Hi folks, Planning on moving back to android after five years due to wanting better privacy and foss apps. I’ve been curious about folks experiences with pixel phones and grapheneOS on them while maintaining a distance from google services. Has there been better experiences with the pixel 9 or have they been the same with the 8? Would the 8 be more worthwhile because both have the years support ahead of them with just the one year of difference?
I do have some apps I rely on that I know coming over will be a shift but I can get over. This includes signal, Lemmy, YouTube, Ente Auth, banking apps, plex. Those I think will be easy.
Based on the latest AOSP missing Pixel device trees, binaries, and kernel source, GrapheneOS might be on the way out, or at least for newer phones and android versions. Still not sure what this means, but it doesn’t look good, so I wouldn’t recommend investing in Pixels as they are no longer open platforms like they or the Nexus line before used to be. I have a Pixel 7 Pro with GrapheneOS which works great, but it’s likely my last Pixel. And I’ve been buying Nexus and Pixel exclusively since the Nexus One.