LineageOS 23.2: The Pure Android 16 Experience

Handheld by Gemini, I unlocked the bootloader on the Fairphone 5 and flashed LineageOS 23.2—based on Android 16—onto it, and I'm really glad I did. It is remarkably similar to a Pixel experience, without much AI guff. As an added bonus, I was also able to get an Always-on Display working, which Fairphone had previously stripped out in an update due to battery drain. I was hooked—for now!

The instructions are all on the LineageOS website, but I find it so much easier simply to be led by the hand by an AI assistant. Yeah, I know, data centres and AI and electricity are being sucked up—but in this case, it really didn't take long. It didn't go 100% smoothly, mind you. I had an issue with location services not playing ball with various apps, and Gmail refused to go into Dark Mode even though everything else was.

What I have discovered throughout all of this is that it is totally procedural; this is not rocket science. Someone (or something) clearly telling you step-by-step what to do—and even when it goes wrong, being resourceful enough to scour the web for solutions and, the important bit, turn it into layman's English rather than techy, nerdy, geeky gobbledygook—is, for me, the key to success.

So, I headed off to the LineageOS website, downloaded, saved, unzipped, unpacked, enabled, unlocked, debugged, navigated, commanded and ADB'd! Before long, I was up and running with a fresh installation of LineageOS 23.2, the latest version, complete with weekly updates for the foreseeable future. It had the May Google Security Patches installed, Android 16, and even May's Google Play System update. Peachy!

So that was all well and good until I decided that I'd finished with the experience and wanted back on 'stock' to, apart from anything else, get my financial apps and services back (which don't work under LineageOS). This is where it went pear-shaped. It was all well and good—reversed the process, no problem, Fairphone's software was onboard and booted up—until it came to the very last step of locking the bootloader again so that I could get back to those financials. But the AI couldn't do it. We fought and fought, and flashed and flashed, but it fell over in the end, leaving the only option being to send it back to Fairphone (in France, as it turns out).

The issue is a known architectural bug within the Fairphone 5’s Qualcomm security management layer. When you originally unlock the bootloader, you use fastboot flashing unlock, but the secondary command fastboot flashing unlock_critical was either not run or was overridden by a security patch. Once the phone boots into Android with an asymmetrical partition map, the low-level hardware security chip permanently caches the get_unlock_ability: 0 flag to protect the device from a theoretical "evil maid" attack. Because it is a hardware-level lockdown, no amount of standard fastboot commands or user-space factory resets can force that specific chip to clear its internal memory from the outside. To get the phone back to a 100% factory-sealed state where banking apps work without any rooting or workarounds, the security chip's cache must be cleared.

Because this specific bootloader deadlock is a recognised software state issue on the FP5, Fairphone's service centres deal with it regularly. They plug the phone into a specialised engineering box that triggers EDL (Emergency Download Mode) using a proprietary, digitally signed Qualcomm "Firehose" programmer. This completely bypasses the bootloader, wipes the security chip's NVRAM cache, forces get_unlock_ability back to 1, and reflashes the entire device to a factory-locked state. Hope you're keeping up! I wasn't! I put a ticket in and they told me it would cost about £30 plus P&P to France both ways.

So the choice was to do that or use the Community EDL Method. Apparently, there is a technical way to mimic what the service centre does at home, but it is complex. It involves downloading a leaked Qualcomm tool (QPST/QFIL) and a specific Fairphone 5 "Firehose programmer" file, forcing the phone into EDL mode (often by holding a specific button combination while plugging it in or using an EDL deep-flash cable), and rewriting the raw storage blocks. These tools are tricky and prone to Windows driver conflicts, and that is where you actually risk causing true hardware damage. So, I'm not sure what to do really. At the moment I'm sitting on it, able to use it for all but those financials. Other than that, it works perfectly well—and I didn't have financials on LineageOS anyway! So, I might just put LineageOS back on it!

In the meantime, I'm turning my attention to the Sony Xperia 10 Mk VII. That was another tale of woe, as I tried and tried and tried with the AI to get LineageOS on it, but it failed with some sort of technical hitch and I couldn't get it on. I thought I was doing pretty well with all this hackery, but it turns out I really wasn't! So, I sent it to our Phones Show Chat ROM'ing expert, Mike Warner, after all. I guess I could have tried with the online community or other digital assistants, but I was getting a bit weary of it now, particularly the prospect of starting all over again. Yet again! So, Mike took it in and fixed it. Of course he did!

