Motorola GrapheneOS devices will be bootloader unlockable/relockable
2d 11h ago by piefed.social/u/XLE in technology from grapheneos.social
@luana@wetdry.world It will fully support using other operating systems including users making their own builds of GrapheneOS. It's part of our hardware requirements. We'll likely be able to make hardened builds of firmware and drivers which can be released in an official way for easy builds without needing to extract anything from the GrapheneOS or Motorola OS factory images.
Hopefully this initiative sticks, sounds like my next phone (eventually) might just be Motorola/Graphene.
As long as they have basic shit like NFC or wireless charging. One of the main reasons I stopped buying them. 2nd was the tablet sized screens.
Because its grapheneos you will likely have NFC, but whether you have tap-for-payment options will be a crapshoot, especially in North America, unless having an official vendor changes things with grapheneos's play store integrity issue (which is doubtful).
Best shot is that EU will make it possible, as they distance themselves from US tech right now.
Its an issue that, currently, banks have to resolve by either developing (see certain EU banks that have done so) or supporting an NFC card management app that doesn't require the highest level of the google play security thing to function.
I doubt EU legislation can fix this, and I doubt Canadian banks will care enough to do anything to support anything beyond apple pay and google pay.
Tap to pay is whatever but I do use NFC for some home automatons.
I can't imagine grapheneos shipping on a phone without NFC.
...I wish I had the money to play with homeassistant for random things.
What you use for home automation if you're into open source and security?
I use the term home automation loosely. Mostly I use it for initiating Tasker scripts at home with a single tap.
Do you have tasker on grapheneOS?
I never realized you could have NFC and not tap-for-payment support. Is that not how tap-for-payment works?
The apps that enable tap-for-payment ask your bank for permission and some security details to activate using cards for NFC.
In North America, banks won't give that permission/security info to any android app but google pay, and only if the play store verification thing says the OS is fully secure - and google pretends grapheneos doesn't hit those security metrics.
So yes, NFC is how tap-for-payment works, but unless NA banks implement it themselves, or trust a 3rd party that isn't google to implement it, grapheneos phones are blocked from using the tap-for-payment functionality.
That's... Fucking stupid. But it's to be expected from greedy, overly powerful tech corporations I suppose.
NFC is just the technology that tap for payment uses, but there are other use cases for it.
I'm aware of that, but I wasn't aware of the much more stringent (non-technical) requirements for tap to pay
Fair enough. I misinterpreted your comment.
I quite like my Razr. I'm sure if they're aiming to be a true alternative to the mainstream OSs, they'll be including many of the mainstream features
I'm skeptical they will bother with the Razr, seems like a lot of work to intelligently use that external screen and Graphene probably doesn't have the interest to do that. Would be happy to be proven wrong.
I think they supported the pixel fold which has the same sort of second flippy screen thing. I think the multiple screen stuff is just in the aosp base.
I'm old school, I remember when NFC was used for stuff like domotics
Motorola was kind of sluggish/selective about those, but they seem to pretty consistently have those features now. Always worth double checking.
One of the largest complaints of Pixels I've seen is that they're too expensive. These will cost twice as much.
I don't think I have ever heard that for the a series. That if fact, I have always heard that it is just about the best price-value on the market, the downside being that it is google and no SD card slot (which is common now). They use the flagship chip in it still, right?
What? When I was buying my last phone prev gen Pixel cost me 1/3 of what I would have to pay for a Fairphone. It's the exact opposite, less popular phones with long support are way too expensive compared to Pixel.
I agree, and yet that is the complaint I hear over and over. I don't understand it, but it is.
Historically, the problem with Motorola hasn't been their os, it's been their hardware, it's just usually not very good when compared to the competition. And often the price is higher for what you're getting.
I grant that Motorola may neglect to go top of the line (e.g. there's no 'flagship grade' non-folding phone on offer right now), but price wise, at least in the US, it seems to be in line with other options and the cheaper options are generally motorola.
