I switched a few months ago and overall its been an excellent experience. Some pitfalls though:
Banking apps may not work, Santander in the UK for example but I’m going to transfer away from them
Contactless pay through google wallet doesn’t work, I couldn’t find a way to attach a card to the back of my phone and also keep pixel snap usable so I bought a small pixel snap wallet that works nicely
Recently Volkswagen and vw group enabled google play attestation for their app and not hardware attestation, so my cars app no longer works. This is probably the most frustrating for me because as an EV owner there’s no other way to track the charge of your car other than via the app. This is particularly annoying when using public charge points and you can’t track the charge progress when walking away from the car. First world problem, I can just leave it alone and let it charge without keeping an eye on it but that’s annoying to me, I’m sure I’ll get over it.
Because of the above, I’m concerned other apps may start to follow suit. For example “too good to go” in the UK is “not compatible” with my device from the play store because it doesn’t pass the play attestation… Hopefully it’s not a trend.
Overall though I would highly recommend. All the other main features work flawlessly.
One of my banking apps enabled Google Play attestation. It’s really infuriating. I don’t understand the point either - AFAIK all apps need to be signed with the dev’s private key anyway, don’t they? If they are then why would anyone care where I downloaded it from?
Almost everything just works after installing sandboxed Google Play Services. For a few apps you have to tweak a setting to turn off some of GrapheneOS’s exploit protections. But I’ve found very few that refuse to run, and nothing indispensable. If you don’t like your main profile having Play Services you can set them up under a second profile or a private area and keep the apps that use them away from your main profile.
The other thing that might be a dealbreaker for you is no contactless payments with things like google wallet will work. But you could always just attach your credit card to the back of your phone and :tada: it works again lol
There’s several EU countries that do. Some of them as part of a push for sovereignty, but most, I think, cause they developed their solutions before Google Wallet was enabled in that country.
I’m unaware of anyone but curve, and curve seem to shadow-ban you for having rooted or weird phones and then claim kyc failure. In general they are quite shady and have poor customer service.
You know any other ones? Would be very useful since I think anyone in the eurozone could then use those.
That’s actually very promising. It’s europe, I should just go and see if I can open an account with them even without german residence.
Do they have decent online-banking and savings accounts?
Yeah, I was thinking of separate profiles in general, and had never encountered the concept of an employer controlled separate profile. When I needed a device for something work related, I usually got issued a phone.
0% of the apps/methods available at the time worked with my employers setup. I did everything except the adb method. ended up getting a crap phone for work. it just sits on my desk anyway.
that is the point of the work profile when used as the non-primary profile.
same phone; but work profile cannot see or interact with the primary profile or configure the device. if the corporate account is used as the primary, they can wipe the phone remotely.
Ive only got one gripe with it and its the requirement for RCS. I do prefer to use signal but genuinely only one person I know has gotten on to it. I hate using google messages but for folks that send me bulk pictures from iOS its just a hassle until there’s a Foss one that works but there isnt to my knowledge. I do know RCS only works on the main profile goo
Amazing for me tbh. I only had to give up contactless payment since my bank switched to google wallet and I have 0 google apps on my phone. Obtanium and Aurora store are life savers.
How’s the app support? I want to switch if/when the Motorola phones come out, but I’m wondering how many of my apps/services I’ll have to abandon.
I switched a few months ago and overall its been an excellent experience. Some pitfalls though:
Overall though I would highly recommend. All the other main features work flawlessly.
One of my banking apps enabled Google Play attestation. It’s really infuriating. I don’t understand the point either - AFAIK all apps need to be signed with the dev’s private key anyway, don’t they? If they are then why would anyone care where I downloaded it from?
Take a look at OVMS (open vehicle monitoring system). I use it since I have an EV because I don’t want to pay for “connected services”.
Almost everything just works after installing sandboxed Google Play Services. For a few apps you have to tweak a setting to turn off some of GrapheneOS’s exploit protections. But I’ve found very few that refuse to run, and nothing indispensable. If you don’t like your main profile having Play Services you can set them up under a second profile or a private area and keep the apps that use them away from your main profile.
The other thing that might be a dealbreaker for you is no contactless payments with things like google wallet will work. But you could always just attach your credit card to the back of your phone and :tada: it works again lol
Contactless payments technically work fine, just not via Google Wallet. Banks that have their own tap to pay app usually don’t have that problem.
You must be lucky to have such banks in your country.
There’s several EU countries that do. Some of them as part of a push for sovereignty, but most, I think, cause they developed their solutions before Google Wallet was enabled in that country.
I’m unaware of anyone but curve, and curve seem to shadow-ban you for having rooted or weird phones and then claim kyc failure. In general they are quite shady and have poor customer service.
You know any other ones? Would be very useful since I think anyone in the eurozone could then use those.
Here in Germany, it’s pretty much Sparkassen and Volksbanken. One are city/state owned, the others are pretty much a co-op.
This is pretty Germany specific. Heard from friends elsewhere they had some luck with social options, but don’t have a list Handy rn.
That’s actually very promising. It’s europe, I should just go and see if I can open an account with them even without german residence.
Do they have decent online-banking and savings accounts?
I can confirm that the Sparkasse Mobiles Bezahlen in Germany works with GrapheneOS (Pixel 7 Pro)
There was no work profile support when I last tried to convert. deal breaker, atm.
That has been working fine for years at this point.
me and the other folks trying to get this working disagree. there are several threads about it on the GOS forum.
Yeah, I was thinking of separate profiles in general, and had never encountered the concept of an employer controlled separate profile. When I needed a device for something work related, I usually got issued a phone.
Those were the days…I used to have a personal phone, corporate phone and a site phone! The multi phone inconvenience was real…
Just grab an app like Shelter.
0% of the apps/methods available at the time worked with my employers setup. I did everything except the adb method. ended up getting a crap phone for work. it just sits on my desk anyway.
Oh, you mean a profile set up by your employer. Actually, dunno whether that works. I never let any employer touch a personal device.
that is the point of the work profile when used as the non-primary profile.
same phone; but work profile cannot see or interact with the primary profile or configure the device. if the corporate account is used as the primary, they can wipe the phone remotely.
Makes sense. I always liked the symbolic act of shutting down my work issued phone when I didn’t need to be reachable, but I see the convenience here.
Wouldn’t the private space functionality work for that?
Or create full separate user profile, although thay is much less convenient.
Ive only got one gripe with it and its the requirement for RCS. I do prefer to use signal but genuinely only one person I know has gotten on to it. I hate using google messages but for folks that send me bulk pictures from iOS its just a hassle until there’s a Foss one that works but there isnt to my knowledge. I do know RCS only works on the main profile goo
Amazing for me tbh. I only had to give up contactless payment since my bank switched to google wallet and I have 0 google apps on my phone. Obtanium and Aurora store are life savers.
Some bank apps may not work, but you can check by searching for you bank name + GrapheneOS
I found this list helpful: https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compatibility-with-grapheneos/
I also found that one of the ones I use would only work in the Owner profile with Gplay services so the secondary profile wasn’t an option for it.
I’ve had zero apps not work, including my banking apps.