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Comments (314)

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  BatteryMountain
  If anyone from Motorola reads this thread; the market is beyond ripe for a good shake up. Going full open source and pushing updates & openness, user control and freedom, you will gobble up a good chunk of market share. Make MDM easy & first class (no third parties...), and a ton of corp will roll it out too. We need you more than you think.
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  silisili
  This was figured out a while ago based on the hints given.That said, I'm pretty excited. Motorola of the last decade or so has made really good hardware with basically stock firmware and a terrible update policy, which is why many avoid them. Seriously, they just offer quarterly updates on flagships, which is incredibly unsecure. Punting software to Graphene solves the biggest gripe many have.
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  backscratches
  Fantastic news, Motorola is known for prioritizing DC dimming on their screens, which many report significantly reduces eye strain [1]. I was never aware of the issue, I thought my switch to an OLED phone (iPhone xs) just coincided with getting older and normal tired eyes of aging. But when I switched to a pixel phone my eyes began blurring and aching to an extent I started to research a bit and found that the pixel screens had extremely low Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) rate for screen dimming, apparently as a cost saving measure, and eye strain was a common complaint. I do not experience anything like it with desktop/laptop IPS screens.A 4" flip phone with graphene would be so nice.[1] https://www.androidcentral.com/phones/best-phones-for-pwm-fl...(I am reposting from leak past yesterday)
• rm30
  An alternative, open and freely accessible OS for mobile computing is always good for a healthy market. Most of us have a limited view of the global market and don't know which areas prefer de-Googled OSs. If all of India or Africa decided to ditch Google, it would be a massive shift. We cannot forecast if the West will slowly decide to move to other solutions inspired by tech-savvy users or by becoming more privacy-conscious. It will take time, but desktop Linux is also slowly growing.
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  anon5739483
  GrapheneOS is finally decoupling itself from Google Pixel phones. This is great news. Motorola makes great hardware too. Looking forward to see what comes out of this.
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  mendelmaleh
  One thing that bothers me is the seeming lack of transparency about who is running GrapheneOS. Daniel Micay supposedly stepped down, so who is calling the shots now? Who runs the CI? Who owns the update servers and signing keys? Who am I trusting?
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  bastard_op
  The motorola phones are neat, especially razr's, but practically disposable with their dismal update support lasting in some cases only a year or a major version I'd read. Selling me a $1500usd flip phone that is practically disposable oob for updates is a non-starter.Now put GrapheneOS on it with better support than the vendor can provide, now that's highly appealing. I wanted to get a used pixel 9 pro xl to update my old pro 6 and run graphene on, but pixel 9xl have defective screens on whole, so maybe not, and with Graphene divesting from pixel hardware now, maybe this is the way.
• anon
  undefined
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  wolvoleo
  Hmm the one thing I'm kinda missing with grapheneos is mobile payments. The banks here in Europe used to have their own nfc apps but in my country they've all moved to Google wallet :( or Samsung pay.I don't want Google monitoring my payments so I'm using Samsung now but I'd love to have something more open for this.I was kinda hoping the partner would be Samsung so they might collaborate on a payment system too. I don't think Motorola has anything like that.
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  Satuminus
  This is good. Having an alternative to Pixel-Phones for GOS makes sense. I wonder if we will have the option to buy a Motorola phone with GOS out of the box (not sure if i would trust that, but it might be interesting for some people that are skeptical of installing it on their Pixel by themselves).
• duckerude
  Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45585869(At the time it wasn't public which OEM GrapheneOS would partner with.)
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  10729287
  Back in the days, I switched from Iphone 3G to Motorola Defy in order to benefit from more customisation. I'm now back into Apple ecosystem since iPhone 6, actually on iPhone 13 but i'm very tempted by GrapheneOS. Going back to Motorola would please me, as I loved this little Defy. Do you think there's any chance to have RCS messages without Google involved ? I want group messages without having to install Whatsapp and not all my contacts are on signal.
