Which ones are the biggest show stoppers for you? I'm curious because I find most of them to be complete non issues or even a user error.
> Poor UI guidelines cause serious problems
> Doesn’t always recognize wired headphones when they’re plugged in the first time. Sometimes even the second time.
> Max volume is rather low for wired headphones, and there doesn’t seem to be a way to increase it.
> No decent Photos app alternative, except Google Photos but apparently with a lot of issues (I'm paraphrasing this one, it's really long)
> Google Wallet does not support NFC payments due to restrictions that Google imposes
> App Store madness
I recognize that some of those are features and not bugs for some users, like the "App Store madness" and the lack of a Photos app alternative, but overall those seem like huge gaps that make it a non-serious alternative.
Really I'm not sure why anyone who values convenience over security and privacy would even consider GrapheneOS. It's not made for normies. It's not advertised towards normies. It's an OS for schizos and tinkerers like me. It will never be a "serious alternative" to whatever manufacturers ship with their devices.
What really grinds my gears is people installing GrapheneOS and then loading google play services onto it. What's the point? Just stick with the stock OS. It works better and has all the features you want.
It makes a lot of sense to do that, since GrapheneOS sandboxes Google Play Services like any other app and you can revoke most of its permissions. On stock OS Play Services is privileged and has access to pretty much everything. So, using GrapheneOS with Play Services is a vast privacy/security improvement. And then we haven't even talked about rerouting location requests, etc.
Even if would use GrapheneOS and then set it up as closely as possible to Pixel OS, you still benefit from a lot of security/privacy improvements.
Personally I need them for my banking app (which is a shame but here we are), but I disallow network access for Google Play Services + disable Google Play app. The bank app works nice with that.
E.g. I need WhatsApp, because all of our daughter's school stuff, birthday parties, etc. is arranged through WhatsApp. GrapheneOS provides good middle ways. A new user could install Play Services in the owner profile and still get much better security than stock Android (because many more mitigations) and better privacy (because sandboxed Google Play). Next, they might have a separate profile for apps that require Play Services. Finally, once these apps are not needed anymore, they could get completely rid of Play Services.
A lie to make weak people feel slightly better about their crippling smartphone dependency.
It has nothing to do with weakness. People live in a world where they have social contacts and obligations (mortgage apps, banking apps, etc.) that happen to require apps that use Google Play Services. I am happy if people try to remove as many of the dependencies as they can get away with GrapheneOS.
Don't throw away the baby with the bathwater.