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Though it’s hard to see the practicality of an Android OS without the Google components (which collects user data). I think Amazon and Microsoft’s Nokia tried to run their own spin-offs, but didn’t see much commercial success
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That’s still a workaround around Google
For long term solution for providing a neutral mobile OS that’s practical, you might have to make the app distribution commercial-friendly (and F-Droid isn’t one)
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There are a lot of commercial apps functioning without Play services. It'd be natural for more of them to transition to supporting it if there was more usage share. For example, if someone really wanted Facebook apps, most work fine... and they could use a dedicated user profile.
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The main usage of Play services is for FCM and it's really not that hard for apps to support keeping open a connection to a server for push.
This also works well with existing technologies like IMAP IDLE instead of requiring stuff like email servers to support FCM.
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GrapheneOS already works well for a lot of users. There are a lot of nice apps available. Sometimes people depend on a commercial app that's unavailable without Play services and it doesn't fit their needs. That's something app developers would resolve with enough demand for it.
The amount of functionality provided by Play services is overstated. If you don't want to be using Google services, then you don't want Play services or a replacement for it like microG. Supporting stuff like microG is definitely not something we're focusing on for GrapheneOS.
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grapheneos.org/#never-google- is actually still on the main page because it hasn't been moved elsewhere yet. Our focus is not on providing app compatibility via unsustainable hacks. It won't be built in. We're just fine with it supporting it via unprivileged user installed apps.
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"That's something app developers would resolve with enough demand for it."
100% this. Using a phone with microG only because I grew tired of asking app developers to at least not letting it crash if there are no Play Services on the phone...