Hmm, we're talking about a few hundred thousands phones, I don't think it would upset Google. I'm just wondering because if all they need to do is provide a way to lock/unlock the bootloader, then they can potentially sell hundred thousands of units with a minor change.

> GrapheneOS is coming out with their own hardware.

Do you have a source for that? I've seen mentions of them trying to do it, but mostly I have seen that they "are talking to major manufacturers". It's not clear to me if they are trying to come up with their own device or if they are trying to convince a major manufacturer that they should "support" GrapheneOS (simply by meeting their requirements).

I personally hope it's the latter: it seems very difficult to release their own hardware that would come close to a Pixel 10 with 7 years support.

Good luck with that.

Economies of scale (or the lack thereof) means their hardware will be significantly more expensive and less capable than the large scale manufacturers.

I can hear it now, "Those specs kinda suck for that amount of money".

* More and more manufacturers already provide 5-7 years of support, e.g. the Google Pixels.

* More and more regulations enforce that manufacturers provide a minimum time of support (which is most likely the reason why that number went up in the last few years).

* Alternative Android OSes don't have access to the proprietary blobs and therefore rely on the hardware manufacturers providing updates. It means allowing alternative OSes does not help make the hardware secure longer.

Therefore it looks similar to selling laptops: most users have Windows, so the manufacturer must make sure that Windows runs on their devices. But even if it's niche, it may be worth making sure that the laptop works with Linux if enough users are interested.

A company is a profit maximising machine. If it makes more money to allow independent OSes, they should do it. So if it takes a couple of engineers 2 weeks to make sure that the latest Samsung works with GrapheneOS, it may be worth it if it means that they sell 200 000 more of those.

The fact is that if you buy a Google Pixel now, you already get 7 years of security updates with the Stock Android. And the people who care about GrapheneOS won't keep it 3 more years without the security updates (that only Google can provide for the proprietary bits).

So I'm pretty sure that a GrapheneOS user will not keep their phone longer with GrapheneOS than they would with the Stock OS. But a GrapheneOS enthusiast will definitely buy a phone that supports GrapheneOS vs a phone that does not.