The amount of roadblocks Google is putting up for GrapheneOS is just ridiculous. None of their decisions make any sense, from the delayed source patches upstream, to the embargos, attestation issues, etc. Google simply regrets android being open source.

So, the real thing that's happening here is:

* Google drop "real" Android source-code updates to OEMs _and_ the public every half.

* But they ship four Pixel updates, including documentation + SDKs.

* Now they added new APIs in a Pixel-only update.

* Google also drop security update backports to "trusted" OEMs monthly (which GrapheneOS have had access to for years).

So, there are now Pixel-exclusive app features on the Pixel SDK version which isn't available to OEMs - but, it's highly unlikely any app developer would actually depend on these new APIs, since Pixel marketshare is tiny to begin with. This in essence just makes Pixels a weird beta-testing device for what will come out a quarter later to "normal" devices, which is sort of an odd business decision, but also a weird thing to get really mad about, in my opinion (I do see what GrapheneOS are trying to do, with having OEMs saber-rattle about not getting features on the same cadence as Pixels, it just doesn't resonate very loudly for me).

However, the API headline seems to bury a deeper lede; in the thread, GrapheneOS also claim that the quarterly Pixel releases contain security content which is not appearing in the monthly backports. This is quite bad and very sloppy if true, since the Pixel releases can easily be patch-diffed and exploits backed out of them. I'd be interested in seeing this enumerated in more depth.

As someone who went through similar challenges with Google making it impossibly hard for BlackBerry to provide an Android runtime on BBOS10, and now running GrapheneOS, I trust Google exactly zero to do the right thing by any open source project it stewards. Combined with their other practices, and lack of ongoing support for their commercial offerings, means that my perception of them is irreparably damaged and I minimise my usage of their products as much as practicably possible.

Alright AI maximalists, what's the estimated token budget to remove the Google dependency?

GrapheneOS has the bootable AOSP and will have Google-alternative device support.

We probably need an equivalent to Play Services, app signing/porting/publishing tools.

With these in hand could we talk Valve into providing the scalable alternative to the play store?

I'm so glad we stopped microsoft from shipping a browser with their OS in the 90s, <sarcasm/>.

Regulate them! that is the only way.

Their should be a path for an AOSP build to be just as privileged as a google signed build.

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Important details further down: https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/117282129725629495

So it seems like the problem isn't that the new API is Pixel exclusive, but that the first and third quarterly release patches each year are Pixel exclusive?

I'm on GrapheneOS and I will never go back to Google Android or iOS. The amount of control you get is just liberating. I hope Google doesn't crush them.

This news in particular seems similar to the other Android phonemakers like Samsung. They have their own custom Android forks that aren't open source. Maybe Google is wearing two hats here, Android and Pixel?

But if Pixels are getting early access to security patches too, that's more like one hat.

I get the sense Android is going the way of MacOS and Darwin. At some point Google will release something non-free end users experience as an absolutely integral part of OS, and it won't be possible to continue as an equivalent alternative. AOSP will still be free and underlying the whole thing, but slowly rot away as anything more than a code base.

I don't get why this is a discussion around Open Source, they also seem to have f*caked over other OEMs? Can't imagine Samsung will be OK with it.

Installed GrapheneOS on my Pixel 10 yesterday, only used the stock rom to start the installer... Am feeling a little unconfortable due to this situation: [0]. Hope this gets better. Really feeling the dislike for Google on this one.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49741510

The world needs a Steam Phone.

its kind of amusing in a wag degoggling requires pretty much a phone from google :') by the comments on those post. bit unrelated to this post ofc but thought and wondered if they do that on purpose and how far these devices really get reverse engineered to see if they are actually de-googled down to the chips. just having a different OS doesnt have to mean anything in that regard if the entire device is owned by them -_-.

especially since its radio and thats not too easy to determine if a device is or isnt sending weird stuff. (dont come with the lte or wifi sniffers or such things. u'd need thorough spectrum analysis during operations on a quite broad spectrum too to rule that out. the antennae in the devices can produce a lot of types of signals... or do they decap the chips and reverse those to see whats in it? i doubt it would be possible at the right scale but theres options i guess.

people in certain regions/ high assurance security work roles will do this to hundreds of devices that are identical to try and determine if a supplier is compromised or not. order a full batch, take em all apart. taking x-rays, dissolving chips package, etching layers one by one, taking pictures with electron microscopes etc, probing bond wires in the packages as they run etc etc.

somehow i dont see some OS creator do all of this, but ofc i could be very wrong :). interested to find out why people think google while with a different OS is truly de-googled or if they kinda just hope for the best...

This is confirming my belies that Google is trying to block OEMs that don't pay them to be part of GMS, with the goal of eventually being the only android phone maker.

Look at that dev productivity go! The continually softening job market means c-suites everywhere care less than ever about their company’s image among developers. They’re surely thrilled to stop pretending to give a shit about anything beyond the next few quarters’ stock prices and their bonuses.

Graphene OS is the odd one, I don't know what to make of it. It seems to be the only entrant in the mobile OS space that has a remote chance to work as alternative OS for daily use - but it's optimizing directly for the philosophy opposite to what I hoped it would be, I.e. it's focusing on privacy and security. Which AIUI means also securing the device against its owner, much like the big players do.

I hoped we'll get an OS more amenable to opening up the device, exposing its capabilities to the owner, but alas, I fear there is no way for an OS to survive in this space unless it acts the same way the Big Two do. As it is, I can't help to think that Graphene is just the same as Google and Apple: just another security-maximizing vendor owning your computer.

I would love to know what alternative phone OSes exist. I would happily throw money and my engineering weight behind a promising project.

