[tasty_freeze]

I've been using Graphene on my Pixel 7a for about a year and I'm happy I made the switch. For sure it is a bit rougher than using Google's OS, but not enough to make me regret it.

The main things I miss are (1) when I'm entering text I can't swipe left and right on the space bar to scroll the cursor left and right, and (2) the texting app doesn't just attach reaction emojis to a message -- it quotes the whole message and prefixes it with something like "Marty like blahblahblah". When there is a whole family text chain it isn't uncommon to see the same message 7 times as various people react to the original message.

Anyway, I looked at Google's Android 17 blog and yikes:

"With deep integration between hardware, software and AI, we’re transforming Android from an operating system to an intelligence system. It's about delivering new helpful experiences that anticipate user needs, and it brings more opportunities for engagement with your apps."

https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2026/06/Android-17...

[Cider9986]

> The main things I miss are (1) when I'm entering text I can't swipe left and right on the space bar to scroll the cursor left and right,

GrapheneOS is compatible with the vast, vast majority of Android apps, so you can use GBoard or FUTO keyboard (which I recently switched to from GBoard), to get the ideal experience.

FUTO recently revamped their swipe to type model and it's now more accurate than GBoard in their testing. I am a huge swipe type person, so this is what held me in GBoard's clutches, but now I'm free.

The dataset is open source and anyone can add to it if you're on a mobile device here: https://swipe.futo.org

And you can learn about it here: https://swipe.futo.tech

> the texting app doesn't just attach reaction emojis to a message -- it quotes the whole message and prefixes it with something like "Marty like blahblahblah". When there is a whole family text chain it isn't uncommon to see the same message 7 times as various people react to the original message.

Google messages, the experience you get on PixelOS, is also compatible with GrapheneOS, but you will have to afford network access to sandboxed google play, among other things. I couldn't tell you specifically, but it will work out of the box before you restrict anything. Many people choose to use this setup because it opportunistically adds e2ee for chats between iPhones and other Androids using Google messages.

There's also other SMS apps, but I focused on switching people to Signal so I barely ever use SMS.

Once I replaced the default apps, GrapheneOS became a premium phone experience.

[sivers]

Yes! FUTO keyboard, then go into VOICE INPUT → MODELS → Explore Voice Input Models → English-244: “Best for the most accurate results, but more demanding.”

The voice recognition is built on Whisper, and is amazing. You can speak conversationally for a long time and it gets everything right, with smart decisions based on context.

My stupid thumbs text no more.

[tasty_freeze]

I just did. I had been using FUTO voice, but I see that FUTO keyboard also supports voice input, so I'm not sure if I should delete FUTO voice as being redundant now.

[Groxx]

I don't believe it's necessary, it's move of an "if you want a dedicated voice keyboard, the UX is a little better" option. I don't have both installed though, as anecdotal evidence.

[arcanemachiner]

There's also Heliboard, which has a swipe-type option

[tasty_freeze]

Thanks for your thoughts. I use FUTO voice usually, but there are situations where typing out a short message is better -- eg, in a restaurant or doctor's office or someplace where voice input might bother other people.

I've found graphene's keyboard far more error-prone than the stock android keyboard, but I also don't care to learn swipe to type.

The feature I'm missing is simply that rubbing my finger left or right on the spacebar in text mode causes the cursor insertion point to move left or right on in the text I'm entering. It makes it sooo much easier to correct typos.

[flexagoon]

> I've found graphene's keyboard far more error-prone than the stock android keyboard, but I also don't care to learn swipe to type.

Graphene's keyboard is the stock AOSP keyboard. Most Android systems ship with their own one instead of it, but that's the one that is built into the system by default.

[Cider9986]

They are referring to Gboard and Pixel UI or the stock OS shipped on Pixels.

[Cider9986]

FUTO and GBoard has the feature you're describing and I use it all the time. Pretty much anything you miss from Pixel UI can be attained by simply installing Google's app from the playstore.