Is this US or elsewhere? What are the better value competition in the mid-lower range.
Big disagree here. Still offer a jack, SD card, etc. Worth way more to me than a high end processor that I don't use any more than a mid range one.
Good, good. Next, tell me there will be a 3.5mm headphone jack, swappable SD card, and user-replaceable battery and we'll be golden.
their phones do tend to have that already...
e: at least the lower end ones I've had
So interesting to me that it's the lower end phones that have the features I want
It's mostly to achieve higher IP ratings, and people with expensive phones also tend to pay for things like cloud storage upgrades and expensive bluetooth earbuds.
There will be a 3.5mm headphone jack, swappable SD card, and user-replaceable battery.
Help, I have turned to gold and cannot move or turn back.
You bastard!
Is your username a Black Books reference?
Yes
Hehe, well since you have good taste I'll forgive you if you falsely raised my hopes.
I ain't buying shit if it ain't got a rotary dial!
I demand to have an outdated standard for a storage medium with a high rate of failure that's also slow and causes immense heat, while we're at it I also demand the charger be micro USB and it to be shipped with a pre rooted install of LineageOS maintained exclusively by one guy in his spare time
Damn, Motorola may really make a comeback with this!
Fantastic. Excellent news! I would expect nothing less.
Whelp, looks like I'm going to Motorola
Well yeah. I doubt the GrapheneOS team would allow anything less.
Probably a long shot, but I wish they added a headphone jack and sd card to these phones. These features would also benefit privacy.
Actually, a few of the Motorola phones do have headphone jacks and sd card ports, like the moto G. Which is why I'm really, really hoping those are the models supported.
I've specifically heard that it's going to be a flagship chipset at first, especially, so it definitely won't be the Moto G line. I've heard it's going to be closer to the Moto Signature, which is like 3.3 Monero.
If they don't release this with a phone that has a headphone jack, they are dumber than a box of rocks. Motorola hardware is flat out not great, but the fact that their G line has a headphone jack and is one of main draws and the only reason I've bought them for my kids. If they do release a GrapheneOS compatible phone with a headphone jack, I'll likely end up buying a few of them for the family and it will be my go to recommendation to others.
I personally might not use a headphone jack or SD card slot very much, but for the market that a GrapheneOS phone would be targeting they seem like OBVIOUS things to include.
The crowd getting excited about this partnership is pretty much the same crowd that complains about features like those going away.
You'd think but shiftphone, fair phone, others all abandoned it and thus lost my business at least.
I could see them doing fine losing those features if it meant the hardware was compact, light, and cheap. But doing it on giant $1000 phones is not going to do them any favors with the lemmy crowd like I said.
I will never accept the death of the 3.5mm jack. I refuse to buy wireless ear buds as I know I will lose them. I need my tiny ear speakers to come with anti-misplacement cord technology.
I mean, I use Bluetooth headphones on my phone most of the time, but I do still require a headphone jack as a backup. I used a phone without one for a while, and decided I need one on future phones, as well as a micro SD card (I need more than a tb of storage for my music and audiobooks).
FWIW, I thought the same thing. But then I bought some cheap Chinese buds and never lost a single one. I'm on my third or fourth set and still haven't come close to losing one.
Though I still won't pay for the premium priced ones.
i was the same on my end, and my current phone even has a 3.5 jack (zenfone 9). i used to have aeveral wired headphones ive lost over the years.
in like 2019, i got airpod pros for functionally free, never lost them yet. then had pro gen 2 and havent lost them yet. (again functionally free in my case)
I have upgraded to USB-C headphones...
But, years ago I got a handful of USB-C to 3.5mm adapters as manufacturers were starting to discontinue the 3.5mm jacks by default.
I was of course used to needing a USB adapter for headphones because I had a RAZR v3 for many years, which I also used as an mp3 player. I believe it only had a micro USB port.