Does anyone contribute to AOSP besides Google? Does Google actually accept any patches into "upstream" and ultimately into their own commercial distro?

Ah, the classic con job is starting to close its cycle. Get who-knows-how-many-millions-of-dollars of free work and thought, and then when the free labor has finally elevated you above it and your power is overwhelming, you simply just crush the gullible peasants beneath you and act like they never existed.

People thought they were part of some collaborative, good of the world type effort, when the reality is that there were always ulterior and hidden motives to manipulate and exploit that gullible and rather foolish nature of Americans in particular; a foolishness that has long, if not always existed in the genuine American core character, but at the very least was cultivated and even selected for a long time ago.

How do you motivate people in modern times to do free labor for you as the parasitic ruling class without the threat or resort to violence? You of course trick them into believing that what they are doing or support makes them a good boy, regardless of all the evidence and proof to the contrary.

I jumped ship to iOS a few years ago. Android is a strictly worse experience on all accounts with clear ambitions to be just as unfree as iOS, so there is just no point.

AOSP = "Android Open Source Project"

Someone please make a linux-based, using proper cgroups/containers for app isolation, where programs are one of: regular JVM ByteCode, or WASM. APIs follow a JEP-style Process with multiple incubators until we got it right.

The fraud of Android just gets worse.

The great "open-source" OS that was supposed to free us all from vendor and telco tyranny has... not.

Still waiting on the Motorolas with grapheneOS support to ditch my 7 years old phone.

At this point there is no point buying into Android if it becomes the same walled garden as iOS.

The next cat and mouse game you are going to lose.

I'm going to guess that google is afraid of the age of AI, they should be, those API's will be reverse engineered pretty quick. Lots of bad actors will using AI.

We live in a time, if you want to build an android app, you easily can, but installing will be harder due to google concerns.

Android is irrelevant to me, there is only GrapheneOS.

Go bankrupt, Alphabet!

Oh! These are HID! I wonder if this is for Pixel, or if this is something they had to shoehorn in fast to make Chromebooks work?

Feels like the "Pixel = reference implementation of AOSP" relationship is starting to erode.

I wonder how low Google will sink next time.

Respect for the GrapheneOS for pushing through regardless, even if they have to reverse engineer stuff. Can't wait to buy their phone.

Many developers will likely be developing at Android 16 APIs only. Will rely on Aptoide+AOSP exclusively. This is likely the timeline we'll see a decline in Play Store and Pixel usage.

Android really going for the gutter recently.

Google is increasingly locking down Android. I wouldn't be surprised if they killed off AOSP entirely in a few years...

Android has been so thoroughly disappointing through the years. Started as a great open free form alternative to iOS, to becoming the very thing it sought to combat.

Google managing to get worse every day.

Forget Android. The future is Plasma Mobile.

How surprising.

I mean, even if android is/was open source, it was always fastidious to build a de-googled android image for a phone model.

Of course it's not great for their business model. Not to mention, no more trustworthy app distribution.

I don't see the EU really being able to forcing them to de-google android phones.

I am also curious how much those phones would cost, BTW, since the cost calculation to release such an OS would be a bit complicated.

GrapheneOS scares them.

Out of curiosity, do closed APIs mean OEMs can’t fuck them up or at least limit how much they can?

Google is a for profit company. It does what it needs to stay profitable. Are the actions of Google moral? No!

Governments are paid out to not intervene. They should have stepped in decades ago. They should have made Google to release source code and interoperate with public services. They already make profit from their services.

Embrace, extend, extinguish, and old playbook.

Worth reminding folks that the EU DMA Act is forcing Google to start unlocking some of their APIs, such as the AI services AI. Right now a bunch of the apis for digital assistants/chat stuff are kind of proprietary, and this is demanding interoperation. August 1, 2027 is the deadline for most of this (but open access to hotword listening capabilities is slated for Aug 1, 2028).

https://digital-markets-act.ec.europa.eu/developer-portal/in...

Side note, that API here is HID. USB HID is so cool. There's so much stuff in this spec! Chargers and batteries can both communicate all kinds of status, which, well, afaik no one does, there's all kinds of sensors. It's this ancient spec that has so much, and weirdly is just so far ahead of where we are. More HID on Android will be great. Wish they'd played with others to make this so though!

Fine, whatever but no Android 17-derived Google-free AOSP distribution for me if these APIs are in any way essential to the functioning of the device or required by one or more of the government/bank-mandated applications which are sometimes needed. If they are in any way related to some Google service I don't care since I don't use those anyway.

i despise where Google is going with this. it's a duopoly in the smartphone OS space and we need (for lack of a better analogy, spare the technicals) open-source distros like we have with Linux on desktop.

Graphene is reaching that status for me every day and i'm looking forward to switching to it as my daily driver.

One can not simply trust Google. While I personally like the MIT licence more, I think it is time that the GPL or variants of it (Affero etc...) get used a lot more. It worked very well with the Linux kernel. Corporations keep on abusing this.

So...if you vibe code API shims Google can't sue your right? It would be clean room implementation by definition.

Google is a cancer on humanity.

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Thank god that AI is progressing well enough that agents can figure out most of the changes and do the reverse engineering to get this stuff, but it's introducing a lot of inefficiency to the ecosystem that doesn't change the final outcome.

I don't buy into the "good guy" narrative associated with GrapheneOS. The complaint is valid, but the solution isn't to keep using AOSP. GrapheneOS project, for all its merits, limits users' freedom by forcing them to install Google services if they want to use the most common apps (banking apps in Europe, government apps). They absolutely refuse to support microG. That's their choice, but in my opinion, they aren't "good guys." They have other, shady (imo), interests. Let's stop supporting AOSP and Google's proprietary services.