[wolvoleo]

The problem I still have with the futo one is that it can't swipe type in multiple languages without switching every time. Gboard can do that. I use 3 languages intertwined constantly so I need that.

So I still use gboard but block its internet access.

[a96]

Have you tried Heliboard? There's a few clicks to do, but I think it has multilingual swipe input.

[danielspace23]

Problem (1) is a keyboard problem, not a GrapheneOS problem. Graphene comes with the stock AOSP keyboard which is very basic, but you can absolutely replace it. Personally I'm using the FUTO Keyboard and it does have that feature, as well as swiping, speech to text and much more.

Maybe you can try installing another SMS app for problem (2)? Much like the stock keyboard, the stock Messaging app is just the AOSP app. Honestly it works fine for me so I don't have a recommendation.

[Groxx]

Regarding 2: that is literally how SMS reactions work. Apps that recognize it just interpret it as "put that emoji on that message". It is unfortunate that it doesn't do that tho.

RCS is different, which you can sometimes get working by installing Google Messages¹, which is essentially the only app that supports RCS any more. Google runs essentially all the servers too.

---

1: There are no third-party RCS apps² because, unlike SMS which has an API and a shared database on the device, RCS is extremely locked down and it's literally impossible to create one in stock Android. This is also why it's only "sometimes" on GOS, the details are very complicated and rather enraging.

2: Samsung had one, but they're shutting it down in favor of Google Messages. A tiny number of other devices / telecoms have their own too, but they're rapidly shutting down as well. RCS is very nearly fully controlled and implemented by Google now, except for iMessage as a client only, for now, and there's no encryption between iMessage<->Google Messages last I checked (but there apparently is between Google Messages... but no normal person can really verify that because it's Just Google Everywhere).

[strcat]

GrapheneOS will eventually have a GrapheneOS RCS app, but for now RCS is fully supported via Google Messages and sandboxed Google Play:

https://grapheneos.org/usage#rcs

[Groxx]

There have been consistent problems with activating RCS, for many years. But it does work for some/many, yes.

And AFAIK they have only been desiring to build their own RCS app, and researching it, but have no concrete plans. It'll probably be extremely hard to do, given how much interaction it requires with individual telecoms, and how large the specs are and how much they change - it'll be signing up for significant dedicated eng/business/etc effort that will never decrease. Though I would very much like it if it does happen.

Personally: it worked for about a year for me, then stopped for several months, then worked for two, then I disabled it. All on the same phone, same OS install, same carrier and phone plan, and same location. No issues at all on stock Android with everything else identical which my wife uses. You can find tons of cases like this with Graphene users, RCS just doesn't work/activate/??? as well for some reason.

[ysnp]

For what it's worth, strcat is the GrapheneOS founder so they will have a keen insight into current plans.

[Groxx]

It's always good to be wrong about good news, then :)

I'll definitely be curious about the source code when that happens, and if it'd be reasonable to get it into a SMS-provider-like shape eventually. Particularly since Android's original PoC did that, but it was abandoned for some reason.

[rookderby]

I agree with this post and add one anecdotal data point.

I had installed graphene os on a pixel but after a couple months and a couple loops between lineage, stock, and graphene, I eventually settled on stock android. I have group messages with family and some of the family are on apple, some on android, and RCS only works with google messages and google services installed.

It's infuriating that I can't send RCS messages unless google allows me to. I want to go back to email or MMS. Supposedly after a month (!!) RCS group chats will fall back to MMS, but that was not my experience. Also, if you turn RCS on/off you may get kicked out of group messages [0].

[0] https://support.google.com/messages/answer/7189714?hl=en

[Groxx]

Yeah, it's pretty awful tbh. I generally recommend disabling RCS, after learning a lot more about it - it feels like a hostile grab at global messaging at this point, heavily entrenched by telecom agreements. Use Signal or something instead.

