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Motorola announces a partnership with GrapheneOS

• pferde 7mo ago
  The misspelling of "GrapehenOS" in the tags below the article does not bode well for Motorola... :)
  • deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
• rarisma 7mo ago
  Give me a graphene os phone moto, my money will be yours.
• chiengineer 7mo ago
  [flagged]
  • rexpop 7mo ago
    I can find no evidence of this. Please do not post falsehoods.
    • chiengineer 7mo ago
      why would there be evidence of sarcasm jesus holy mary mother of christ AI bots dont understand sarcasm duh downvotes away!
      • rexpop 7mo ago
        Please do not accuse others of being "AI bots". Sarcasm is notoriously ill-received by broad audiences online. You should be smart enough to figure that one out.
• duckerude 7mo ago
  Previously: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45585869 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45585869 (At the time it wasn't public which OEM GrapheneOS would partner with.)
• jauntywundrkind 7mo ago
  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.
  • fc417fc802 7mo ago
    No idea about buying new phones but refurbished pixels with unlocked bootloaders seem to consistently be available from reputable sellers in the US. It can be difficult to tell if the bootloader is unlocked from the listing though. There ought to be a legal requirement to clearly label that detail.
  • friedtofu 7mo ago
    Really? That seems odd, where are you looking? Through your Carrier or just for unlocked devices? Depending on who you're with, usually you can just grab an unlocked device and your Carrier to register the device. I've only ever used Google Fi and AT&T though I'm not sure about the others. Searching duckduckgo for 'Unlocked {device}' returns a lot of results on the shopping tab for phones on Amazon and eBay like the pixel 8/9 plus plenty of other "recent" android devices. Walmart and Bestbuy seem to still have dedicated sections for unlocked phones as well.
    • jauntywundrkind 7mo ago
      They are different kinds of unlocked! Unlocked generally just means "can be used with any carrier". For example this Samsung S22 I am on is "unlocked". But Samsung hasn't allowed unlocking the bootloader on their phones for many years. And they are far far from the only ones in that state. You basically have to research each specific phone far ahead of time. And beware! Because there's, for example, lots of guides telling you how to unlock my S22 phone. But as of ~2023 Samsung now blocks all those previous exploits that the unlocked software used to use. It's a mess and a half.
      • deleted 7mo ago
        [deleted]
• Satuminus 7mo ago
  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).
  • zx8080 7mo ago
    Same owner (Google/Alphabet): https://blog.google/company-news/inside-google/company-announcements/weve-acquired-motorola-mobility/ https://blog.google/company-news/inside-google/company-annou...
    • phoronixrly 7mo ago
      I was going to ask wasn't motorola bought and sold so many times that it ended up in Chinese hands. It ended up in Google's hands instead... Ngl, kind of underwhelming from Graphene Edit: wait, that's old news, it is part of Lenovo...
      • okanat 7mo ago
        It ended up in Chinese hands.
      • 3nrico 7mo ago
        That article is fron 2012. According to wikipedia Motorola Mobility was then aquired by Lenovo in 2014, and Lenovo still ownes Motorla Mobility to this day.
      • Imustaskforhelp 7mo ago
        Thinkpads are also part of Lenovo and is technically Chinese. But see, which device is recommended for privacy purposes the most because of Libreboot/Coreboot and how much respected thinkpads are in the privacy minded community. Can't believe I am saying this but a chinese company can be good and an american company can be bad. Not an exact fan of china, especially their authoritarianism but I am not a fan of america right now either. For what its worth, a lot of American phone companies also use chinese factories or chinese components and assemble them in India or Vietnam (Apple) and then say that we are making phones in India which while true, isn't the most accurate picture but it keeps the masses happy.
• NewJazz 7mo ago
  [flagged]
  • ItsHarper 7mo ago
    What?
    • NewJazz 7mo ago
      eww lenovo -> lenovo owns motorola. lenovo is a trash company that ships shitware, even in their firmware, there is shitware see what you made us do google -> this event is a direct result of google's rug pull of support for pixel devices google/trump2 -> the current admin is linked to attempts to curtail people's control of their hardware
      • vsgherzi 7mo ago
        Could you expand on the firmware stuff? Do they have bad practices on the firmware?
        • SyneRyder 7mo ago
          Not sure If this is what they're referring to, but 10 years ago Lenovo shipped low-end laptops with pre-installed adware called Superfish that also compromised the HTTPS certificate chain: https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/alerts/2015/02/20/lenovo-superfish-adware-vulnerable-https-spoofing https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/alerts/2015/02/20/lenovo-su... Pretty terrible, but it was never on the high-end laptops, and plenty of HN folks are running Lenovo ThinkPads anyway.
        • fsflover 7mo ago
          Yes, https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150812/11395231925/lenovo-busted-stealthily-installing-crapware-via-bios-fresh-windows-installs.shtml https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150812/11395231925/lenov...
      • strcat 7mo ago
• anon5739483 7mo ago
  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.
  • roysting 7mo ago
    > Motorola makes great hardware too Do they? I genuinely don’t know because I don’t think I have ever seen a Motorola smartphone in the wild and their heavy involvement with the police and surveillance state has my attention piqued a bit. I’m just saying GrapheneOS partnering with possibly the biggest police state surveillance solutions provider? What’s that all about?
    • user_7832 7mo ago
      > I don’t think I have ever seen a Motorola smartphone in the wild Probably depends a lot on where you live tbh. Here in India it's moderately common. I think Europe and Latin America also have a fair amount of sales.
      • john_owl 7mo ago
        In Brazil it's very common, I had a few Motorola phones when I lived there. They have a great benefit-cost ratio.
      • pferde 7mo ago
        I've had a Motorola smartphone for four years before moving on to a Pixel with GrapheneOS and was mostly satisfied with it, so this announcement sounds rather good to me. Can't wait for the product(s)!
      • Aachen 7mo ago
        Netherlands. The only people I know with a Motorola phone are from overseas (either living overseas or moved here). Definitely more known in the anglosphere than in the Netherlands, but they're in stores and being sold, just not as strong a brand. Probably most people wouldn't know it, similar with e.g. Oppo When selecting a new phone, I always just put in the specs I want and then consider all options, so I have been aware that they're selling here but so far they never made the cut for me. I think the issue is usually that they're made for giants, or it's one of these screen curved edge devices that you can't pick up without touching something on the screen side
• globemaster99 7mo ago
  Hope they make this partnership work out. Probably a 50-50 partnership.
  • strcat 7mo ago
    GrapheneOS is a non-profit and it's not that kind of business partnership. We're getting a device with official GrapheneOS support out of it and they're getting increased device sales from having more secure devices with better updates and official GrapheneOS support. It's not an exclusive partnership but we aren't currently working with any other OEM and don't have the resources to handle multiple for quite a while anyway. They're going to get a lot out of being first.
