Alright, thanks for your answer. That was my reasoning for everything: I didn’t believe running graphene was usable because it wasn’t for my use case, and I assumed it would be the case for everyone (wrongly obviously, although we’re on Lemmy so people here and on this community are probably more tech savvy)

I’ll check the video, thanks for sharing

Hold on, you think GrapheneOS isn’t perfectly private (and you’d be right, it isn’t, and their main focus is security anyway) but you think iPhones are better?

I think Graphene without play services is a lot better than iPhones, and with play services, it’s worse

Why, because Apple told you it is?

Because play services are deeply integrated into many apps, and Google is known for not E2EE anything and being an advertising company. They have an enormous interest in gathering as much data as possible for commercial purposes, while Apple likely only have a statistical interest for their business decisions

A lot of what apple offers is wind and I’m aware of it, but having even a small thing is better than giving out your data to the monster that is Google.

If you manage to sell me Android then congrats, because I fucking hate Apple but hate Android even more because of Google

Do you believe a Samsung phone (or any authorized ROM with relatively good price/performance ratio) running with their provided OS for example would be better than an iPhone?

Private spaces aren’t perfect, can’t run two version of a same app on different profiles

What the GrapheneOS team has achieved is technically impressive

Sure but it’s not nearly enough for me

The phone is fully functional and we’re definitely not living 10 years in the past.

Not my experience with it

You should give it a proper try and form a facts-based opinion, or stop talking about it altogether.

That’s what I did and I hated it. So many small problems, things that took time:

• Android carauto thing not working well or requiring specific permissions without really telling me how private this all is
• having to install apps for basic things because the default provided ones are… really not great, including a keyboard that actually works with password managers and credentials auto completion
• phone taking quite some time to start after updating because it’s optimizing apps or something, then optimizing apps again in background which eats the battery
• having things not work because of play integrity
• mobile NFC payment not working (Google Pay)
• super frequent Android bugs when switching Google play accounts (is this specific to graphene or is it Google play that is fucked? I don’t know)
• no way to reset or cheat the profile/unique advertising ID used for apps, so they can track you even after a reinstall (this really should be implemented. Advertising a privacy phone without that is sad)
• google play having deep integration in most apps, like wtf I get a rating popup from google play? Was expecting better privacy, they essentially know most apps I’m on at all time
• play store seems to know all apps on my phone, even those not installed through it?

I probably forgot a lot. And yes, many problems are not specific to graphene but to custom ROM but that was my experience with it

Also, I must stress that it was also my first experience with Android. Always have been an iOS user. I switched back.

So yea, while having sandboxed is good, it’s still phoning home all the time

I believe you got it right. There’s an important part of me but it’s clear that it’s not ready for mainstream use due to too many edge cases

I know it made it really annoying for me to hear that X OS works nice and stuff when I didn’t have the same experience at all because I wasn’t willing to make the same compromises

I still believe this should be highlighted more. I feel that is talked about in the Windows vs Linux debate but pretty silenced when it comes to Normal vs Custom phone ROM, where I believe the problems are indefinitely harder to solve

🥺

I imagine you were into tech and computers when you were younger? That’s really rare to see amongst elders I believe

What’s the alternative(s) you use and enjoy?

I’ve done both app and phone browser banking, and they’re pretty interchangeable, just set up site shortcuts on your home screen instead

Won’t work for things like neobanks (revolut, n26, trade republic, sumeria)

Also many banks have a disastrous web interface in my country, and card 2FA is sometimes only done on the app for internet payments

I know not having the app makes me unable to get Burger King offers, or use the Yuka app, both of which I really need

yea I guess, I meant it goes from spyware to really intrusive

no bank apps? no google maps? no fast food or taxi app? no ‘mainstream’ social media? that’s your only phone?

