- cross-posted to:
- privacy@lemmy.ml
- cross-posted to:
- privacy@lemmy.ml
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Hmmm this would have sounded interesting if it didn’t require releasing new phones. I don’t think Motorola is going to release their next phone within a $200-$300 price range. As it stands, this is marginally better than yet another “ponzi your VS funding on the privacy community” scheme.
What would be useful, if they now have a partnership going, would be to convince Motorola to release the relock keys / firmware fixes for the bootloaders of some models that are no longer in production but are affordable and useful in the secondhand market. In particular, models that see good support from eg.: Lineage. Much easier to start a road towards better privacy and freer systems if it’s feasible on hardware you already have, after all.
FUCK YEAH! LETS GOOO!
My moto g85 doesn’t have any custom roms yet. I just tried on Lineage OS old 8.1.0 rom for my moto Z and now I desperately want to do the same on my current phone. Lineage is what I hoped for but now Graphene? FUCK YEAH!
Moto g15 (2025) has a headphone jack. I don’t know why their phones aren’t more popular.
Popular with me, except you can’t flash Lineage usually. But for the price they are great.
So hyped about this! Any Motorola phones that have removable batteries?
Honestly this is the most interesting thing in the world of mobile for me since I initially heard about GrapheneOS looking to branch out to another OEM as an option.
Assuming it is in fact a Motorola phone, it would have to be a big piece of shit or unbelievably expensive for what it is before I wouldn’t be very tempted by it.
If it was literally a Moto G Power 2025/2026 with GrapheneOS out of the box for $300-$800 I would probably be on board. Supporting something not Google Play or Apple bound is important enough to me that I will pay some level of a premium price for it to support the mission behind it, like I do with System76.
If they’ve got a model with a stylus then I’m sold.
Shareholders are involved. This will be ruined. If you want me off apple, you need to oof get a mainline Linux phone. Until then, it’s all lies and misdirection.
Honestly thought they’d partner up with fairphone since both companies share a similar view in longevity for the end user. Hope Motorola does the same
GrapheneOS devs have been very clear about Fairphone not caring the slightest about security. They are the last OEM in the world they’d choose.
Can we get a grapheneOS lite for fairphone? I care about sideloading apps and removing gapps, not about state actors
In the absence of GrapheneOS, you could just flash LineageOS without GApps, right?
Fairphone has a partnership with Murena to ship a variant of the Gen 6 with e/OS/, don’t they?
Hell yes! Best smartphone I have had is my current Motorola, and it was surprisingly cheap too. Would love to put Graphene on it.
As an iPhone user from the 3G days, this is legitimately interesting to me. I love the form factor of the modern Razr flip-phones, and having access to a privacy-focused OS like Graphene might just tip me over the edge.
Anyone with first-hand experience, how’s Graphene OS with banking apps?
Use your bank’s web portal. If your bank doesn’t let you use a web portal, switch fucking banks, because that means they don’t care about you.
Bank apps are filled with all kinds of tracking spyware.
My bank’s app won’t run on my Pixel 8 Pro with GrapheneOS. Most apps run fine. It’s pretty much just the bank app and eBay that refuse to run.
My bank has a website. Nothing needs to be an app. Fuck apps with a rake.
The only trouble with the website (my bank’s website at least) is that you have to input a passcode, then a secret password, THEN it’ll send a 2FA SMS for me to put in a third code. Yay for security, but I’d love to be able to login with my thumbprint.
Passkeys. Done.
Oh damn, why doesn’t eBay work? It’s not a deal-breaker, but it is an app I use with some regularity.
It annoyed me at first but it really doesn’t matter because the eBay website works fine. It’s just some companies choosing to use Google’s API to check OS integrity. It’s supposed to be a security check to make sure core components haven’t been hacked, but of course Google makes their API returns a “no” if your version of Android doesn’t let them run all their spyware.
It runs fine on my Pixel 7a, I have an account with 2 Brazilian banks and they all work well.
Some apps just don’t work though, but they are far and between, an example is Brazil’s gov.br, which is a website that is used for ID confirmation on everything that pertains to the government (tax revenue, your own business details,etc.). But then an old phone does that job for me at home.
Speaking of Brazil, it is worth mentioning that Google Pixels are not officially sold here. The ones I did obtain I bought on a “Brazilian eBay” and there is no e-SIM support for it nor any warranty services. I had to do the battery replacement myself despite knowing that Google was offering to fix faulty Pixel 7a’s on NA/India/Europe/etc. I am only bringing this up because, coincidentally, 50% of Motorola’s smartphone sales are on LATAM. It’s a pretty smart move they are making if you ask me, they are aware they could explore this huge market it seems.
what is this brazillian ebay? I am struggling to find good ecommerce stores here in latam
oh I apologize, I should have just used it’s correct name: Mercado Livre/Libre. It’s pretty huge here.
