GrapheneOS Overhauled Default Apps and Secure Clipboard

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CCider9986 about 4 hours ago 59 commentsRead Article on grapheneos.social

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Discussion Sentiment

72% Positive

Analyzed from 1831 words in the discussion.

Discussion (59 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

pizzaiolo•about 1 hour ago

Graphene is clearly bullish on Android, but I have no idea why. The writing is on the wall, Google is slowly asphyxiating AOSP.

ConceitedCode•25 minutes ago

What's the concern? They are working with Motorola as a manufacturer. It'll probably be a hard fork eventually but why not make it work in the meantime.

matheusmoreira•18 minutes ago

The concern is AOSP engineers see them as annoying complainers.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49537268

There's clearly some kind of situation brewing here. Hopefully the GPL proves to be enough to keep code in the hands of GrapheneOS developers.

dataflow•9 minutes ago

Perhaps they're hoping to get significant market share before they lose the opportunity for good?

palata•about 1 hour ago

They may as well get ready for an eventual hard fork, then?

NewJazz•30 minutes ago

Yes RCS is barely a standard worth implementing, let alone the best one. Make SMS/MMS and XMPP work together seamlessly in one app, forget RCS.

Cider9986•about 4 hours ago

twitter versions have paragraphs not threads

https://xcancel.com/GrapheneOS/status/2096677808424788256#m

https://nitter.click/GrapheneOS/status/2096677808424788256#m

https://bsky.app/profile/grapheneos.org/post/3muun5c4fdc2o

Secure paste:

https://xcancel.com/GrapheneOS/status/2096685327020933355#m

https://nitter.click/GrapheneOS/status/2096685327020933355#m

https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/117225731764489295

https://bsky.app/profile/grapheneos.org/post/3muupuvlfbs2v

ravenstine•about 1 hour ago

I hope they replace the AOSP keyboard with FUTO keyboard. I'm mostly fine with the other stock apps, but that keyboard was the one thing I absolutely had to end up replacing due to its jenky behavior.

matheusmoreira•15 minutes ago

Why not Unexpected Keyboard?

Cider9986•about 1 hour ago

I agree FUTO is the best right now but it's not open source so they won't.

Groxx•26 minutes ago

The source is here: https://gitlab.futo.org/keyboard/latinime

Featured prominently in the "Source Code" container on https://keyboard.futo.tech/

AFAIK everything FUTO makes is open source? I haven't seen a counter-example (I have not looked hard though!), and https://futo.tech/about claims the following:

>All FUTO-funded projects are expected to be open source or develop a plan to eventually become so. No effort will ever be taken to hide from the people what their computers are doing, to limit how they use them, or to modify their behavior through their software.

mrob•6 minutes ago

From the LICENSE file:

https://gitlab.futo.org/keyboard/latinime/-/blob/master/LICE...

>You may modify the software only for non-commercial purposes such as personal use for research, experiment, and testing for the benefit of public knowledge, personal study, private entertainment, hobby projects, amateur pursuits, or religious observance, all without any anticipated commercial application.

Violates clause 3 (Derived Works) and clause 6 (No Discrimination Against Fields of Endeavor) of the Open Source Definition [0].

>You may distribute the software or any part of its source code only if you do so free of charge for non-commercial purposes.

Violates clause 1 (Free Redistribution) and clause 6.

>Notwithstanding the above, you may not remove or obscure any functionality in the software related to payment to the Licensor in any copy you distribute to others.

Violates clause 3.

It is a "source available" license, not Open Source.

[0] https://opensource.org/osd

jazzyjackson•5 minutes ago

Right, they are adhering to a definition of open that includes free as in liberty, so licensing matters. What good is it to read the source if I don’t have rights to modify and redistribute?

dsr_•about 1 hour ago

Heliboard is good, customizable, and actually open source - GPL3.

sublinear•32 minutes ago

I like Heliboard a lot, but its autocorrect gets stuck in the mud all the time.

It completely falls apart and starts injecting nonsense phrases made up of nonsense misspelled words moment you miss a space ('v' or 'b') or type a really long word it doesn't know.

It also stubbornly incorrects other things like 'a' into "and" if it thinks it knows a phrase fragment. It's always wrong. It just happened to me now twice. Above, "or type a" became "or type and". Also, "it's" became "IRS".

Heliboard would be perfect if it stuck to word-only spellcheck and never split words. Just now again, it tried correcting "heliboard" into "hellenized" and "he lib oars".

This is not a matter of just lowering how aggressive the spellcheck is. It will still generate slop every time. The only real option is to completely turn it off. Futo can have similar problems, but there are a lot more options to tweak and the defaults aren't so bad.

