I bought a Pixel 9A and a Pixel tablet and installed Graphene because I wanted control over my own device, no unnecessary spyware apps and no forced AI and the ability to just install what I want and both have been great. Everything I’ve needed has basically just worked (a couple of apps required me to change a setting) but there’s a few major outliers to that ‘it just works’ that fortunately I don’t need - like the VW app. I was shocked at how easy it was to install and by Lemmy standards I’m not very tech savvy (although I had an issue with a Linux update on my computer last night and was able to get it working again, so by normal people standards I’m a hacker lol).

Right now it’s fantastic but I worry Google’s crackdown on “sideloading” is going to hinder that open source adoption - anyone who has already done so is probably going to be less squeamish about a couple extra steps and whatever bullshit warnings Google throws at them but for new normies I worry they’re more likely to be scared off. It’s also a sign Google is going to take more steps to fight our rebellion - I did just find out the Pixel 11 will be getting Graphene so I was going to say that’s another Google attack but good news on that one, initially they thought it wasn’t going to be possible.

How’s Postmarket compare to Graphene? I went with Graphene because fewer development targets are usually a good thing for the end user, but that tablet end of support is closer than I’d like…