And not just in Brazil! I think Perú and Chile are also big on MercadoLibre.
I haven’t had any trouble with banking apps. One gives me a warning but allows me to continue. Google Wallet doesn’t work for payments but that is just fine with me.
Is that the equivalent of Apple Pay? That’s pretty ubiquitous here in Australia.
Yeah same data harvesting in the name of convenience
Anyone with first-hand experience, how’s Graphene OS with banking apps?
Depends on the bank. Chase didn’t work, but bank of america did.
lenovo doesnt strike me as a privacy lover and avid kernel updater.
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.
I don’t know, I expect them to call it the (We’re clear on) OPSEC 1
Yeah, i expected lemmy to be more informed about it but kinda surprising how many people don’t know about it.
They don’t for me either, but they’ve recently pushed a lot into making enterprise phones. Guaranteeing timely security updates for 7 years and such.
I haven’t actually checked if this is just marketing bs and if they’re following up on it or not though.
Motorola is notorious for not providing updates. Which is sad, because their phones have decent hardware, almost-vanilla Android and allow bootloader unlocking.
Also many models still have headphone port and expandeable storage.
I’ve used pixels but before then I used to use Motorola. I always like them and they had the best gestures like the twist shake to turn on the flashlight and the tip shake to turn on the camera.
Truth be told I was hoping for Sony because I really like their high end phones from a hard ware point of view.
This better be flagship level specs.
If they continue to support Pixel phones that covers the flagship end pretty well. Extending to cheaper devices might be more worthwhile to get more people using GrapheneOS.
This is especially good news since Motorola makes some of the few phones with a headphone jack. I just hope that whatever phone they make isn’t some nearly 7" behemoth like their current line.
At this point you HAVE to make it a 7" behemoth to get sales, but a lower-volume model with a smaller screen would be a great addition to the lineup. But I can’t imagine too many people buy them because Apple stopped making the Minis and they don’t usually stop making things that make them money. I actually loved my 13 mini. If this Motorola-GrapheneOS partnership ends up spawning a phone of that size (I do think a lot of privacy enthusiasts may also be smaller phone enthusiasts), I may finally go back to Android.
Most people I’ve talked to in real life have complained about how large phones are and wish there were still smaller phones available. Maybe I’m just some gravitational nexus of small phone likers, but I think there is some other factor at play other than consumer preference.
Perhaps the issue is that they sell too well and canibalize the larger phone market, which probably has higher margins, sales people at stores often also get payed a commission so they probably have an incentive to nudge people towards larger phones.
Xperia 5 still sells. Mine is a bit over 5".
Edit: ok, sells not that good. Why? Mine often gets jealous glances in public transport. Fits nicely in hand and pocket.
Xperia is massively overpriced, full of bloatware, trash software, 2 years of software updates, and they’re absolutely massive. And not just massive but like, insanely tall. Hard to believe they’re still around while LG has called it quits.
Oh, it’s only the Xperia 5 line then?
About the bloatware; rooted, removed, soon LineageOS on this one too. Same advice for phones as for PC: reinstall on a new device, factory OS is bloated with malware.
Well, I’m not even asking for a true “mini” phone at this point, because we both know that would be asking too much. I just would just be happy with something like a 5.5-5.7" phone with a resolution that isn’t insulting (looking at you Librem 5) and some halfway decent storage. If the Moto collab phone doesn’t end up being viable for me due to size or other factors, I’ll live. My current Pixel should be supported on GrapheneOS for a good while, so I can hold out. I’ve already moved to using a DAP for listening to music because I couldn’t get a decent phone with a headphone jack anymore. Maybe one of the linux phones will be viable as a daily driver by then.
I mean that IS mini. The iPhone 13 mini, considered a tiny phone by most people, had a 5.4" screen.
I of course remember thinking my 5.0" Moto G (2nd gen) was a huuuge ass slab compared to my previous phone lol
I’ll never forget carrying around my Galaxy Note 2 and this guy asked me if it played DVDs LOL
I got my Nexus One out the other day and it still booted. The screen is 3.7", it’s hilarious that it felt like a large phone at the time.
