I never liked the idea of giving money to buy a Google phone so to get away from…Google. I think the irony is strong in this case so GrapheneOS was never that much appealing to me.
As for Motorola, I also wasn’t crazy excited about the deal but I was hoping for a cheap phone with GrapheneOS. It seems that it will be only available on flagship phones. Which means paying more for having a flagship with better security and privacy but some basic broken services (It’s not 2002 any more, I need to do contactless payments with my phone. And don’t tell me it’s not Graphene's fault, when I pay more than $1000 for a phone, I don’t care whose fault that is).
And at this very point, I pretty much lost interest on anything GrapheneOS has to offer. Put GrapheneOS on a $200-$300 phone and then we'll talk
The problem is that there is now midrange or lower midrange phone outside the Pixel a series that provides the minimum necessary for device security, namely a separate secure processor to store secrets and MTE.
In fact, Snapdragon CPUs had no support for MTE until Snapdragon 8 Elite Gen 5 (a flagship chip) and almost no Android phones outside Pixel and Samsung flagships have a separate secure processor (pretty much everyone else uses TrustZone, which is very vulnerable to attacks, see e.g. the recent vulnerability where most Mediatek phones could be extracted under a minute in BFU).
And don’t tell me it’s not Graphene's fault
Seriously, it is not GrapheneOS' fault and it does matter whose fault it is. With your mindset, nothing is going to change ever... If you cannot live without contactless payments, at least send a message to your regulator that Google is using Play Integrity to enforce its monopoly.
They said I never liked the idea of giving money to buy a Google phone so to get away from…Google..
For most people it's a non-argument though - they are feeding data into the Google ad machine every day (even more so if you are using a phone with Google-certified Android). But suddenly buying the Android phone with the best device security is a problem.
But from the rest of the message, they are setting up a set of constraints that is impossible to solve.
Yep, it certainly seems like GrapheneOS community resources spent on teaching people to understand their own security and privacy models was really good time spent.
Very important work. Very important questions to mirror back to every user.
Speaking of contactless payments on the phone, can someone explain to me why people use this? Literally, why do you need it? Is it because you have accounts for which you don't have a card? If an account has a card, a card is a superior technology to make payments - doesn't run out of battery, the phone does. Or is it because you think that carrying a card with you is a logistical challenge? Or something else?
You can still selfhost it. You might lose the privacy benefit and you got to have an account to get session token etc but the tracking is way less than using X's app/browser and Nitter is extremely lightweight on resources both at server level and at client.
Nitter is a great project, way lighter than using Twitter and gets the job done if you want to check few accounts. I have a list of 30 accounts that I'm checking with Nitter and it's absolutely fantastic for this. Oh well, I guess I'll live without following those accounts.
Nitter permitted perusing of twitter (x-cremente) without being tracked by whoever has the keys to the backdoors to twitter. This is why nitter is being killed - it destroys the surveillance capability provided by twitter/x/musk to interested parties.
I’ll take it even further: I've stopped reading ANY kind of news. Yep, tech news too. And I've realized that I'm not missing anything important or anything that some colleague or friend won't tell me if it’s THAT important indeed. Occasionally I skim read HN and that’s it.
The personal computer is getting more and more expensive. Here we are, where it's getting harder and harder to get a computer to create your art but you can get a subscription to any AI company for a fraction of the computer's cost and get your "prompt" art.
And that's ridiculous.
It's funny seeing this kind of comment get made over and over. I don't think those regurgitating this line realize that getting "left behind" (whatever that even actually means) is appealing when the direction the future is heading is very unappealing.
> If it had an option to install a messenger of choice (Signal, Telegram, WhatsApp etc)
It has that capability. From TFA:
> A flip phone with the apps you need: WhatsApp, Signal, Telegram. Music, podcasts, maps, rideshare, a great camera for the moments worth keeping.
I saw the "Get $50 off!" and thought "Oh cool, maybe I could get this for $150!" then checked the actual page and saw $499... absolutely not.
Also the whole store page just feels off. The weird mix of "beige" and furtiger-aero-esque imagery is confusing, and my gut hunch is that there's some AI images here. I understand they're trying to appeal to 2 different nostalgias, but it just doesn't mix. And for something allegedly releasing at the end of this month, there's a disappointing lack of images of actual devices.
The "founders edition" being gold plated just seems kinda tone deaf? There was recently a different controversial gold phone that I am immediately thinking about and I don't think that connection should really exist. $140 more for gold plating?
And their feature comparison down at the bottom has the Lightphone 3 with red X's for "swappable battery and back cover" and "blocks social media", which are definitely both features of the LP3? Unless you want to be pedantic and say that the LP3 doesn't block social media because you can modify it in an unauthorized way to allow installing Android apps, but I'd be willing to bet you'll be able to do the same with this Commodore phone) And they add an extra $40 to the MSRP to the other devices to account for the "value" of the headphones included with the commodore phone? And on that note, what's the line "*Earphones sold separately – price includes $40 headset comparable to Light Phone III & Callback" mean? Why's the LP3 in that line? It doesn't include headphones. (I'm just picking on this in particular because I own a LP3 and have direct experience with it)
Extremely funny. First the fact that Techcrunch asks for adblock disabling and secondly that Meta from all companies has the nerve to ask for subscriptions. All the data harvesting isn't enough? All the terrible "studies"?
The fact that Meta still exists as a company is a valid proof of a failed civilization.
Did I mention that their products are mediocre at best?
As for Motorola, I also wasn’t crazy excited about the deal but I was hoping for a cheap phone with GrapheneOS. It seems that it will be only available on flagship phones. Which means paying more for having a flagship with better security and privacy but some basic broken services (It’s not 2002 any more, I need to do contactless payments with my phone. And don’t tell me it’s not Graphene's fault, when I pay more than $1000 for a phone, I don’t care whose fault that is).
And at this very point, I pretty much lost interest on anything GrapheneOS has to offer. Put GrapheneOS on a $200-$300 phone and then we'll talk
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