TL;DR
- Efforts like Graphene OS face increasing pressure from apps that refuse to run on non-standard Android.
- The custom ROM project characterizes Google’s approach to device attestation as incomplete and flawed.
- Graphene OS is prepared to take legal action if Google won’t let it pass Play Integrity checks.
That’s true for every operating system. Old apps aren’t updated to use new system APIs and such and they eventually stop working.
Yet I can compile applications that work on Windows XP, and they still work under Windows 11.
It’s not as if Android is some svelte slimline OS where every byte matters. There’s plenty of room there for keeping compatibility with older apps.
On desktops we can use virtual environments, translation layers, plenty of solutions to make old programs and games work on a modern OS. Phones are somehow incapable of this.