TL;DR

  • Google has made it harder to build custom Android ROMs for Pixel phones by omitting their device trees and driver binaries from the latest AOSP release.

  • The company says this is because it’s shifting its AOSP reference target from Pixel hardware to a virtual device called “Cuttlefish” to be more neutral.

  • While Google insists AOSP isn’t going away, developers must now reverse-engineer changes, making the process for supporting Pixel devices more difficult.

    • tisktisk
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      65 days ago

      as a panicked graphene enjoyer, does oneplus measure up as a decent alternative or no?

      • @Vanilla_PuddinFudge@infosec.pub
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        5 days ago

        I use a Oneplus 7 pro and my rom maintainer still updates and I still get a new version once every two months or so. If you want to omit gapps, you are more than free to do so. (Crdroid)

        • tisktisk
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          35 days ago

          You are selling me mr. Fudge. I still need to do a lotta research but you are def sellin me here

          • @Vanilla_PuddinFudge@infosec.pub
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            5 days ago

            The trap: He could stop builds for the OP7… tomorrow with zero warning.

            That leads to my main takeaway for custom roms. Pick the phone with the most topics and replies on XDA. The more popular and liked, the more supported you’ll be.

            and never get attached to anything. Your phone miraculously has support, none are guaranteed it.

            • tisktisk
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              105 days ago

              You have now anti-sold me and hyper-enlightened me with some very worthwhile wisdom. I can not say thank you enough–I truly need more like you in my life

    • @JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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      5 days ago

      Idk man.

      I love my OP12. But we’re switching carriers to a Verizon MVNO which “won’t work” with my OP12, so I bought a Pixel 8 Pro on sale last week and need to switch over.

      I’m starting to wonder if that “it won’t work” is bullshit tho…I’ve got a Verizon SIM in slot 2 and it works fine. Maybe I’d be missing out on 5G speeds? I got 5 bars on my tmo sim and my vz sim…but my Tmo got 1.1Gbps down, and my Vz sim only got 70Mbps.

    • @spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works
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      35 days ago

      Have a couple OP 9pros and they’ll be the last OP devices I buy.

      There are severe bugs that OP never fixes and make using the phone for something like navigation unreliable. Battery life can be great one day and terrible the next when not even using the phone. Also OP sells carrier specific hardware. My TMO phones can’t be used at AT&T or Verizon, severely limiting our options. My understanding is unlocked Pixel phones can be used on any carrier.

      I really wanted to load Graphene, but even without it I’ll consider a Pixel device.