I will understand if Graphene decides to skip Pixel 11.
However, what if Pixel 12 doesn’t support MTE? And 13 too?
Will they stop the project, then?
They keep talking about the potential future Motorola partnership, but I will only believe it when I see it.
Motorola has officially confirmed it themselves, and the Pixels 8 to 10 will keep being supported even if the 12 and 13 aren’t supported.
https://motorolanews.com/motorola-three-new-b2b-solutions-at-mwc-2026/
I believe it, when I see it, the actual device available for purchase I mean.
Wish they’d focus on phones NOT made by major corporations like Google and Motorola, and instead focus on small companies’ phones like Fairphone, Pine64, Purism, Jolla, etc.
They can’t. They require extremely up to date firmware and very short update cycles. Only large corporations with huge phone platforms are able to do satisfy that.
Can Graphene OS achieve their privacy targets and principles in different ways that encourage collaboration with non-corporations?
I refuse to believe that GOS can’t agree to graduated privacy provisions according to the capabilities of Linux and sustainable/repairable non-corpo companies and their phones.
Those also don’t meet the hardware requirements
But why can’t GrapheneOS work with those companies to ACQUIRE the right hardware requirements, rather than leaning on a corporation?
The hardware requirements are public. Those manufacturers have chosen not to implement supported hardware, which is step 0.
There is also a maintenance burden for the GrapheneOS team. The ROM requires kernel patches and driver work that makes supporting additional phones intensive work.
Why would manufacturers choose to meet GOS’s extra requirements?
There needs to be a give and take. It seems like GOS’s mantra is their way or the high way, which isn’t collaborative in the slightest.
Can there not be discussions held between Linux and sustainable/repairable OEMs and GOS to start integrating each other’s requirements? Diplomacy/negotiations/working groups are just completely neglected?
There needs to be a give and take
If GrapheneOS can’t handle the maintenance burden, there is nothing to negotiate.
Presumably, maintaining software for a niche phone requires effort similar in magnitude to a larger, mainstream phone. Why, then, would a solely privacy-oriented org choose to cater to a smaller audience?
GOS is designed for maximum security at its base. It uses all the hardware features it requires to minimize its attack surface against adversaries that have infinite resources to attack the device and get at the infirmation inside.
Lowering those standards means opening a vulnerability, which means someone with that vulnerability can have their data stolen from the device in particularly that way, since that vulnerability is well documented.
Using a widely-available phone with good performance, decent quality, and long term security support, meant that more people could access it. I still can’t buy a Fairphone without going through an overseas middleman, then hoping I have no warranty issues, because they don’t sell to Australia. If something goes wrong with my Pixel, the shop I bought it from is minutes away.
Those that can purchase these Linux phones should.
Those that can’t purchase these Linux phones should purchase whatever is next best.
So no reason to buy a Pixel at all any more? Midrange performance, poor battery life, middling cameras, AI bloated software, all at flagship prices. Its one saving grace was Graphene support and that’s now gone too.
Just in time to move on to Motorola…
Bought a Pixel 10 Pro instead of the new 11 Pro.
Worse display, price more expensive, no upside to the older model.Literally said to myself “Yeah…no. No, thank you” when looking at the specs vs P10Pro
Motorola is unfortunately gonna be in the same boat too when it comes to the prices. And I highly doubt GOS is gonna focus on their cheaper phones because they notoriously have poorer software. So now, it seems GOS is gonna be an exclusive feature. If you want it, your gonna have to pay for it.
I personally don’t trust Motorola due to having poor experiences with their budget phones. Its not worth with unless you shell out the money.
Huawei, Xiami and other Chinese brands still exist, not sure which models or brands support it but there are still multiple who support you running your own OS on them.
I know, but Im spcifically speaking on GOS and how they as well sound like they are closing themsevles off.
If you want it, your gonna have to pay for it.
Older Pixel phones are not that expensive. Why would you need the latest one?
Even though that’s true. Phones really shouldnt be expensive. GOS isn’t supporting the older phones, I think the oldest you can go now is the pixel 7. Since GOS is stopping for the Pixel 11, Is there any other alternative OS that can be used for pixels? Or where are the other phones that supports GOS?
Google is closing in on their phones. GOS users in a time span of 3-7 years (depending on the pixel they have) would unfortunately have to find an alternative after that lifespan unless GOS starts supporting other phones that isnt breaking the bank. GOS as well is basically closing off their OS market. Which is why I made that comment. If you want the OS now, they’re gonna make you pay for it.
GOS users in a time span of 3-7 years (depending on the pixel they have) would unfortunately have to find an alternative
7 years is crazy amount of time for a phone.
