From Gemini Spark to Daily Brief, Google’s newest Android AI features are increasingly locked behind subscriptions.

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.

  • Lee Duna@lemmy.nzOPEnglish
    2·
    5 days ago

    I think many of us feel stuck, because the choices for smartphone operating systems are indeed limited.

    As for me, it’s clear that Google is making it harder for people to develop and install Android apps. Google wants to ensure that it remains in control and that no one can escape from GApps and Gemini.

    The only way to stop this is to break up Google. Or to fund smartphone OS project other than Android, however, that would take years.