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GrapheneOS is the only Android OS providing full security patches

(grapheneos.social)
751 points akyuu | 16 comments | 06 Dec 25 13:58 UTC | HN request time: 0.001s | source | bottom
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walterbell ◴[06 Dec 25 16:46 UTC] No.46174679[source]▶
https://tbot.substack.com/p/grapheneos-new-oem-partnership

> GrapheneOS has officially confirmed a major new hardware partnership—one that marks the end of its long-standing Pixel exclusivity. According to the team, work with a major Android OEM began in June and is now moving toward the development of a next-generation smartphone built to meet GrapheneOS’ strict privacy and security standards.

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joelthelion ◴[06 Dec 25 22:07 UTC] No.46176996[source]▶
This is really cool, but, longer term, what happens if Google makes android closed source? I feel this is a very real risk.
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1. palata ◴[06 Dec 25 23:52 UTC] No.46177758[source]▶
Not sure if the big manufacturers would want to depend on a proprietary Google OS. Samsung does make a lot of changes to the OS, for instance.
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2. WhyNotHugo ◴[07 Dec 25 01:06 UTC] No.46178279[source]▶
> Not sure if the big manufacturers would want to depend on a proprietary Google OS.

They already do; Google's flavour of Android adds plenty of proprietary components on top of AOSP.

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3. tonyhart7 ◴[07 Dec 25 01:38 UTC] No.46178430[source]▶
"Not sure if the big manufacturers"

thats the thing, they would supply android os to these major manufacturer, but for the rest??? need vetted applications

4. Telaneo ◴[07 Dec 25 01:41 UTC] No.46178441[source]▶
What's the alternative? I doubt even someone as big as Samsung will be willing or able to develop their own alternative OS (atleast one that can actually grab marketshare enough that critical apps get ported), and I can't imagine them wanting to hitch their wagon to the Linux alternatives.
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5. berdario ◴[07 Dec 25 02:33 UTC] No.46178667[source]▶
> I doubt even someone as big as Samsung will be willing or able to develop their own alternative OS

Huawei pulled it out with HarmonyOS (I don't know how good/bad is it, and if it'll have staying power, but other companies are putting in the effort)

PS: btw, Samsung already had its own, non-Android OS with Bada (of course, developing a new OS is only the first step, getting it to be successful wouldn't be easy)

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6. Telaneo ◴[07 Dec 25 02:51 UTC] No.46178740{3}[source]▶
Huawei has a whole-ass Chinese government behind it with quite a lot of incentives to move away from Google. Samsung does not. Heck, China's making its own GPUs and x86 CPUs. They're not great, but when the incentives over there are that strong, the market forces are clearly in a whole different universe compared to the rest of the world.

Bada lasted, what, 3 years? So it did better than Firefox OS (unless you want to count KaiOS as the same thing), but not by much? Not a great look I'd say. And things haven't gotten any easier during the past 15 years, with Apple and Google's positions being more entrenched than ever.

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7. ranger_danger ◴[07 Dec 25 02:58 UTC] No.46178771[source]▶
They could still be given the sources, for a hefty license fee.
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8. ranger_danger ◴[07 Dec 25 02:58 UTC] No.46178774[source]▶
Why would they be forced to develop their own OS? They could just license this theoretical future proprietary Android OS.
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9. Telaneo ◴[07 Dec 25 03:17 UTC] No.46178858{3}[source]▶
The comment I responded to was:

> Not sure if the big manufacturers would want to depend on a proprietary Google OS.

If a manufacturer doesn't want to depend on a proprietary Google OS, licencing that Google OS is not an alternative.

10. palata ◴[07 Dec 25 10:05 UTC] No.46180576[source]▶
They depend on the Play Service and Play Store, that's for sure. But I'm pretty sure they know it's a risk already.

Don't get me wrong: they are locked-in, that's a fact. And to be fair they benefit from all the work of Google on the OS. But that's not a reason to desire to go further and lose even more control.

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11. palata ◴[07 Dec 25 10:09 UTC] No.46180601{4}[source]▶
> Huawei has a whole-ass Chinese government behind it

I don't like how Chinese companies systematically get reduced to "it's because the government can help them". The US TooBigTech get a ton of help from the US government, starting with political pressures when other countries want to regulate them.

Huawei have really good technology and very competent engineers. It's not the Chinese government that does the engineering.

DJI is years ahead of everybody else technologically, and that's again not the Chinese government doing the engineering. Let's stop believing that the US are superior in every single way and that someone else doing better means that they must be cheating.

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12. fsflover ◴[07 Dec 25 10:26 UTC] No.46180684{3}[source]▶
What exactly are they going to do? Support GNU/Linux?
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13. Xss3 ◴[07 Dec 25 13:23 UTC] No.46181504{5}[source]▶
Equally lets not forget that china sees this as a key strategic necessity for a forced reunification attempt on taiwan, both for national security and the ability to produce chips solo.

Two things can be true. They can have great engineers and government money. Theyre not mutually exclusive.

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14. palata ◴[07 Dec 25 22:48 UTC] No.46186099{4}[source]▶
If Google goes proprietary with AOSP? They could fork AOSP, or go with their own proprietary system (like Huawei is successfully doing).

Linux distros (including non-GNU/Linux distros, e.g. busybox/Linux distros) are way behind for smartphones. I don't think they would switch to that.

15. palata ◴[07 Dec 25 22:49 UTC] No.46186110{6}[source]▶
Governments all over the world try to support their economies. It's not just a Chinese thing. How much does the western world invest in LLMs? But for some reason, we only call it "cheating" when China does it and is more successful than us.
16. palata ◴[07 Dec 25 22:53 UTC] No.46186152[source]▶
Pretty sure that Google sells the Android licence for as much as they think they can. Make it too expensive and the manufacturers will try to move away.