Been running GrapheneOS for a while on a Pixel 9, and extremely happy with it! Apart from the usual perks of the FOSS ecosystem, there are a few things specific to GrapheneOS that are not immediately apparent but have turned out to work very well -
1. The Pixel camera app works, including all modes and settings. A camera that takes good photos was absolutely a requirement for me, and the FOSS camera apps are not quite as good yet.
2. I don't have Google Photos and the pixel camera app tries to launch google photos when you want to review the picture you just took. But there is a FOSS app called GPhotosShim that uses the same namespace as google photos and thus fools the camera into launching that app instead. Once launched, it just launches whatever media management app you actually have configured, so it's seamless.
3. Android Auto works!
4. Android QuickShare works!
5. NFC tags / Yubikey integration works!
6. Screencasting works!
7. Sensor access and internet access can be disabled for apps by default (and I do).
Does that require being logged into a Google account? How to ensure Google knows nothing about your shares?
I have Graphene w/ Google Play Services (required for my job) and would love a easy way to share files/info with various devices (incl. iOS/macOS which I remember should work with QuickShare in the future) but will avoid a service that shares data with Google.
> 2. I don't have Google Photos and the pixel camera app tries to launch google photos when you want to review the picture you just took. But there is a FOSS app called GPhotosShim that uses the same namespace as google photos and thus fools the camera into launching that app instead. Once launched, it just launches whatever media management app you actually have configured, so it's seamless.
I originally wanted to get the Pixel camera app working when I got started with GOS a few years ago, but then I found Open Camera and haven't looked back. Does it do something cool that Open Camera doesn't?
I hadn't seen that button, but at least for me it's not enough: I want to be able to select the camera directly. And in Open Camera I can only select two out of the three cameras.
A quick question from potential buyer of next generation of pixel phones, since samsung keeps disappointing hard with their top line - is there any difference in quality between default photo app and what graphene os bundles with?
Pixel are supposed to be very good in photography, part hardware and part software, and my concern would be degradation of that software part. With small kids, there is nothing more important on phone for me than photos/video quality these days (apart from never going into apple ecosystem, I am just incompatible with that company' philosophy).
Or its just about slapping some commercial photo app (like I heard from other photographers is often done on apple to get most out of it, but forgot the name of the app) and not caring about this?
Yes, it's a huge difference. However, you can install the very latest Google Camera app through the Aurora app (or Play Market), and it works perfectly except you don't get photo preview within that app; to fix that minor issue, you can install the Gphotoshim which someone else mentioned in the comments.
On the other hand, if you switch to the latest Google camera app, you will not really be participating in making the open source version better.
1. The Pixel camera app works, including all modes and settings. A camera that takes good photos was absolutely a requirement for me, and the FOSS camera apps are not quite as good yet.
2. I don't have Google Photos and the pixel camera app tries to launch google photos when you want to review the picture you just took. But there is a FOSS app called GPhotosShim that uses the same namespace as google photos and thus fools the camera into launching that app instead. Once launched, it just launches whatever media management app you actually have configured, so it's seamless.
3. Android Auto works!
4. Android QuickShare works!
5. NFC tags / Yubikey integration works!
6. Screencasting works!
7. Sensor access and internet access can be disabled for apps by default (and I do).