To be fair, the bezels were huge by today’s standards, and one of the main (non-Apple) competitors had a hardware keyboard below the screen. Just think how much more usable these old smaller phones would be, if we had the screen to body ratio of the Pixel 9a.
I actually don’t mind the bezel so much. If someone put out a Nexus One clone with modern hardware and an unlocked bootloader, I’d be first in line. That programmable trackball that was also an LED indicator was so cool.
I bought my current phone, a Motorola Moto G Stylus (2025), because I of its hardware support. It has E-SIM plus a physical SIM slot, SD card support, and a headphone jack. The one downside is not having any custom firmware builds available. I’m hoping that changes in the near future.
One of my children has a similar model, and I’m not a big fan, but it does still have a headphone jack which is nice. I don’t think Motorola has any plans to unlock any of the current models, but if they change their tune that would be great.
My large hands would probably be fine with a ‘nearly 7" behemoth’ if phones would just go back to a 9:16 aspect ratio. I may even be able to appreciate a more ereader-like aspect ratio like 2:3, 3:4, or 4:5. I have just been fed up by the unnecessarily tall phones of the past decade.
I’d still not want a 7" device, but I also preferred the less tall/skinny ratios.
That is a hard ask, the reason they are tall is because it makes them easier to hold with a single hand. And it would make them even less pocket-able.
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That’s good news. I hope it’s a budget device with a plastic case, SD card, IR emitter, notification LED, and headphone jack.
Don’t forget when you could listen to fm radio using the headphone jack as an antenna.
I thought that was going to be the future, but it’s easier to sell music from your music store when you kill am/fm radio.
And a user replaceable battery!
And a projector!
Cry-laughing in Tank 4 Pro
And my axe!
I’d rather have it be a bit more mid to upper range, I want a nice processor and decent cameras
I don’t have any use for a “nice processor”. I have a basic one and I don’t have any problems with it.
As for cameras, I think it’s pretty clear at this point that it’s all about the software. The Pixel was winning blind smartphone camera tests with >10 y/o sensors.
winning blind smartphone camera tests
It’s not hard to be the best blind smartphone camera.
LOL ok
The sensor size also plays a part, the pro has a pretty large sensor for a phone.
We’re talking about the pixel 7a here, the budget model, not a “pro” anything. It doesn’t have a large sensor.
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Google literally made their own processor for those results though. The tensor chips might not be as high end, but it’s not a budget phone chip.
Samsung and Apple make their own processors too…?
sam sung did, they abandoned for thier higher end models, i think thier “budgety phones” still use thier processor.
I’m not saying they couldn’t get results with another processor, but that it still wouldn’t be a “cheap” processor found in a budget device
The Pixel 7a is a budget device.
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In a sense, but it’s more of a mid-budget phone. I’m thinking like $200 phones. Maybe the landscape is different than what I’m considering nowadays.
Edit: I might not be giving Motorola enough credit either lol
GOS already confirmed it’s shipping with a flagship snapdragon SOC so it won’t be a budget device. Maybe a future model though.
I think most of those other features are a long shot as well. The GOS team hasn’t really specified any preferences for non-security related features and I doubt Motorola would suddenly change their hardware design/direction.
I doubt Motorola would suddenly change their hardware design/direction.
That could be a reason for gaining the SD card and headphone jack. They already have a few phones with those features
Where did you see that?
It was announced a while ago https://www.androidauthority.com/graphene-os-major-android-oem-partnership-3606853/
Dude I miss notification LEDs so much. And there is no proper “do not turn on my screen” permission in Android so some app stubbornly wake my screen.
Also would add Display Output over USB to that list.
And no notch or circle in my display!
e-ink screen! i adored the motorola-f3 with the led segment screen
My crackpot theory is that we’re 10 years away from e-ink displays becoming the new hot thing. The clarity of looking at something that isn’t backlit is great. If they can solve refresh rate and resolution, we’re there.
For people who don’t watch videos in the phone, e-ink already offer nice refresh ratios. There are also a few with dual screens.
By the way, there’s also the nxtpaper technology, which I’m pretty curious about, but I never used it to know if it’s really good for the eyes
Clarity can also be achieved with a 4k panel. Once your panel gets over 600ppi it’s gonna blow an eink screen out of the water at its own game. Those phones were barely ever made only Sony even tried. Probably due to battery life, or maybe noone realized what they do to the reading experience.
Either way we’re gonna improve battery life and maybe even get microled before eink ever gets competitive with emissive screens. Someone is bound to rediscover that you never truly needed eink for comfortable reading, just a significant increase in resolution.