Initially there were some promising details planned, but much of it hasn't panned out, and plus now it's Just Google™. Like, roughly everyone has heard that RCS brings E2EE privacy, right? Would it surprise you to learn that it was only added to the spec around a year ago, and nobody has it implemented yet? Google has their own thing between Google users, Apple has their own iMessage-only thing, and they both drop crypto when you cross the streams because it isn't in the spec. And neither is practically auditable (allowing auditing is part of the spec btw - have you seen that UI?).

And that's before even touching on the utterly massive amount of the spec that's clearly designed for businesses only, to send you highly customizable interactive UI. Which you can't use as a person. Or build your own app for. https://developers.google.com/business-communications/rcs-bu... / https://rcsforbusiness.google/

It just does not smell good. It's not in our best interests to let it win.

[wolvoleo]

Yeah RCS always has been an embrace extend extinguish thing. The carriers were super pissed to lose their SMS revenue to WhatsApp and iMessage so they came up with this shit to be an active partner in the loop again, and they can bill for it again. Consumers didn't fall for that and it died off.

Unfortunately Google revived it but it's a very poor standard for interoperability. Not only because the lack of true E2EE in the open spec but also because you need to be a blessed party to run an RCS server and communicate with others. You can't run your own or choose a party you trust. It's either your carrier if they bother to run one, or Google.

It's just another power grab. Don't fall for its 'open' guise. They want you to use it so they can make you dependent and lock you in again. There's nothing open about it. If you want privacy, use signal. If you also want an open and federated network, use matrix or xmpp with OMEMO.

[cubefox]

> Yeah RCS always has been an embrace extend extinguish thing. The carriers were super pissed to lose their SMS revenue to WhatsApp and iMessage so they came up with this shit to be an active partner in the loop again, and they can bill for it again. Consumers didn't fall for that and it died off.

I strongly disagree with this negative characterization. RCS was a replacement protocol for the extremely outdated SMS and MMS protocols. Apple only supported SMS/MMS chat with Android users in iMessage, which meant that cross-platform chats were strongly limited in many ways (e.g. the mentioned emoji reacts), which caused many US American kids to be socially punished for having an Android phone, which is likely part of the reason why Apple is so dominant in the US now, especially among younger users. (Other countries mostly don't use iMessage/SMS, but something like WhatsApp, so they never had this problem.)

RCS was the solution to these iMessage/SMS/MMS incompatibilities. It took years for Google to convince Apple to adopt it, and Apple only announced doing so after EU regulations were on the horizon. There were even internal emails which revealed that Apple used their iMessage dominance and the poor Android compatibility via SMS/MMS to boost their market share in the US.

In summary, RCS is great because it is both a modern chat protocol, unlike SMS and MMS, and an open standard, unlike the closed iMessage and WhatsApp protocols, and available cross platform, unlike iMessage.

[wolvoleo]

RCS is not modern. E2EE is only an addon and it's not open. As others have mentioned it's not even available with interoperation. And it was really invented by carriers for exactly that purpose: To regain SMS/MMS revenue. But at this point here in Europe SMS usage between people had vanished anyway (except for spam and poor 2FA implementations)

And the social problems are not a technology problem, it's more a result of the harsh competitive American society. Without blue bubbles there'll be something else that kids will be bullied for. Only when the whole concept of "everyone except the #1 winner is a loser" is dropped this will disappear.

And Google didn't try to convince Apple to do this out of the goodness of their heart. Like I said most of the protocol (except the E2EE) is open but the implementation is not. It gives google even more control. You also won't be able to use it on a PC without a google account which is a big dealbreaker compared to Whatsapp and Signal. iMessage isn't a thing here in Europe anyway (neither is SMS/MMS).

[Groxx]

This is an extremely strange rewriting of history in which Google is some kind of altruist, moved by the plight of suffering school-children in a brief period where the rich bullying the poor (something truly shocking and unprecedented) over the color of their messages simply couldn't be tolerated any further.

[strcat]

RCS via Google Messages and sandboxed Google Play is fully supported on GrapheneOS:

https://grapheneos.org/usage#rcs

[NoGravitas]

Yes. It was kind of a bumpy road getting there, but I haven't had any problems for the last 6 months or so.

