Comment by palata

My understanding from looking into this two years ago is that it's hit or miss for banks (depending on if they opt into device attestation stuff), no for NFC / Google Wallet, and yes for Uber / Lyft.

Apparently the common workaround for the Google Wallet stuff is to pair a GrapheneOS phone with a stock Android smartwatch.

Edit: Here's some additional information on banking apps: https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compa...

Apparently the common recommendation these days is to use Curve Pay as a virtual card provider on GrapheneOS, which can then route to arbitrary underlying cards. And evidently Google Wallet does work for things that aren't payment cards (airline tickets, transit passes, etc.) on GrapheneOS.

I use Graphene but with Google play store app. Here in Europe my banking apps and 2fa apps (SecureGo) work flawlessly. NFC cards work with PassAndroid and FOSSwallet, both from Fdroid. I've had issues installing rather new games via the play store, but most often it takes a couple of tries or a waiting period to work in the end.

Yes, these would be my concerns as well. In the past, I would install custom ROMs. Then I stopped doing that and would only root my device. But of late, way, way too many apps refuse to work if rooted (apps that used to be fine with it before).

Now I just accept life as it is.

Contactless payments is the the big one that doesn't work and probably won't. You can do in app payments via Google pay though

Many banking apps work fine though not all.

I've been running GrapheneOS for over a year and have had zero issues with 3 different banks, and all credit cards. I'm sure there are issues with some banks, but I've never seen them. I don't use Google Wallet, and never wanted to so if that's a consideration...

My friend uses a pretty hardened (as per him; I didn't indulge him when he wanted to give me the gory details) Graphene setup on his few years old Pixel.

Bank apps - as per him none work. Uber (no Lyft here; other taxi apps) work flawless. Payment apps, he said is a coin toss. On his phone even WhatsApp doesn't work. He anyway prefers Signal (which prob. nobody else uses in his circle except maybe me who has it installed on a secondary phone) or plain SMS. Basically most of the "normal" apps that add integrity checks don't work but he is fine with that.

This is a question that I rarely see answered but would love to know as well.

I use it with my bank app ymmv

> my main worry is about banking and NFC

This may be useful: https://privsec.dev/posts/android/banking-applications-compa...

> I also worry about the future of Graphene with AOSP going more closed/private

I don't think it's AOSP going more closed, but rather the evolution of the Pixels line. GrapheneOS wants the ability to unlock the bootloader, install their own key and relock the bootloader. Google could technically stop supporting that for the Pixels (just like many (most?) manufacturers do), but they haven't said anything about it.

GrapheneOS has mentioned talks with a major manufacturer. I wonder if it will be a Graphene phone (which sounds very tricky) or if it could be something like Huawei or Samsung offering to unlock/relock the bootloader and committing to providing the features necessary for GrapheneOS. The latter would be amazing.

> OSMAnd was the one I tried and it bordered on unusable.

I love it. But if that's your feeling, definitely try CoMaps: in terms of UX it's on the other end of the spectrum :-).

There is also Calyx, which is also a privacy friendly Android distribution. It uses open source versions of Google Services. With my Pixel 8a on Calyx I can use NFC to pay with my Credit Card.

Osmand is great but it has a bit of a learning curve. It's much more powerful than Google maps though so all these features need a bit of navigating. It probably should have a simple mode for most users.

For an open source Android app for OpenStreetMap data, I like Organic Maps, and it normally works great with locally-cached maps. I've had better luck with it than with Google Maps or Apple Maps on phones.

(Though, I should mention that twice in the last year I've had Organic Maps become hopelessly confused about where I was, and where I should go. Both times, it had gotten a good GPS location, but then got confused while being out for an extended period of time, like maybe it was dead-reckoning only after that initial lock.)

This is a really interesting feedback. I've used OSMand for maybe five years, and never had issues like you're describing. I've always felt that the search was absolutely awful, so I used Google Maps for that and then put the points of interest into my map. Nevertheless, I find the display particularly dense and confusing to configure, and so I also have been using Organic Maps lately, which may provide a simplified experience that's a bit more polished.

I wonder if there was some issue with the map data in the area you were driving in that led to the issues you experienced. I've used OSMand in Belize, Mexico, California, Connecticut, New York, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine and had a good experience, especially with the offline maps.

> Told me to make a turn at an intersection that did not allow turns.

That's an OpenStreetMap bug, the intersection likely isn't marked as not allowing turns. If you put a note (OSMAnd calls them OSM Notes) on the map someone will fix it when they can.

On top of the OsmAnd user experience being a little rough (it can do a lot, but not gracefully) it relies on accurate OSM data underneath. So the best thing to do is at least make a Note on OSM, or edit it yourself, and mark that intersection as having a no-turns-allowed restriction.

Even Google is relying on user submissions to keep its stuff accurate these days, they just have money to pay editors and reviewers.

I get similar navigation issues with Google maps. I still use Google maps for driving because the live traffic is important to me, but other posts on here mention other apps with live traffic so I'll give them a try.

It's all user submitted. It takes someone caring enough to fix it, to make it work. Check out StreetComplete, Every Door, Vespucci, and/or CoMaps to help add/fix data

Uber and Lyft are built on OSM.