791–800 of 1001 posts
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It’s total trash AI. I keep forgetting to unsubscribe. Can’t do anything.
In the Google Pixel 2024 Keynote, one of the presenters, Dave Citron, had to try three times to get Gemini to perform the preapproved, practiced demonstration task - 33.3% success rate for something that Google KNOWS will work. see https://www.youtube.com/live/N_y2tP9of8A?t=1692
No thanks to anything else coming from Google (Meta, Apple, Microsoft, Netflix ...). Have you noticed how they improved their Youtube recommendations in the last year? Creepy, how well it works. Unfortunately, all this tech paired with state of the art psychological research is not used to help people, but to make them media junkies. Everything AI follows the same pattern. The tech is amazing and can be indeed helpful used the right way, but at the end of the day it's used to gather data to make us using their services more and more and to than extract money from us (mostly still via ads). Decades ago, this industry was kind of innocent. Today, they all know exactly what they do and what damage they cause in esp. younger peoples brains. Healthy kids and young people need to be creative, explore the real world, be proactive. Not muted screen zombies. The extend of emotional and general mental illness in young people is heart breaking. We all see it. They don't care.
I hate you, Google, Meta, Apple, Microsoft, Netflix, Amazon, TicToc ... the world was a better place without you.
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I only bought a Pixel because of GrapheneOS. I think I've never had this few issues with a phone. (I only had Samsung phones before this) It feels even better than the Android that the Pixels ship with, I used it for a day before I flashed GrapheneOS, and I can completely understand why one would not buy a Pixel again if they only experienced the Stock OS.
What excited you about Graphene?
Many of those are appealing
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I wish we had more than two phone giants. This is aggravating. Unfortunately due to their market dominance and muddling of (hardware, OS, software distribution, and platform ecosystem), it's almost impossible to disentangle. It'd be amazing if the DOJ made these companies only offer one slice of those four things. There would be so much competition and a wild variety of new things being tried.
I would rather have a better phone than more options, apple's 800-pound gorilla-ness gets me a phone with: - an SoC made on TSMC's latest process node, with a humongous die, and all the associated power/performance benefits - because of how many phones apple can sell, they can divide the cost of R&D over more units, and can design things like their own CPU cores - "Ask app not to track" that works, because of the app…
The dominance of the negativity in these comments is noteworthy. Personally, I thought it was a exciting update with major hardware improvements, some compelling AI demos and use cases at a similar price point as the past. Top tech reviewers e.g. MKBHD has similar impressions. Mostly just curious as to why there are ~0 positive comments here. I suspect could be: 1) anti-google HN bias - perhaps deserved? 2) it's simp…
Call it disappointment I guess. No phone from any manufacturer has felt totally “right” to me in years in the way that phones from a decade ago did. It makes sense from a business perspective since smartphones were effectively complete way back then. The business needs a way to justify selling me a new one so it's been a long slow downhill of shit-I-don't-care-about ever since. I especially miss the era of HTC flagships. HIGH TECH COMPUTER!
The software is disappointing too even though today was not really a software announcement. To me it feels like since they're both from Google the Pixel hardware direction also signals what Android itself will prioritize. I used to be a huge Android-the-OS fan but found that my enjoyment of the platform peaked at 4.2.2 Jelly Bean. Version 4.3 was the first version to remove something I loved (the “Phablet” UI layouts that were great on my Galaxy NoteⅡ). Announcements like today's push that point of Peak Android even further away in my mind, and I'm sad about it.
Pixel 9 also says satellite emergency support ("Satellite SOS"). Search for info gets you to https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/15254448?hl=en&... It looks like it's coming "later this year". Lots of chatter about it, see a few details at https://www.androidauthority.com/pixel-9-satellite-sos-34676... * apparently coming with android 15, but they are shipping android 14 * turning on satellite sos later, but…
Plus Garmin devices use the Iridium network which has truly global coverage (as opposed to Globalstar which is only in select areas of the world) as well as other features useful for non-emergency backcountry travel. I won't be dropping my Garmin InReach any time soon.
No subscription required either. You simply register the beacon with a government agency (in the US, its via the NOAA, and distress signals are handled by the coast guard or air force receivers)
Google really needs to improve the core offering of what a phone is supposed to provide instead of using half baked AI as a selling point. I have been using Pixel 7 for almost the past 2 years. But the amount of basic core issues are crazy. Recently,since the July update, every place where the phone cannot catch network signal, it shutdowns. And with the update, somehow i feel it cannot catch network signal as strong…
Meanwhile, I'm getting pushed away from iOS when I can't customise basic things and the Phone app (you know, the main use of a phone) takes 30s to open, even after restores.
As for customization, that's sort of Apple's main feature set: It will always work the same everywhere on every device.
The dominance of the negativity in these comments is noteworthy. Personally, I thought it was a exciting update with major hardware improvements, some compelling AI demos and use cases at a similar price point as the past. Top tech reviewers e.g. MKBHD has similar impressions. Mostly just curious as to why there are ~0 positive comments here. I suspect could be: 1) anti-google HN bias - perhaps deserved? 2) it's simp…
There's also the obligatory non-Pro model, and a refresh of the Pixel Fold: https://store.google.com/us/product/pixel_9 https://store.google.com/us/product/pixel_9_pro_fold Usually the Pro is bigger than the non-Pro but this time they're exactly the same size, and they've added a bigger Pro XL variant. https://www.phonearena.com/phones/size/Google-Pixel-9,Google... The Pro and Pro XL appear to have identical specs as…
Would have been nice if they did a regular size (5.8”) for normal people and 6.8” for the genetic freaks with dinner plate hands. 6.3” is still huge. 5.8” is workable. And it’s not like there’s no precedent, the Zenfone 10 is also 5.8” and is adored for it.
The dominance of the negativity in these comments is noteworthy. Personally, I thought it was a exciting update with major hardware improvements, some compelling AI demos and use cases at a similar price point as the past. Top tech reviewers e.g. MKBHD has similar impressions. Mostly just curious as to why there are ~0 positive comments here. I suspect could be: 1) anti-google HN bias - perhaps deserved? 2) it's simp…
On paper, it’s largely the same as prior years for the SoC at least. I think the fold has the most obvious upgrade but nothing I’d consider really major. Other than that, it seems like mostly a camera bump year?