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.
I agree it would be concerning if I allowed Gemini access to my phone. Fuck that. This shit is exactly why I am on GrapheneOS.
Can you tell me about Graphene?
I got bank and government ID apps (manditory. Denmark uses MitID for all government related things), but they require things like locked bootloaders and Google security features.
Would those apps be functional on GrapheneOS?
ew. Tell your government to stop mandating spyware.
Graphene does let you re-lock the bootloader. IIRC, whether an app works depends on whether they require SafetyNet full, or just basic. I have so far only found one app that refuses to work. However… it looks like MitID was recently updated and no longer works.
https://gist.github.com/lbschenkel/4199be415f2a139b64688ae74c92a7fc
Starting on 2024-06-12, MitID have started using Google Play Integrity API during activation. This means that new installations will no longer work in GrapheneOS nor any other non-stock Android, as they are not certified by Google and will not pass the required checks. The app still works (for now) if you managed to get it activated before that date.
Maybe? It depends on what exactly the app checks for. Some apps don’t work because they check if it’s running on the original ROM. It’s hit or miss.
If you can access what you need through the web, you can go that route instead.
“Google is making it easier for Google to pry into your personal data.”
“Water is making it easier for water to make you wet.”
Dear tech bros,
We, the people, don’t want to use your AI shit. Please stop shoving it down our throats. Thank you.
Sincerely,
-The people
Is it really the people or just a subset of people that use Lemmy, the vast majority of people seemingly don’t care as is evidenced by the sheer number of people using things like social media.
What might be important to use in this echo chamber isn’t reflective of society on the whole.
It’s mainly tech savy people who don’t use it. Tons of people in companies use this shit. The number of people who use “ai” to take auto notes in meetings is insane. It’s a massive security risk but they do it anyways thinking it won’t be stored.
Obligatory Lemmy is social media response
Yes, with the key difference being that it’s anonymous. Publicly viewable but the users can be as anonymous as they like.
Hahahahhshahahahhahahahhahahahahahahahaha.
Sincerely,
Tech bros.
yes but what if a company has the ability to create billions of close friends who can recommend sponsored products to you? why would it care about whether you want that or not?
also bard was a way better name for google’s LLM. it has its origins in an isaac asimov story about a robot who is programmed to tell random stories.
But the AI people that the tech bros can now create outnumber real people by ♾️:1. The opinions of real people have ceased to matter even the tiny amount that they once did. So open wide and try not to gag.
You don’t want to use it.
The companies keep preloading it on new tech, updating old tech so its there, preventing the option from disabling it from even being there, and disabling tech that can’t use it.
This. Shit. Can. Fuck. All. The. Way. Off!
Pls break Google up. Kthx
Let’s not stop at Google. Break them all up!
Seize the means of production
Linux has become good enough to replace desktop operating systems.
Now, we are back at square one. I’ll be the first to inaccurately declare, “This will be the year of the Linux phone.”
All I need is a good enough emulation of android apps to fool them (eg for banking).
Can you get by with web access? That’s what I do and it’s fine.
Sailfish OS has it.
Unfortunately the project has some closed source bits which, imho, aren’t an issue when you look closer (some parts of the UI). Maybe I’m naive but I trust this EU company.
I use it as my daily driver. It certainly is frugal compared to recent Android versions, but fully functional.
It’s an actual Linux OS (as opposed to any Android version). Things work the same way they do on my laptop & server.
I used Maemo on my N900 <3.
I don’t wanna use Sailfish bcs of the phone support tho, I’m shallow af & I need my hardware :(.
(I also have a few other Sailfish issues, the source code/availability/package, the licencing - but I feel like all of those could/would change with some growth.)I understand. But I think it’s right that they concentrate on a few devices. There’s also something about SONY openly providing firmware and encouraging unlocking, something “Open Devices” iirc.
Ah, the N900…
Yes, I agree.
But Sony has drivers out there for a few more devices.
Behold, the Linux phone:
That looks far too polished with locked in specs for them to not have any prototype. I’d trust companies that have actually made a product that has a janky Linux implementation that’s improving, than one that doesn’t exist yet relying on crowdfunding.
This is my fourth comment shilling SFOS here, but it just might be what you’re looking for. It is my daily driver.
