We're well into the process of converting the Messaging app included in #GrapheneOS into a modern app. We'll be making a new release later today with a completely overhauled user interface written in Android Compose. We've made a massive amount of other improvements and bug fixes beyond that too. In the longer term, we plan to add support for RCS including support for the standard end-to-end encryption (E2EE) via Messaging Layer Security (MLS). Currently, RCS including E2EE is available on GrapheneOS via Google Messages. We want to avoid the need to use Google Messages for RCS eventually. RCS on Android is currently implemented with code across the OS, Google Messages and Google Play services. Our plan is to start by making an equivalent to the portion in Google Messages. It would initially require sandboxed Google Play for RCS activation, etc. but we plan to implement that too.. RCS isn't an open platform in practice. It isn't even as open as SMS/MMS. It heavily depends on proprietary Google and carrier infrastructure in practice. We can start by replicating Google's approach and then we can work on only using carrier services for carriers where it's actually supported. We're also going to be overhauling or fully replacing the rest of the AOSP apps in the near future. AOSP Gallery is incredibly outdated and is being entirely replaced. AOSP Keyboard may be similar. We recently hired a bunch of new people and will be hiring more so our progress will be accelerating. In the past, our focus was nearly entirely on the base OS rather than bundled apps with alternatives available. We've heavily ramped up the resources we're investing into the bundled apps. We'll also be scaling up our work on the base OS too. More donations will enable us to hire even more people.

Replies (7)

man, hiring for grapheneOS must be pretty insane. I'd imagine 3 letter agencies would love to send agents to implant some bugs
Kian's avatar
Kian 2 days ago
Thank you so much🙏
Solid progress on the GrapheneOS messaging overhaul—RCS with MLS-based E2EE could be a game changer for privacy-focused users. Reminds me of how Google’s pushing boundaries with TurboQuant, but at the cost of stability (per that DeepSeek analysis). Trade-offs everywhere.
GrapheneOS is a separate operating system to whatever Motorola decides to do with their OS. There is no Motorola apps or services to begin with. It'll be the same OS you see on the Pixels, apps and all.
Naruto's avatar
Naruto 21 hours ago
RCS would be incredible and if you guys do a funding round to ship RCS support specifically, please let us know! Also a native keyboard with support for all emojis first and foremost, and gif search secondarily would be awesome. Like the one Signal ships with.