Almost double of average lifespan (3x the average according to some sources). You’re not going to get more than 7 years from any phone so I’m not sure what alternative are you looking for. Even the 3 years for oldest phones are close to average lifespan.
Also, it’s not like getting a Pixel somehow ties you down to Pixel phones forever. Your next phone can be any other Android phone and you can use any other deGoogle Android version on it. Ditching Pixel phones because you will only be able to use them for 7 more years makes 0 sense.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, what is the growth of GOS gonna be? If Google is kicking them out and they’re focusing on flagship phones from Motorola, then it sounds like they have limited their growth potential have they not?
Yeah, you can buy any phone to install any OS system (if you can even find the right model for it) or just degoogle it and use it like that. Thats not a big deal.
The ditching only comes in when you can’t use apps because your OS no longer supports it. That too can happen to any phone.
Semi rant: (Pet peeve about the part in the chart about Apple) I use to have an iPhone, and experienced the phones from an iPhone 6, 12 to iPhone 15 and I can say that max is like 2-4 years, not whatever the hell that article is trying to suggest. Shit, if your phone is 1-2 OS system older than what an app requires, its gonna force you to update the phones. Longetivity of iPhones is very lackluster.
They do plan to support mid range Motorola phones in the future.
Pixel has 7 years of support so you could get Pixel 10 and use with Graphene OS until 2033 but yes, if you need to switch every year to the latest model than you can skip Pixel.
I have a pixel 7a and the battery only lasts a few hours. Nobody is getting 7 years out of a phone
You can replace batteries in phones.
Switched to a P10 Pro from P7Pro due to storage and battery (new phone battery uses 10% ina day of idle. Old one consumed about 10% per hour. (Mostly) same apps).
If it wasnt for the storage I’d have replaced the battery…Would have been much cheaper.Yea, my Pixel 7 that I bought in spring 2023 got a swollen battery. If I could have easily replaced it, no problem. But after watching a few repair tutorials it seemed way too difficult, so I just got a Fairphone 6+.
I managed to squeeze 5 years out of a $200 budget phone. 7 years on mid-range or flagship is trivial.
Especially as new Pixels have lots of features to improve battery longevity:
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charging only up to 80%,
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OLED display that turns off pitch black pixels. Many apps nowadays have pitch black themes, and you can set wallpapers to pitch black,
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limit display smoothness to 60 Hz,
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battery saving mode,
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dark mode,
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turn off background usage for individual or all apps
Did most of it. The battery lasted about 3.5ish years until it became a bit annoying without a powerbank/outlet near me.
7 years on the original battery is probably impossible if you use it moderately (not like the usual normie for just facebook, youtube and whatsapp and maybe a bit of browsing for 2-3h per day max).
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I originally bought Pixels because they were the opposite of what they are now. Bloat-free devices (other than Google apps) that just provided the tools I needed to do things, while having excellent hardware security. Now it’s basically GeminiOS, and they’re solving the problem they created by throwing out security.
Every Pixel event for the past several years has been almost entirely about Gemini. A software feature. Which just goes to show that they have no hardware features.
Google became the new Microsoft
Ironically, Microsoft platform as of yet still is pretty much a given that Linux may also run, with the exception of some of the Surface systems, but the ones no one wanted anyway. Apart from SecureBoot, Microsoft is picky enough about firmware specifications that are open, Linux can more easily be customized than random embedded things. Some things were rough, like ACPI implementations that didn’t comply strictly with the spec but microsoft happened to tolerate it, but fundamentally the Microsoft approach of outsourced everything makes for better chance for third party OSes.
I was so disappointed with my pixel 10. It’s kept a pixel 7 alive for years (great phone) and only swapped when the battery swelled. The 10 was no better and potentially worse, I replaced the battery on the 7 myself and lamented it’s loss to my son (he gets my cast offs). Such a good line of phones that’s clearly peaked.
I upgraded my pixel 6 to a 9 and this phone is much worse in most ways. I fail to understand how one of the richest companies in the world puts out worse products over time and thinks it’s alright
There wasnt any 9 for sale so I bought 9a instead few days ago, because Samsung removed the option to unlock bootloader in OneUI 8.0, but so far it’s going fine.
Same boat, I’ve honestly considered just buying a secondhand unlocked 6XL and installing graphene on it. I’ve not been happy with my 9.
What do you find bad about the 9? I bought a used 8 to try GrapheneOS on, but the HW isn’t as good as my S23. I was thinking of maybe going to a 9 or 10 if I could make GOS my daily, not just for the better cameras and ultrasonic FP reader, but the desktop mode on the 8 is god awful. The output is so heavily compressed and only does 1080p, DeX just crushes it.
