yaro330

It's a system that allows even those old systems to still use banking reliably and securely, so yeah I'd say it's an excellent system. As far as GrapheneOS goes - now that they're partnered with Motorola they might actually get some certification, along with a proper security audit from Google. Not sure what the details of the supported functionality are gonna be there.

Nah SafetyNet offloaded a huge chunk of security on Android from app makers to Google/AOSP, it's an excellent system that works great for 99.99% of uses. It's what allows safe and fast banking on Android in general.

Cellular modems are huge, complex, draw tons of power and have high price tags. In the market that is already cutthroat to the extreme I can 100% see why they'd skip it.

I get that but you have two sources saying different things which is kinda weird when the point of the OS is extreme security paranoia.

This ballpark has been the case since 8 gen 1 days and there were always OnePlus and Xiaomi undercutting everyone with their sub-1000 flagships. I got my OP15 for like 800 eur.

These prices are insane though. Just absurd.

Still in the league of its own in the Android land.

Then go and install that. This is a Google services level limitation which won't be present if you don't use them. What's the problem?

If your solution requires "why doesn't everyone just" then you don't have a solution. People don't read warnings, license agreements, nothing.

That's the wrong angle. It's the kind of kyc that involves knowing who can distribute software on your platform.

I think the market would be huge, especially if it's the "can complete a large task in 3 turns instead of 15" kind of smart. Lots of people and companies would pay for quality + speed.

I reckon they were just checking for money or hidden compartments. Sending books abroad packed with money is extremely common from the US, though not sure how frequently people do that with onboard luggage.

No sane person claimed this.

To be fair, the trade in offers are larger this year than during P10 release window, at least where I live. So I was able to go from 10 Pro 16/256 to 11P 16/512 for something like 650 eur. It's a great deal IMHO as the SoC + modem combo is at least 30 to 40% more efficient. The phone runs faster, cooler and I don't have the battery anxiety that I got after 10 Pro.

I used the OP15 in the meantime and its ram management and (ironically enough) performance in day to day apps was somehow much worse. It unloaded apps, skipped notifications, apps took longer to open. Google have put in a lot of work into software ahead of the rampocalipse.

What the fuck are you talking about? How is Disco Elysium a specialized browser? Or banking apps? What does this even mean?

Yes they all run in a sandbox, but there's a permissions system that they can exploit.

> I.e. why do apps need stores and websites don't? your browser is, in a way, the store for your websites. You're only as protected from the site's fuckery as the browser is. And generally modern browsers are very well protected.

I mean that's the same argument as youtubers complaining about partner programme enrollment requirements being raised. Do you genuinely think your app should not have 12 testers? What if some youtuber picks it up for a promo, you get 1000 users in a day and all of them hit the same bug or someone finds a way to break the app and read everyone's actions done in the app?

Hobbyist are cool and all but I'm sure google got sick of one update publishers a long time ago and decided to only allow apps that can actually attract any sort of public.

> What will that actually do?

Is your imagination actually that limited? Go on wikipedia and look up the list of incurable illnesses and go through each one. Go check the evolutionary tree of dinosaurs and check that as well.

You're not the carpenter though, the code you wrote can rarely do things on its own, you need a toolchain or an interpreter, or something to run it with. Toolchains use your code as rough reference, turning you into a designer/architect. I don't endorse it when people fully offload development to LLMs, that's lazy and irresponsible, but how I see most devs use it (not the loud minority) it's just another tool in the arsenal. If it lets you skip the annoying steps and focus on the logic - excellent, great, I'm not great at Java, i don't know all of its built in APIs, I can ask an LLM that I need this and this API to communicate with C++ layer, perform the following logic, output the following logs, after which I can audit and validate the code to the best of my ability. Is that such a bad thing? Did a caveman with a stick reject the hammer and the axe?

It's pretty clear that you have an extremely limited exposure to the custom Android development space, since you never rebutted any of the points I brought up. Custom android was never easy and never will be. And it's fundamentally incompatible with the concept of having a truly secure env on your device (same as in the PC space, ironically enough).

> Again, only because the platforms are locked down and there is no single standardized target for universally bootable ROMs in the way a Linux ISO can boot on any PC.

Couple of things here. Android was never that open to begin with. There were always (and still going) issues with the kernel sources being withheld indefinitely, AOSP side changes are almost never released at all, iirc only Google released anything. Bootloaders were always an issue, not all manufacturers had unlockable (or easily unlockable) bootloaders.

Ironically, Google were always the spearhead of the standartization in the Android world. Project Treble and stuff resulted in the fact that almost any Android device released these days can run a generic Android image, it's not gonna be as functional as the original Android, but it's something.

Yes, I am on the younger side, that's why I know how it was in the Android world. Nobody is interested in reinstalling OS-es on their phones because the amount of effort to create an Android ISO that's as usable as what's preinstalled is truly gigantic. Android flavours are heavily customized for the needs of the OEM, and for the hardware that they're gonna run on.

