Moving to Graphene OS

I’ve been an iPhone user for at least six or seven years now. Switching from Android to iOS, or rather from Google to Apple, felt like such a good thing from a privacy perspective. I could finally use services offered by the platform instead of having to look for privacy respecting alternatives, and trust the OS to not spy on my for marketing purposes.

However, I have been tempted to try out a folding phone for a couple of years now and at the time of writing this, Apple still haven’t released one. I knew I wouldn’t go back to Android, so there weren’t really any alternatives - until the Pixel Fold was released and support from the Graphene team was announced. One thing I’ve learned about Google is to not jump on any first generation stuff. When Pixel 10 Pro Fold was released last year though, I was set on doing the jump.

I got it a couple of days before the new year. Flashing GrapheneOS on it was super easy given the excellent documentation and tooling.

Setting up the phone was another story though, mostly since I was away from home in a cottage in Norway for new years celebrations. I didn’t have a working Nextcloud instance, so I got one from Hetzner just to get CalDav and CardDav setup based on exports from my iPhone. I thought I was going to be able to use the iCloud data takeout, but that turned out to take over a week to get. Both contacts and my calendars were possible to export to sensible formats on the iPhone, so I emailed them to me (which would turn out to be a good idea when I two days later accidentally found out what the duress code does…).

✅ OS
✅ Contacts
✅ Calendar

Before anything, I had to get Bitwarden up and running. I use a Yubikey for 2FA, but I couldn’t get WebAuthn to read the key. I temporarily added TOTP fallback via my laptop, and got signed in successfully. From there, I could install the Proton Mail app and get my backups.

✅ Bitwarden
✅ Proton Mail

I went on and moved my Bank ID. It’s exactly what it sound like - an app you use to identify yourself to lots of services in Sweden, managed by a collaboration between the largest banks in Sweden. It’s practically mandatory if you are to participate in Swedish society. Luckily, it worked flawlessly on GOS. All my banking apps except Bank Norwegian worked straight out of the box. Swish (instant transfer app) too.

✅ Banking
✅ Swish

Then it came to Signal. First I tried to use the phone to phone migrator. That didn’t work, but I subscribed to their new backup service and let it run. I had 11 GB of messages and media on Signal, and it took the night to upload everything. In the morning I restored Signal on GOS and it too worked just as expected.

✅ Signal

I use a Garmin watch for daily tracking and workouts. Garmin Connect, the companion app, also worked out of the box. As well as Stava, Spotify and Home Assistant.

✅ Garmin
✅ Strava
✅ Spotify
✅ Home Assistant

So far I’m happy with GrapheneOS. I do rely on Airtags to get my life together, so I will have to figure out what to on that front. I also miss the excellent battery life of iPhone 15 Pro Max. The inner screen of my new fold is very nice though.

I’ll probably write more on the transition in the coming days.