Check out beats flex, they're fantastic and have great battery life. Mine are almost six years old and work great still. They're wireless but cabled together. The cables don't tangle together like wired earbuds, either. They also charge on USB-C, so you can use your regular charger cable.
I'd love an SD card again. At home, I can just use SMB to access remote file systems on my phone. I can do it while mobile, but despite the gig connection, it's a bit too slow for my taste. Works for files, but it won't ever let me watch a downloaded movie on a plane or a podcast while driving across Kansas. I'd rather be able to dump 128GB on an SD card via my laptop (much faster I/O) then stick it in the phone.
I've gotten used to BT headphones, but I'd love to be able to plug in to a stereo again without a flakey Bluetooth dongle
It took me longer than many but I accepted it to.
Never going back to cable slap when exercising. True wireless buds for ever.
SD card would certainly be nice still.
But realistically I'll likely still buy this as long as it has half decent specs and is IP67+
Holy Hell!
This definitely will be on my shopping list. At the top. I hope they bring to all devices and not only higher end.
This news aligns quite well with the Levovo T series ThinkPad repairability.
Other major tech companies sail towards more and more closed environments.
Just take my money!
Oh, they will.
It's nice to get confirmation, though I really can't believe it had to be said. Sign of the times, I guess.
If they release one with a headphone jack I'm 100% sold.
I expected no less.
Please make this the industry expected.
Hell yeah
Will banking apps and NFC pay finally work?
Doesn't that depend on google play services? If so, "probably not, but then again it works currently if you install play services on a separate user profile (or on your main, defeating the purpose of grapheneOS to begin with but more power to you)."
Tell google/banks to stop requiring the spyware, they won't but at least it's better then telling the secure OS to install just a little spyware just so you don't need to carry a wallet.
graphene still sandboxes gplay, even if you use the two profiles for work and home
I think he was saying that installing it on your main user account would be the way that's pointless.
and i'm saying it's still sandboxed on the main account leaving a second profile still available for work
I guess I'm confused on how t being sandboxed would stop it from doing it's tracking thing
it has MUCH less access to your phone on GrapheneOS than stock android and can even be limited to only contexts where its required.
plus Graphene still blocks a lot of the other attack vectors that corporations use to track you like Dynamic Code Loading and Memory Tagging. to say installing google play services to your main profile defeats the purpose of GrapheneOS is to ignore like 80% of what GrapheneOS does and how it installs google play services
It'll still try, it just wouldn't have root access. It would just depend on what you allow it access to.
It gives you more control over when and what Google can do on the device. If you run Google software with network access you have to assume they can track you, but having it sandboxed minimizes what it can do while running and gives you more control over what it does (e.g. you can deny it network access entirely whenever you want).
I would still need to be able to use my banking app to check my balance. That's more than just needing "to carry a wallet." That's the difference of more than $450 in mistakes as that's what happened when i didn't get a live-update to my account prior to the advent of smartphone banking apps. Fuck 5/3. -a dumpster-fire of a banking organization if i've ever seen one.
I would still need to be able to use my banking app to check my balance.
cant you use a web browser for that ltask ? All my banks let me log in via a web browser fir that at least.
https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compatibility-with-grapheneos
Check here
One of the main thing id size of phones, pixel has a series which are comparitevely smaller but I dont know if Moto has any small phones. If only moto make a small phone too, it will be awesome
They have folding phones that's are smallish
I'd rather a 6 inches and under small phone than a folderble.
Nah man i am out. Folding phones dont feel practical to me.
Yep, if only these damn manufacturers would actually give a bit of care and cater to our damned needs.
Stop, I can only get so erect
When is it gonna come out?
No jack? Send it back.
I too am curious, imo the headphone jack removal was the first sign of enshitification.
Genuinely question. If you want something with a modern high performance processor what options do you have that also include a jack?
I think Sony Xperia phones.
https://m.gsmarena.com/sony_xperia_1_vii_5g-13843.php
Snapdragon 8 Elite. Release May 13, 2025.
