Takes time and investment.
All the while people will live with less private and secure of a device when they can have better today.
What I believe is actually lacking is expertise - cause we have the tech and the will to do it.
the makers of this device don’t think the level of privacy and security provided by Graphene is warranted or needed or even user friendly
This is not the first time I have come across this sentiment, but I am a bit curious about the reasoning behind it. To firstly highlight and move past the elephant in the room: GrapheneOS is only supported on Google Pixel devices at the moment.
Which aspects of GrapheneOS’s security/privacy improvements are genuinely disadvantageous for the device owner because of the downsides? I’m willing and able to understand different perspectives on this, because I can see for example how something like opting-in to disabling the USB port completely would be unworkable on a day to day basis for some people. However, I don’t think there are many examples like that.
Just (some) convenience if you ask me. Nothing tangible. A little bit of know how on how to use and manage your new device and OS on it is all you need. Most people will get used to it in week 1 if they tried. Life with tech has become too easy for folks so they don’t even bother learning something new when what they have and are used to works just fine. That’s the sad thing.
So, yes. Long term direction is more important than immediate gratification.
So many people choose easy options: facebook, google etc. Easy and immediate does not mean right.
Right. That’s too high of an opportunity cost then, in my view. And should be for others too (only if they know of the risks).
So, GrapheneOS’s partnership with a yet unnamed OEM has so far given them tangible benefits in terms of early access to security patches.
More importantly though, they have said they are working with the OEM to make sure one device in their future product line up is closer to GrapheneOS’s standards. In practice, this should mean more regular feature and security updates, full support for hardware/firmware security features on an alternative OS, enabled usage of the SoC’s built-in security processor etc. GrapheneOS’s partnership with the OEM should theoretically benefit not just them but any person who unknowingly buys the Android OEM’s product.
For NovaCustom’s effort to be equivalent here (in that way), they should be pushing SHIFTphone to do similar things, and drastically improving the security/privacy of iodeOS and SHIFTphones as a result of this collaboration. Maybe it is fair to say for this to be a ‘step the right direction’ those two companies have to have their privacy/security roadmaps meaningfully improved through NovaCustom’s efforts here. This was not really discussed in the post.
NovaCustom invests in the continuation and improvement of iodéOS. So far, we have financially contributed to the following issues:
Security issue: sha256sum for releases
Security issue: Cryptographically signed releases (PGP)
In the near future, we plan to invest in:
– No suggestions yet
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afaict Nova is just taking the 8.1, slapping iodeOS on it, and upcharging 150EUR, and seemingly sharing some of the profit.
I also question if Proton is sponsoring Nova here with all of their options to pre-install their apps. (This pre-installing is also highly questionable.)
The SHIFT website doesn’t seem to mention Nova or iode on my quick skim, but it also isn’t in English.
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None of these projects has demonstrated any desire to make a secure device, precisely because it’s much harder than slinging platitudes about fighting Big Tech while selling insecure devices at Pixel 10 or iPhone 17 prices.
Yes.
But if there is any app that’s going to be pre installed (that can also be easily uninstalled), I’d rather have it be Proton apps than any other big tech app that you may not likely be able to uninstall.
We know it’s not good to do this - but we also know a better product to use. For folks buying this not knowing to the extent we do, I’d rather have them use Proton because that’s what comes with it if they didn’t know any better. More of a reason they use Proton because they would easily make a Google account if Gmail was preinstalled without thinking twice because the general populous is not as tech savvy (or knowledgeable as we in the privacy community.
I should clarify, I mean they seem to literally be having someone open the phone, go through the setup wizard, and install the apps, and box it back up. Leaving the phone in an inconsistent and not first-time setup state.
This is Windows XP era joke.
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Ah! If this is the case, then I am fully with you. I would have imagined they would do it when they are installing the OS itself on to it and the device not be turned on even once before it reaches the customer.
I also just want to note to make it abundantly clear:
They’re shipping Android 15 with the October 2025 ASB patches, since this is what LineageOS is limited to.
Meanwhile GrapheneOS is shipping Android 16 with the March 2026 ASB patches.
This specific 8.1 device is not out yet, so unclear what kernel it is running.
(Not that iode even bothers to publish their kernel sources anyway.)
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The person you are talking to, SkewedZeppelin, is one of the people who invested their lives into making something better for almost over a decade with DivestOS. It is important to acknowledge that iodeOS (a commercial product) was also worse than DivestOS (powered by donations) as an alternative OS project despite the massive difference in financial resources.
Long term direction is more important than immediate gratification.
Time and investment in the right projects is definitely important, because it ensures the resources are to much more effective use.
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I also only found this
Custom-ROM-Support (Wir unterstützen die Custom-ROM-Communities, damit diese ihr OS an das SHIFTphone 8 anpassen können)
Which just says that they support the “Custom-ROM-Community” so they can edit their OS for use on the SHIFTphone 8
Thank you for pointing this out. I wish they talked more about this and future improvement plans instead of a blog post that will be far less useful/informative to everyone.
User choose what to install NovaCustom style: SHIFTphone 8.1 with iodéOS - NovaCustom
It is especially the case with laptops with a lot of options to customize: V54 Series 14.0 inch coreboot laptop - NovaCustom
Phones are inherently less customizable, but they may find some more options.
(post deleted by author)
If nothing, this launch is doing a huge disservice for their laptop product credibility.
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