Is it? Because it sounds like it is the same as what Samsung is doing with Knox. If you unlock your bootloader they have a way to track that now and it hurts the experience on the device. Want to sideload your apps in protest? You’ll only be allowed to sideload apps from developers Google screens and says are okay. Want to use custom firmware on your hardware? You can, but they won’t pass the integrity checks and even if you pay for the apps they can become incompatible with your device. And as someone else pointed out they stopped providing Pixel configs for AOSP so even getting people to try and make custom ROMs will be more difficult.

Samsung did it first, but Google just took it to the next level.

The Phone 1 and 2 have official lineage os support as well. Nothing is still bootloader unlock friendly (for now). Phone 3 is too new for LineageOS but is still an excellent phone with a good development community on their forums.

This article supports your comment and should be higher up considering two phones 4a and 6a were recently recalled due to being unsafe. Pixel 10 has this feature on at cycle 200 while you can turn it off on the Pro and Pro XL. But what good is 7 years of updates if they are going to hurt your battery charging speed after less than 2 years? Samsung battery tech is FAR superior.

https://www.androidcentral.com/phones/google-pixel/the-pixel-10s-battery-takes-a-hit-after-200-cycles-courtesy-of-a-feature-you-cant-switch-off

This used to be the case but Google is actively working to kill unlocking the bootloader on their devices (and all devices really) through their Play Integrity Validation. So while you may be able to install ROMs and add Gapps you’ll slowly find that less and less apps from the Play Store will work due to stricter integrity requirements from Google; even if you bought the app. The current hoops required to run a custom OS and not be detected by the new framework is daunting with many landmines like people installing software they don’t understand to get “Strong” integrity or paying for keyboxes that ultimately get banned.

Google is quickly becoming developer unfriendly and I would encourage people to look into the mess that is Play Integrity before suggesting Pixels, or any Android for that matter, in the context of custom ROMs.

While I agree music service has a lot of good things about it, it is not good for the long term. Lesser known artists are not paid that much, it is endless billing for something you’ll never own and it will only ever cost you more year over year. I would considering using music streaming for artist discovery and playlist creation rather than a long term plan for music listening. Look into bandcamp and artist pages you love to find where you can buy your favorites of their music because when music streaming becomes unsustainable, and it will, you won’t be left with nothing.

This is how all subscription should be handled unless they are critical to your daily life. Good advice!

Lawnchair is being updated it is just only being updated on its Github page.

Love this list and I use Pear launcher currently on my Android 15 beta device. It has some quirks but overall I am happy with it over stock. Especially since I can add folders to the bottom bar.