Could you provide the exact settings menu you are talking about in the iPhone? I switched to graphene from iPhone and ran into a bunch of mostly solvable problems. One that was out of my control was how Apple was storing my information for other iPhone users. For example, for my mom’s Apple account, Apple stored the metadata that I had an Apple device and it would therefore first try routing messages over imessage and would simply fail to deliver after I switched to Graphene. I had to go into my mom’s phone and manually force her phone to send the message via SMS. It correctly remembered my number for her after that, but you apparently have to do that for every person if they have the same situation. I ended up getting a new standard cell number through Cape and I use that through Graphene’s stock messaging app now without any issues so far.
Referral Code: 8DHE3HVV
I have Cape and they have been great so far. I’ll leave some info below. Skip the first paragraph if you want to avoid their advertising scheme, but it was the big reason I could afford to switch to them so I thought I might be helpful to others.
They are currently running an early adopter promotion until the end of the year where you get an unlimited plan that is $70 per month for life, and if you use someone else’s referral Code it drops you down to $50/month for as long as that person stays on Cape. What’s crazy is that it then drops to $30 for another referral, $10 after another, and $0 after that. For as long as those other people are on. I thought that was a pretty cool deal honestly given that I was previously paying $55 a month for T Mobile.
So a quick review from my experiences so far.
Sign up was easy and basically needed no identifying information. I use Cape on Graphene OS through the stock messaging app. It allows me to send videos, images, and so on. There are some issues with group chats still I think, but I haven’t really fiddled with that. The coverage and speeds have been solid.
The IMSI rotation is automatic and a great protocol. They have a bunch of other very smart architecture choices. I used to write patents for telecomm companies like Ericsson and Qualcomm and I’m really impressed with their engineering. My friend is an independent security pentester and educator, and their company recently audited Cape. They said they did excellently and had no reservations on recommending them to me. I also watched a lot of interviews about the company and their system. After that, I felt comfortable testing Cape out. My hope was that they would be way more reliable approach than my previous set up (I followed the Bazzell set up with Mint under a pseudonym and VoIP.ms but voip.ms has been really spotty lately and I have young kids so that’s no good).
I still have VoIP.ms for my old number, but I use my main Cape cell number for close family and friends who won’t get on Signal for whatever reason. They also give you two free burner numbers for texting only, so I use those for 2FA and sign ups if needed. You can only text to those numbers and you currently can’t port them out, but I believe they are middle to end encrypted (check me on that one though).
There are many other features and caveats (like they’re working on RCS, they have different available features for iPhone users, etc.), but I recommend their interviews with channels like the hated one or techlore or elsewhere. Those helped me a lot.
I’m happy to answer any other questions. It took me a while to decide to try them out because I’m pretty tedious about my privacy set up, but I’ve honestly been pretty impressed so far and I love the idea of having a mobile core telecomm company adopt some actual privacy architecture in this middle space.
Edit: I just reread my post and realized how much I sound like a shill and how much I repeated what OP said. Sorry, I’m just high in my bed.