First Week on trying GrapheneOS
Hi! I'm a life-long Samsung/Motorola android user, currently the Samsung Fold 4, but I've been interested in GrapheneOS so I took the plunge and bought a $120 Pixel 6a off Facebook Marketplace (remarkably kept, very low battery cycles) and loaded the OS.
My first impressions is how well this is polished, genuinely insane, and in terms of usability it's absolutely viable. I have noticed this thing loves to scream about every nook, cranny, app, and permission of things but overall awesome.
I have met some gripes though, this isn't necessarily directed at GOS though, just an overall rant I've been struggling and hoping maybe someone could help me.
Gripe #1- What the fuck is a Samsung Smart Switch and why can't this shit be useful to not-Samsung products. Backing up, Moving to PC, and do this rigamorale only to punish yourself with lost metadata and then try other methods to transfer stuff over and have it be all like you had it. If anyone has a stupid proof (and I mean that) way to clone Samsung to Pixel of all my data that'd be nice. I just learned how to move my contacts last night.
Gripe #2- NFC/Tap-to-pay, Big fan, love to use it. Google Wallet no-likey. I get it, that's the point, but is there a replacement? My bank doesn't have its own tap to pay method so my option was Google Wallet to do all that and I liked that. Not the end of the world, does suck though and I'd love to have it back.
Gripe #3- This one is petty and Is entirely a me problem so feel free to ignore but I really like One UI Home and how it lays itself out particularly In the swipe up app drawer, I like having my search bar at the bottom and able to browse my installed apps in pages swiping left to right and I HATE the continuous vertical scroll and it makes me want to huck this phone across the goddamned room and have a reason to go touch grass. It may be the reason I stop using this phone. Please for the love of god, someone have a solution for me because I hate using some jank launcher that has to compete with how blank and bland you can make a phone. I've tried like 15 different launchers and none of them fit right, granted I'm not researching for launchers cause it's just the stupid app drawer but god damn it, my autism has lead me this far why have it stop here!
Anyways. Love GrapheneOS, love the fight, keep it up. My phone may up in a blender but at least I can say I tried.