It's a niche, always was and always will be. A niche powered by a few large players like LOS or GOS, that actually get paid somehow or heavily work for the idea, and an army of teenage unpaid maintainers, who quit the maintainership as soon as they get a properly paying job that takes most of their time (me).

I hate the power button change myself, but 1. It was turned into the Assistant button by default for many years now. 2. Can be switched back easily in settings.

> there's 50 apps you don't need Where are you getting your pixels? Mine came with all the essentials, I don't remember disabling anything in particular. No game demos, no preloaded meta cancer, just the normal google suite.

> The OS feels super bloated compared to GrapheneOS.

When was that ever not the case? When was a stock OS lighter than a custom flavour on any phone? You can't ship Android in the state that custom OS-es do, you won't pass the certification to get Google's goodies like OTA service and preinstalled play store. Don't quite get the Gemini argument either. You're buying a Gemini phone that touts AI everywhere on its promotional page. What do you expect?

What are you talking about? You're making zero sense. I've been in the niche of modifying and installing my own ROMs, then to kernels, and now doing the same things commercially.

It is a niche, it always was. There was never a mass community of users, the most installs you used to see on any given AOSP based project is maybe 20-30K for the most popular devices like Redmis, Pocos or Google Nexus phones.

It's still a niche, and things that users do and used to do to their phones are fundamentally incompatible with Android's security model. Root access, magisk, xposed, overall zero or near zero security validation from the security perspective on all ROMs but Graphene (maybe some others, I haven't followed the sphere for a while).

The GPU claim is contradicted by pretty much every benchmark though.

> Stock Pixel is an awful experience. So many useless notifications, popups, ads, privacy not by default.

Huh? What pixel are you on? You only get notifications from stuff you install after the initial setup is done. And even then you can outright mute applications, completely.

> Hmm... Let's try reframing this: "as much as it seems beloved here, people that install their own operating systems on PCs are the very definition of niche users"

I mean yeah, 99% of people never installed an OS and never will, what's your point here?

A "Google bad" essay gets a lot more clicks.

They're running rings around google... by enabling features that google develops/support?

> The nearly useless LED added to the back of the Pixel 11 likely costs significantly more than the extra die space for MTE support in the CPU cache.

How is a bunch of LEDs more expensive than literal die space from TSMC? The chip is probably the most expensive part of the phone, a bunch of LEDs at a few cents per unit are infinitely cheaper than extra die space for a feature 99.99% of users won't use.

> Lots of apps and websites only run smoothly on newer GPUs, too.

GPU is barely used in non-3D applications. My OP15 runs normal apps and websites just as well as my Pixel 10 Pro did. Speedometer 3.1 returns 10% higher scores in favour of the OP, even though it has the latest and greatest qcom chip.

UI experience is all about scheduler tuning, drawing pipeline optimizations and (to a much lesser degree) single core performance. Anything above Cortex X1 can have perfect 120 fps anywhere, without a major energy penalty, if the software is well optimized. I know because we did experiments like that when I was still doing custom Android kernels.

Not a single time did we need to do anything to the GPU, most of the time it's in 2D clocks and never wakes up.

> They supported Pixel 10 because they supported every new Pixel that wasn’t a security downgrade and shortly preceding a better alternative. The logic isn’t “performance bad therefore no upgrade”, it’s “no upgrade for a bunch of other reasons, and it’s not like we’re missing out on a 3x performance improvement”.

Not my question. I get why P10 was supported, I don't get why it's recommended by the person running the account, when it's objectively just a more expensive P9 with worse battery life and running warmer.

> Pixel 11 has an incremental upgrade to the CPU

You keep repeating this everywhere but this is just plainly wrong. They went from an old big.Little (with middle cores) arrangement that everyone abandoned for flagship chips generations ago, with core arches that were 2-3 generations behind competition, to a modern, up to date arrangement. There's literally nothing newer that they could've gotten from Arm, and other CPUs are releasing with C1 generation.

And I don't get your angle on the GPU. GOS is not gaming oriented, Pixels are not gaming oriented, and never were. They have a decent NPU to handle AI, a decent ISP to handle cameras, what more do you need the GPU for? Why would they put in a PC grade monster like Qualcomm?

Same for the modem, it's well known that Qualcomm are way ahead of the game, but they also charge like crazy for their SOCs and are a horrific partner to work with. They treat clients like shit, I get why Google ditched them when they were able to.

And you keep recommending P10 when it's genuinely a non improvement over P9, with worse battery life and running hotter, and the same modem. What the f is your angle? Is Micay back to GOS?

All these funny jabs at Android's security meanwhile Pixels are literally one of the most secure devices in the industry and Google invest tons into security.

Hardware attestation stands unbroken to my knowledge, only software attestation can be faked, and even then it's a constant cat and mouse game which Google continues playing until they are done with Pixel 3 generation.

C2PA is not immune to the analogue hole, sure, but dark room + photo of a photo approach falls apart the moment you bake in depth data into the image, which is already done.