I've been using Graphene on my Pixel 7a for about a year and I'm happy I made the switch. For sure it is a bit rougher than using Google's OS, but not enough to make me regret it.

The main things I miss are (1) when I'm entering text I can't swipe left and right on the space bar to scroll the cursor left and right, and (2) the texting app doesn't just attach reaction emojis to a message -- it quotes the whole message and prefixes it with something like "Marty like blahblahblah". When there is a whole family text chain it isn't uncommon to see the same message 7 times as various people react to the original message.

Anyway, I looked at Google's Android 17 blog and yikes:

"With deep integration between hardware, software and AI, we’re transforming Android from an operating system to an intelligence system. It's about delivering new helpful experiences that anticipate user needs, and it brings more opportunities for engagement with your apps."

https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2026/06/Android-17...

> The main things I miss are (1) when I'm entering text I can't swipe left and right on the space bar to scroll the cursor left and right,

GrapheneOS is compatible with the vast, vast majority of Android apps, so you can use GBoard or FUTO keyboard (which I recently switched to from GBoard), to get the ideal experience.

FUTO recently revamped their swipe to type model and it's now more accurate than GBoard in their testing. I am a huge swipe type person, so this is what held me in GBoard's clutches, but now I'm free.

The dataset is open source and anyone can add to it if you're on a mobile device here: https://swipe.futo.org

And you can learn about it here: https://swipe.futo.tech

> the texting app doesn't just attach reaction emojis to a message -- it quotes the whole message and prefixes it with something like "Marty like blahblahblah". When there is a whole family text chain it isn't uncommon to see the same message 7 times as various people react to the original message.

Google messages, the experience you get on PixelOS, is also compatible with GrapheneOS, but you will have to afford network access to sandboxed google play, among other things. I couldn't tell you specifically, but it will work out of the box before you restrict anything. Many people choose to use this setup because it opportunistically adds e2ee for chats between iPhones and other Androids using Google messages.

There's also other SMS apps, but I focused on switching people to Signal so I barely ever use SMS.

Once I replaced the default apps, GrapheneOS became a premium phone experience.

Problem (1) is a keyboard problem, not a GrapheneOS problem. Graphene comes with the stock AOSP keyboard which is very basic, but you can absolutely replace it. Personally I'm using the FUTO Keyboard and it does have that feature, as well as swiping, speech to text and much more.

Maybe you can try installing another SMS app for problem (2)? Much like the stock keyboard, the stock Messaging app is just the AOSP app. Honestly it works fine for me so I don't have a recommendation.

Regarding 2: that is literally how SMS reactions work. Apps that recognize it just interpret it as "put that emoji on that message". It is unfortunate that it doesn't do that tho.

RCS is different, which you can sometimes get working by installing Google Messages¹, which is essentially the only app that supports RCS any more. Google runs essentially all the servers too.

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1: There are no third-party RCS apps² because, unlike SMS which has an API and a shared database on the device, RCS is extremely locked down and it's literally impossible to create one in stock Android. This is also why it's only "sometimes" on GOS, the details are very complicated and rather enraging.

2: Samsung had one, but they're shutting it down in favor of Google Messages. A tiny number of other devices / telecoms have their own too, but they're rapidly shutting down as well. RCS is very nearly fully controlled and implemented by Google now, except for iMessage as a client only, for now, and there's no encryption between iMessage<->Google Messages last I checked (but there apparently is between Google Messages... but no normal person can really verify that because it's Just Google Everywhere).

You should consider using signal as texting app?

I used to dread the promised deep system integration of AI, but honestly after setting Claude up on a server box and having it do sysadmin stuff for me that I've been putting off for ages I see the vision. I don't really want to mess with the details of working through system orchestration tasks, I want to say "spin up this service" and start using it, "change my config so X happens" and it does, and knows what needs restarting to pick up changes and all the fiddly knobs and configs that need syncing and their bespoke formats. I think Nix tried to unify this for people, but it arrived too close to LLMs so a lot of value (in this dimension) has been delivered by other means.

The point is, I'd like to be able to set up services, configuration, and run tasks on my phone this way too, ideally offline. If this system integration is what gives me programmatic control of my most personal computer and the ability to finally set up decent automated tasks and workflows then so be it.

Other people have noted that you can switch out the keyboard and SMS app (which I did).

My single (minor) issue with GrapheneOS is the adaptive screen brightness. On the stock Android OS on a Pixel I'd mess around with the sliders for a week or two on a new phone and then it learned what I liked. Now it has a few set values, one of which is always too dim for me in darker conditions so I have to mess with the slider each and every time. I don't believe there's a way of fixing that.

Other than that I'm glad I switched, especially when I read about new "features" they add that I know I'd hate.

I use GBoard on GrapheneOS. I just deny it network permission so it can't phone home.

Regarding (1), that's on your keyboard, which you can choose. Maybe you can give Futo a try? https://keyboard.futo.org/