Usability Issues

kl8u

Hello,

I've spent the last two weeks using GrapheneOS on Pixel 6a. I've found some usability issues, they are as follows:

When recording a video, if power button is pressed the video is lost. Error given: "Unable to save video: error 4". I have lost two very good cat videos because of this, by alternating grip on the phone and accidentally pressing the power button. Those are inconsequential, but it would be quite unfortunate to lose an impactful interaction in such a manner.

Fingerprint Reader: Most of the time, it does not work.

Power button: It is very useless when screen is locked and does nothing. On Lineage and Calyx I can make power button use torch by holding it. I have read previous threads on this subject and the story I am meant to believe is that the power button is there to turn off the phone in your pocket when under duress. Holding the power button does absolutely nothing and does not turn off the phone. Holding voldown+power is guaranteed to shut down OS. With that considered I see no downside to adding this incredibly useful physical button torch option.

Volume buttons: These could offer control over media playback but do nothing instead.

MetropleX

kl8u lost two very good cat videos because of this

I can feel this pain 😄

Fingerprint Reader: Most of the time, it does not work.

The Fingerprint reader is NOT a GrapheneOS issue it is hardware. Pixel 6a FP reader has been made a fuss of across the tech media. If it fails to work or works with unregistered finger the best approach is to RMA it and seek a replacement.

Regards the Power Button/Vol Buttons, the issue has been raised: https://github.com/GrapheneOS/os-issue-tracker/issues/498 and the request discussed: https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/220-torch-quick-access/9 demonstrating a third party solution. Restarting the device holding power does work but it requires being held for approximately 15+ seconds. Something you have to understand however, is compared to the other OSes you mention GrapheneOS does not simply play marketing games with the terms, security and privacy. Unlike the aforementioned OSes GrapheneOS has migrated to the latest major Android versions and moved it all to a stable release, at least for the past two years, within weeks well before the others even reached beta. GrapheneOS maintains all patch levels in full from the OS to Chromium. We even manage to get patches out faster than Google can to stock. Our core dev team focuses on the projects core tenets and always maintains these to the highest production standards.
Therefore certain quality of life style feature requests can't receive much attention. Only you can decide if those features mean so much to you to sacrifice the rest.

I agree that these would be nice features to have!

That said, as GrapheneOS is focused on security and privacy improvements first and foremost, this may not be possible to implement at the moment.

GrapheneOS does aim to be highly usable as well as secure, so we thank you for pitching in with this idea!

Keep in mind that the project could also use more resources in order to be able to facilitate more requests like this.

Please consider donating. If everybody pitched in, the project would be able to have more full time developers working on all kinds of new features!

You can find out more information about donating to the project here:
https://grapheneos.org/donate

Thank you!

I don't wish this to come off too heavy but feel giving people the broadest possible understanding and clearest picture helps to evaluate things better.