tl;dw:
1. it's expensive
2. requires online connection and account to unlock bootloader
3. lenovo (the parent company) had shady behavior in the past
tl;dw:
1. it's expensive
2. requires online connection and account to unlock bootloader
3. lenovo (the parent company) had shady behavior in the past
From the grapheneos installation instructions: """ On device model variants (SKUs) which support being sold as locked devices by carriers, enabling OEM unlocking requires internet access so that the stock OS can check if the device was sold as locked by a carrier. """
You can do the Pixel unlocking whilst driving by the random McD.
I'm quite surprised it flies with the team.
That's not much of a distinction considering that it's trivial to create an email/account (without a phone number, even!) with fake information.
One is 5 seconds on wifi, second is grumbly attempts to create throwaway email to create the throwaway account.
I agree in principle but disagree because I hate unnecessary friction.
That's horrible. I'm surprised the GOS team is okay with this.
Like, it will be Qualcomm, it will support unlockng, relocking, custom keys and will not have a secret debug key - otherwise there simply would be absolutely no deal with GoS.
IMO these new flagships will not be fully impacted by these issues (if at all), considering how much of the partnership initiative started* at Motorola.
It was likely them providing the GOS team with source code of some of the most critical patches, when Google withheld it for months waiting for Samsung to release patches.
Why? I guess to get the bragging rights to have the most secure android handsets in the world, to improve their own codebase (GOS pushed a lot of patches upstream and perhaps the hardware).
I'm cautiously optimistic - given how allergic the team are to the notion of the enforced compliance imposed by Google, I think it's likely these new flagships will be automatically unlocked in the same way pixels are.
I'm pretty sure reading on Mastodon that it was another OEM that provided them with embargoed patches, but I can't find the Toot now.
2. This sucks but is basically required to protect against phone theft (though phones could be shipped in an unlock-once state, until you set them up)
3. So what? What company has never been shady?