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Comment by sdcfgy | Hacker News Reader

Urgh I was about to buy one for GOS. Maybe back to iPhone it is.

You can get a Pixel 10 or wait for the upcoming Motorola flagship with GrapheneOS support. Pixel 11 only has an incremental CPU upgrade and the same GPU as the Pixel 11 anyway. It isn't much of a hardware upgrade and is even a downgrade for RAM with the base Pro devices. It's more expensive than the Pixel 10 was too.

The upcoming Motorola flagship will have a dramatically better CPU and GPU than the Pixel 11 and competitive cameras. It will still have 7 years of updates, MTE and a secure element with the features used by GrapheneOS. Motorola Signature (2026) is the predecessor not quite meeting our requirements mainly due to lack of MTE but also lack of other features which had to be developed.

Eagerly waiting for the Motorola flagship! Will it be released worldwide?

It should be more globally available than Pixels. Look at the availability of the existing Motorola Signature (2026) or the more recently launched Razr Fold (2026) and Razr Ultra (2026). Those 2026 devices won't support GrapheneOS, but the successor the Motorola Signature will. We don't know precise details about folding devices yet.

Motorola doesn't have a great track records for flagships smartphones. I will keep finger crossed that we won't have to choose again between security and features but either way it's a great news, and I truly hope that GrapheneOS will be adopted by more manufacturers in the future

Motorola Signature (2026) was well received. They committed to 7 years of updates and provided top tier smartphones cameras which were previous limitations. Razr Fold (2026) has the top rated camera for a folding device on DXOMARK, unlike the huge camera downgrade for folding Pixels.

https://www.dxomark.com/smartphones/

We aren't sure when the first Motorola folding devices we can support will be released, but that will happen.

One detail that remains to be seen is whether you'll cater to the EU market, and how the impact of the memory crisis will impact the possible consumer-base. It's a weak market and sales are likely to be only the 'hardcore' users who demand/require security. I sincerely hope there are no numbers you need to hit to keep the partnership going. Sales are not likely to be at first significant, people are extremely price sensitive and I'm not sure GrapheneOS support will draw people in enough to justify the obviously now inflated costs to cover component price increases (and tariffs).

Pixels offer affordable options which is why unless you can cater to that market, a Motorola-only GrapheneOS future will only gain traction if you're able to get a cheaper low/mid-range option out there, akin to the Pixel A-series.

Much of that is out of their hands unfortunately. Motorola don't use the latest Snapdragon SoCs in most of their more affordable models, and Qualcomm are the only ones so far (outside Samsung/Google) who seem willing to support what is needed (MTE, Android SE imp etc.)

One thing about Motorola. They aren't known for supporting devices long term with fast updates.

Is there any guarantee that in 4 years this device will be getting monthly patches, source and builds regularly?

That's the point of GrapheneOS. They've been excellent at providing fast updates and long-term support for their supported devices.

Let Motorola do the hardware and GrapheneOS the software.

As far as I know, only Motorola is given access to the driver source code for all the chips, which then as part of using it, they are obligated to release it, which then GrapheneOS can then access and use it.

As a result, Motorola's software support is just as important as Motorola's hardware

We won't have to depend on Motorola's public OS releases for access to the firmware and drivers as we do for Pixels. We'll also have access to a lot more than what's mandatory to provide due to GPLv2.

Oh that is very exciting to hear!

GrapheneOS is fully dependant on the OEM of the phone to supply them with up to date drivers and can't support their builds longer than that.

We won't have to depend on Motorola's public OS releases for access to the firmware and drivers as we do for Pixels though.

Let's see how that goes considering Motorola's track record of support :)

Motorola Signature (2026) has 7 years of support and the successor to it is what we'll be supporting. GrapheneOS will be providing the updates for a device running GrapheneOS so it doesn't particularly matter how quickly they ship the AOSP patches or major Android updates themselves. GrapheneOS already provides AOSP patches months before Pixels via our security preview releases. We provide Linux kernel patches many months earlier than Pixels but it's currently limited by the speed of Greg KH's GKI LTS branch unless we start doing it ourselves again.

Motorola will directly Qualcomm firmware and drivers we need which are mainly from Qualcomm. The updates will be up to us.

Is the Motorola partnership that they're ensuring support in the phone, and helping the port with docs/support perhaps, or is it even actually shipping with GrapheneOS?

They're implementing all of the features required by GrapheneOS, are helping us port GrapheneOS to the devices and may help us maintain it. They'll provide us with the drivers and firmware needed to support it too. Selling devices with GrapheneOS is planned but the details and timeline aren't worked out.

Wouldn't OHA agreements prevent shipping a non-Google-certified Android? Unless you mean a future device with GrapheneOS might potentially go through CTS and ship with Google apps preinstalled?

OEMs are fully allowed to include official support for GrapheneOS and sell batches of devices to companies selling those devices with GrapheneOS. It isn't hard to work around Google's licensing terms. It's already being done by multiple OEMs today.

Google's licensing terms are also clearly a blatant violation of antitrust law. The licensing terms have already been invalidated in multiple countries including South Korea. Samsung is no longer bound by the same terms, which isn't fair to other OEMs.

> Selling devices with GrapheneOS is planned but the details and timeline aren't worked out.

I hope they get worked out in short order. I'd love to buy one preconfigured if for no other reason then I'd like to show my support.

It also shows more of a commitment by Motorola. Harder to suddenly forget about providing you with what you need if they're selling gOS preinstalled.

Cool! Thanks.

Same here! I had everything lined up to import the phone just for GrapheneOS!

Google just can't help being a fucking disappointment at every single opportunity!

Just buy whichever device GOS does support right now. It's always been very picky about device support.

They have bare minimum sane standards for device support but it seems picky from the outside because most Android OEMs are incompetent.

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