• jackhalford 7mo ago
  Excited for this, GrapheneOS teased this a few months back. I might finally move away from iOS.
• siwatanejo 7mo ago
  /me stops buying Samsung and waits for next Motorola Flip
• 10729287 7mo ago
  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.
  • fc417fc802 7mo ago
    > I want group messages without having to install ... Well now I'm confused. I've always received SMS as fallback when my contacts add me to RCS group messages. But apparently this doesn't always work according to people on the internet at large? Unfortunately most people still think they're "texting" and have no idea Google and Apple pulled a bait and switch. Meanwhile on my end I receive emoji react spam, each emoji as an independent message, in an incredibly verbose form that quotes the entire message. It's simultaneously misleading people, a DoS against non-BigTech clients, and monopolistic. The mobile ecosystem just keeps getting worse and there's no sign of regulations fixing it any time soon.
    • Groxx 7mo ago
      It's supposed to work by downgrading everyone involved if any are not on RCS, because there is no other option. Which has been working fine for me at least, normal MMS issues aside (MMS delivery is often awful). RCS keeps an "is X using RCS?" list on their servers, and every attempt to message someone checks that (with a local cache)... and like >99% of those servers are Google, at this point, so it should be pretty consistent. That said, I have no idea how often that fails in practice. And that is how reactions are sent in SMS/MMS. Your app just isn't recognizing them to display them nicely. Maybe try a different one?
      • fc417fc802 7mo ago
        > And that is how reactions are sent in SMS/MMS. Imagine if IRC clients started adding such functionality. Certain protocols and conventions are useful precisely because of their minimalism. Google and Apple are already running their own walled off proprietary messaging platforms. There was no need to tamper with SMS.
• silisili 7mo ago
  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.
  • Imustaskforhelp 7mo ago
    Update policy is one of the largest reason if not THE reason why I didn't pick motorola phone. We had a last Motorola phone which we had to buy a new one solely because the last phone hadn't received updates even though the hardware was top notch and we needed an particular app (also its battery was a bit of issue) So with them partnering up with graphene, I am super excited too. Motorola phones are also pretty price effective imo for the quality of hardware.
    • mnmalst 7mo ago
      I am exited as well but the OS is only one part of the equation. If the firmware BLOBs don't get updates we still have a problem. I really hope this cooperation means that Motorola commits to longer support for gOS devices.
      • b112 7mo ago
        And the radio firmware. From a phone by a Chinese company. Unless GrapheneOS handles the radio firmware, not really interested.
        • froh42 7mo ago
          What's the difference compared to a phone with a radio firmware by a US company? In both cases it's something closed and the government has shown overreach. (Yes, China a lot more than the US, but still ... things are not looking good a the moment. And I have no more trust, even if the political direction changes for a presidency period or two.) But yes, ultimately we want open source firmware. Still, then there could be hardware backdoors anyways ...
• ggm 7mo ago
  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?
  • hashworks 7mo ago
    > Will the sandboxed google play permit banking apps to work using TPM and secured credentials? Apps that don't work don't fail due to technical reasons but because upstream says so, i.e. Google Wallet. My banking app works just fine. > I would expect whatever you initialised before grapheneOS is wiped before you can run the alternate OS. Yes. > Is termux possible with a root/sudo function? GOS doesn't support root by itself since they deem it a security risk, but it's possible.
  • anon5739483 7mo ago
    I don't think GrapheneOS team would partner with a vendor unless their security/usability standards were met (considering how long it took since the initial announcement) so I'm expecting feature parity with Pixel variants.
    • kelnos 7mo ago
      I'm just really curious if this phone is going to pass Google's conformance tests and whatnot. I feel like some of that is incompatible with GrapheneOS's security model, so I wonder what's going to happen there.
  • ulrikrasmussen 7mo ago
    My banking app works fine on GrapheneOS today, but not every banking app does. If it depends on Google Play Integrity with strong integrity it won't because Google has successfully sold the blatant anti-competitive lie that you need to vendor lock-in your users to their OS to get security on mobile. Secured credentials work fine, everything works fine except stuff that by design is locked in to Google like Google Pay.
• Imustaskforhelp 7mo ago
  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.
  • avian 7mo ago
    A while back I bought a Motorola phone (one of the Moto G-something series) for a family member because I used to have one and had a good experience with it. I regretted that decision because soon that phone developed a bunch of warts that were a pretty obviously Motorola's idea to monetize their users. It was a constant source of problems. The peak was MotoApps that was constantly popping up with questions and installing random shit on the phone. That pretty much put Motorola on my dont-buy list.
    • Imustaskforhelp 7mo ago
      For context, I had the moto g5 plus/ maybe g5 phone. Those phones might be so old that the concept of ads didn't come whereas every phone we bought after that did have ads/came with prepackaged apps. So I may have had a rose tainted picture of Motorola and I didn't know this, Let's see what happens next tho. I can just hope that motorola stops with the ad and the motoapps that you are mentioning now that they are partnering up with graphene.
• ddtaylor 7mo ago
  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.
  • nhubbard 7mo ago
    I had never heard about this app. I thought the era of advertisements taking over the lock screen ended back in the Android 4.x days! But also, thinking from the business perspective, it's difficult to make phones meet such a low price point without either significantly compromising their performance or stuffing them full of ads to subsidize the price.
    • ddtaylor 7mo ago
      I assumed it did something like that, but I honestly don't even know what it actually does, because the moment it gets loaded or anything like that the phone locks up and has to be manually reset using an obscure power button combination. To add insult to injury it re-installs the app if you remove it and re-enables the app if you disable it. This is done by the carrier/mfg specific application which cannot be removed.
• nunobrito 7mo ago
  So they shaked hands with a long term NSA hardware contractor: https://www.motorolasolutions.com/newsroom/press-releases/national-security-agency-certifies-motorola-solutions-cryptr-2-broadband-ip.html https://www.motorolasolutions.com/newsroom/press-releases/na... Fantastic. Very secure.
  • karel-3d 7mo ago
    Isn't this Lenovo, a different thing from Mororola Solutions? edit: yeah it's a different Motorola. Unrelated companies in 2025. Android Motorola is owned by Lenovo, it's a Chinese brand
  • abhinavk 7mo ago
    Motorola Mobility vs Motorola Solutions. Different companies. Different owners. Different nationalities.
    • nunobrito 7mo ago
      Go ahead and trust them. I won't.
      • gf000 7mo ago
        Then keep using your phone made from magic pixie dust, because we live in reality where you can't just grow out "the perfect" hardware company from a seed.