• ddtaylor
  Motorola if you're reading this remove Glance from your Android 16 on lower end phones it breaks the phone. I'm sure you have some deal with them, but you have control over technical failures that render the device unable to function.
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  madduci
  I really hope that the partnership involves support for low-end devices and not only high-end ones. Would be great to have a €200 Phone running GrapheneOS (e.g. G56)
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  Vinnl
  So what does this mean? Are they going to ship GrapheneOS by default? Or just making it easier for GrapheneOS to support Motorola phones?
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  ggm
  Will the sandboxed google play permit banking apps to work using TPM and secured credentials?Is it even possible to store secure credentials properly?I would expect whatever you initialised before grapheneOS is wiped before you can run the alternate OS.Is termux possible with a root/sudo function?
• petterroea
  Nice. Got pretty depressed with the state of the world after the articles about police in Spain profiling Google Pixel users with Graphene as drug dealers [0]. Some proper "mainstream" recognition could do a lot here.[0] https://www.androidauthority.com/why-i-use-grapheneos-on-pix...
• jackhalford
  Excited for this, GrapheneOS teased this a few months back. I might finally move away from iOS.
• danielEM
  It is finally a time to replace laptops with phones and laptop like docking stations. With hardware prices you'll save on buying twice, keep all your stuff in one device etc. That is what any disrupting company should head for.
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  pu_pe
  I'd bet there is a huge market for a cheaper phone with GrapheneOS support. Lots of people in Europe and India right now looking to decouple.
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  pferde
  The misspelling of "GrapehenOS" in the tags below the article does not bode well for Motorola... :)
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  hyfgfh
  How about replaceable batteries?
• noirscape
  Oh that's awesome. Finally the contradiction of buying Google to avoid Google has been resolved for GOS.I am curious to know how Motorola intents to deal with Google's policies surrounding Android forks, but I'm sure that's a hurdle they know how to cross.
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  aucisson_masque
  Hopefully wireless payment do work on these, and they have face unlock working. That's really the 2 issues I have with grapheneos.I know it's supposed to be for privacy nerd, and they will tell you you shouldn't use Google pay because it's bad for privacy and so on... But it's not the majority of people, most are willing to trade some privacy for convenience.
• rarisma
  Give me a graphene os phone moto, my money will be yours.
• subscribed
  I'm so happy about that - out of all the vendors possible. And congratulations to the future users of the OEM Motorola users - You're going to get your security patches FAST.(not muted my the fact that apparently no one else wanted to reach the high bar for system security)
• kopirgan
  This is good news. I use a Motorola device and feel it was the best (or at least the least troublesome) among the PRC based brands. Clean UI that's near pure Android..If they can offer it as choice then hopefully banking apps etc wont get knocked off. And we can have best of both.
• StingyJelly
  I hope that in they choose the same camera sensors pixels use. Hard to beat the processing gcam can do.
• raffael_de
  the best and most beautiful smartphone i ever owned was the motorola razr i.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_RAZR_iit had a 4.3" display ... i think i'm coming
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  egorfine
  Motorola announces a phone for GrapheneOS then requires account for California devices, disables encryption for UK users, requires age checks for Australian users, etc, etc,
• jathul
  Nokia 1101 is safer than all smartphones, just saying.
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  jauntywundrkind
  Alas that in the US it is seemingly impossible to get unlocked bootloaders now. I'm trying to figure out what couple-year-old international phone to buy now.Good on Motorola. Incredibly smart to tap these passionate geniuses.
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  summm
  Motorola, the one company that still tries to evade the EU ecodesign regulations? Other vendors just provide the required 5+ years of updates, but Motorola loudly and publicity announced that they saw a loophole in the wording and would use it as an excuse to not provide updates for some models. This is despicable and worthy of a boycott.https://www.heise.de/en/news/5-years-of-updates-Which-smartp..."Operating system updates: From the date of end of placement on the market to at least 5 years after that date, manufacturers, importers, or authorised representatives shall, if they provide security updates, corrective updates, or functionality updates to an operating system, make such updates available at no cost for all units of a product model with the same operating system."
