I wonder if that decision is going to b0rk their coming partnership with Motorola. I was looking forward to a non-pixel Graphene phone.
this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2026
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Literally discussed in the article
But this statement by the GrapheneOS team raises an obvious question about that deal. Motorola is a commercial hardware vendor selling devices globally. If it ships a phone running GrapheneOS and that phone lands in a region where age verification is legally mandated at the OS level, Motorola has a compliance problem even if GrapheneOS does not.
The simplest resolution is also the most obvious one: Motorola just does not sell GrapheneOS-powered devices in those regions. Its regular Android lineup continues there, and the GrapheneOS phone ships only in markets where no such law applies.
Literally discussed in the article
Except that I literally didn't ask what a person writing an article thought might be the most obvious solution. I wondered if this decision is going to hurt their partnership, as it's likely that a major manufacturer might not be happy at losing the American and European market, the two regions pushing the hardest for the changes.
Fair enough. My hope is that it's as the article speculates, and the devices are open enough that anyone in the affected places can buy a "normal" one and flash GrapheneOS as you do with a Pixel at the moment.
My hope is that it’s as the article speculates, and the devices are open enough that anyone in the affected places can buy a “normal” one and flash GrapheneOS as you do with a Pixel at the moment.
That would be a fantastic solution. The last time I flashed Graphene, I was amazed at how easy it had become through their web installer. I'd never flashed a ROM so easily prior to that.
It's ridiculous how simple it is! My first ROM flash in the early android days relied on some questionable root hack and following a dodgy wiki for hours (which to be fair is still the case today for some devices), but my last GrapheneOS install just involved plugging my new phone into my old phone and opening a web page.
I'd prefer it if Motorola put whatever OS they feel like and just allow for GrapheneOS to be installed by unlocking/relocking the bootloader, similar to what is already the case on Pixels.
Probably just won't sell those specific models in those regions? All mobile manufacturers already have region specific devices.
I just can't read an article beyond "formerly Twitter". Its been years, everyone on the planet knows.
Elon Musk deadnames his literal child all the time. We're allowed to use the name of the service he illegally deflated before buying, in defiance of SEC regulations. It reminds us of back when it was actually good, before the enshittification and nazification. Back before Grok AI was publicly undressing children for MAGA freaks...
"The social media platform formerly known as Twitter" is sort of its de-facto name, like the artist formerly known as Prince.