        • nunobrito 7mo ago
          There are other Android distributions without suspicious funding sources that don't force you into google-owned hardware, nor give you as second option to jump directly into NSA hardware suppliers.
          • karel-3d 7mo ago
            But they are not NSA hardware suppliers.
• hyfgfh 7mo ago
  How about replaceable batteries?
  • patall 7mo ago
    EU regulation on that should come into force in Feb 2027.
    • cromka 7mo ago
      That regulation doesn't apply to mobile devices at this point afaik.
    • hurfdurf 7mo ago
      Seeing how Motorola is trying to bypass the regulation for software updates, I don't have any hopes. https://www.androidauthority.com/motorola-eu-software-updates-loophole-3636627/ https://www.androidauthority.com/motorola-eu-software-update...
    • Aachen 7mo ago
      You sure? I only heard of laws about repairability, not swappable batteries. You can already replace the battery of any phone, the only question is if it'll take you 1 minute (Fairphone) or several hours (every other vendor I'm aware of). The legislation might make it take maybe 1 hour instead of 2, and requires (iirc) that you can obtain legit replacement parts for a few years, but that's about it
• phoronixrly 7mo ago
  So... Graphene on a completely Lenovo (Chinese)-owned Motorola Mobility saying they focus more on security than other EU/US vendors. Bold strategy.
  • omnimus 7mo ago
    Many people will are reading this comment on completely Lenovo(Chinese)-owned Thinkpad laptop. If you are worried about devices made in/by Chinese then good luck. Personally i am now more worried about US corps feed my phone data to Palantir.
    • phoronixrly 7mo ago
      I'm calling out Graphene for dealing with a Chinese-owned company instead of US or Euro-owned vendor. There is a difference between manufacturing parts and components in China, and the entire design/development, production, assembly, and maintenance being owned by a Chinese-owned vendor. Not to mention that by their actions Graphene are aiding an economic and political adversary develop more secure devices.
      • sfdlkj3jk342a 7mo ago
        What's wrong with a Chinese owned company? As someone who has no plans to step foot in China, I'd much rather be spied on by the Chinese than the US or EU.
      • strcat 7mo ago
        > I'm calling out Graphene for dealing with a Chinese-owned company instead of US or Euro-owned vendor. There is a difference between manufacturing parts and components in China, and the entire design/development, production, assembly, and maintenance being owned by a Chinese-owned vendor. Nearly the entire design and development process for European phone brands is done by Chinese ODM partners. It wouldn't be a positive to have a largely non-technical company between us and the company doing the technical work. Our partnership with Motorola Mobility isn't exclusive. Motorola Mobility are currently the only company both willing and able to meet our hardware requirements. We've talked to multiple smaller companies but they're currently unable to provide what we need. > Not to mention that by their actions Graphene are aiding an economic and political adversary develop more secure devices. GrapheneOS isn't based in the US and has no American directors but yet you're talking about it as if it's an American state-owned enterprise. It's the US which regularly threatens to destabilize and annex the country where we're based, not China. There's no Canadian or European company which is truly designing and building modern smartphones. We could have worked with a South Korean company if they had wanted to build a device with official GrapheneOS support instead of only improving their own OS.
• Jaxon_Varr 7mo ago
  [dead]
• ffsickempire 7mo ago
  [dead]
• karlzt 7mo ago
  Is this going to be cheaper than Pixel?
  • microtonal 7mo ago
    Cheaper than a Pixel 9a which goes for 349 Euro currently? Unlikely, since GrapheneOS will require a CPU with MTE and a separate secure element.
• deleted 7mo ago
  [deleted]
• madduci 7mo ago
  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)
  • nie100sowny 7mo ago
    I guess it's rathet hard to satisfy GrapheneOS requirements in 200 bucks budget. Things like at least 5 years of updates.
    • microtonal 7mo ago
      Also requires a pretty new/high-end CPU for MTE and a separate secure enclave.
      • strcat 7mo ago
        The secure element can be on the same CPU die as Apple does with the SEP but a device with only TrustZone wouldn't meet the requirements. It also needs to be a high quality implementation providing the expected features.
        • microtonal 7mo ago
          Thanks for the clarification!
    • Aachen 7mo ago
      That's already required if you want to sell the device in the EU (or EEA?) at all. So far, Motorola hasn't left the market with their low-end devices so I presume they intend to deliver on the updates
    • madduci 7mo ago
      Why? Some cheap smartphones are really powerful enough, the Software is bloated enough to feel sluggish
  • nebalee 7mo ago
• tonydav 7mo ago
  I hope Lenovo can add the auto call recording toggle in GrapheneOS.
• atoav 7mo ago
  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.
• pu_pe 7mo ago
  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.
  • ekjhgkejhgk 7mo ago
    Yup, I'm one of those. I'm not paying 700 for a phone I rarely use anyway.
• maelito 7mo ago
  Cool, now we need an Android fork.
  • zx8080 7mo ago
    There are ones: - https://lineageos.org/ https://lineageos.org/ - https://grapheneos.org/ https://grapheneos.org/
• brynet 7mo ago
  Congrats to Daniel and the team.
• aucisson_masque 7mo ago
  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.
  • nie100sowny 7mo ago
    Here it's Google not wanting to certify GrapheneOS I think, despite their valuable contributions to the AOSP.
    • cromka 7mo ago
      Motorola might be able to help here since they would be signing for their own hardware?
  • preisschild 7mo ago
    Google Pay only works on device/OS combos that have the specific blessing from Google. Only google can make it work.
  • SSLy 7mo ago
    Wireless payments skipping Google Wallet work just fine on GOS.
  • omnimus 7mo ago
    You can use other contactless payments apps like Curve Pay. It requires Google Play services but with limited permissions. It takes a bit of setup but many people are using it.
  • poisonborz 7mo ago
    I'd be more concerned for face unlock. You take an OS that goes to the extreme to prevent any external intrusion to your phone and you enable an option to unlock it for anyone by holding the phone to your face?
• Markoff 7mo ago
  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 cameras btw. 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
  • cromka 7mo ago
    Pixel cameras are not about hardware, though, it's software. They infamously use stock Sony camera hardware and the same exact one for two or three consecutive Pixel generations. No reason for Motorola or anyone else get just as good.
    • strcat 7mo ago
      Motorola Signature (2026) and Motorola Razr Fold (2026) are ranked one above the Pixel 10 Pro XL on https://www.dxomark.com/smartphones/ https://www.dxomark.com/smartphones/. It's 2027 and later devices which are relevant though.
      • cromka 7mo ago
        Nice, was not aware of that. Even better, means that GrapheneOS phone won't be some mid-tier thing that you have to suffer through because you really want that OS.
