I tried graphene, and came to the conclusion that it’s not a viable alternative to iOS.
1) Apps like uber, lyft, ev charging and parkmobile would crash with null pointer exceptions some weeks but not others, so for the use cases that force me to carry a phone, it doesn’t work.
2) There isn’t a modern e2e sync ecosystem, and backup is completely broken.
3) The camera sort of worked out of the box (pixel pro 6), but to get all the modes, I had to install sandboxed google play services, which halved the standby battery life.
I would say it has improved substantially in the past years
To your items, and my experience on Pixels 7, 9, and 9a running GrapheneOS regularly for the last two years:
1. I use Uber and Lyft semi-regularly (disabled when not actively using) and don't recall experiencing any crashes. Can't speak to ev or parking apps.
2. It may not meet your definition of modern, but I am very happy with Syncthing Fork on phone alongside Syncthing on linux laptop and desktop (where I run restic nightly backups.) It takes some effort to set up compared to handing the keys to the big corps, I will give you that. I'm still unsatisfied with GrapheneOS backups, but mainly because I want them written to storage where my syncing can send them along, and be able to flash a new phone as if it were a regular drive. But that's maybe asking a lot on phone hardware?
3. Pixel Camera app I pull down from Aurora Store, decline Network permission, and takes photos seamlessly even without Play services. It won't let you actually view photos in app without the Google Photos app which is a bummer. I've taken to using Files to view them, which is cumbersome. Maybe I should just install Photos and decline network.
1) Apps like uber, lyft, ev charging and parkmobile would crash with null pointer exceptions some weeks but not others, so for the use cases that force me to carry a phone, it doesn’t work.
2) There isn’t a modern e2e sync ecosystem, and backup is completely broken.
3) The camera sort of worked out of the box (pixel pro 6), but to get all the modes, I had to install sandboxed google play services, which halved the standby battery life.
Has this changed in the last 3-4 years?