How can we convince Sony to open the platform for third party os's cuz I'm not buying something with slacking security updates in this age
I think they're pretty open? Atleast I've seen a few good custom roms for Sony Phones, like DivestOS (before it died). I don't know if they stopped doing that recently.
Makes little difference now since Xperia abandoned the US entirely -- but the last few years they were in the US, Xperia US devices were locked down.
Do you own a pair of wireless headphones?
Does anyone know when such devices are expected to hit the market? Within 2 years would be nice
i hope keep this up until i need a new phone
I’m kinda excited for this phone. But I’m unemployed so I probably won’t get it. 😂
Omg omg. What to do. My old Pix does not fit me anymore. For last 2 month I planned to get new Pix 10 XL. And just out of the blue, this. Should I wait another year for a new Moto?! That's tempting. Although the first gen of new moto devices might be buggy etc.
Moto have been making phones for as long as there has been phones. Software issues would get fixed. I don't think hardware issues are likely.
The biggest risk is Google being evil and cutting both of them off from the Android source code or refusing to sign the releases. Google already refuse signing releases for GrapheneOS on the pixel.
Google already refuse signing releases for GrapheneOS on the pixel.
Do you mean how you get a special boot screen implying you're doing something sketchy?
Google signing things is not something we want. We want phones that don't care if your OS is signed by Google, and banking apps that trust you to pick an OS.
Before it was Pixel, the Nexus phones were sometimes made by Moto. I'd wait. They were great phones, and I've used moto on Android recently when the pixel prices went too high for my budget at that time. Was very happy with it, and got a lot of use out of it. I don't expect buggy when graphene support switches.
Buy a fairphone
Lemme know when fairphone has a re-lockable bootloader to allow for choice of OS.
https://support.fairphone.com/hc/en-us/articles/10492476238865-How-to-unlock-and-re-lock-the-bootloader
Anyone know a release date, I was looking at getting a Pixel for it soon.
Part of their next gen release, so probably 1 year after their most recent refresh cycle
Yo other companies can you just pretend it is Apple who is doing it so that you will copy this and announce it next day?
How long have they been selling devices that use graphene?
This will be a first, if the plan materializes.
oldest phone was pixel 6, basically when google switched to tensor and added the hardware and software requirements needed for graphene team to support it.
What was graphene os team doing before?
I don't think they existed then.
I can see how big corporations would use this for security reasons. Niche but great market.
As a current Motorola user, I might just stick with the brand when it comes the time for replacement
Finally a reason to upgrade my 5 year old Moto.
Ultra based Motorola
I just got a pixel 10 the moment I heard that Google wants to lock down android and I didn't want to waste any time. I paid off my Samsung s23 and before even loading my Sim I installed grapheneOS.
I had a motorola G5 before my Samsung but it broke.
At least my Samsung is still intact. I can't wait to format it and load a prepaid if I need a travel phone.
is this only on their graphine devices? or are they leaving their android stock devices unlockable as well
Exactly my thoughts/concerns. I seem to remember Motorola has a decent reputation when it comes to unlocking bootloaders, though.
I haven't seen them say anything about their older phones so I would assume this only applies to the new one
I was meaning more of their Android by default phones, like most retailers are going to only sell the android version
they specify the grapheneos devices so I'm assuming they have a dedicated graphene OS product line.
I can't imagine that a standard android version of the same phone would not also have the relockable boot loader. But I wouldn't necessarily expect that feature to be on every phone series though.
Does this count for al Motorola phones?
You definitely shouldn't buy a Motorola now with the hope that Graphene will get added to it in the future. This could apply exclusively to pre-flashed devices, for all we know.
no. most or all of their current offerings are very locked down
Its funny seeing everyone here demand an sdcard/removable battery/3.5mm jack claiming to represent all GOS users, actually looking at the GOS matrix chat I don't see any of these people there. Do any of you even use GOS?
I'm suspicious as hell. What kind of backdoors did they put in?
Hardware ones, as everybody