  • strcat 7mo ago
    > how safe is Chinese Lenovo with closed sourced firmware? iPhones and Pixels are manufactured in China. Anything we could support is realistically going to be made in China right now. It's planned for GrapheneOS to have access to the internal code including firmware. Supporting the subset of their future devices meeting the GrapheneOS requirements isn't going to work the same way supporting Pixels does. > 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 cameras Motorola Signature (2026) and Motorola Razr Fold (2026) are ranked one above the Pixel 10 Pro XL on https://www.dxomark.com/smartphones/ https://www.dxomark.com/smartphones/. It's 2027 and later devices which are relevant though. > btw. 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 There's no Android OEM shipping vanilla Android. Each one has their own forks of it. Vanilla Android doesn't include Google Mobile Services. The stock OS is an entirely separate thing from GrapheneOS. Unlike Pixels, we won't need to use the stock OS to obtain firmware and other non-kernel device support code which isn't included in AOSP.
• wolvoleo 7mo ago
  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.
  • Tade0 7mo ago
    I was hoping more banks would introduce support for U2F. In Europe ING was one of the first if not the first, but so far few followed.
    • wolvoleo 7mo ago
      That's for logging into the app. What I mean is using NFC for payments. I have ING but they also moved away from supplying their own NFC payments in favour of using Google Play, sadly.
      • Tade0 7mo ago
        I checked and I can set one of my banks as the "default wallet app". I guess there are still some holdouts left.
  • timedude 7mo ago
    If this partnership with motorolla becomes a success, samsung will follow as will the chinese.
    • ternwer 7mo ago
      Motorola phones are Chinese, aren't they? They mention being a Lenovo company in the article.
      • amelius 7mo ago
• echelon_musk 7mo ago
  No handsets until at least 2027.
• kopirgan 7mo ago
  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.
• WhereIsTheTruth 7mo ago
  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?
  • rand846633 7mo ago
    Would be interesting indeed to hear what the implications of what you bring up are. Anyone knowing enough to speculate?
    • deleted 7mo ago
      [deleted]
  • em-bee 7mo ago
    a hardware manufacturer that is forced to comply with both the American Security Chip Act and the American Cloud Act are google's pixel phones not subject to that?
• subscribed 7mo ago
  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)
• BatteryMountain 7mo ago
  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.
  • CodeCompost 7mo ago
    Wat would be the compelling argument for middle managers who only think of meeting financial targets?
    • zelphirkalt 7mo ago
      Financial targets will be hit, if many people buy their phones. But the question is whether they are short term optimizing, or having it as a long term strategy.
  • xandrius 7mo ago
    Yep, first party open source and long support. If this existed, you'll get people recommending it to their parents. Now the only thing I can honestly recommend is a UbuntuTouch phone but mostly to devs, for now.
    • fsflover 7mo ago
      Why not postmarketOS or Mobian?
  • tim-- 7mo ago
    Can I be devils advocate and say I think this is two years too late on Motorola's side? Samsung has a great offer with their Galaxy Enterprise Edition phones. Phones with 5 year warranty. 7 years of software updates. Motorola, welcome! I wish you did this before I bought my last Samsung phone. That being said, if you can keep this up till my current phone needs replacing, you will have a customer in me, guaranteed. My Lenovo experience has surpassed that of any other computer hardware brand.
• ekjhgkejhgk 7mo ago
  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.
  • sznio 7mo ago
    it's a subsidiary of Lenovo. a lot of security minded people love their ThinkPads. out of all the chinese corpos, Lenovo is the one I distrust the least.
    • ekjhgkejhgk 7mo ago
      Doesn't matter to my point if security minded people love their ThinkPads. A lot of things that people love either irrational attachment to a brand, or habit or just copying the habits of those like you. Every time there's a security attack a lot of security people are victims too. They're not immune just because they have those jobs.
    • maxloh 7mo ago
      > Lenovo originated as an offshoot of a state-owned research institute. From Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenovo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenovo
• bastard_op 7mo ago
  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.
  • throawayonthe 7mo ago
    grapheneos has a hard requirement for the vendor to provide software support for 6+ years (iirc), so i expect the updates will be better even for stock users however this might be only for their new Motorola Signature line of flagships...
    • strcat 7mo ago
      Our official requirement is 5 years of support meeting our standards but it will be raised to 7 at some point. The Motorola Signature (2026) already has 7 years of support but it's future devices which are going to meet all our requirements and provide official GrapheneOS support.
  • strcat 7mo ago
    Motorola Signature (2026) has 7 years of support. It's a subset of Motorola's future devices in 2027 and later which are going to support GrapheneOS since the current ones in 2026 didn't quite meet all of the requirements yet. The intent has never been to support their existing devices but rather for future devices to provide everything needed and official GrapheneOS support. There's a lot of work to do. Meeting all of our requirements on low-end devices is currently unrealistic but can be a goal further down the road.
  • fwipsy 7mo ago
    Adding graphene doesn't extend the support lifespan, it still depends on manufacturers for low-level security patches.
• egorfine 7mo ago
  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,
  • strcat 7mo ago
    GrapheneOS is a separate thing from their own operating systems.
• backscratches 7mo ago
  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-flicker-sensitive https://www.androidcentral.com/phones/best-phones-for-pwm-fl... (I am reposting from leak past yesterday)
  • gib444 7mo ago
    > pixel screens had extremely low Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) rate for screen dimming, apparently as a cost saving measure The PWM issues are inexcusable. Cost saving measure on a £999 phone. Ridiculous!
    • dagmx 7mo ago
      It’s not just a cost saving measure. PWM has some benefits like better accuracy and linearity in the lower brightness ranges.
  • wishfish 7mo ago
    Their OLED screens + software are some of the best for those of us who suffer. Motorola is one of the last major companies to still offer IPS devices too. In terms of screen hardware, Graphene chose well. I just hope that GrapheneOS will be offered on one of the IPS phones in addition to the expected OLED model(s).
    • backscratches 7mo ago
      Agreed. An IPS graphene phone would be perfect.
  • 7mo ago
• c8Alihackermanv 7mo ago
  India news channel hack
• amelius 7mo ago
  But where is the EU? They should be funding FOSS like they are funding science.
  • nicce 7mo ago
    Don’t they already fund more than anyone else? Not saying that it is currently enough.
  • sfdlkj3jk342a 7mo ago
    I don't think the EU wants FOSS phones. If anything they'll push regulations that make them illegal to own. They want backdoors for all of your communication.