You’re one of rare people then. I couldn’t do it.

microg might be the best bet but isn’t it a pain to make it work with graphene? Graphene pushes sandboxed services

All apps doing store verifications will keep you out though, and that’s annoying. Fuck the play integrity api

You still lose access to notifications, and some apps straight up don’t work (those using Play integrity, but not only)

To be fair i’ve not tried fucking up with this too much but I know it’s implemented in a lot of apps

https://lemmy.super.ynh.fr/comment/363277

you need to use (and install it) to use the vast majority of apps

I’m typing this via GrapheneOS and I don’t at all feel like I’m living 10 years in the past lol.

and you don’t have play services installed?

no LLM/AI crap

oh so you’re one of them

random assumptions without data backing it up

Be my guest, uninstall GPServices and see. It’s known that all mainstream apps require it. Things like youtube obviously, and all google apps, uber, lyft, reddit, bank apps, discord (unsure), mcdonalds, burger king, yuka… many smaller apps and many games as well. If they work by luck, then you likely won’t have notifications. There’s no easy database for this and you probably know it

Then, for the privacy points, then you also know google’s privacy policy. Google play services is closed source, so yea, good luck finding proof for this, just like for apple

ad hominem

where? Criticizing something specific inherently implies there is a better alternative, or you wouldn’t be focused specifically on apple. I’m saying android is not and AOSP is not viable due to being an outdated user experience and supporting much much less apps and features, as well as not really being used without play services

Did I say it did? Maybe I worded it wrong but I meant that you need to use (and install it) to use the vast majority of apps, and it’s deeply integrated, in the play store and apps… and affects many parts of android

If you do install it, which you probably will unless you’re okay with living 10 years in the past and losing time, then you’re pretty much back to square one

You’ll either end up installing google play services which will put you in a similar privacy nightmare, although it might not run as root anymore, or not use it and be locked out of the vast majority of apps, and at this point that’s not a modern smartphone anymore

yet builds on a non Privacy respecting OS

What would be the alternative? Android is also a non privacy respecting OS and is even worse.

firefox based and availible for linux and Android FOSS

That’s nice, but no one uses android FOSS and everyone is using google play services. Firefox is also not very privacy respecting but that’s out of the subject anyways.

False. AOSP does not have Gservices, and has enough forks for hardware (Linaege, Graphene, Calyx, /e/)

Yes, and it’s not usable for your everyday life. Enjoy running less than 10% apps on the market. All forks add Google Play services support because it’s pretty much mandatory nowadays.

So you just posted some random comment just because?

I’m just going to write again what I wrote

This went over your head. I know the post was about Apple and I was pointing out that android is likely worse for privacy

because you made it seem like Apple was a bad solution and as there’s only android left, you made it seem like it was privacy respecting

Also false, see my Point about AOSP.

I disagree, see my point about AOSP too

btw google are making aosp harder to use now, see grapheneos’s post

It pretty much just sandboxes google play services. You still need to use it for many things and you can see it’s deeply integrated in many places.

Agreed

I’ll still argue that Apple is on paper less bad than Android, but being closed-source we never know, especially since they are willing to lie to protect their interests. They’re often hit with FUD though.

We really need the ‘freedom’ of android and the aesthetics and ‘ease of use’ of ios, without the proprietary bullshit, vendor lock-in and the privacy nightmare

My sources say otherwise… Apple has an interest in collecting your data.

It does for sure, but it will always be far less aggressive about it than Google. Most sensitive data is either stored in device and semi-handled there, or quickly deleted (although we know everything that goes to a USA server is likely stored forever)

A lot of this data can be opted out on installation, which can’t really be said for Android iirc

Android also runs Google play services and their other proprietary software with root access on your device, push the Play Integrity API which essentially locks out devices that don’t run their software with root access or dare to use non authorized roms (non authorized you say? Hmm… really similar to Apple…)

Both OS suck big time and I can only hope Android and Apple are freed from the BS done by their owners, and app devs finally stop discriminating users for caring about their data and privacy

but here on lemmy we read the OPs text first before commenting, which also would have answered all your questions

This went over your head. I know the post was about Apple and I was pointing out that android is likely worse for privacy

I know this is not really a thing where you come from

Personal attacks. You love to see it. Really shows the kind of person you are. Why opt for verbal violence and try to discredit me?