Writing this from my 7… hoping to get another one or two years out of it.
I have a 7a will use it until graphene support ends then its onto Motorola.
I’m on an 8 but I’ve been having battery issues. Not because the battery is bad but due to a software issue since an update about 6 months ago. If I’m not in WiFi whatever my most recently opened app is uses an insane amount of battery. If nothing is open then it will be a system app.
Graphene choosing to die on the hardware MTE hill has always seemed weird to me. It’s one feature but it excludes 99% of the phones except the Pixel. GrapheneOS has so much to offer besides it, and nowadays they could use Rust as a workaround anyway.
Pixel has some great features and is an interesting deGoogled OS but their approach to security is just silly. It’s basically “we will not let anyone compromise on security because it could be bad PR for us”. They pretend they care about the brand but then they simply wont let majority of users use their OS. I think normal team would simply make Graphene OS available for other phones and then have some Graphene OS Extended Security version compatible only with select phones. Their purist approach only turns away potential users.
Apparently the Linux kernel can emulate MTE in software:
https://lwn.net/Articles/833353/
The software MTE support in the kernel apparently predates the hardware support of the same, based on the above link.
Admittedly I might be misunderstanding something here, my confidence level is only 65%.
p.s.: i just learned that this uses a lot of extra RAM compared to hardware MTE. there seem to be approaches to mitigate the RAM blow up, but this discussion is above my paygrade, so I have to bow out. That said, I think it is correct that the absense of hardware MTE should not be the end of the road for secure smartphone design.
My understanding is that while the older Pixel phones had MTE capability, it was off by default and could only be enabled under the dev settings. Google did not enable it by default because Android depends heavily on vendor board support packages, proprietary SOC drivers, and HAL modules. Google felt that driver code quality from 3rd-parties is not clean enough to enable kernel-level MTE without risking bootloops and spontaneous reboots. Even worse for C++ apps, which often read slightly past their allocated memory blocks.
Instead, Google rewrote critical core Android system daemons using Rust. Like the keystore, Bluetooth stack, DNS resolver, and others. I believe using Rust essentially makes MTE unnecessary.
Also full synchronous MTE mode has high CPU/memory bus penalties (could be 5-10% under heavy memory loads).
Google probably decided that since hardly anyone used MTE anyway on earlier Pixel devices, they could use the space in the chip for other uses.
The point is that the post makes it sound like using a Pixel 11 under Android results in less security than before, but for most people there is no change since they never used MTE anyway.
I think you misunderstand what is being said.
The point is that the post makes it sound like using a Pixel 11 under Android results in less security than before, but for most people there is no change since they never used MTE anyway.
That’s not what they’re saying. They’re saying Graphene without MTE is less secure, which isn’t something they want.
Which you can read from their post here
We strongly recommend against buying Pixel 11 devices. Pixel 8, 9 and 10 have much better overall security for GrapheneOS. Pixel 10 is cheaper with similar hardware and MTE. Pixel 11’s Titan M3 should improve BFU security for users without a strong passphrase, but losing MTE craters AFU security.
They’re saying Graphene without MTE is less secure, which isn’t something they want.
Well they’re inevitably backing into a dead-end. MTE is obviously off the table now which means eventually they’ll have no hardware fitting to their super-exacting demands. Motorola might come through, or not.
I hate being a conspiracy theorist but honestly sometimes the way Graphene clings to Pixels feels like a Google scheme to boost their pathetic Pixel market share.
Well, their tone and lack of support for the latest pixel kinda does make me think that’s not true.
But I love a good conspiracy theory.
Like birds.
They’re not real
It’s not an on/off kind of thing, MTE is a set of ARM extensions. Either the api to use them is clearly documented or, as in the pixel 11’s case, Google started to not document their implementation.
We know this matches their plan to obscure the AOSP code to eventually lock out anyone else from using their base.
GOS is not in a position to reverse-engineer api calls on what was formally documented hardware.
Instead, Google rewrote critical core Android system daemons using Rust. Like the keystore, Bluetooth stack, DNS resolver, and others. I believe using Rust essentially makes MTE unnecessary.
No. Rust being “memory safe” doesn’t mean rust apps can’t abuse speculation or buffer under/overruns.
The point is that the post makes it sound like using a Pixel 11 under Android results in less security than before, but for most people there is no change since they never used MTE anyway.
Read the BlueSky posts, Google didn’t force app devs to opt into MTE, so no one did.
Google probably decided that since hardly anyone used MTE anyway on earlier Pixel devices, they could use the space in the chip for other uses.
“Space in the chips”? Again, see the Bluesky posts.
Google is very clearly shifting over to a completely walled garden, because, same as Apple, it isn’t about the hardware performance and capabilities, it’s about control.