[andrepd]

Regarding (1), that's on your keyboard, which you can choose. Maybe you can give Futo a try? https://keyboard.futo.org/

[jstanley]

Why does it need its own F-droid repo?

[ssddanbrown]

Because the code is not provided under a free/open-source license, and therefore does not meet the requirements for the main F-droid repo.

[aorth]

Ah interesting. They use the "FUTO source first" license. https://github.com/futo-org/android-keyboard/blob/master/LIC...

Open source with limitations on commercial use.

[fph]

Technically it's "source-available", not "open-source".

[scns]

Simple Keyboard is on F-Droid too. Supports moving cursor via space bar.

[cURLSagan]

Same for HeliBoard

[hiitsmyaccount]

I use GBoard on GrapheneOS. I just deny it network permission so it can't phone home.

[Walf]

I used to do this but I found it downloads needed language files in the background. So every time it updated, I would clear all the app data, open it again on something innocuous, like a text file, toggle each language I used. Not knowing how long it would take, I'd wait until each seemed to be behaving, then disable network permission. I still don't trust that it doesn't send data off via Play Services.

Now I use Heliboard with the swiping library added. It's not perfect, but has improved, and at least it can give more than three correction options (long–press centre suggestion with ellipsis below).

I really miss Keymonk — two–finger swiping, accurate, and no crap.

[Markoff]

I do usually this, but recently on older phone (using it temporarily while I buy new) I had to reinstall it and found out, it didn't provide any word suggestions for ant language other than English and even gesture input for other languages didn't work, so at least during initial setup it must have (now?) internet connection most likely to download dictionaries (I thought they used to be included in past, never noticed this before), after allowing the connection, setting up and then disabling the connection, it works fine

[garciansmith]

Other people have noted that you can switch out the keyboard and SMS app (which I did).

My single (minor) issue with GrapheneOS is the adaptive screen brightness. On the stock Android OS on a Pixel I'd mess around with the sliders for a week or two on a new phone and then it learned what I liked. Now it has a few set values, one of which is always too dim for me in darker conditions so I have to mess with the slider each and every time. I don't believe there's a way of fixing that.

Other than that I'm glad I switched, especially when I read about new "features" they add that I know I'd hate.

[dopidopHN2]

You should consider using signal as texting app?

[teekert]

You shall engage more with your apps, user!

[idle_zealot]

I used to dread the promised deep system integration of AI, but honestly after setting Claude up on a server box and having it do sysadmin stuff for me that I've been putting off for ages I see the vision. I don't really want to mess with the details of working through system orchestration tasks, I want to say "spin up this service" and start using it, "change my config so X happens" and it does, and knows what needs restarting to pick up changes and all the fiddly knobs and configs that need syncing and their bespoke formats. I think Nix tried to unify this for people, but it arrived too close to LLMs so a lot of value (in this dimension) has been delivered by other means.

The point is, I'd like to be able to set up services, configuration, and run tasks on my phone this way too, ideally offline. If this system integration is what gives me programmatic control of my most personal computer and the ability to finally set up decent automated tasks and workflows then so be it.

[ptx]

The vendors are never going to give you control over your computer no matter what vision they try to sell you on. The whole point, from their perspective, is to use their control of your computer to gain more control over you, which they hope to then exploit for profit.

[Terr_]

Right: Look at the ways Google has persistently taken away user-control and autonomy on the OS level.

Why would we expect the same company to exhibit a completely opposite philosophy as they add LLM features?

[duncangh]

Idk I feel like Ansible and RHEL aim to give you that control in a way that’s not typically corporate icky in the way you describe but ymmv. Granted both are products based on FOSS; so in the broader sense that pattern may hold

[idiotsecant]

Yes, Google famously uses their most advanced technology to make your life easier and not to look up your nose with a scanning electron microscope

[TheRoque]

The thing is they don't setup their "intelligence system" for the type of task you wanna do. They are integrating it for tasks like "buy me a plane ticket for my next holidays", "order diner for me, the usual"...