I’m an iPhone 16 user, and I’ve been rocking PG and New Oil recommendations for a few years now. I have a Pixel 9a with GrapheneOS and have been thinking about making the switch.
My pause is that all but one of my frequently messaged contacts are on iPhone, so through iMessage and FaceTime Audio almost all communications are E2EE. My dad’s a techie and uses Signal, but none of my other contacts do.
Is making the switch from iPhone to GrapheneOS worth it if the majority of my communications move to non-E2EE com (SMS/regular calls)?
My threat model is low, mostly minimizing my digital footprint, online tracking, and Big Tech avoidance (and Apple annoyance, lol @iOS26), so in my mind GrapheneOS is obviously an improvement and offers a lot of freedom (and it’s going back to Android!).
I know I could try to convince people to use Signal, but I wanted to get the community’s thoughts specifically on the gains of GrapheneOS vs loss of easy E2EE communication (iMessage/FaceTime) for a low threat model.
I’m trying to convince myself that it’s a net privacy gain, but I’m yet to succeed. I’ve gone through what seem like related posts, but nothing specifically (that I’ve seen) addresses this yet for normies.
Cross platform RCS E2EE is coming to iOS pretty soon, might wait for that before switching. You can also send people a FaceTime link and talk to them over an E2EE FaceTime call from any device if you want to, although that’s a bit annoying.
I saw that, though GrapheneOS still doesn’t have a stable RCS messaging client yet if I’m up to date on their (extensive with 2k+ comments) thread on their forum… Ideally E2EE RCS on GrapheneOS would be the answer, that’s for sure.
Also I do love that you can send FaceTime links, though it’s funny how it freaks people out because they had no idea you could do it. Much better than Zoom, IMO.
If most of your contacts are on iOS then Apple can collect metadata and telemetry whether they use Signal or iMessage. Push Notifications can also leak the content of your messages. If you have to use SMS because they won’t adopt Signal then I would stay with Apple for now. Encryption on iPhone is better than nothing and Apple can potentially see what you’re sending from Signal on GOS anyway.
Modern RCS is being transitioned from Google servers to individual carriers. I dont think the standard & infrastructure is mature enough for GrapheneOS to be capable of developing their own RCS client, you’re waiting on a carrier implementation (i.e. Mint Mobile RCS App to replace GMessages, using Verizon RCS servers)
Ah I didn’t know that. The GOS thread is a little hard to track and it’s a struggle to find official responses, so I’ve been confused how it’s actually going to work
I know the thread youre referencing, and understand completely lol. RCS as a standard is still pretty young, and its rollout has been pretty shoddy. Most RCS issues on GOS through GMessages are a product of errors and mishaps on the carrier’s end, as they work to establish their own segmented server infrastructure
Gotcha, that makes sense. So it’s sounding like move here is to stay on iOS for a bit until E2EE RCS is an option on GOS.
I always think I’m pretty technically savvy, but wow if there’s ever a place on the internet that I feel like a normie it’s on Linux-related subreddits and GrapheneOS’s forum lol.
I think it’s a tradeoff based on your threat model, the nature of your SMS/MMS/RCS messages, and the frequency by which you use that protocol. There won’t be a ‘great’ solution for carrier-based messaging (imo) until RCS is hopefully fully established & standardized to the same extent as SMS across all carriers, the protocol is fully released to the public, and FOSS clients begin to emerge.
Checks out. Mostly I’m just trying to take wins towards privacy as I can, and I just like making some of these changes. Mostly just messaging plans, memes and music.
Do you mind sharing if you’re on GrapheneOS or iPhone?
It’s crazy how we’re in 2026 but something like RCS and E2EE is still so young. Seems like we should be further along, though I guess Apple could have helped 10 years ago by democratizing iMessage…
I’m on GOS. I am using SMS for carrier-based messaging, as the only RCS client currently available (GMessages) requires Play Services as a dependency, and I consider that a greater privacy risk than the contents of my SMS messages. I have made an effort to reduce & migrate my messaging to more secure web-based messengers (i.e. Signal/Molly)
Note: this is not necessarily the right approach; I have seen others make compelling arguments for the immediate adoption of RCS (I believe Fria made one in a separate thread). This is merely my approach. Carrier-based messaging is ultimately a poor, broken, outdated tool for private comms
For me at least, moving away from iOS was a really good excuse to get people to move to Signal. If they wanted to reach me they could still use SMS, but would lose all the features of a modern messenger, video chats, etc. Most opted to give Signal a try.
For you it’s iMessage, and for me it’s WhatsApp. I want Signal to be my primary messaging app, but no one in my friend group or family uses it. WhatsApp is the default for everyone. I don’t have a single contact on Signal yet, but I’m trying to persuade them to switch.