That’s pretty cool, I’m working now, but I’m checking out its Android app compatibility.
If it can run my work stuff, I’ll be so happy.
The forum has a thread specifically about banking apps.
Isn’t Android using a Linux kernel already?
Yeah, but the kernel is a low-level module that handles hardware, memory, and processes—it’s not what users interact with directly, so sharing the same kernel doesn’t make it all that similar as you’d think.
What makes Linux feel like ‘Linux’ to users is the stuff on top: the userland—bash, coreutils, package managers, X11/Wayland, etc. Android replaces almost all of that, so even though it uses the Linux kernel, it doesn’t feel like Linux.
Yes, but everything above it (including drivers) is custom-made and tightly controlled by Google.
Yes. IIRC it’s based on latest LTS kernel with Google patches. So it’s been “year of the Linux phone” for a while now.
It’s unfortunate that the slop they put on top of it is such a privacy nightmare. PostmarketOS is trying to change that and supports Plasma, Gnome, etc. But it’s early days yet and still rough around the edges from what I’ve been reading.
Looking at postmarketOS for my phone too, so sick of this shit
PostmarketOS is cool, but as an actual phone replacement it is tough, at least last time I tried.
I haven’t tried, but I took a closer look at their wiki yesterday:
- the Main (official) devices are QEMU, i.e. virtual
- the list of Community devices is long, but whenever I clicked on something there were significant caveats
IMHO they should focus their efforts on getting at least one actual phone working fully.
I want this project to succeed, but until then I use Sailfish OS, btw.
I’m looking at a Volla phone https://volla.online/en/
But I also have no experience of Linux in general yet so I have no idea if this is a good move.
I just really want to get away from android/apple/windows on all of my devices.
I want SteamOS for desktop, because quite frankly gaming is all I really use a desktop for anymore.
I’m going to second a recommendation for Bazzite. If you’ve used normal Linux before, it takes some getting used to the quirks of an atomic distro, but I’ve been using it for a month or two and love it!
Maybe look into Bazzite if you get impatient waiting for SteamOS to become more widely available.
Volla also has a (reliable, judging from reports) community version of SFOS
What about LineageOS?
My guess is the problematic parts here aren’t open source so they should never show up in Lineage OS?
Pretty sure I disabled Gemini as one of the first things I did when I got my phone. But, yes when I read that, to me it did seem like a serious overreach for something that was going to be “on by default” for most users.
How, its baked in? Gemini isnt installed on my phone but its there. Like the circle to search.
Gemini is an app, I disabled that. I also shut off the key press and there’s some other places you can turn off some of the automatic AI features, and also there’s a setting to disable the “online” AI in general.
But that’s why in another comment I said, I am still not sure I turned it all off (or even if it is possible to).
You might be thinking of the normal Google Assistant
Didn’t Google replace the normal Google Assistant with Gemini on newer phones?
At least on my pixel 7, they rolled out Gemini replacement but you could revert it to the classic assistant. It was slow, none of my normal commands worked, and it wouldn’t find anything I was looking for just “answer my question”. I asked it how to disable itself and it couldn’t answer that though. You can probably find documentation online if you use an actual search engine
Laughs in GrapheneOS
but for how long https://x.com/GrapheneOS/status/1933177989480456365
X is blocked on network level here, could you please copy&paste?
GrapheneOS @GrapheneOS We’re going to be moving forward under the expectation that future Pixel devices may not meet the requirements to run GrapheneOS (https://grapheneos.org/faq#future-devices ) and may not support using another OS. We’ve been in talks with a couple OEMs about making devices and what it would cost. 1:02 AM · Jun 13, 2025
Thanks!
Same entire thread on Mastodon: https://grapheneos.social/@GrapheneOS/114670995130379882
https://xcancel.com/GrapheneOS/status/1933177989480456365
GrapheneOS @GrapheneOS Jun 12 We’re going to be moving forward under the expectation that future Pixel devices may not meet the requirements to run GrapheneOS (grapheneos.org/faq#future-de…) and may not support using another OS. We’ve been in talks with a couple OEMs about making devices and what it would cost.
Jun 12, 2025 · 3:02 PM UTC
Long enough for GOS to port Android 16 or get their own OEM, I hope
Nervously chuckles “im in danger” while clicking through to the Graphene rom.