Well the real irony is that iPhones have implementations of MTE, and now Google Pixel does not. Walled garden or not, iPhone is the winner here at the moment.
It’s an on/off kind of thing: https://outflux.net/blog/archives/2023/10/26/enable-mte-on-pixel-8/
https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/arm-mteYeah, enabling a bootctl flag is doable in any android version, it’s a prop available since Android 7. Again, it’s undocumented APIs at fault for the MTE not working in the Pixel 11.
Well, we had a good run. It was nice while it lasted…
Probably for the best. As they said, it frees them up to focus on Motorola devices, a company that’s actively working with them.
Honestly, I expect it will become increasingly hard getting a company willing to do something like this. Lately, all of the companies have started heavily enshittifying and I don’t know many that still care about their customers. And it’s a domino effect - they know you ain’t going anywhere, all the others are just as shit. I remember a time where you had a 100 phones officially supported by Lineageos and were cheap. You could get a Xiaomi, Huawei for like a $100 and they would run lineageos almost out of the box. Or a Nexus 5 for a few extra bucks. As soon as they eliminated the competition, they’ve become closed entirely and are basically spying machines. I don’t trust Motorola will be trustworthy in the long term, if they capture any market. Just a few months ago, they were caught hijacking affiliate links on their phones (link). I don’t know when the consumer situation will change, but I’m not holding my breath for Motorola. Of course, if they make a good phone running GOS, I might try it if my pixel kicks the bucket.
GOS supposedly has 200k users. That’s 200k Pixel phones sold for the purpose of GOS. A bunch of companies used to buy Blackberries because they had the reputation of being the most secure. It’s a viable business model. They’ll be sold and marketed as “GrapheneOS compatible”.
I really hope so. 200k is peanuts for google, but probably significant for Motorola.
Actually, Motorola has more market share than Pixel.
Though Google mainly cares about the software ecosystem, so they explicitly don’t care about Graphene since it’s not an outcome they want in the industry anyway.
Guess I`ll wait for Motorola
When you are so, so good at security that your OS is compatible with 0 phones. Well done Graphene team.
They are compatible with some existing and future phones. Google’s in-house processor decided to skip on an extension that the broader ARM ecosystem seems to continue to value. Graphene didn’t invent this extension. I presume that their compatibility with upcoming motorola devices indicates other mobile device processor designs implement the extension just fine.
No one can hack your users when you don’t have any.
This was the problem I had with custom firmware back when I modded Android phones — you never knew if the custom firmware developers/packagers were even going to support your phone until after you bought it.
One phone was widely supported? So you buy the next one and no one wants to support it for whatever reason. One developer says “if you buy me one I will develop for it” thinking no one actually will, and when the community actually does so, he flips it on Swappa and you never hear from him again. Shit like that.
But if you’ll pay iPhone 17 Pro prices for an iPhone 11 powered phone that comes with personal data collection out the wazoo, you’ll probably pony up for the more expensive Motorola phone coming out that they’ve (tentatively?) committed to.
Why on Earth would you buy a new phone BEFORE checking cfw support if that’s an important feature for you?
I think GOS is established enough it can pull through. Won’t be easy at all though.
I do hope Motorola can give some good official support as a manufacturer.
Motorola CFW support was spotty in the past, when they were an American company. Now they are part of Lenovo (? Not sure if they still are) so maybe they do things differently now. They always had decent hardware, and their Android forks were very minimal later on (in their independent time; before they were further from AOSP) and ran pretty good for the most part. But they did not like to update their phones. Motorola phones often shipped with the Android version they would EOL on. Motorola used to be a piss-poor choice for modding back then.
I expect better from them now, but I don’t predict it.
Also, I realise the issue is with Pixel, not Graphene. Still, I would be upset if I bought a Pixel 11 planning to de-Google it.
Motorola has been under Lenovo for over a decade now, and still is, as a clarification.
The new thing is that for whatever reason, Motorola themselves has explicitly declared that some as-yet specified 2027 flagship model will officially support Graphene (though you have to load it yourself). This goes beyond just letting the community figure it out if it happens to be workable.
Now as to whether they follow through on that, hard to say. Lenovo broadly sometimes makes announcements and then backs out without explanation.
Simple solution: wait until they announce support before buying a new phone. Short of your current one breaking or no longer updating, you don’t need a new phone right now, you can wait.
If you do need one right now because of one of those reasons, sucks, but just buy the most recent one that is currently supported (the 10) or buy one that will EOL sooner than you’d like (maybe an 8 or 9, used/cheap) while you wait for the new one (the 11).
Hopefully the resale price on the 11 tanks (it won’t) then.
