Do you guys wear cargo pants to carry all these extra devices or are belt clips coming back into style?

If I could get away with carrying a tiny device again instead of lugging around a brick I would, but the world has made it as inconvenient as possible not to.

A BlackBerry from 15 years ago weighed just over 100g and did 80% of what your modern-day pocket computer can.

>An unmodified iPhone SE (2022 model) with OS support until 2032

What makes you think it'll be supported for a decade? Looking at the past models, the support period is around 5-7 years. If you count security updates that might get you to 10 years, but at the 7-9 year mark apps will eventually refuse to update because you're not on the latest ios.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone#Models

I'm also a big GrapheneOS user, but I'm lucky enough that my banking and authentication apps run fine on GrapheneOS, so no need for a second phone.

If they stopped, I think I would seriously consider swapping banks and whatever else instead of using a different OS.

Funny - in some ways I have the opposite. In my version:

The iPhone SE would be the one I use for calls, SMS, etc. It has the SIM card.

The Pixel 9a would be used for everything I don't need a data plan/SIM card (browsing etc).

My needs are a bit different from yours. I like to separate telephony and communication (i.e. WhatsApp, SMS) from everything else. This way, if I want quiet, I just turn that phone to airplane mode. I really don't want to get random pings while I'm doing "real" stuff on my phone.

I take a different approach:

I run a proxmox server on my home Lan with all the services and storage I want, including a wireguard server. My Android phone can then connect to my home LAN services from anywhere in the world (my ISP provides static public IP addresses).

My Android device is then a simple terminal to all my "stuff". It can be locked down as much as they want it to be, as long as it can run WireGuard. I have no use for a rooted phone. In fact I want it to be as hardened as possible in case of theft.

This is a sensible move. Plus you can just keep your "authentication" phone at home instead of having it on you when you're out for no good reason.

That's what I do too (not iOS + GrapheneOS but the result is the same) as I was tired of fighting to make my bank apps and itsme (digital identity app in Belgium) work on my rooted phone.

Everytime I have to use a stock phone I'm appalled at the ads and I have absolutely no trust in any US or Chinese manufacturer. So I use them only for banking and digital id because that's presumably not what they actually care about.

It's not that expensive, I think many people have an old Android phone lying around, it doesn't have to be up to date.

Pretty much the same setup here. Pixel 9 Pro GOS + iPhone 15 (USB-C everything!). The iPhone is a Canadian model that retains the SIM slot.

Most of my banking apps work fine on GrapheneOS, but I've adopted this because I'm confident they'll eventually break. And access to Apple Pay is nice.

Carrying two phones is annoying, but, agency over my main computing device is worth the price.

Wow, my comment has really taken off! In both directions! Let me clarify some things.

- I bought the iPhone SE 2022 second-hand for 150 EUR. I think this is a fair price, but it's still expensive given that I leave it lying around 99% of the time, which I still feel is a waste of resources, regardless of my motivation.

- My main reason for having two phones is pretty simple. I think browsing and daily internet use just don't go together anymore with authentication, banking and health. I also didn't want to carry a critical key to my digital infrastructure around with me every day, especially in bars (etc.). Having a separate phone helps me to treat different aspects of my life differently. No worries, I don't have to carry two phones with me all the time.

- Yes, I do other things to generally reduce my digital footprint: I use different browsers for different things, such as admin work and social media (in those rare cases where I still use it). I also self-host behind VPN and have moved many apps to my internal stack, which gives me better control over what communicates with what. For example, I use WhatsApp Bridge so I don't have to use the app directly on phones anymore. I self-host Invidious with privacy-redirect for Fennec for YouTube, etc. Over time, all of this has slowly helped me regain my freedom, and it actually feels liberating.

- My path may not be your path.

I have a similar setup, but no need for your "bank/govt app phone" to be an expensive device. A cheapest $120 smartphone money can buy is good enough.

Then you choose the flagship device you're going to use 99% of the time on the basis of how easily you can unlock the bootloader/root.

Phones are cheap, serivce isn't. If currency goes fully digital, not having two devices is irresponsible.

This. I've had to run two phones for some time now, and have just accepted this is the new normal.

I do something similar but it's iPhone SE plus olympus camera plus laptop. The laptop is where all the libre software lives, and the camera is (of course) for taking pictures with. I don't use the phone for anything except boring essentials, for the most part.

I used to get a physical security key from my bank. Perhaps I should get a bank device with a touch screen for banking only and they could then stay the hell off of my personal phone.

You'll still need to bring your iPhone out with you then and thus it will capture your location and more for the companies to data-mine.