He tells me that Sony seems to be a little odd in terms of not allowing unlocking by the normal Fastboot (Power + Volume Down) mechanism, instead having a separate "Blue *" boot type which went to a version of Fastboot that could unlock the bootloader, but which required a reinstall of the Windows driver. It's also a bit weird that it requires a Sony Unlock Code to unlock the bootloader. However, once you get your head together, it's fairly straightforward, he says. It took Mike a while to figure it out, as it was not really documented very well. It was only after failing to unlock the bootloader using the 'standard' way that he thought he'd best follow Sony's instructions to the letter and check the driver state. The blue star at the top left of the screen, rather than a proper Fastboot screen, threw him the first time so he tried the standard way, which was his undoing.

So anyway, my thanks to Mike, and I now have the little Sony with a freshly installed LineageOS 23.2 on it, which I'm hoping will give me a bit more (though yes, taking away those financials still) than the Xperia's out-of-the-box options. For one thing, an Always-on Display which, I'm hoping, will play with the battery better than the Fairphone 5 did, which drained it fairly rapidly. I guess Fairphone were probably right to have taken that away with a system update on the Fairphone 5 after all! The bigger 5,000mAh battery should do a better job with that, I'm figuring—but we'll see!

For anyone who wants a deeper dive into what the 'financials' blockage is, here is the breakdown. When you unlock your bootloader, you are essentially telling the hardware to stop verifying that the operating system is the factory-sealed version from the manufacturer. To detect this, apps use a Google security service called the Play Integrity API (which replaced the old SafetyNet). It tests the phone's security posture and returns three main tiers of verdicts to apps: MEETS_STRONG_INTEGRITY means the device uses hardware-backed checks (like the phone's secure enclave/TPM) to prove the bootloader is locked and running original factory software. An unlocked bootloader fails this instantly.

Google has a zero-tolerance policy for custom ROMs when it comes to contactless payments. Because Google owns both the Play Integrity API and Google Wallet, Google Wallet strictly enforces the highest security tiers. The moment Google Wallet checks the API and sees that your hardware attestation shows an unlocked bootloader, it shuts down card provisioning and NFC tapping. It does this because an unlocked bootloader theoretically allows a malicious actor with physical access to dump system memory or intercept cryptographic keys—even if you are just using it to escape Google's ecosystem.

Unlike Google, independent bank developers have to choose how strictly they want to enforce these rules. They typically fall into three camps:

The Strict Banks: (Who act like Google Wallet). Many major, high-security banks or fintech apps (like Revolut, Starling, or strict national banks) require that the phone meets device integrity. If you are running vanilla LineageOS with an unlocked bootloader, these apps will refuse to open, crash or display a "Device Uncertified" warning.

The Lenient/Good Enough Banks: Some banks only check that the phone meets basic integrity or simply run a crude on-device check to see if root access is present. Because LineageOS does not come rooted out of the box, these apps see a clean system and think "OK, no root detected, we'll allow it", ignoring the fact that the bootloader itself is wide open.

The Server-Side Believers: A handful of financial institutions design their security around the philosophy that the mobile client is always untrusted. They rely entirely on robust server-side cryptography, multi-factor authentication and SMS/push tokens to secure transactions. To them, a custom ROM is a minor variable, so their apps rarely check Play Integrity at all.

If you are currently running LineageOS and need these apps to work, the community bypasses these restrictions using root frameworks (like Magisk or KernelSU) paired with modules like Play Integrity Fix or Tricky Store. These tools trick Google's API by spoofing the identity of older phones that didn't support hardware-backed security checks, forcing Google to fall back on basic software checks that can be faked. However, because Google frequently patches these loopholes, a bypass that works today might break tomorrow.

So after all that, I get to the LineageOS experience under Android 16 and it really is a nice one. Firstly, it feels really odd after all these years living with Google to have to install even the most basic and 'stock' Google Apps. Yeah, I know—that's the point! But I'm not in this for 'stepping away from Google'; rather, I liked the look of the 'clean' LineageOS on top of Android. No bloat, no crap (for those of us who don't count the Google apps that I'm purposely adding) and an AOSP-like, Pixel-like experience in many ways.

There is a bunch of apps included for those who do want to stay away from Google's: AudioFX, Browser, Calculator, Calendar, Camera, Clock, Contacts, Files, Gallery, Messaging, Twelve Music Player, Phone and Recorder. There is no doubt at all that for a person wanting to stay away from mainstream apps and services, the phone has enough onboard out of the box to get on and use it like a very basic phone. But most people, in reality, are going to need some apps on top. Once that decision has been made (and all the following is based on using the Play Store and not other apps/stores workarounds to keep away from Google), for my money, I might as well use the familiar ones and sideline the above, which end up doubling up the options. If you're going to install the Play Store and trust Google, you might as well make it comfortable.

