GOS on Rogers Pixel 9 - downgrade to Android 15 First? (And RCS concerns)

Russtopia

That's my main question. LineageOS's install instructions state very clearly one MUST downgrade to stock Android 15 first (really?)

... My second question is on current state of RCS messaging -- it sounds like some carriers, or Google themselves, block RCS on non-stock ROMs or there are compatibility issues with GOS itself. Anyone on Rogers in Canada who can give their experience before I try?

Thanks very much.

userofgos

Russtopia before Google did an update to their RCS implantation, RCS was working for me with Rogers. Now it currently does not.

OleDJ

Russtopia RCS from my understanding is down for everybody. It may cause me to revert back to iOS if they can't fix it in a reasonable amount of time. My advice is hold off until they get this figured out if group text chats are a thing for you.

n3t_admin

Forget everything you heard from LineageOS. You won't need 98% of that knowledge on GrapheneOS. You can flash it from the newest firmware without issue through the web installer. It's a very easy and guided process that doesn't exist for LineageOS.

Russtopia

n3t_admin Thank you for the info!

I'm leaning towards GrapheneOS, though I liked LineageOS a lot on my previous phone.

Does GrapheneOS enable some features not in stock Pixel OS, like configuring volume keys for media rewind/ffwd/skip, for example? That's one nicety I really miss. (I know the point is really privacy, not little things like that, but ...)

Russtopia

userofgos Oh dear. That's concerning to hear.

Do you find it to be a big limitation though? MMS was I believe all I used with LineageOS on my previous phone -- I know some people with iPhones or newer stock Android would msg me and I'd only get things such as "<user> Liked/Loved post" instead of emoji responses, stuff like that; but we could still exchange photos as well as texts.

n3t_admin

Russtopia Does GrapheneOS enable some features not in stock Pixel OS, like configuring volume keys for media rewind/ffwd/skip, for example? That's one nicety I really miss. (I know the point is really privacy, not little things like that, but ...)

that's not really the mission of GrapheneOS. The improvements focus on security and privacy for the tradeoff that you won't have that much customization.

userofgos

Russtopia Do you find it to be a big limitation though?

Not exactly, I still get texts from iPhone users. They just send as SMS instead. Hopefully RCS works again once Google releases QPR1.

Nobody

RCS has been unstable across the board that includes IPhone. Just do a search and you will see hit after hit from both. Consider if all androids are down and 50% of people run android (it more) than your comms with all those people will be sms. Same goes for any iPhone with an issue.

billinmtl

Just updated my P6a to 2025100901 GOS release and RCS was successfully set up on my Rogers Network. Seems to be back for now.

Will update if anything changes