GrapheneOS on Pixels getting extended Android support

grapheneos.social

67 points·akyuu··6 comments

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The title is ambiguous. It might sound like it is about

> "GrapheneOS on Pixels" getting "extended Android support"

But it is really about

> GrapheneOS (commenting) on "Pixels getting extended Android support"

Thanks, your disambiguation helped me

Also - it's an extension of OS updates but these phones were already getting security updates for the same period.

Example: Previously, Pixel 6 was to receive 3 years of OS updates and 5 years of security updates. Now it will receive 5 years of both.

Yeah, I'd call this kind of title outright misleading. Graphene is getting longer support because Google will support the phones for longer.

It’s great that Google is extending the support, and that GrapheneOS can benefit from it.

I bought a Pixel 4a specifically for installing GrapheneOS. I used it happily for almost 3 years, until EOL firmware support. The phone worked fine, but I wanted the reassurance of firmware security updates.

I was going to get a Pixel 6/7 (I forget which was available at the time) to use GrapheneOS again, but I was so annoyed at Google for only supporting firmware for 3 years, that I decided to switch to an iPhone SE.

Shortly after this, I believe the next Pixel came out with 5+ years support. I had some regret, but the iPhone SE is OK, and I didn’t want to buy a new phone just for the sake of it.

I will probably switch back to GrapheneOS for my next phone, as it really is a great mobile OS. Hopefully the project is still going strong by then.

As a point of clarification: all Pixel phones starting with the 6 were guaranteed 5 years of firmware support. Some phones only had 3 years of OS upgrades (vs 5 years of security patches). Now everything is getting 5 years of OS upgrades.

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