    • holgerschurig 7mo ago
      You have a very narrow view of the EU. The EU isn't a single body, dictated by some common mind. We have the EU Parliament, the EU Council, the EU Commission. Often they have different views in itself (e.g. factions in EU Parliament, or commissars in the commission that are more end-user-friendly vs. ones that are move business-friendly). And the EU Council (the ring of head-of-member-states) is more often than not just of one opinion, e.g. thing at Poland when it was governed by PiS. Or of Hungary and to some smaller extend Slovakia. "The EU wants ..." is therefore quite often wrong.
      • raffael_de 7mo ago
        as long as the EU is headed by a woman who habitually loses SMS messages negotiating billion euro deals i figure the assessment you question is spot on.
        • homarp 7mo ago
          is that what you mean? https://www.eclaireur.eu/p/following-the-sms-scandal-von-der https://www.eclaireur.eu/p/following-the-sms-scandal-von-der
      • 7mo ago
• petterroea 7mo ago
  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-pixel-3575477/ https://www.androidauthority.com/why-i-use-grapheneos-on-pix...
• mendelmaleh 7mo ago
  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?
  • flexagoon 7mo ago
    Daniel Micay is still running the project despite announcing he'd step down a while ago. You can see the entire team on their Github
    • worldsavior 7mo ago
      For what I understood is that he's just stepped down as lead developer.
      • strcat 7mo ago
        You're correct. Dmytro Mukhomor is the lead developer of GrapheneOS.
    • strcat 7mo ago
      The directors of the the GrapheneOS Foundation and the other things you're talking about are public information. I stepped down as lead developer due to relentless harassment preventing me from being productive. The same people targeting me with harassment misrepresented what was happening. You shouldn't get info about GrapheneOS from Hacker News comments especially when multiple regulars here are part of the attacks on GrapheneOS. Hacker News permits people to freely engage in libel and harassment towards me on nearly every post about GrapheneOS.
      • flexagoon 7mo ago
        I'm aware of what happened, and I'm getting GOS news directly, not from HN. However, you're still the biggest contributor of code to GOS (judging by commit history). That's what I meant.
• summm 7mo ago
  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-smartphone-manufacturers-are-adhering-to-this-11163863.html 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."
  • strcat 7mo ago
    Motorola has committed to 7 years of support for the 2026 variants of the devices which will provide GrapheneOS support in 2027. There's still a lot of work to do in order to meet the GrapheneOS hardware requirements and there isn't going to be support for the existing devices. The whole point is they're working with us to improve their updates and hardware-based security features so that all our requirements are met. The stock OS is also a different thing than the official GrapheneOS support where we'll be making builds with their help. We'll be continuing to provide security preview patches and intend to move to newer kernel LTS branches than Qualcomm if they don't do it themselves. GrapheneOS won't have to use their stock OS to get firmware, etc. as we do for Pixels.
  • gib444 7mo ago
    The project can't have had too many options in a partner, give them a break.
• noirscape 7mo ago
  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.
• adrian_b 7mo ago
  Motorola was already in my top position in the list of possible upgrades for my old (ASUS) phone, for providing at moderate prices USB 3 connectivity and DisplayPort 1.4 that allows the connection of an external monitor, for a desktop mode. With this announcement, Motorola has consolidated its top position, making it unlikely for me to choose something else.
  • sourcecodeplz 7mo ago
    What do you mean desktop mode? I though only Samsung Android phones had that, called Samsung DeX.
    • codethief 7mo ago
      Android 16 introduced desktop mode.
    • noisem4ker 7mo ago
      The first-party desktop mode that was introduced in Android 16 last year. https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/06/developer-preview-enhanced-android-desktop-experiences-connected-displays.html https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2025/06/developer-...
      • esperent 7mo ago
        A lot of phones, including latest flagships, don't support this, unfortunately.
    • trashb 7mo ago
      Motorolla has had a similar desktop experience for a while. For example my Moto G100 has this feature since 2021. It actually works quite good, I really liked that your touchscreen turns into a mousepad in these modes. I believe it is called "Motorolla Ready For" the marketing is not great (a bit confusing name if you ask me).
    • strcat 7mo ago
      GrapheneOS has hardware-based virtualization on the Pixel 6 and later along with DisplayPort alternate mode on the Pixel 8 and later. It has the standard Android 16 QPR2 desktop mode and Terminal VM management app capable of running GUI applications for other operating systems. We could even add Windows support, but we have much higher priorities for the foreseeable future.
• I_am_tiberius 7mo ago
  I was so much hoping it was Fairphone.
  • flexagoon 7mo ago
    Unfortunately fairphone has repeatedly shown they don't care about hardware security
    • teekert 7mo ago
      I think "care" is too strong a word. They have limited resources and choose to focus on repairability and sustainability. That is different from not caring.
  • strcat 7mo ago
    Fairphone is much further from meeting the requirements and have made it clear they're uninterested in providing proper updates or strong security. There will repeated official statements from the GrapheneOS project of Fairphone not being our OEM partner by clarifying it was a major OEM and that it specifically wasn't them. There's an article published at https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/24134-devices-lacking-standard-privacysecurity-patches-and-protections-arent-private https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/24134-devices-lacking-stand... with details on how what they're providing isn't what they say it is.
• Vinnl 7mo ago
  So what does this mean? Are they going to ship GrapheneOS by default? Or just making it easier for GrapheneOS to support Motorola phones?
  • waysa 7mo ago
    I assume Graphene is goning to be an option next to the default google-cerfified Android. Like Fairphone ships e/os as an option.
  • strcat 7mo ago
    A subset of their future devices will meet all of the official requirements for GrapheneOS and provide official support for using it. They may sell devices with it but that would be a separate announcement.
• raffael_de 7mo ago
  the best and most beautiful smartphone i ever owned was the motorola razr i. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_RAZR_i https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_RAZR_i it had a 4.3" display ... i think i'm coming
• StingyJelly 7mo ago
  I hope that in they choose the same camera sensors pixels use. Hard to beat the processing gcam can do.
• ROllerozxa 7mo ago
  Give it a month and the partnership will be in shambles after the GrapheneOS social account makes vague unverifiable accusations of alleged Motorola employees sending death threats to GrapheneOS contributors while praising other custom ROMs.
• jaimex2 7mo ago
  It's OnePlus all over again.
  • strcat 7mo ago
    No, it doesn't resemble that at all.
  • em-bee 7mo ago
    what's the story here? got a link?
• zouhair 7mo ago
  Now do Samsung
  • strcat 7mo ago
    That would be entirely up to Samsung. It's not likely.
  • drewfax 7mo ago
    Samsung phones and TVs have tons of adware built in. I'm pretty sure they won't want GrapheneOS on their phones. Motorola, on the other hand, has always shipped stock OS with minor customization. The only problem with Motorola is that their support is very short (like 2 years).