NewJazz•29 minutes ago

I turn off automatic autocorrect except for "I". I can use it manually when I need it (jot often).

lucb1e•about 1 hour ago

Ctrl+f clipboard, no results. What does "Secure Clipboard" in the title refer to?

The release seems to be only the SMS/RCS app, rest is future:

> We're also going to be overhauling or fully replacing the rest of the AOSP apps in the near future. AOSP Gallery is incredibly outdated and is being entirely replaced. AOSP Keyboard may be similar. We recently hired a bunch of new people and will be hiring more so our progress will be accelerating.

minitech•about 1 hour ago

https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/117225731764489295

https://bsky.app/profile/grapheneos.org/post/3muupuvlfbs2v

goda90•about 3 hours ago

I believe this is the planned gallery app. I've already been using it: https://github.com/IacobIonut01/ReFra

aussieguy1234•12 minutes ago

Just tried this out. I may soon be cancelling by Google Photos subscription...

andrepd•about 3 hours ago

There are excellent FOSS gallery apps already, like the Fossify suite. Why not use them I wonder?

HybridStatAnim8•about 2 hours ago

Their license is invalid due to being GPLv3. GPLv3 cannot be included in GrapheneOS as that would necessitate GrapheneOS give up their permissive licensing.

Refra Gallery is licensed as Apache 2.0, which is a permissive license GrapheneOS can bundle in the OS.

graemep•about 2 hours ago

Its not part of the OS so why would it affect the Graphene OS license? Its an app, not a library.

Cider9986•about 1 hour ago

The preinstalled apps are part of the OS.

gkoz•about 1 hour ago

Can the Linux kernel be included in the OS?

palata•43 minutes ago

Linux is GPLv2, though. Not sure if that makes a difference here.

kotaKat•about 3 hours ago

"RCS isn't an open platform in practice. It isn't even as open as SMS/MMS. It heavily depends on proprietary Google and carrier infrastructure in practice. We can start by replicating Google's approach and then we can work on only using carrier services for carriers where it's actually supported."

Except... what carriers still remain using their own RCS carrier services and haven't been pressured by Google to adopt Jive?

exceptione•about 3 hours ago

  > RCS isn't an open platform in practice. It isn't even as open as SMS/MMS. It heavily depends on proprietary Google and carrier infrastructure in practice. We can start by replicating Google's approach and then we can work on only using carrier services for carriers where it's actually supported.

What is the point of RCS though? It seems to be strictly inferior to Signal. It seems a Google product meant to serve Google. I wouldn't hate it if GrapheneOS would totally ignore RCS. I fail to see any value in it, but maybe I am lacking information(?)

cosmic_cheese•about 2 hours ago

RCS was DOA from day one as far as I'm concerned. The carriers being involved in any capacity deeper than providing dumb pipes alone was enough to make it pointless, but no E2E in the base spec makes it extra pointless. They may as well have just extended SMS to be more capable, because that's what they've effectively created.

HybridStatAnim8•about 2 hours ago

The RCS spec has encryption in its documentation. I think the current spec version is 4.0?

fc417fc802•about 3 hours ago

The point of the exercise is for Google and Apple to maintain control over the ecosystem.

RCS is technically superior (protocol, transport, security, all of it) but is captured from the start on the technical level by design by the big players. From the perspective of the vast majority of users who have very limited technical awareness, it was silently slipped in as an upgrade at one point or another. This means that those not adopting the proprietary BigTech solution are perceived as being difficult by insisting on using software that's now perceived as outdated or as otherwise mildly incompatible.

HybridStatAnim8•about 2 hours ago

GrapheneOS does not want to adopt RCS for public perception. It is still a better option than SMS/MMS and providing it is beneficial. GrapheneOS will still recommend using better platforms and protocols but RCS being bundled and cross platform are great reasons to implement it.

george_perez•about 2 hours ago

Eh, I don’t think you have to include Apple here. If it were up to them, the iPhone would still have zero RCS support right now. The current implementation of RCS, even in iOS 27 beta, is clunky.

To me, the only they’re trying to maintain control of is AppleOS-to-AppleOS text communication.

fc417fc802•6 minutes ago

> To me, the only they’re trying to maintain control of is AppleOS-to-AppleOS text communication.

Yes, exactly. Apple and Google are both acting to maintain control and this has resulted in a standard that improves functionality but is effectively poisoned at the technical level. Left to their own devices I'm sure Apple would have preferred to stay with their original solution that is even more closed off.

anon7000•about 1 hour ago

Idk, I mean RCS on iPhone is just SMS/MMS but fixing like 90% of the issues. I don’t find it that clunky.

ebb_earl_co•about 3 hours ago

From [0], it seems that RCS can use the cellular signal instead of LTE or 5G:

> In cases where RCS is able to operate over cellular networks without data, it supports messaging as well as file transfer, enriched calling, and more.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rich_Communication_Services

hollow-moe•40 minutes ago

RCS's point is to deliver ads. It is its first purpose. The way I see the situation, the point for Graphene to implement RCS is to prepare for the foreseeable deprecation of SMS. Who knows when it will happen, but better start working now than wait and get stranded when it'll happen. I'm pretty sure RCS implementation will take a long while.

