From my (small) friends circle, I haven’t heard any of them talk about getting one. However, it’s worth noting that these friends of mine are also not the ones who would buy new smartphones every year. They typically hold onto their phones for a few years and only switch when it seems like the phone isn’t performing as expected (e.g. battery draining too quickly; slowness in software actions; to name a few).

One question I do have is, what happens if you clean install an AOSP like GrapheneOS onto these newer Pixels phones? Does that remove the AI features completely?

I’m currently on Arch, but my first distro was Linux Mint. Linux Mint eased my transition into the Linux world, as it looked and behaved almost the same as Windows. You can avoid terminal commands completely thanks to the GUI apps that the Mint team includes for updating, installing, and removing packages.

I switched to Arch because one of the benefits of Arch is that it forces you to become familiar with the various different components that make up a Linux distro. When you install Mint, pretty much everything is included out of the box. You may have to install a few proprietary drivers here and there, depending on your HW config, but overall, you get everything you need to start using your computer. You don’t have to concern yourself with a lot of things. Arch is different. Even with the archinstall command that you can use to simplify the installation process, you still have much to do post-install. Audio drivers, package manager, Bluetooth, productivity apps, customization options, WiFi drivers, to name a few. And even after that, when you start daily driving Arch, you still may encounter issues that would require you to do some troubleshooting via reading the Arch Wiki or looking for similar problems on Arch forums. It can be a headache at times, but I personally feel it’s worth it.

So…what does this mean for those who have F-Droid or Aurora Store installed on their phones? Will apps from those stores be considered “unverified” by Google’s standards?

I had the same problem after flashing GOS onto my device, but my wife who uses an iPhone also had that problem. I don’t recall how she eventually logged in though, but when I searched online about the 401.122 error message, I got answers that suggest it could be a problem on MyQ’s end.

How was CalyxOS overall? Are there some things that CalyxOS does better than GrapheneOS?

That’s alright!

Yeah, I think there’s another comment on this post that mentioned the same thing.

Yeah, here’s the Mastodon post announcing Android Auto implementation:

https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/111665498981590978

Oh, I don’t use Google Pay with NFC. Prior to flashing GOS on my Pixel 6, the only time I used NFC was to unlock my car when I didn’t have the physical key fob with me. That was done through my car manufacturer’s mobile app (BMW). However, when I went to set up the digital key after flashing GOS, the app told me that it couldn’t set up the digital key, because I was using an unsupported version of Android.

Regarding seedvault, I tried to do a backup of my phone, once I got it setup, but it seems like backup function is not working very well. I tried external USB thumb drive and Internal Storage, but neither of those options resulted in a successful backup. I did some search on the GrapheneOS Discussion Board (thread), and it seems like the Seedvault version that is currently part of the build is out-of-date. They may push a newer version in the next update.

When I tried to set up the Remote Key for my car, it said I was using a version of Android that was not compatible, and thus, it couldn’t set up the remote digital key. In your case, did you adjust any settings to make NFC work?

You beat me to it! I was gonna mention the same thing. However, I don’t think it may be that big of a deal if you use Firefox or some flavor of it. The one term I often hear about GrapheneOS and other AOSPs like it is “threat model”, and depending on that model, you may not necessarily be impacted if you decide to use something other than the stock browser.

That’s not to say the GrapheneOS developers are wrong in their Usage Guide. I’m sure they looked into this extensively, hence the usage guide.

Yeah, the Scopes feature is really nice! I often wonder why some apps require reading every single contact or need access to every folder/directory in your phone. In my use case, there are a few apps that require access to storage or contacts, but thanks to Scopes, I can limit it to just a specific folder or a small group of contacts. Everything else is off limits, and I like that.

What’s your use case for NFC on your Pixel 4A?

I am no fan of Brave, but is there a way we can configure our Kagi preferences to exclude results from Brave Search? I think SearXNG allows for that. Under SearXNG preferences, there’s an Engines tab, and under that, I can configure which search engines to enable and return results for my search. I haven’t found anything like that on Kagi yet, but if anyone knows of a way to do it, please share.

Great…just great.

Yes, I do realize that what I purchased may have been “licenses” to access the book. That’s why I’m looking for a solution that will allow me to keep what I purchased. I’m not in a position where I can just re-purchase every eBook that I got on Kindle.

I am aware of Calibre, but like you, I have also been told that it doesn’t always work as expected.

What is your experience with the Nook? I haven’t seen that many positive reviews of the Nook when compared to Kindle and Kobo.

I’m not looking to self-host.

Great! But, let’s remember this is Facebook after all, so… 🤷‍♂️

I don’t know whether to cautiously applaud or be even more concerned about another “AI” being released way too early than it should.

To quote a line from Star Wars, “This deal is getting worse all the time!”