Buying Android phone is increasingly just the entry fee for Google’s AI ecosystem.

The direction of travel is clear: Google is pushing AI harder and harder to redefine its ecosystem and bring new, powerful features to users. Android’s core OS remains free, but Google increasingly appears to view it less as a product and more as a delivery mechanism for its AI services. As those services become more central to the modern smartphone experience, many of the platform’s most ambitious features are also becoming subscription products.

  • Mwa@thelemmy.club
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    4 days ago

    I hope Google goes bankrupt,especially after the Android sideloading change.

    • RustyNova@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      Personally I don’t think the side loading will kill them. It’ll happen and nothing will change.

      Perhaps the ai bubble burst could damage them enough, but they are way to big of a monopoly to fall. And android alternatives still scare people as unlike PC, you may brick your phone, or be locked out of apps due to play services

          • kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            4 days ago

            I hope you speak Mandarin. App availability outside the PRC seems to be pretty close to zero. Unless you think it’s time for round 3 of a webapp-based OS? iPhone OS couldn’t do it in 2008 and webOS couldn’t do it in 2010, but 5G exists now, so it should at least be better. I’m still not sure about good.

            • ZDL@lazysoci.al
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              4 days ago

              I live in China. My SO has a HarmonyOS phone already. Interestingly it has a setting to display everything in English (among a lot of other languages).

              • kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                4 days ago

                Sounds like that’s one more viable option for ~15% of the world’s population, then! The rest of us have to wait for something that can run Android (or I guess iOS somehow) apps.

                • ZDL@lazysoci.al
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                  3 days ago

                  Or, you know, wait until Huawei shakes out the big features and ensures they’re bug-free before they start selling outside of the PRC.

                  You don’t think that China is their end-game, do you?

                  • kkj@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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                    3 days ago

                    Well they’re literally illegal in the US, so I’m pretty SOL regardless, but even if they have designs on the rest of the world, Apple and Google have several million apps’ worth of a head start. We’ll see if Huawei can do what Samsung and Palm/HP couldn’t.

      • ArchsageRamases@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        Sucks so msny apps need play services and have no alternative like banking apps witch I have to use on the web browser.