I need taking out the back of the barn
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