- Are there any plans to provide Google Services Framework as a standalone app again?
- Are the Google Play Store & Services apps now a hard requirement for apps that rely on Google Framework Services (GSF) alone?
- Is there further information/discussion about this topic somewhere?
With the GSF changes announced in the 2024101600 release notes, it appears we can no longer install GSF as a dedicated app:
Sandboxed Google Play compatibility layer: add stubs to fully remove the need for the Google Services Framework (GSF) app for fresh installs of sandboxed Google Play, which has been removed as a dependency in our app repository for Android 15+, but it should still be kept for existing installs to avoid potential issues
I initially misinterpreted that this update meant GSF functionality was now baked in to GrapheneOS. However, upon uninstalling the original GSF app (which hadn't seen an update since 2023), Google Camera and other apps that relied upon GSF no longer worked. The only way to restore camera operation and other functionality was to install the full Google Play suite.