  • joshuaissac 7mo ago
    According to their site, they used to support Samsung a long time ago but Samsung made changes in newer handsets that closed off access to the secure element.
• danielEM 7mo ago
  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.
  • vdm 7mo ago
    Almost, local automatic speech recognition with model choice (Parakeet this month) is what keeps me on Mac and away from Chromebook Plus or Android Desktop
• jathul 7mo ago
  Nokia 1101 is safer than all smartphones, just saying.
  • PokemonNoGo 7mo ago
    Wasn't that the model used to hack a banking app?
• rm30 7mo ago
  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.
• Justin-1x 7mo ago
  Chinese GrapheneOS is coming
• leke 7mo ago
  I would buy a cheap Moto with GOS in a heartbeat
• utopiah 7mo ago
  Bought a 2nd hand Pixel 8 just yesterday specifically to tinker with GrapheneOS. When there is a phone sold with GrapheneOS pre-installed (and assume with no restrictions I don't want and good reviews) I'll probably be in the market for it.
• gt6 7mo ago
  Hau to hack
• gclawes 7mo ago
  Could this be a road to getting GrapheneOS approved under Play Integrity (for contactless payments, etc)?
  • worldsavior 7mo ago
    Maybe, probably not.
  • drnick1 7mo ago
    I don't think so, since Play Integrity is incompatible with open source.
    • Ajedi32 7mo ago
      Right, my understanding is that the whole point of "device integrity" is for a device manufacturer that your bank trusts to be able to vouch that your device is "secure". If the device is under your control rather than the manufacturer's (as would generally be the case with an open source OS), they can't credibly make such guarantees.
• BlueSialia 7mo ago
  I have degoogled my devices wherever I can. One of the main reasons I don't use an open source ROM is because I use my phone as my laptop thanks to lapdocks. Motorola's Ready For is the Android Desktop I use daily and I'd love to use a GrapheneOS-like ROM with that included.
  • ThePowerOfFuet 7mo ago
    GrapheneOS has supported connections to external displays (and mouse/keyboard) for some time now.
• aesh2Xa1 7mo ago
  @strcat, you've mentioned GrapheneOS will have access to internal code to do hardening below the OS layer. Does this mean Motorola devices will offer stronger security than Pixels, where you're limited by what Google exposes? Is Motorola contributing engineering resources directly to GrapheneOS, or is the partnership purely about hardware enablement on their side?
• kevin_thibedeau 7mo ago
  Maybe we'll get Graphene on US market phones that Lineage won't target.
• akrakesh 7mo ago
  Finally, seems like a real possibility of ditching my Apple device (never used Android because of Google)
• nuodag 7mo ago
  unfortunately every single Motorola phone is ridiculously large
  • EvanAnderson 7mo ago
    All phones are ridiculously large today, though. I rocked an iPhone SE 1st gen for a lot longer than I probably should have. I miss the form factor every day. I hate being a market segment that's too small to matter to anybody.
• TiredOfLife 7mo ago
  Does this mean that Google has dropped the "if you release a phone running a fork of Android you lose access to Play Services" thing?
  • nickorlow 7mo ago
    Technically Motorola isn't releasing a running fork of android, they're just making their handsets to GOS' spec.
  • LinAGKar 7mo ago
    They already can't have had such a requirement, since the Fairphone can be bought with either Google apps or /e/OS.
• seany 7mo ago
  The real thing they need to be behind is getting app makers to ignore Google Play integrity
• Collectivism 7mo ago
  I can only dream for a new special edition of the Motorola Flipout with GraphenOS included !
• EvanAnderson 7mo ago
  A Moto phone with GrapheneOS and the "chop / chop" gesture[0] to turn on the flashlight would be a dream. I'm, shamefully, an adherent to Moto hardware now because of that silly gesture. I use it multiple times a day. I had a friend with a late model Pixel try to replicate the functionality and he couldn't come up with a way to do it. It's silly, but it's too handy. [0] https://en-us.support.motorola.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/145082/~/moto-gestures https://en-us.support.motorola.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/1...
  • nhubbard 7mo ago
    One of the important reasons that it works so well is because it uses the Hexagon DSP in the Snapdragon processors to catch the events. That's why it's so hard to replicate. It's possible to do it entirely in software, but it chews through battery if you do it that way. I can't find it now, but there was an article a few years ago that explained how the feature worked. And there's no way to program the DSP without being the creator of the device because Qualcomm requires DSP programs to be signed, as far as I'm aware, and the key has to be trusted by the device vendor.
    • EvanAnderson 7mo ago
      Wild. Thanks for the keywords to search-engine this with. I found "Reverse engineering the Motorola Sensorhub: Part 1"[0]. To this point I hadn't thought about how they might have implemented the feature. That article sheds some light on it. [0] https://ristovski.github.io/posts/moto-sensorhub/ https://ristovski.github.io/posts/moto-sensorhub/
      • nhubbard 7mo ago
        That's the one!
    • microsoftedging 7mo ago
      This one? https://www.xda-developers.com/qualcomm-snapdragon-845-hexagon-685-dsp/ https://www.xda-developers.com/qualcomm-snapdragon-845-hexag...
• 1970-01-01 7mo ago
  Motorola consistently has great stuff that then just rot on store shelves. This will be yet another. They just can't convert hardware innovation into hard sales. They've been kicked around too much this century by Lenovo and Google and shareholders. They just don't have the culture to marry good hardware with good software anymore.
• butz 7mo ago
  I was hoping that GrapheneOS would partner with Sony, but alas. Motorola Moto G (2014) was a great phone. They should bring back devices in similar form factor and no camera bumps. 3.5mm headphone jack wouldn't hurt anyone either. And make cover from decent material, not the one that becomes sticky after several years.
• mmooss 7mo ago
  I wish GrapheneOS the best. If their mission is user security and freedom, transparency is necessary. As far as I can tell, there is little public information or indications of trust. Daniel Micay posts on this thread that the names of the directors (Micay, Dmytro Mukhomor, and Khalykbek Yelshibekov) is publicly available, but that is very little information and isn't nearly sufficient to facilitate trust. Their website grapheneos.org says nothing I can find about who or what is behind it; that is a red flag. I don't think Micay or Mukhomor are even mentioned. Github doesn't seem to say much either (not that end users will know about or look at Github). I read that Mukhomor is running things, which is something I just learned despite following GrapheneOS - was there an annoucement? Is Mukhomor's bio anywhere? Who the heck is Mukhomor? Users' privacy depends on that person - very few have the time and ability to audit the code, and probably nobody has the ability and time to audit the code thoroughly enough that we don't need to trust Mukhomor, as well as Micay, Yelshibekov, and probably others we don't know about. Why should I trust Mukhomor, Khalykbek, and the unknown others? Also, Google and Motorola, part of Lenovo which is subject to the Chinese government [0], are not the most encouraging partners. I know all the debate behind it and perhaps there are no good alternatives and I'm glad GrapheneOS is diversifying its hardware, but GrapheneOS should provide openness on why they trust Google and Motorola. I have reasons to trust Linus Torvalds and other Linux leaders, Theo de Raadt, Mozilla, and many others - not perfect reasons, but some indications. I have reasons to trust Daniel Micay based on history and public activities. [0] I know Google can be influenced by the US government; it's not the same thing but indeed also an issue, especially with the current administration's embrace of pressuring business and against individual freedom (e.g., Anthropic).
