this post was submitted on 25 Jun 2025
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Google’s Gemini team is apparently sending out emails about an upcoming change to how Gemini interacts with apps on Android devices. The email informs users that, come July 7, 2025, Gemini will be able to “help you use Phone, Messages, WhatsApp, and Utilities on your phone, whether your Gemini Apps Activity is on or off.” Naturally, this has raised some privacy concerns among those who’ve received the email and those using the AI assistant on their Android devices.

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[–] fannymcslap@lemmy.world 15 points 3 hours ago

Laughs in eu

[–] mrodri89@lemmy.zip 6 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Well I guess I’m glad I moved over to apple. But I guess the enshitification of all our phones is coming soon.

[–] bytesonbike@discuss.online 3 points 1 hour ago

Yeah only reason Apple hasn't done it is because they haven't figured out a way to connect it all to its ecosystem.

Like they say, the Apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

[–] LoganNineFingers@lemmy.ca 5 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

Maybe this gives me a false sense of security but I bought the adguard pro on social stack (I think...). I just turn all of the connections off on gemini, meta and Bixby. Like this

[–] Hoimo@ani.social 2 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

Why do you keep Gemini installed? Does it even work offline?

[–] bytesonbike@discuss.online 1 points 1 hour ago

Android users won't have a choice after a while.

I didn't want Google Now. Uninstalled it, and it's back and updated. Been fighting for years.

[–] LoganNineFingers@lemmy.ca 6 points 3 hours ago

I assume it's better to leave it and have it not work, then them sneak it on without me knowing or baking it into something else

[–] ezterry@lemmy.zip 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

At least so far Samsung is letting me disable Gemini, as I try to do to any bloatware I don't want running in the background.

[–] Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

I have a Pixel phone im bout to throw in the river

[–] Mangoholic@lemmy.ml 1 points 22 minutes ago

Second that, graphene os is really nice. I have all my intrusive work apps like team, google play stuff on a separate profile and my maim profile has all the private data and contacts. Just watch a yt for setup and follow website instructions, take maybe a few hours to set up.

Why not throw graphene or another alternative on it (if supported) instead of turning it into e-waste?

[–] TheObviousSolution@lemm.ee 10 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (1 children)

IMO, when Google lost most public support, it really started going downhill because the people who wanted to profit the business as much as possible became more determinant than those that were still trying to throttle the company due to ethical considerations. When a company gets criticized for everything it does, its decline increases significantly. Add to that it exists under the US government and how that has completely fallen to corruption.

[–] octopus_ink@slrpnk.net 4 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

When a company gets criticized for everything it does, its decline increases significantly.

Gives me hope for the future of MS then! Maybe they will decline themselves out of dominance.

[–] ScoffingLizard@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 5 hours ago

If this happens, can we please all make a protest or petition with the FCC?

[–] commander@lemmy.world 55 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago) (5 children)

I swear all of this was predicted to happen by open source advocates of the 80s and they'd be called alarmists/whatever and then 30 years later you had Snowden leaks and all the surveillance bills and now Microsoft, Google, and Apple are all advertisement companies mining data through the software and devices they sell

The best people can do is just keep using and advocating for Linux adoption. Try out degoogled Android or a more traditional Linux phone device. Need more users and funding to get the software kinks worked out. They're not as good as the high end Android and Apple stuff, but it's a process

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[–] HappySkullsplitter@lemmy.world 13 points 12 hours ago (2 children)

I don't have Gemini loaded to my phone and I have Google assistant voice command disabled

But a few days ago I was having a conversation with my son next to me on the couch with my phone sitting on the arm of the couch.

When I asked him a question, gemini answered with a prompt on the screen I have never seen before and haven't since.

It still creeps me out

I looked up what the prompt for gemini is supposed to lol like and this looked nothing like that. It looked more like a popup dialogue box from a browser but the only browser I use is opera and it is set as default

[–] buddascrayon@lemmy.world 6 points 5 hours ago

Yeah a couple of weeks ago Google secretly activated Gemini on every Pixel user's phone. I ran into the same problem, my phone suddenly activated and Gemini popped up interrupting a song that I was playing while I was away from my phone. Ended up screwing up the song and having it repeat over and over and over.

[–] graff@lemm.ee 1 points 3 hours ago

Iirc internal browsers for apps default to a system browser not to your chosen one

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