Weekly Discussion

Is Gemini going to kill the Play Store and Android apps?
Ilia Temelkov
Ilia Temelkov
Phonearena team
original poster
It might not have been a surprise, but the Gemini AI chatbot was the star of the show at Google’s annual developer conference this week. The quick summary is that the company plans to integrate AI into every product it offers to consumers. This will turn Gemini into a specialized digital assistant with access to many of Google’s services, like Gmail, Calendar and Search. Among the demos Google showed at I/O were mundane things like adding the products of a recipe to a shopping list in Keep, planning the return of a product and creating the itinerary for a complete family vacation. As impressive as this may look, it raises questions about the future of apps, at least in the shape we know them today. If tasks like planning a vacation, returning a product to its seller, and going through emails, schedules or lengthy PDF documents require only a quick conversation with a chatbot, would we even need the apps? If we stop needing apps, what will happen with the Play Store? Do you think chatbots will bring the end of the app era? What apps could never be replaced by a chatbot? Would you prefer a conversational interface for your smartphone instead of the current screen-centric approach?
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Community Highlights
Chuck007
Chuck007 says:
Depends how you define the world, but if you ask me, nearly nothing is "safe" these days. When major companies benefit from using our usage records/data to further manipulate us into spending more to finance their further intrusive and greedy practices (like AI without proper regulation and incentive to improve the craft of creators), unfortunately nothing short of disconnecting society will let you escape from recent trends. It stopped being about personal privacy and pleasing customers decades ago. Global recession have created a trend where companies are desperate enough to push technologies without caring much about the repurcussions. Unfortunately, thinking companies like Apple are knights in shining armor is the sort of niavety that will push the top 5% into being richer and the middle class into oblivion.
Researcher answers the age-old question: which platform is more secure, iOS or Android?

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MsPooks
MsPooks says:
I keep saying it: Huawei doesn't need anything faster than what it has. It's trouncing ALL of its competitors without gimmicky cutting-edge chips. Comments here and in similar articles only validate my opinion. 😏
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Huawei's new Kirin 9010 SoC shows huge performance gap compared to older Snapdragon chip

trakk8
trakk8 says:
Long form videos is a good idea.But vision pro won't replace iPhone.These kind of devices will replace televisions,gaming consoles and possibly PC's and tablets. The quest pro 2 will do it first. It is in talks with LG to do that in various ways. Or so I have read. The thing that will replace phones is of course rollables and later rollables will evolve into strap-on ( to the wrist) bendable phones. I remember talking about this earlier too here. Later smart spectacles will replace phones, after that smart contacts then after that implanted chips in the brain by 2040. Edit: Or smart specs could exist alongside wrist strap-on phones by the end of this decade as a replacement to current phones. Then next decade smart contacts. These could be used as topics too for your video series down the line.
Will Vision Pro replace the iPhone? PhoneArena launches long-form video show

Will Vision Pro replace the iPhone? PhoneArena launches long-form video show

ECPirate37
ECPirate37 says:
Great article. These people can sound really convincing. Do what I always tell people, if anyone calls you, T-Mobile, your bank, your credit card, anyone, politely hand up and call the service back at the number you have on file for them.
T-Mobile subscribers need to watch out for this scam which could wipe you out quickly

T-Mobile subscribers need to watch out for this scam which could wipe you out quickly

MsPooks
MsPooks says:
I think Samsung is going to be hard-pressed to care much, when the ZF5 beats the Pixel Fold, depsite its smaller battery. 9.4 hours of SOT is nothing to sneeze at.
The newest Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 rumor might be the most disappointing one yet

The newest Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6 rumor might be the most disappointing one yet

NunoB512
NunoB512 says:
Good to see Samsung working hard to get back to where it belongs and where it had been for 13 years in a row. I like what Samsung did with the S24 series from the design (hardware) to the AI integration (they kept it simple, didn't overdue it), and especially One UI 6.1, to me is this year's stand out feature. And we are still half way, we still have the Foldables and the Ring to look forward to. But to be fair this is only one quarter, I want to see the year to year numbers.
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