That's not to say that the included apps are not capable. They certainly are, and mostly do the job. One could choose to favour them over Google's offerings. AudioFX works nicely with any audio, but excels with the built-in Twelve Music Player. There are lots of presets and customisation options to make the sound as you like it, whether it be with the built-in speakers or headphones (3.5mm here, and/or USB-C). All this responds well. The Music app searches quickly (especially given that I have all my data on a microSD card) and plays nicely—with lots of options, playlists, filtering, searching and even album art. It's a nice, clean player which sounds great, but it is totally unconnected, so say goodbye to streaming!

The Browser app is apparently Jelly—a lightweight, open-source browser developed by the team. Out of the box, it is set to start up into Google's search engine, and you can sign into your Google account if you like, but you can switch to any one of 11 others (or just install your own browser app and make it the system default). There are plenty of privacy settings in there if you want to use them, though there is not much point if one is signing into Google, I guess! One could argue that approaching it as I do, I might as well just install Chrome and use that! But yes, there are options for de-Googlers and the more privacy-minded.

The Calculator actually looks very much like Google's own, though it is standalone and doesn't share one's data with The Big G, of course. It is 100% local and asks for no permissions. There are scientific functions, though no currency or unit conversions—and frankly, who needs a 'connected' calculator?! You can always ask an AI for that on-the-fly, unless you're staying away from that too. I chose to uninstall Google's Calculator (which I had put on).

Calendar looks neat and simple with Day, Week, Month, and Agenda views. Settings allow for notifications, sync (in my case with Google), theming, search, go-to and plenty more. It seems to work well, talking nicely with whatever service it's hooked up to (or working standalone on-device). It has a nice kind of old-fashioned look about it—feeling like it's an app from 15 years back, which is nice, refreshing and functional.

The supplied Camera app, Aperture, can be opened by assigning a long-press to the shutter button on this particular device, and the shutter button can be used to fire the shutter—so the developer has mapped that nicely. In fact, the only thing missing from that button is the very handy short-press for screenshots, which is a shame. The workaround is to make sure it's selected in Button Settings so it appears in the Power Menu. Long-press the Power button, tap Screenshot, and it gets the power menu out of the way then takes the shot. Not quite as neat, but apparently Sony has that short-press on the shutter button locked down.

Aperture handles multiple lenses well, includes manual controls, features a built-in leveller, and even has a QR code scanner that doesn't ping a remote server to decode links. Of course, you don't get Google’s proprietary computational photography algorithms (like Night Sight or advanced HDR+ processing), so photos look more natural and less artificially boosted, which some will prefer—but it won't magically brighten up a pitch-black room the way a Pixel or standard Xperia stock firmware does!

The UI is simple and neat enough, with the usual side-scrolling buttons and labels across the bottom of the screen with various buttons, a deeper dive into Settings, gridlines, location, sounds, RAW - and an even deeper set of options relating to sharpening, de-noising, colour correction, distortion correction and more. So, there are some 'smart' tools available after all! I tried downloading the Pixel Camera app from the Play Store, but it crashes whenever I tap on Settings. Otherwise, it seems to work OK. But yes, for those not wanting to use Aperture, or wanting more, it's likely a visit to Celso Azevedo's GCam Repository!

Clock is next, and while the layout is incredibly minimal, it doesn't feel much different from Google's Clock app. The built-in one requires no permissions, so it's pretty much standalone. Google's app, of course, talks to the servers to track sleep stuff and integrates with Google Assistant and account data, triggers smart lights when the alarm goes off, handles Bedtime tracking, cough/snore detection (requiring microphone access), offers audio options integrating directly with YouTube Music to stream playlist alarms and oodles more! On the other hand, staying away from all that gives you the basic tools—local alarms, snooze, fade-in volume, custom ringtones and more. For those de-Googling, the app does just what a clock should do without requiring access to your microphone, your streaming accounts or the internet. On the other hand, if you're not de-Googling, I guess you might as well use Google's app!