• mayhemducks 7mo ago
  I tend to be pretty skeptical in general, so grain of salt may be required here, but I sense some irony that the Chinese government has a significant stake in Lenovo. https://easytechsolver.com/who-is-lenovo-owned-by/ https://easytechsolver.com/who-is-lenovo-owned-by/ https://www.kamilfranek.com/who-owns-lenovo-largest-shareholders/ https://www.kamilfranek.com/who-owns-lenovo-largest-sharehol... How did we end up touting privacy features while at the same time celebrating the acquisition of this company by a business backed by a state obsessed with censorship and surveillance?
  • deleted 7mo ago
    [deleted]
  • nickorlow 7mo ago
    I would imagine China's goal (if any with this, which I really doubt) is to harm google by eroding their monopoly on mobile operating systems.
• RedComet 7mo ago
  Here's to hoping for a smaller phone with a fingerprint sensor on the back and a removable battery, as it's a given graphene will get the chipset right.
• CivBase 7mo ago
  This is excellent news. Hopefully Motorola will soon produce a GraphineOS-compatible device that meets my needs. Although I seem to curse whatever company I buy a smartphone from. My last three devices were from HTC, LG, and Sony. Hopefully Motorola doesn't share the same fate.
• butILoveLife 7mo ago
  Hypeee! Love my $120 motorola, super cheap, works almost as good as my pixel, has a headphone jack.
• upmind 7mo ago
  TIL that Motorola is 3rd in market share in the US, albeit only 3-5% but still insane it's above Google. (NOTE: this is according to LLM)
  • upmind 7mo ago
    To be honest, I don't think I've ever met someone with a Motorola.
    • smlavine 7mo ago
      I like mine. the moto g line of phones are like $200, unlocked. They're fast enough for anything I do with a phone. It runs android. It's fine. I've thought about GrapheneOS before but I a) don't want to give Google money to rely less on Google and b) Pixels are expensive. If Motorola can change those points then I'd definitely be interested.
      • drnick1 7mo ago
        I doubt that the model with Graphene will be $200. If it's a $1000 phone it's dead on arrival however. The best we can hope for I think is something priced close to a Pixel a-series, a comfortable mid-range.
      • upmind 7mo ago
        Might buy one tbh
• iamdamian 7mo ago
  This is, without hyperbole, the most exciting tech announcement I've read this year. I really hope something comes of it. Motorola: Please double down on this and make mobile tech consumer-friendly again.
  • jama211 7mo ago
    [flagged]
    • dang 7mo ago
      Could you please stop posting snarky and/or aggressive and/or unsubstantive comments? You've been doing it repeatedly, unfortunately. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
      • jama211 7mo ago
        Piss off mate, what I said obviously wasn’t snarky and wasn’t meant that way. What you’re doing is targeted attacks, so take up your own rules with yourself.
        • dang 7mo ago
          I wasn't just talking about one comment, but about a pattern of commenting - here are other examples: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47221945 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47221945 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47183702 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47183702 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47178118 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47178118 We're trying for something else on this site and need you to stop posting like that if you want to be on HN.
• KurSix 7mo ago
  If Motorola actually delivers unlockable, well-supported hardware that GrapheneOS endorses, this could finally break the Pixel monopoly in the hardened Android space
• yougotwill 7mo ago
  Hell yeah! I was really hoping they were teaming up with Motorola when they teased about this earlier! Love my g54.
• mbix77 7mo ago
  Very excited for this! Just recently moved my Google Pixel Pro 10 to GrapheneOS.
• ysnp 7mo ago
  It took a while but congrats to Daniel Micay and GrapheneOS. Hopefully it is the first of a few (looking at you HMD, Sony, Samsung, Nothing). Will Motorola allowlist/whitelist GrapheneOS's avb key for green boot state? Does that have any implications for Play Integrity? Do GrapheneOS finally get AOSP full partner access as a result of this? Will the Motorola device have USB port control, OS virtualisation and GPU virtualisation? Will it have a better secure face unlock story than Pixel 5 - 10? Will the gushing fans and secret admirers finally stop flocking to me because I switched from Pixel-GrapheneOS to Motorola-GrapheneOS?
  • haiserize 7mo ago
    graphene OS have been public that they have had full partner access for a while now, didnt say who exactly it was until motorola announced it now
    • ysnp 7mo ago
      They said they have access to security previews/patches but I have missed that they have full AOSP access now? Do you have a link?
  • rbits 7mo ago
    > Will the Motorola device have USB port control, OS virtualisation and GPU virtualisation? From GrapheneOS's requirements for any phone they will consider supporting [1]: - Hardware accelerated virtualization usable by GrapheneOS (ideally pKVM to match Pixels but another usable implementation may be acceptable) - Support for disabling USB data and also USB as a whole at a hardware level in the USB controller [1] https://grapheneos.org/faq#future-devices https://grapheneos.org/faq#future-devices
• iamnothere 7mo ago
  Great. Please make a Graphene OS phone with a physical camera/mic/gyro killswitch. Thank you!
• neuroelectron 7mo ago
  Won't be long until Trump declares war on Motorola and takes out the head of Mototollah in a preemptive strike in order to protect competition and ensure market fairness. But most importantly of all, to ensure Palantir and national security can still be provided to our strongest allies. It's not a leadership change operation. Just a 72-hour operation.
• vldszn 7mo ago
  Motorola is back
• narenkeshav 7mo ago
  Motorola, I am in. I like your phones so far. With this, please create a 'flagship' that would endure for years. Security must be top notch for corporate espionage. Banking apps must install without any issue. In India, please provide solutions for UPI. Make your OS clean like nothing. Pun NOT intended.
• Animats 7mo ago
  "Today, Motorola also introduced Moto Analytics, an enterprise‑grade analytics platform designed to give IT administrators real‑time visibility into device performance across their fleet." So they put in a back door for business users?
• tsoukase 7mo ago
  Imagine the boost to Linux if Microsoft completely locks down Windows, not allowing app installations. At first it will be a pain but after some time it will become a blessing for open source. This will happen in mobile devices.
