Apps are written for android. Graphene can run all the apps because it's android. If it couldn't run apps, you wouldn't use it. Are you posting today from a pinephone?

What's the concern? They are working with Motorola as a manufacturer. It'll probably be a hard fork eventually but why not make it work in the meantime.

So what should they do instead? Just give up? Assume that it's simply inevitable that Google will cancel AOSP entirely and so Graphene should hurry up and die?

There is no alternative.

Apple isn't going to let them build on top of iOS, and anything except those two is dead in the water because it'll never have users because it is missing a bunch of critical apps, and will never have those apps because it doesn't have users.

Yes RCS is barely a standard worth implementing, let alone the best one. Make SMS/MMS and XMPP work together seamlessly in one app, forget RCS.

A scratch built mobile operating system have zero chances unless it would be straight up adopted by a cellular carrier, or at least blessed by one.

There's quite a list of mobile operating systems on Wikipedia[1]. Most of them are long dead.

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_operating_system

They may as well get ready for an eventual hard fork, then?

Have you used GrapheneOS? It's fantastic UX[1] and while probably being one of if not the most secure and private OS available.

[1] thanks to Android (once you replace some of the worse default apps, but they are doing that as we can see)

> Graphene is clearly bullish on Android, but I have no idea why.

Their resources are historically better spent hardening vs literally reinventing the wheel.

Multiple variables in that equation have changed - so it could be interesting where we end up.

Someone (else!) may yet arise chasing their stated model without Android, as well.

Perhaps they're hoping to get significant market share before they lose the opportunity for good?