Google brings more Gemini AI features to Android, saves the best for Pixel 9 Today, Google said it will add more Gemini AI features to Android smartphones – though what's said to be best of that functionality will be exclusive to its new Pixel 9 line of handhelds. The Chocolate Factory unveiled this latest stuff at its Made By Google event, which unsurprisingly focused largely on the Android ecosystem …
It's been like that for a while, not least for network bandwidth and latency reasons. Not sure if Google needs to bother with then sending the result of the analsys by the local model as it knows it's going to be getting more search data anyway.
Google was pretty much the first to understand that the service approach was the way to go if you want to make money. Look back at the videos where they demonstrated the first "duplex" AI with the assistant being asked to make an appointment with a hairdresser. This was years before ChatGPT and demonstrates the importance of domain knowledge: only when you know what the topic is, can you really do something with it.
If we are adding back jacks can we please go with the more modern and superior 4.4mm jack.
One way to add back expandable storage without taking up more space or adding another hole in the case would be the replaced the soldered UFS storage with a internal UFS socket with a UFS card, that way you could just upgrade your phones storage and re-flash the ROM. It would also makes phones practically brick-proof.
There are so many ways that phones could be improved so I expect none of them to happen.
What I'd like AI to do, for example, would be to check the weather and work out that my car is frosted and set my alarm to be 5 minutes earlier* so I don't miss the train that it knows I'm going to get. Also, to let me know this as it wakes me up. This and hundreds of other things that could improve my life just a tiny little bit, without getting in the way.
I don't see any of this happening, but it's a route they *could* go down with "AI" ?
* I guess electric cars do this already, and defrost themselves just before you need them without having to be told? 'cos it's 2024.
I'm old now, I actually need a new phone as my current one is dying and I have been waiting for this to come out as I felt like treating myself to a new shiny toy but meh. I don't want AI on the thing that lives in my pocket that I mostly use when i'm having a sit down in the smallest room. I don't have an interesting life, I take photos of things I need to remember or find funny, I certainly don't have to worry about pasting another middle aged man in to a group photo as I can't remember the last group photo I was in? Getting restaurants from a travel vlog? I've just been sick in my mouth and am not hungry anymore. I've tried loads of shopping list apps and services, none of them work as well as a pen and paper. I do use the google voice thing on my sonos devices to set timers or play music but most of the time it gets it wrong as it can't understand my northern english accent.
I'm very happy with things in this world not being for me that other people do enjoy and make use of, but as another poster has said, do they really expect is less than average Joes to pay a monthly fee to have AI in our pocket/cloud? This isn't progress, this is desperately triying to recoup the massive over investment in the fools gold of AI from the consumer market. There are some great use cases for AI in specific areas but they aren't 90+% of people's phones.
I just want a device that fits in my pocket, works pretty quickly, charges quickly and has an OS that doesn't get in my way. I do what I can to learn new skills but after nearly 30 years working in tech I'm done, I'm management now as my brain no longer picks new stuff up that well so I leave that to the younger ones and I deal with the politics. The sales figures for this are going to be so bad and I hope they take the right lesson from it, but they won't, the 10 will have moar AI. I actually need a new phone and was ready to splash £1k ish but I think I will go for the 8a and put the savings towards some ovaltine
You can pick up some excellent phones for a lot less than the flagships. I've had Samsungs for the last 10 years or so and found them solid and reliable. My new A35 is a little big, doesn't have wireless charging or HDMI support, but I can live without those. It is waterproof, has a good battery, has lots of storage but can take an SD card and will have 5 years of updates. I don't need a 3.5mm jack but I would like batteries to be user replaceable again: I'd definitely buy replacements.
YMMV
Having skipped a couple of generations as a very happy (none-pro) 6 user, the 9 crosses the line for me with its improved camera features, the main one being that 50 megapixels can now mean exactly that. The 6 can already just about replace a real camera if I must travel light, while the 9 Pro makes travelling lighter more appealing.
The AI features? I'm all for the ones I don't see (I'm all about the photography, and if an NPU makes that better, I'm fine with that), but the flashy, visible stuff leaves me nonplussed (though I'll doubtless find uses for some of it).
I just got a Pixel 8a to replace a 6a (which was a complete lemon - endless hardware issues). Still mediocre battery life and terrible fingerprint sensor. But at least it's stuffed to the gills with AI pixie dust and more spying than you can shake a magic wand at. Of course, they reset a lot of privacy selections from the previous phone to allow them to snoop more extensively again. It's high time Google were broken up.
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