Now it seems it's middle managers and MBAs calling the shots, and their strategy is generic business zero-sum mindset - lock down, restrict, extract. They still see the PR value in open-source, but that's it.
Just becoming 1990s Microsoft or 1980s IBM.
Just another example of enshittification from a publicly traded company. Nothing really new here.
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Would be great indeed, but "more neutral" in this case seems to mean vendor agnostic by abstracting the hardware away and have anything run on a closed source google container.
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Now more than ever we need more work on PostmarketOS, Mobian, Gnome Mobile etc...
Bummer that it's still so hard to find a somewhat modern, affordable phone that is Linux compatible
Yeah, I'd totally buy a phone running one of those provided it does all the phone things properly: SMS/MMS, reliable calls, all day battery, etc. I don't need fancy apps, I just need a working phone.
If I can get that, I could probably donate some time porting apps.
I really want to give furios phone a shot. It's apparently close to supporting my carrier.
That and a sailfish phone. The community one though didn't support my carrier (think it's mainly EU specced only.)
What I find missing most of the time though is any esim support. Makes me wonder if the hardware one that you can program an esim on works.
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I know someone at a company that built and sold a Linux phone 19 years ago.
You're not upset you can't find a Linux phone: you're upset you can't find one anymore.
Does this mean Graphene is dead? Probably the real reason they would do this is to kill Graphene.
The GrapheneOS team is very aware of their dependence on google. They are planning to either find an OEM for their own line of hardware or a brand whose phones support their requirements other than google. That being said, it will complicate work a lot, but for now it would be to early to jump to that conclusion.
Also, Google couldn't care less if <1% of buyers flash a custom ROM / OS on their phone, this is about tying the android ecosystem closer to google in general. Most other big phone manufacturers know this and are trying to come up with their own solution, like Huawei had to because of the ban when the orange man has been president the first time.
or a brand whose phones support their requirements other than google.
Wasn't Graphene's "selling point" for long being that nothing but Pixels can match their reqs? I don't see why any current band would want to make it easier for them, and I also don't see new brand significantly entering the market.
Graphene boiled themselves in their own frogpan.
This is not a selling point but rather a unfortunate but comprehensible circumstance. Nexus and later Pixel phones have not been anything more than reference hardware without significant sales until the Pixel 6. Google has been a software company that has greatly benefited by android being an "open" platform you could contribute to and use their services on.
The App / Cloud ecosystem has gained a lot of competitors, so Google is doing their best to reverse this course of action by pulling more and more functionality out of AOSP into Play services and now into Cuttlefish. We can only wait and see how other phone manufacturers react to this.
Nah, you have it backwards. GrapheneOS didn't choose Pixels for any reason other than they're the only acceptably secure devices out there. I can't imagine they want this to be the case.
What i understand is porting over android 16 is gonna be slow.
It certainly feels like it is judging by the general moodshifts occuring. But I'm a moron, what alternative exists for a secure phone of comparable functionality? It feels like ditching phones is the only option to some extent(for me). If stupid, isn't the phone the most vulnerable weakpoint open to attack?
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AOSP can be fully abandoned and privately forked by Google without it technically being "dead," but that abandonment would effectively kill the project.
That was bound to happen at some point. Buying a Google device to then "degoogle" it never sit quite right with me.
I bought mine secondhand because I had a bad feeling about giving google money just to degoogle as well but still really wanted to use GrapheneOS
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This is not good, this is why I don't like permissive licenses.
Sundar Pichai strikes again!
I am running GOS on a Pixel 7, which means I've had this device for ~2.5 years at this point, and back when I transitioned to this setup I was aware they were talking about being beholden to Pixels due to the hardware security module not being available on other devices.
It has been a known issue. I understand it is a very difficult and costly undertaking to develop new hardware and new entrants would be competing against the big guys for fab space, manufacturing and assembly etc.
We need some kind of nonprofit or independently financed group to advance this cause. Could it be FUTO, Framework, or some other company/organization like this?
There would be market incentive to solve these problems - There has got to be a lot of demand for a neutral hardware platform that meets the hardware security module and other requirements for bootloader security, custom ROMs, etc.
Long time coming, Play Integrity (or whatever's called nowadays) restrictions have effectively killed any alternative distributions.
So I installed LineageOS recently. Now that I've transferred my passwords and account info I'm quite happy. What will happen from here? Will some apps stop working? If not, is there a problem with just continuing to use the phone as is until I need a new phone (security, eg)?
No.
Oneplus gang, how we feelin?
as a panicked graphene enjoyer, does oneplus measure up as a decent alternative or no?
I use a Oneplus 7 pro and my rom maintainer still updates and I still get a new version once every two months or so. If you want to omit gapps, you are more than free to do so. (Crdroid)
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Idk man.
I love my OP12. But we're switching carriers to a Verizon MVNO which "won't work" with my OP12, so I bought a Pixel 8 Pro on sale last week and need to switch over.
I'm starting to wonder if that "it won't work" is bullshit tho...I've got a Verizon SIM in slot 2 and it works fine. Maybe I'd be missing out on 5G speeds? I got 5 bars on my tmo sim and my vz sim...but my Tmo got 1.1Gbps down, and my Vz sim only got 70Mbps.
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So I bought a pixel device (an old one) for nothing ?
Google is doing a good job of discouraging some of us from buying Pixel phones. But they don't care because the number of people installing Graphene etc. is relatively very low.
Yeah but what now ? I mean the Linux mobile ecosystem isn't exactly mature nor widespread
I swear to god how many time it has to pass until developers realize open source is just a facade only Free Software licences are free as in freedom
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huh, look at that. the thing people were warned about when buying pixel phones happened.
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If Pine64 can spec out a reasonably decent prototype of a phone and Purism can sell theirs for 2 grand (not worth it), then somebody else can legit come out with something just the same. Pine64 project and Purism cannot be the only communities that can somehow come out with these kinds of tech. Better yet, more people should be jumping to help out these guys to be free from Google and Apple dominance.
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