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A bit of a rant, but what to do about new smartphones? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Samsung has gone hard promoting AI in their phones, and now OnePlus has also announced some heavy AI-based features in their new Android OS. Pretty much every other brand is now doing the same, so you can't escape it.

I've been in the market to upgrade my nearly 6-year-old phone, but seeing all these AI features, especially when they rely on Google's Gemini (or other cloud AI), and it feels deflating.

Will privacy ultimately have to be sacrificed "from now on"?

By not using these AI features, you pay a lot for features you won't be using. And the usefulness of the device becomes limited as nearly all functions now have AI-based components to them.

I'm totally fine with on-device AI, but many features I'm seeing don't seem to be on-device, and I've spent years trying to stop sending my data to companies like Google. I don't want to go backwards for the sake of market trends.

What are your future plans when it comes to smartphones?

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Oh man, as much as I'd love the hardware of an iPhone 16 Pro Max, I just can't go back to Apple. On my Android phone, I use mostly FOSS apps, and self-host a lot of stuff that just works fine for me on Android.

But I do appreciate that Apple at least makes it a point to repeatedly say that data is kept on the device and that AI is done on-board.

These other manufacturers are so vague, that you have to assume it's being processed in the cloud (even if it's not).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

For your use case, Android definitely makes a lot more sense! I don’t use a lot of software overall when I’m not working, just a couple Linux boxes for Pi-Hole, my server, computer games, browsers, VLC, and occasional stuff (recording in Audacity, Foobar2000, etc) so an iPhone works great for me. I mainly only use my phone for Lemmy, browser stuff, stocks, and taking an irresponsible amount of pictures of my cats and my partner n’ me.

There’s no reason I REALLY need a phone this expensive but I rarely ever buy anything so I figured I’d treat myself since I’ll prolly have this for another six years!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

If you went Android to go FOSS, why not just install a FOSS OS? As far as I know, none of the popular ones are pushing server-side tech right now.

https://itsfoss.com/open-source-alternatives-android/

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 week ago

The biggest problem is that most of those rely on older phones or phones that aren't necessarily top-tier.

At some point, support for all newer phones will likely be very limited, so what's the community going to do then? Keep using old phones?