Some of you might have heard that following the rumors in 2025, Motorola and GrapheneOS have teamed up to bring the privacy and security-focused platform to Motorola’s phones. Unfortunately, it looks like GrapheneOS will only be limited to Motorola flagships for now.
GrapheneOS only coming to Motorola flagships
According to a post on Mastodon, made in response to a user’s question, it seems that GrapheneOS will only make its way to Motorola flagship devices. This means that if you want to use GrapheneOS on your Motorola device, you’ll need to make sure that it is a flagship model. It also means that owners of Motorola’s cheaper devices will have to sit this one out for now.
It is a pity because one of Motorola’s strengths is in making value for money budget and mid-range devices. Excluding them means a lot of users won’t be able to use GrapheneOS. However, the team behind GrapheneOS claims that this is due to how flagship devices typically come with the hardware and security features it needs.
The post reads, “Lower end devices will take more time to meet our requirements since the updates and security features aren’t as good. It’s mostly due to how Qualcomm handles it. The latest Snapdragon flagships have the best security features. We’ll also need Motorola to start paying them for longer updates below flagships.”
On top of that, GrapheneOS confirmed that these first Motorola flagships will actually cost more than comparable Pixel phones. Especially since they’ll be using higher-end hardware to meet the OS’s security requirements.
It also says that the initial Motorola devices that support GrapheneOS will be available in 2027.
What is GrapheneOS?
Just in case you’re hearing about this for the first time, GrapheneOS is based on the Android Open Source Project. However, one of the differentiating factors is that it places value on privacy and security. As such, it does not come bundled with any of Google’s apps or services.
In some ways it’s ironic. One of the reasons many choose Android is because of its tight integration with Google. However, we suppose there are users out there who like Android’s features and functions, not because of its Google integration. That being said, this doesn’t mean users can’t run Google’s apps.
The operating system comes with a Sandboxed Google Play feature. This lets users run Google Play Services as isolated apps with restricted permissions. So, if you own a flagship Motorola device that you’d like to decouple from Google, then this upcoming release is worth waiting for.
The post GrapheneOS Says Its First Motorola Phones Will Skip the Budget Tier appeared first on Android Headlines.