I guess my next phone is going to run NixOS.
So there’s an opt-out.
The article seems concerned that the email announcing this doesn’t include a specific path to the opt-out right in the email (which is a weird concern, considering the email provides two links to… presumably that information)?
I’m not sure what this means, either, but it seems the “whether your Gemini Apps Activity is on or off” line is saying that you can still have Gemini send texts for you even if you disable Google storing your apps usage server-side? I don’t use Gemini as an assistant, so I’m not sure, but looking at the Gemini settings menu on my Android phone that’s what it seems to map to.
My interpretation is that you can leave activity off i.e., your interactions are not saved. I may be wrong, but as I’m not interested in it for now, I’m not going to check either.
Right. They have an opt-out for Gemini storing your in-app activity, which I believe is a requirement to get the assistant to be able to do things in the app. This seems to say you may be able to interact with some messaging apps even if you opt out (presumably they would have a rebuilt way to interact with those that doesn’t store any of your data?).
If this is the case, it’s (apparently) good for privacy.
Less bad, maybe?
Either way it’s definitely a good example of why you should write good emails to your customers that explain things properly.
If this is what they’re saying I’m assuming they didn’t want to be too clear about what info they’re storing if you don’t opt out and ended up making an email that sounds like a threat.
Either way I won’t be using Gemini as an assistant any time soon. Or any other voice assistant, for that matter.
You’re right. Anyeay, my google account is just a placeholder, let’s say. Everything is disable and I don’t actively use it to store anything, not even my calendar.
I’ve not received any mails or notifications. Though I don’t use Gemini at all. Or Google Assistant. Or any assistant.
I don’t use them either, but still got the email.
Same. My only use is accidental.
Guess I’m should get around to disabling it.
I thought I had disabled it, and I don’t have the app, but I can’t see any way to remove it from any of the settings mentioned in the email 🤷🏻♂️
So is Gemini on there as an app? It isn’t listed as such on my phone
Yes, it’s on there. I have a phone, never downloaded or installed Gemini, but because it’s a motorola with a special extra button… I can push that button and up pops Gemini.
The only way I can stop it is by disabling the Google app, then the button becomes innert again (which is how I like it).
So yes, it’s embedded in the Google app. Disabling the Google app may aslo cause other issues (such as Google Home/Chromecast not working).
Doesn’t the motorola phone have a settings screen for defining what the button does? For Samsung they like to re-purpose the power button.
First of all, it brought up bixby. I turned it back to powering off the phone and disabled bixby.
Then, with the new update they re-assigned the power button to gemini. So, I turned it back to powering off the phone and disabled gemini too.
However, the problem these days is that I’m never completely sure I’ve turned off all of the AI nonsense on my phone.
Yeah, but the question was as to whether Gemini is listed as an app. The answer is no, Google have snuck it in whether you like it or not.
is gemini on all androids? i remember there once was something called bixby, now when i accidentally hold the home button for too long it tells me to enable “circle”. i’ve disabled all of those “smart” features but fuck knows what is going to get automatically installed in an update next week
Bixby is/was Samsung’s assistant thing. Unrelated to Google’s Gemini
Bixby is, or used to be, on Samsung phones.
Gemini replaced Bitchxby on the latest Samsungs.
It’s in the firmware.
So it’s still Your device not Gemini device. I’ll wait couple of years.
I don’t feel very concerned… That’s kind of the point of the service.
Good that there’s an opt-out.
edit: I dug around for it. They seem to mean the literal “Apps” settings page and not the “Settings” page. Every individual app that Gemini is capable of connecting to has a switch there. In Gemini, press your profile picture, then apps. In there you can both access the activity setting and decide which apps Gemini has access to.
Good that there’s an opt-out.
A supposed opt-out
Well, yeah. I haven’t actually seen this email yet in my personal inbox,
nor have I found the opt out personally. Google is kinda weird with their staggered rollouts but I figure it’ll turn up. I’m on a Pixel, so anything else would be quite odd.edit: seems to be in the top right corner of Gemini, press your profile picture and then apps. That’s where the settings are. You can opt out of Gemini having access to any app in the list on an individual basis.