When it comes to Contacts and Phone apps, my guess is that they're best used in tandem, whichever way one is jumping. Go with Google, use Google Phone and Google Contacts. Stick with LineageOS and use their two apps. I don't think mixing and matching them will work well. The two apps tend to be very tightly integrated at the system level, certainly in Google's case. You can, if you want to, swap them about, but I think I'd rather not, being a pessimist! Obviously, the standalone apps have no cloud integration again, only working with data on the device (unless you hook them up with another service) and also working closely with their Messaging app. Naturally, with Google (or any other cloud-based sync), you get much more cross-sync action and backups off-device. For me, it'll just feel disjointed after living with Google for so long now. But yes, for those de-Googling, the apps look and work fine.

Messaging is in on the sync act as well, even if locally. There's no RCS support in their Messaging app, so forget that one! It is strictly an SMS/MMS tool. If one wants typing indicators, high-res photos, read receipts and chatting over Wi-Fi, they are pretty much forced onto Google’s playground—but even then it won't work! If one decides to download the official Google Messages app to get RCS, Google will actively block it because it utilises a security framework called the Play Integrity API. This framework checks the phone's system to ensure the operating system hasn't been modified, like the financials trap above. The moment the Google Messages app detects an unlocked bootloader, it silently disables RCS functionality and the app reverts to SMS/MMS. Even though Google Messages > Settings > RCS Chats reports it as connected, it's not true! But at least it gets through! This could be a bit of a stumbling block, much like Google Wallet, for those who want the latest and greatest convenience tools.

Files is the default file manager and it's pretty bare-bones. That means that for the de-Googler there's total 'sandboxed' privacy, as it treats local storage traditionally. There are no smart categorisations trying to guess what you want, no cloud tie-ins, just local directories. So, it feels pretty rigid and old-fashioned without stuff like a network share shortcut to pull files from a PC, or native archive extraction tools. It's fine for casual users of course (who probably never use a files app anyway), but others will probably want to add a meatier app. Again, you can use Google Files if you're going the open way, so you have all the benefits that brings. Google Files crawls every item on the storage to categorise them into Memories, Clean Up Suggestions or Large Files. The LineageOS app does none of this background data-crunching. What one sees is strictly what is on the device. It treats the internal storage or microSD card like an old-school, offline flash drive. But, there is no sharing—if you want to transfer a music track or a document from your PC over Wi-Fi, the stock app cannot see your local network. You are forced to physically plug the phone into a computer via a USB-C cable. It can't zip or unzip compressed archives without jumping through hoops, meaning handling email attachments or local backups requires an external tool. But there is middle ground in the shape of unconnected but more capable third-party apps. Plenty of them. I favour X-plore when I need stuff like that.

We're up to G, and so Gallery is next—Glimpse! On the face of it, the app looks clean, tabbed, and pretty similar to Google Photos. But under the bonnet, Glimpse is essentially a file browser that favours media. Google Photos is basically a 'cloud viewer' that happens to show local files too. Glimpse is a 100% local storage viewer. When you open Google Photos, the home tab isn't showing your phone’s folders—it is showing a cloud-synced timeline of all your images and videos. So again, it depends on what you want—the convenience of an always-connected, backed-up experience or a severed, local, old-fashioned, private and controlled one. Which is what a lot of this comes back to as we plough through. Do you need to have the convenience of searching a potentially huge archive for the "day I took the dog to the beach", or the locked-down 'know your filenames' offline and local experience (which, incidentally, to search for, you have to use the Files app—there is no search engine with file-indexing inside Gallery)! But Gallery works fine, and has Albums and Library filters. And what's yours stays yours, rather than being given away for data-harvesting!

The built-in, very bare-bones voice Recorder app can record in high-quality formats, allows you to track visually with a live 'waveform', and runs entirely in the background. But, again, it completely lacks any real-time clever AI transcription features that others provide via cloud-first apps and services. Once recorded, there are no tools to do anything with it other than play it back (in the app of your choosing). Any further and smarter use of the audio would need to be sent to another app or service, likely cloud-based, to get, for example, summaries or notes from a lecture or talk. It's quite restrictive when one has got used to the other tools out there which do so much more. But yes, as we are discovering, it is private and secure.