• anon
  undefined
• brynet
  Congrats to Daniel and the team.
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  I_am_tiberius
  I was so much hoping it was Fairphone.
• tonydav
  I hope Lenovo can add the auto call recording toggle in GrapheneOS.
• siwatanejo
  /me stops buying Samsung and waits for next Motorola Flip
• echelon_musk
  No handsets until at least 2027.
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  jaimex2
  It's OnePlus all over again.
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  karlzt
  Is this going to be cheaper than Pixel?
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  globemaster99
  Hope they make this partnership work out. Probably a 50-50 partnership.
• c8Alihackermanv
  India news channel hack
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  WhereIsTheTruth
  Why team up with a hardware manufacturer that is forced to comply with both the American Security Chip Act and the American Cloud Act?I thought GrapheneOS was all about privacy and non compliance with Big Tech?
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  phoronixrly
  So... Graphene on a completely Lenovo (Chinese)-owned Motorola Mobility saying they focus more on security than other EU/US vendors. Bold strategy.
• atoav
  Hardware manufacturers teaming up with and paying for open source software and operating systems is truly how I think we could escape enshittification.Just give me the hardware and let me run good software on it that works with your hardware.Motorola is now noted as a candidate for my next phone.
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  zouhair
  Now do Samsung
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  Markoff
  how safe is Chinese Lenovo with closed sourced firmware?btw. Motorola has absolutely trash cameras, doubt GrapheneOS will change anything about it unless you put there gcam maybe, this is significant downgrade from Pixel camerasbtw. yes, it looks like vanilla Android, though it is not, my mother bought it after mine recommendation (previously used Xiaomi phones) and can't say the ROM would be particularly good
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  maelito
  Cool, now we need an Android fork.
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  Imustaskforhelp
  Yes, This is amazing.My family had a moto phone and my god does it work till even now while being so snappy. I actually daily drove it for some time quite recently. It only has battery issues (let's hope that EU adds replacable batteries soon as well) and my mom only replaced the phone because she needed app which required the phone update.Considering this partnership, To me it feels like Motorola can have the update issue be fixed.Graphene was the reason I was thinking of buying a pixel phone second hand. Actually nope now, I am gonna wait for Motorola to ship GrapheneOS phone. I genuinely wish Motorola good luck for adding grapheneos.I wish they can add Linux in future too but perhaps that might be asking them of TOO much but this company is probably hearing to the feedback if they have partnered up with grapheneos.Actually, when I decided to buy my mother the new phone from her old Moto, I made a list and everything and I remember asking her about a new motorola but even me and her (iirc) both were worried about security updates and I saw online reviews/personal experience about software/android version updates being quite an issue which isn't an issue in for example pixel which has 10 years update policy iirc. With grapheneos now being partnered with moto, I do hope that it becomes an issue of the past.They truly have the chance of becoming a good company for privacy savvy phone users while being affordable and having a good supply chain. I may be getting too excited but whoever thought of the deal must be a genius because I do think that if Motorola plays its cards right, then they definitely got a huge potential unlocked.
• Jaxon_Varr
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• ffsickempire
  [dead]
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  chiengineer
  [flagged]
• ROllerozxa
  [flagged]
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  NewJazz
  Eww Lenovo. See what you made us do, Google/Trump2?
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  ekjhgkejhgk
  Wait... so the supposedly most secure mobile OS will only be able to run on either a Google phone or a Chinese phone?Yes, Motorola Phones is Chinese.
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  nunobrito
  So they shaked hands with a long term NSA hardware contractor: https://www.motorolasolutions.com/newsroom/press-releases/na...Fantastic. Very secure.