I am currently an IOS user, however, as the title suggests, I wish to switch to android. This is because I would prefer to use free software and not be locked into the apple ecosystem. That being said I am already locked into apple and would like to know how anyone else here has managed the switch.
I for one know I will face problems regarding group chats with friends and family on IOS, I will lose out on iCloud+ features, I will have to buy a replacement for my HomePod, I will need to replace apple home, etc.
How did anyone else here who has made such a switch replace or solve these issues?
Droidian would be more to try out and less to use as a daily driver. It runs atop Halium, so it should work on most modern Android devices that support Treble. Hardware support is a bit hit or miss.
I’d stick to Graphene OS for now.
EDIT: Halium only supports up to Android 11 for now. You will have to wait for support for Android 13 for the Pixel 7 Pro.
If you want to try Linux sooner, the OnePlus 6 can be gotten for relatively cheap nowadays.
I think grapheneOS will probably be fine. There are however a few google apps I absolutely need for work, namely google docs and sheets. From what I could read on their website the google services aren’t included at all, even microg and require extra setup. Can this be made to let me run all my apps that need them?
You can still install Google services on GrapheneOS. It is sandboxed as user apps, so you can deny it permissions.
https://grapheneos.org/usage#sandboxed-google-play
DivestOS can use MicroG, which is a FOSS replacenent for Google services.
Neither ROM includes it by default.
Although if you can use the apps inside of a web browser, that would be better for privacy/avoiding Google.
Also not sure if you use it, but Android Auto is proprietary as well and requires Google Apps. Not compatible in Graphene due to it requiring very invasive permissions.
Divest seems interesting, if I can get around the iMessage hurdle that may very well be what I land on!
What hurdle? You can deregister here: https://selfsolve.apple.com/deregister-imessage/
The issue is more social, friends and family have refused to leave iMessage just for me.
That’s to be expected. I’d just tell them where they can find you or fallback to SMS, and if they want, they can reach out. Everybody’s situation is different, though.
I’m using grapheneos and docs works just fine
sheets should also work, I don’t see any reason why it shouldn’t
and you probably haven’t read the website in a long while, grapheneos doesn’t support/recommend microg as it is an insecure/partial implementation of google services
grapheneos has developed their own sandboxed play services, which act as a regular android app, it doesn’t get any special privileged access to imei or whatever stock oem android gives
after installing this through the “apps” app, you can use grapheneos like regular oem android, but with better privacy and security features