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Samsung’s $1,300 phone might someday have fees for AI usage
(arstechnica.com)
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AI is not a feature. The cloud is not a feature.
I'm with you on the cloud, but non-cloud AI would be a killer feature if anybody actually offered it. But instead, everything just sends all your data to OpenAI. Yawn. I can do that myself in any web browser.
Samsung talks about on-device AI, but if you look through their footnotes almost everything requires a Samsung account and an active internet connection. It's all cloud shit. Probably OpenAI, but as far as I can tell they don't actually say who their providers are. Perhaps the details are (or will be) buried in a privacy policy somewhere.
Google has Gemini Nano, Microsoft has Phi-2, and on the open-source side there are plenty of 3B or 7B models that can run on a laptop or phone (e.g. Mistral, Falcon, Wizard). Whisper is great for on-device multi-lingual voice-to-text, and there are tons of Stable Diffusion implementations that could run on a high-end smartphone. A Snapdragon 8 gen 3 should be able to run this stuff, unless Qualcomm seriously dropped the ball (remains to be seen).
Kind of like what Google did with the Pixel 8 (Pro). "Hey look at our cool Tensor 3 chip, it does AI." ... "Oh but almost everything we showed you with object removal and most other stuff works in the cloud."
That's some bs.
Will be interesting to see what Apple does. They'll at least try to get some form of chat bot running on-device, all of their AI features run locally so far.
Some of the "AI" features have been found to be rebrands of the Pixel features - even down to having the same Google terms of service.
Same. Pixel + GrapheneOS sounds like the move for most now.
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What’s the issue with the Pixel cameras? I thought they were typically one of the selling points of the phone? Maybe I haven’t paid enough attention to recent reviews (been on iOS for a few years now, but want to switch back to Android).
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100%. Seems like phones continually get worse under the guise of "progress". No more headphone jack or removable battery, more bloated software, anti-privacy assistants/AI. Switched to a Sony Xperia for the headphone jack alone and it's been great, I hope they don't follow this AI trend or else I'm out.
Gotta build in the opportunity for rent seeking.
Man, I was considering an upgrade, but I absolutely don't want anything to do with AI on my phone.
I want the hardware and some usable software to make my phone work the way I like.
Why does every damn company these days feel like enshitification is the only way forward?
Everyone is shitting on Apple for barely any upgrades except the camera over the past few years.
And really what we need is to stop it as a society that you need the latest things all the time.
And really what we need is to stop it as a society that you need the latest things all the time.
I completely agree, and I don't think as many people are buying phones as often as they once did.
But if I'm going to replace a 4-5 year-old phone, the replacement should be significantly better after that long.
I don't see anything compelling in the last 5 generations of phones, other than the camera. And even those are simply OK. Nothing justifies the prices we're seeing.
My perfect phone would be something like a Fairphone with a good camera. Reparability these days means way more to me than gimmicky crap.
The one upgrade from Apple that I see it's worth was the 15 line, because the finally dropped lightning for USB-C.
No, people shit on Apple because they release the same phone every year at an absurdly high price point.
If their phones were affordable, I think everyone would nearly universally love them. They sell standard at premium prices with lofty advertising that promises you the world, yet delivers the baseline, or just below it.
Yeah definitely, can someone suggest a phone like that. I am planning to get one.
I got a nothing (2) phone and love it
There's not much about what features these are. I understand AI costs a lot to run and they're at least being upfront before they enshittify. That being said, I never liked Bixby and I hated that cursed button and every time I accidentally pressed it. I also gave up on Galaxy phones after removing the headphone jack, SD card and stuff.
Nope
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Another view is that Galaxy AI is the usual bundle of baked-in Samsung features skinned on top of Android, but with generative AI being the hot new thing, Samsung went with AI-centric branding.
Whatever value you want to place on Samsung's AI features, you might soon have to place an actual monetary value on them: Despite devices like the Galaxy S24 Ultra costing $1,300, Samsung might start charging for some of these AI phone features.
This is the company that makes Bixby and the notoriously poorly coded Tizen, though, so it's hard to imagine Galaxy AI features being worth paying for.
The Galaxy AI features made by Samsung include "Interpreter," which is a copy of Google Translate's conversation mode, and Voice Recorder, a voice transcription app that is just a copy of Google Recorder (and apparently not as good).
Like most Samsung Android features, this feels more like throwing a pile of stuff at the wall and hoping something sticks rather than a collection of killer apps.
The first step to charging for something like this is throwing the idea out there, so Samsung is probably listening to how people will react between now and the end of 2025.
The original article contains 548 words, the summary contains 199 words. Saved 64%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
I really loved AI up to the point when it was a personal option. As in, I had to actively search it to use. When it began to be crammed into everything, sending my personal data to a cloud without being able to opt out, that's a line a didn't want to be crossed and it's being forced unto me. That's when I really began to hate the feature.
Unless they really bury them in other regular features and make them indispensable, I don't care. I don't really see myself using the ones they've advertised so it won't bother me to not pay for them and for them not to be active. I get the distaste though, especially among this community with the preferences I've seen. That's perfectly valid. My own choice will be to not pay for any subscription for any AI type services. My Note 20 Ultra has served me well. I may bite on this one (flat screen woohoo!). I'll miss the SD card though.
this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2024
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