Sounds expensive using that hardware, but we can achieve the same using cheaper phones, I like the idea, thanks.

Many of us would need the unmodified one to have a working SIM because a lot of those providers require SMS in their auth flow. Expensive for many of us. For me it'll mean I have to do these things on a computer. Until they come for that one too of course.

the iPhone still does bluetooth transmissions/pings even in airplane mode (the find my device thing) and no way to disable

the only way to disable any transmissions is to turn off the device

> By 2026, you'll need two phones...

Need? Unless and/or until the ability to log in and do your banking, healthcare, etc. via desktop/laptop goes away, then you don't need a phone to do any of that. Yes, 2FA may be required but in the tangential experience of myself, my partner and my two closest friends, we have multiple 2FA options available to us for our banking/healthcare apps that don't require a smartphone.

I see this point all the time - "You can't bank or do important life stuff without a phone!!!" and it's just, largely, bullshit. I don't do any "important life stuff" on my phone.

Beyond that, even if you had to have a phone to perform those tasks, I'd strongly argue that if you feel you need a second phone, then, and I know this will come off as reductive and unproductive, I think the idea of spending less time on your phone and on the internet, and more time "touching more grass" and interacting with the community and world immediately around you, might apply.

At that point why not just use the bank's website?

Is camera quality the same on rooted and locked Pixel? For example rooted Sony phones have terrible photo / video quality.

I already willingly do this with browsers. Firefox gets maximum adblocking and other extensions, Safari gets to touch my bank.

GrapheneOS is not rooted. Most banking apps work fine on it.

https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compa...

https://grapheneos.org/usage#banking-apps

Is there a resource for what phones are known good to run GrapheneOS?

meanwhile, I have a problem remembering to charge one phone.

> This is expensive, but I found it to be the only viable solution to this problem.

Is it really? £150 on backmarket for a phone which will last 10 years doesn't feel expensive.

Makes sense to me to run any banking on a secure device anyway.

Why though? What are you doing on your Pixel that wouldn’t be more secure doing on an iPhone with a double hop or dual-encapsulated VPN?

> As I mentioned in another post: By 2026, you'll need two phones. My current setup:

Cheers, maybe by 2027 unattested devices won't be allowed on the internet. It's not a solution. The problem didn't exist a few years ago, the idea that it will not continue to its inevitable conclusion within a few years without real solutions is laughable.

Wait until Graphene is classified as a hacking tool and Estonia convinces the EU to fine a million Euros a day any company providing services to host its website. Wait until, "in the spirit of reconciliation," the US goes along with it, too.

Wait until unattested desktops aren't allowed on the internet.

With all due respect - I totally understand you may need a rooted phone, I’m just curious what you use it for? I’ve never had a modified or rooted phone so I don’t know of any of the reasons you might need one.

And Richard Stallman since 1983 and before.

Tbf it's been going on since before 2011

Yes that's what they are doing. Phones known to have live root exploits are detected and banned.

Hardware tokens are not allowed in Europe to authorize certain operations such as bank transfers: you need a device that can show the operation you are about to authorize ("enter 123456 to confirm your payment of 99.99 € to Pornhub"). And that essentially means using a phone.

That probably means giving up the ability to mobile deposit checks - every bank I've ever had only allows that through their app.

Hyperbolic take - There won't be PCs, as we know them, for too much longer (both by way of being made into walled garden phone-like "appliances" by software, and by the hardware becoming unavailable).

> That has been the model since day one, since you are using spectrum that, because the end users are not licensed, requires it. Radios in 100% of commercially available phones are locked to prevent user tampering.

Why, then, can users be root on PCs that have wifi cards, SDRs or cellular radios?

You make good points, but your framing makes it sound like this new change is nothing new, when it is and it should be discouraged.

Maybe people like her should just, uh, not use technology? Or not do it as much? The fact that the society so heavily pushes everyone — regardless of their technical literacy and willingness to learn — to use internet-connected devices is also a huge part of the problem.

Much of the world uses mobile payment apps instead of credit or debit cards. Some banks allow a setting that using a card can require a ping to the banking app for verification of the transaction. I don’t know if it’s legal to turn down cash payments in Vietnam, but some vendors may only accept digital payments.

I guess you could take your laptop out at the restaurant and in the taxi to pay. It seems a little strange. You might better just use a browser on the smartphone instead of the mobile app.

> But I've never used a banking app on my phone before. Anything important I still like to do on a desktop.

A lot of banks require using their banking app to get a 2FA token to log-in on a desktop web browser.

> But I've never used a banking app on my phone before.

Here in Europe, good luck using any form of online payment without one due to 2FA requirements.