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Smartphone buyers meh on AI, care more about battery life

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Re: Smartphone buyers meh on AI, care more about battery life

#131
post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck. I’ve tried to replace battery in mine 12 mini last week - with no success. I had to leave my phone for 4 hours or several days (if they brake screen during battery replacement, they will wait for replacement phone to be shipped overnight). Also representative was convincing me to buy a new phone - saying that battery replacement won’t help much because new ios versions has features which high battery usage…

So do the swap yourself. Part and kit: https://www.ifixit.com/products/iphone-12-mini-replacement-b... Steps: https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/iPhone+12+mini+Battery+Replacem...

I've successfully have replaced batteries and displays in older iphones (mainly iphone 6). But with newer iphones opening the phone is more complex.

I've read online and heard from Apple Store representative that iPhone 12 (all models) has tendency to crack the screen when phone is opened for repair or battery replacement and in that case Apple Store would replace the hole phone (this is were multi day repair process). So I would rather pay $90 to Apple that guarantees that I'll get a phone replacement in case when screen is broken during battery replacement. Without the phone I sill would be able to answer the cell calls from Apple Watch and with ipad over WiFi.

Re: Smartphone buyers meh on AI, care more about battery life

#133
post #127
post #3

I have a hard time seeing how this isn't obvious. 95% of everyday AI needs (for the people that even bother to interact with it) are covered by ChatGPT, and most of that is the same stuff that Google was handling before. From personal experience, the only thing that changed when replacing the "old" Google Assistant with the Gemini-powered one on my Pixel was that it's no longer able to create reminders.

> 95% of everyday AI needs This assumes that the capabilities and use cases are unchanged. Yes, for the AI features available today, I suppose ChatGPT can do much of it -- I wouldn't know because it's not interesting or useful to me, so I don't use it. But: If I'm deciding whether AI features are important to me in making a decision to spend money on a future phone, it's those future AI features that I will be assess…

You seriously assess "future AI features" when buying a phone? Have you heard the expression "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush"? Also, what is the lifetime of a phone? How far in the future are these new features expected?

Re: Smartphone buyers meh on AI, care more about battery life

#134
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s a package of devices Apple is selling. They sell under powered smaller screen macs. They sell iMacs. They sell small iPads. They sell smaller watches. Some of these just don’t sell as well as their other offerings. They should sell small phones. Because the whole family will be in on the brand, features, and services. I’ve heard many family members and friends say that they won’t give up their older small phones…

How can you be confident in this when you don't even see their sales data? Still, I would like to see a smaller regularly updated phone. Bonus points if there is a high-end version, because small shouldn't mean budget (like with iPhone SE).

The last small flagship (iPhone 13 mini) sold poorly, but it was much more expensive than the SE2. This was at the tail end of covid, but before faceid worked with masks, so the SE's touch id was a huge selling point.

Other than that and the camera, the only functional difference I can find are that the SE line is still missing the UWB antenna.

I'd happily upgrade to a newer small iPhone if they made one. As it is, it looks like the only option is repeatedly repairing my 13 mini (and dealing with the hilariously bad 5G battery drain forever) or downgrading to a newer SE3.

I know there are a lot of people in this boat. I predict they'll produce another small phone in a few years. It'll sell well due to pent up demand, and someone will be declared a genius for selling 100M's of extra phones that year.

Re: Smartphone buyers meh on AI, care more about battery life

#135
post #3

I have a hard time seeing how this isn't obvious. 95% of everyday AI needs (for the people that even bother to interact with it) are covered by ChatGPT, and most of that is the same stuff that Google was handling before. From personal experience, the only thing that changed when replacing the "old" Google Assistant with the Gemini-powered one on my Pixel was that it's no longer able to create reminders.

I'm not sure that's true. Not everybody is hounding for information from the web in the first place. Apple's approach of using current-boom AI to help you navigate and digest your own private trove of multimedia content (photos, videos, apps, notes, structured data, etc) is absolutely useful to people as well, and for some of us, one of the only personal uses of this AI that seems compelling at all. I'm much more exc…

Yeah, it seems based on the advertising from the various AI vendors, they are showing its use by summarizing emails/phone call/etc. Things like being able to search text messages for info blah blah. The only one I've seen pushing online searches is Google, but that seems like duh! for them to be pushing. Circle something in an image and take me to a listing of that something for sale. Of course that's Google's direction.

But that whole find me something on my mutliple gigabytes of storage on my device account definitely seems like the mass appeal

Re: Smartphone buyers meh on AI, care more about battery life

#136
post #3

I have a hard time seeing how this isn't obvious. 95% of everyday AI needs (for the people that even bother to interact with it) are covered by ChatGPT, and most of that is the same stuff that Google was handling before. From personal experience, the only thing that changed when replacing the "old" Google Assistant with the Gemini-powered one on my Pixel was that it's no longer able to create reminders.

> the only thing that changed when replacing the "old" Google Assistant with the Gemini-powered one on my Pixel was that it's no longer able to create reminders

Weird! Mine can still create reminders, as well as set timers and alarms.

Re: Smartphone buyers meh on AI, care more about battery life

#138
post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good luck. I’ve tried to replace battery in mine 12 mini last week - with no success. I had to leave my phone for 4 hours or several days (if they brake screen during battery replacement, they will wait for replacement phone to be shipped overnight). Also representative was convincing me to buy a new phone - saying that battery replacement won’t help much because new ios versions has features which high battery usage…

Oh boy I hope that doesn’t happen to me. It took them a week to get iPhone 13 mini battery in.

They would tell you and you would notice if your phone was replaced - it would have new serial and 2FA apps won't work on a new phone without reregistration.

Most likely it took them a week to get a new battery for replacement shipped.

Re: Smartphone buyers meh on AI, care more about battery life

#139
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Everyday AI" hasn't even been built yet tbh. Where is my assistant that notices my flight has been delayed and reschedules my appointments and lets my contacts know?

1. How does it know how/when to reschedule that doctor's appointment that you need to call to reschedule? How do you know that receptionist won't hang up on your "AI agent" who tries to call them, b/c they think it's some sort of scam bot? 2. How does it know which contacts to contact? Does that acquaintance you talked to for some professional reason need to know your flight got rescheduled? What about that travel ag…

I would say the problem there is the requirement to phone a human to change a record in their database.

If they had an app then an AI assistant should be able to tie things together. Where things seem to be going is apps provide an intent-based API wrapper plus UI widgets to interact with it. That way assistants can operate them too.

Re: Smartphone buyers meh on AI, care more about battery life

#140
post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Based on the fact that easily 90+% of phones I see in the wild have cases on them, physical size and thickness isn't a big factor Well, people are probably going to put cases on their phone regardless, so the phone has to be thin enough that even with a case it's still a manageable size. But I agree that battery is where phones ultimately fail most of the time. I have had a Samsung S10 for a bit over 5 years now an…

So replace the battery? It's not some impossible task. https://www.ifixit.com/products/galaxy-s10-replacement-batte... It's slightly annoying to replace, but even if you have a shop do it, it's far cheaper than a new phone. https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Samsung+Galaxy+S10+Battery+Repl...

I'm aware it can be done and have looked at the page on iFixit, and may end up doing just that. But as well as looking like a bit of a PITA to do it, I'm not particularly confident my phone will be good as new after I melt the glue and pry it open. My point is that it would be great if replacing the battery was as simple as clicking off (or even unscrewing) the case and taking it out, like it used to be. Granted, I probably couldn't take my phone swimming with me, but I think I could get over that.
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