
I’ve introduced GrapheneOS to a lot of friends and acquaintances, and I often see a mix of excitement and hesitation. Not because GrapheneOS doesn’t deliver on its promises, but because it practically requires you to buy Google’s Pixel line of smartphones to use it. For an open-source project so laser-focused on delivering a private Android experience, the dependency on Google feels paradoxical.
There are good reasons for this, of course — Google is the only major phone maker that’s generous enough to let you install alternative operating systems. But luckily, that might not be the case for much longer. After years of being limited to just one hardware platform, the team behind GrapheneOS has confirmed they’re working with a “major Android OEM” to bake in official support for the operating system.