HybridStatAnim8•about 2 hours ago

The point is to access an e2ee protocol bundled by default on many devices, and is cross-platform.

GrapheneOS does recommend using superior platforms like Signal, but that is 3rd party, and thus has adoptability issues in convincing people to use it. Just because better platforms exist does not mean RCS should be ignored.

exceptione•about 2 hours ago

Thanks for clarification. Anything first party from Big Tech is a lost cause privacy wise. At the same time, nobody uses it (maybe that is different in the USA, don't know). So for me this would be ultra-low prio as I (and I expect almost every other GOS user) will never use it. But I believe GOS knows what it is doing.

annzabelle•about 1 hour ago

Nearly everybody uses it in the USA. It's very common to text people through the default messaging app on your phone there (probably an outgrowth of the popularity of iPhones and iMessage), and backup options would be Instagram, Snapchat for a certain demographic, or Facebook messages. Whatsapp is only for messaging foreigners, and Signal/Telegram are for messaging your drug dealer.

nemomarx•about 1 hour ago

In the US everyone with an iphone uses RCS, so you'll often have family group conversations on it and so on. Whatsapp or signal are comparatively rare (although more common for anyone with overseas family naturally)

kevin_thibedeau•about 3 hours ago

RCS allows higher resolution pictures than MMS.

cesarb•16 minutes ago

Perhaps it's different in other countries, but I've never seen anyone use MMS. (Everyone uses WhatsApp nowadays, but even before WhatsApp existed, I never saw anyone use MMS.)

IshKebab•about 3 hours ago

Very good idea! Google abandoned these long ago.

I don't really get why so many Americans want RCS to succeed though. Do you guys not remember when carriers charged 10p/text? Why on earth would you want to give any power at all back to those people?

Dusseldorf•about 3 hours ago

After getting several family group chats finally converted over to RCS, one day my phone just started absolutely refusing to verify my connection to the RCS servers. Instead of any kind of notification, I was just silently not sending or receiving messages for nearly an entire day. I had to disable RCS on my phone, which created a several day long issue where some chats would just fall back to SMS and others absolutely refused to work, or strange interactions with Apple devices where certain messages would not be displayed. After enough trouble with it I convinced everyone to switch to a third party messaging app. I'll never turn RCS on again, I can't trust that it won't just start silently failing.

annzabelle•about 1 hour ago

Americans have had unlimited texting plans for much longer than Europeans. I'm pretty sure most Americans had unlimited texts before Whatsapp existed, so there was never the move to it for economic reasons.

HybridStatAnim8•about 2 hours ago

The main benefit of RCS is the fact it is available by default on other platforms like certified android and IOS. 3rd party messaging apps hit adoptability issues. A bundled, cross platform E2EE protocol is a huge step above SMS and MMS.

Many 3rd party platforms are still better though.

goda90•about 3 hours ago

It's a bandaid over iMessage's dominance among iOS users.

NamTaf•about 2 hours ago

Text messages in iMessage or SMS are a fairly US-centric relic. That's not to say overseas is better - Europe depends on Whatsapp - but outside the US the whole 'blue box' thing isn't even a thing.

downrightmike•about 3 hours ago

The only benefit is sending higher DPI pictures between android and ios

annzabelle•31 minutes ago

It makes group messaging work a lot better, too. Previously, group chats with a mixture of ios and android users were really buggy leading to iPhone users significantly preferring group chats with all ios, which led to some social exclusion for android users in the US, leading to market dominance for iPhones. Now, with RCS, you can make a functional group chat across platforms and you don't have to convince anybody to install something new.

thinkp26•about 3 hours ago

I'm happy todays update shipped auto call recording.

subscribed•38 minutes ago

Yay! Finally, been waiting for it for ages.

Maybe they'll work on the backup now, this *** seedvault is worse than nothing (consistently broken on both my GOS phones, never giving the same results with 2 backups, never giving out as much as the status I could trust)

drnick1•about 1 hour ago

Certainly, with Opus 5 and GPT-6, modernizing or even completely rewriting self-contained, non-critical tools seems like a Friday afternoon job now. I wonder however how important this is, in the grand scheme of things. I use GrapheneOS and the bundled messaging app is serviceable. It isn't pretty, but it gets the job done.

Cider9986•about 1 hour ago

They are using AI [1]. I don't think messaging app is non-critical though.

[1] https://github.com/GrapheneOS/Camera/tree/compose