features funding in general / call recorder bug

BRNko

Hi developers and users,
my work expects me to be on the phone, calling with people through hands-free while I'm driving car. Call recording is essential because I can't take notes as an driver. At break, I search information in recorded calls and take notes. I'm trying to switch from Samsung S21 Ultra to Pixel 8 Pro. My Samsung in stock configuration have call recording very well done.

*automatic call recorder
*excellent call quality
*automatic deletions after specified time
*option for pop up question after every call: "Would you want to keep the recorded call?"
*even ability to play recordings from stock phone app and its call list.

Call recording in GOS have none of that which is unfortunate. Not all features is essential and I did not expect for GOS to have it. However:

Without ACR, I never have saved name of called person when introducing at the beginning. Without ACR I have to grab phone while on hands-free, constantly staring on screen when recording button appear at moment of call pickup, which is dangerous in car. That appeared recording button is not active at the moment of its appearance, which causes not to catch name of other party.

Call quality is really bad. Not only that sounds like talking through pillow, but volume of other party is dependent from set of earpiece volume. Why is that? When I'm in quiet place and I want privacy, I lowers earpiece on minimum. Then in call recording I have normal volume, but other party I barely hear.

Today I even found out that If phone notices me about second call while recording current, then current recording is immediately interrupted. I have to push recording button again to record rest of call in separate file. That cannot be intentional feature. It has to be bug. That's a deal breaker for me. I desperately want to switch from Samsung and move to you guys.

Where we go from here? Developers of GOS have their priorities about security first. I get it. But it's about money too. This call recording is so bad that it has to be improved other way. Not just relying on them when their have time and space to do it and wait months or years. How about starting some sort of "go fund me" just on specific feature like improving call recorder where users can vote for features and then developers do the pricing and time estimate.

What do you think?

de0u

BRNko My understanding is that the current call recording implementation was contributed by a community member.

Thus if a great pull request with more features showed up it might be accepted.

But:

The code quality would need to be solid,
I don't expect the GrapheneOS team will have anything to do with organizing funding,
I strongly suspect the GrapheneOS team will consider only code quality and other quality metrics, no matter how much money was raised or spent on the project,
It is plausible that the GrapheneOS team may in the next couple of years switch to a completely different dialer. If so, I would expect that to happen no matter how much money was raised or spent on call recording for this dialer. And it is possible that a new dialer might replace the old one even if the new one didn't include automatic call recording.

Overall, I would suggest focusing on one feature, submitting a pull request, and seeing what happens. And I would suggest such a project be attempted only with the understanding that the code might never be accepted.

Please note that I do not speak for the GrapheneOS project.

splattergames

The GOS team stated multiple times that there will be no "pay for features". General donations are always welcome, but steering the project in a certain direction with money is problematic, as the entity with the biggest financial resources would dictate what to implement and what not (among a slew of other problems, like hiring developers who fit the GOS teams criteria).
As for call recording, I can't really help you there since it's not allowed by law in my jurisdiction to record people without consent (and that can always be challenged in court). Call quality shouldn't be bad at all, unless your Pixel is not able to utilize VoLTE which might be related to your carrier not supporting it on Google phones or having a misconfiguration in their backend. You can check that by making a call and see if the phone can still use mobile data while in the call.