In digging down into Settings to see what's different and interesting, don't forget that I'm using a Sony Xperia 10 Mk VII here—so I'm not guaranteeing all of what I find will work on other hardware. I'll try to highlight what I find that is noteworthy or different from the usual stuff. All the Network and Internet options seem present and correct, including Hotspot, eSIM, and VoIP, if your operator supports it. Bluetooth seems to work as expected with the usual options, having paired up various devices without a hitch. There's a nice, simple Screen Time implementation under Apps and various Android 16 standards like Notification History, Summaries, Cooldown, Organiser and Bubbles under Notifications. Nothing of note or unusual in Sound & Vibrations or Modes, but there is that Always on Display option in Display. The Sony Xperia 10 Mk VII didn't have this, so I was most excited to see it here. There are zero options for the clock or layout—you get just the one which brings time, day, date, notification icons, and battery percentage at the foot. I'm really happy that this has been added but hugely disappointed that it's barely legible in anything but the near pitch dark. So, as a night clock it's fine, but in almost all other situations it can't be seen. Well, just about. I have dug around in settings, played with Adaptive Brightness on/off, lighting levels, LiveDisplay—but nothing changes it. What a shame. Still, better to have something over nothing I guess—it just could have been much better.

The Wallpaper & Style is basic Android 16 with Home Screen and Lock Screen options, Clock (though with only that one available, as above), Widgets on Lock Screen, a more basic Wallpapers picker, very AOSP, but theming colours, contrast, and icon shapes are present—and a better bunch of 'layout' options than Pixel, from 6x6 through to a bonkers 2x2! All the battery-saving options are available: Saver, Manager, and so on to protect its life. The System menu throws up a few notables, like Buttons, including an assignable Edge Long Swipe Action—I set it to be Gemini and with 20 attempts swiping up the side of the screen I got it to work twice! It's obviously an art that needs practice (or a phone with bigger bezels)! All sorts of options on the Power Menu, more so than most; keyboard cursor control (for the standard AOSP keyboard if not using Gboard by this stage). You can use the volume up/down buttons to move the cursor, like long-pressing the spacebar on Gboard. You can move the volume panel left or right on the screen, which is a nice touch for 'lefties', and make loads of adjustments to the Status bar—assigning which icons are shown and which are not, including even the clock (with seconds showing or not) and battery percentage or icon. So, plenty of thoughtful and some unique features—it all feels very CyanogenMod. Which is great! Good work, developers.

I've been testing the battery now for a couple of days with, specifically, attention to the Always on Display (for 'tis why I'm here)! The bad news is that even though it's barely legible in all but darkness (as above), using it kills the battery. It drains at about 5-10% per hour—making it unusable to get through a day (and pretty pointless anyway if it can't be seen)! A drain of 5-10% per hour means that I'd certainly be charging it in the middle of the day again—and these tests were conducted whilst not doing anything else with the phone, so it would make it even worse! With an OLED panel, the AoD is supposed to only light up the pixels it's using, so I don't get it. Particularly if it barely lights them up anyway. And especially when, if the AoD is turned off, the phone under LineageOS 23.2 sips the battery, making it at least an all-day phone, even with heavy use—and even two days at a push. Nope—the AoD is caning the battery. No idea if that's something the developers can do anything about, but I shall feed back, of course.

LineageOS 23.2 under Android 16 delivers a really interesting and different experience in software minimalism, reviving the enthusiast-driven spirit of CyanogenMod. Free from mainstream bloatware and aggressive Big Brother AI tracking, the ROM converts your device into a beautifully clean, deterministic tool. Its suite of lightweight, open-source AOSP utilities operates with speed and total, offline data security (if you want it). Furthermore, for those who crave granular control, the settings menu remains a playground—allowing you to customise status bar metrics, relocate volume interfaces for left-handed use and micro-manage display parameters to a degree completely forbidden by mainstream operating systems.

However, this living on an island approach demands a lifestyle compromise. Stripping away big tech means forfeiting the seamless automation of the modern cloud ecosystem. The moment you cross over into custom ROMs, Google's hidden power strikes back. Through strict Play Integrity API attestation, critical everyday tools like Google Wallet and mainstream banking apps are instantly locked down. Communication pipelines suffer too; without a proprietary Google backend, you lose rich RCS messaging and computational camera wizardry vanishes in favour of natural, unassisted processing. Even unlocked hardware enhancements, like the resurrected Always-on Display, frequently suffer from a lack of low-level factory optimisation, resulting in catastrophic standby battery drain.

Ultimately, LineageOS 23.2 is a super operating system, but it is not a casual sanctuary! If your intention is simply to install the Play Store and force Google's heavy cloud stack back onto the device, the resulting hybrid experience will feel clunky and double-optioned. LineageOS shines brightest when fully embraced as an independent, file-first operating system. It remains a great, secure achievement for tech-savvy purists willing to trade effortless convenience for genuine ownership of their digital canvas. But it's been a very useful and interesting experience to have ploughed through it and hopefully my notes here might be of use to some folk reading by blog.