• nickorlow 7mo ago
  Makes sense the thinkpad of phones would be the partner for this https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/phones/motorola-smartphones/thinkphone/thinkphone-by-motorola/pmipmfq34m3 https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/phones/motorola-smartphones/t...
• worksonmine 7mo ago
  I've used Moto G series for years and reading this makes me very happy with my choice. They've found a market fit and this shows they know their audience.
• matheusmoreira 7mo ago
  This is amazing!! Hope this will make getting a GrapheneOS phone much easier! Motorola phones are easier to find here than Pixels.
• throwawaypath 7mo ago
  Motorola has a serious chance to completely shake up the industry and the walled gardens. This space is ripe for disruption. I hope they fund and adopt F-Droid as well.
• agentifysh 7mo ago
  very excited for this what i would love also is if you could bring GOS to a remake of the classic Razr phones with flip
• NoImmatureAdHom 7mo ago
  .gov would love a graphene-native phone if manufactured in the U.S. or by an American company
• 0dayman 7mo ago
  [flagged]
  • bgnn 7mo ago
    That's not the star of David.
    • 0dayman 7mo ago
      it kind of is though
  • martin1975 7mo ago
    What's with the antisemitism? Did some Jew hurt you personally?
    • 0dayman 7mo ago
      who doesn't hate jews?
• h4kunamata 7mo ago
  Hell yeah, so Motorola is the OEM they have been quietly working with. Millennials are gonna lose their shit lmao Motorola used to be huge back in the day, and their come back couldn't have been more noisier, GOS is the only mobile operating system worth using in an era of age verification and privacy issues due to the heavy dependency on USA tech companies. Android is heavily customised by the OEMs like Samsung, Google, iPhone is just another nightmware apart. Linux is the most used OS worldwide, everything that our socienty depends on is running Linux, you might be using Windows, macOS, but the services and everything else is quietly running Linux. Windows is the main OS used by users/offices only, it is a very small number. Also, 2026 is the year Linux stopped living in the shadows!! We have to thank this all to AI, if Microslot handn't pushed AI so hard and destroyed Windows for end-users, and Steam with Linux alone proving to the gigantic gaming community that Linux can do the same and better, we wouldn't have Linux replacing end-users/offices computer that used to run Windows this fast. Thanks AI.
• rationalist 7mo ago
  Please have physical disconnect switches (Bluetooth/Wifi, Modem, Power, Microphone/Speaker), and integrated lens cover like Lenovo laptops (at least for the front camera whereas a case can cover the rear cameras). (Triple active SIM would be amazing, but one can dream.)
• pieter_mj 7mo ago
  This only means there will be a hardware backdoor.
• qwertytyyuu 7mo ago
  I'm not sure whether to be excited or concerned. Will this make Graphene OS less secure when authorities come knocking on their doors?
• foxes 7mo ago
  Everyone deserves private and secure defaults without having to manually install another os. I have plenty of non technical friends that care about security but don't come from technical backgrounds, but generally understand the problems google and apple have. Id recommend this to them in a heartbeat.
• aljgz 7mo ago
  Could it be? That my next phone and tablet match the freedom I have on my Amd frame.work running immutable fedora with KDE? If this happens, it will mark the slow end of an era, one fed up person at a time. Change comes gradually, and then suddenly
• gitowiec 7mo ago
  When there will be the first official Motorola smartphone with GrapheneOS?
• nh43215rgb 7mo ago
  Great job lenovo. Lets do GrapheneOS on Razr!
• foxyv 7mo ago
  Motorola seems to HATE updating their operating systems. They only support their phone OS for the minimum possible time. Moving to an open source platform makes way too much sense for them. This is one of the few ideas that might make me go back to buying Motorola products after dumping them for a Pixel. The question is, will my work apps be able to run on GrapheneOS? I'm really excited to find out.
  • broadsidepicnic 7mo ago
    depends on work apps. I've only found two apps that dont work on graphene so far (google wallet and x). Decided I'd be able to survive without them.
    • foxyv 7mo ago
      It depends entirely on the organization. The ones my corp runs have security policies which may or may not like Graphene. I've been thinking about making a phone dedicated to work and then keeping a separate personal phone.
• lastpasstwitter 7mo ago
  They just got a customer in me.
• ray023 7mo ago
  Lenovo has faced multiple serious scandals and negative incidents that have significantly damaged its reputation, particularly around security, customer trust, and transparency. Adware Scandal (2015): Lenovo pre-installed Superfish VisualSearch on thousands of laptops, which injected ads into web searches and installed a universal self-signed root certificate. This allowed man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks, exposing users’ encrypted traffic—including passwords and banking details—to anyone on the same network. The private key for this certificate was identical across all affected devices, making it trivial for attackers to exploit. Lenovo initially denied the threat, claimed the software was safe, and only issued a removal tool after intense public and media backlash. Even then, the tool removed the adware but left the dangerous root certificate in place, giving users a false sense of security. UEFI and Firmware Backdoors (2015–2025): Lenovo shipped laptops with UEFI-based installers that could reinstall software even after a full OS reformat. Security researchers found persistent firmware-level malware that could not be removed by standard reinstallation. In 2025, reports from Bloomberg suggested U.S. military investigators found backdoored chips in Lenovo motherboards capable of logging keystrokes and transmitting data—though Lenovo denied knowledge. ThinkPad Spyware (2015): Lenovo was found to have pre-installed Omniture software (a web analytics tool) on ThinkPad and ThinkCentre devices, which collected detailed user behavior data, including keystrokes and browsing habits. This was done without clear user consent and sparked privacy concerns. Customer Service Failures and Refusal to Refund (2022–2026): Multiple users report fraudulent replacement practices, such as sending lower-spec laptops than ordered (e.g., a 1TB SSD instead of 2TB), refusing refunds, and ignoring customer complaints. One user reported being denied a refund for over a year despite returning a defective gaming laptop, with Lenovo repeatedly failing to respond or escalate cases—even after threats of legal action. Product Misrepresentation and Delayed Shipments (2022): Customers reported false delivery timelines—such as a Cyber Monday order taking over a month to ship—leading to missed deliveries and poor communication. One Reddit user called it a "scam" due to misleading advertising and unresponsive support. Security and Trust Erosion: The repeated pattern of pre-installing dangerous software, ignoring security warnings, and failing to act responsibly has led to widespread distrust. Experts and users alike now warn that Lenovo devices may be compromised at the firmware level, and many advise avoiding Lenovo products for sensitive or secure tasks. These incidents reflect a recurring pattern of security negligence, poor customer service, and questionable business practices, raising serious concerns about Lenovo’s integrity and long-term reliability.