- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
Google is quietly rolling out its Gemini AI tool as the default assistant on Android, even on devices where users never explicitly enabled it. In many cases, Gemini replaces Google Assistant by default, making it increasingly challenging to disable fully.
This deep integration means Gemini can still be active in the background, accessing your apps, system features, and personal info.
Here’s what Gemini can access:
Gmail Google Calendar Google Drive & Docs Maps, Keep, Tasks Messages, Phone, and even WhatsAppEven more concerning:
Your data is used to train Google’s AI. Human reviewers may see your chats. Data can be shared with 3rd parties. As of July 2025, Gemini stays connected to apps even when activity tracking is turned off.🛑 You can’t fully disable Gemini, but you can limit it:
How to limit Gemini on Android:
Turn off activity tracking Revoke permissions Uninstall it (if possible)Further options, if you’re privacy-conscious:
Reduce your reliance on Google services or fully de-Google Consider a privacy-first OS like GrapheneOS or CalyxOS⚠️ Google is making Gemini the default assistant for all Android devices by the end of 2025.
Choose privacy over AI surveillance.
If you want tools that respect your data, ensure you use encrypted email, a private calendar, and a secure cloud, with no AI training or human review.
Google has plans for killing linage and graphene too.
Apple has its faults but they are practically Jesus Christ compared to Google.
I wouldn’t praise Apple too much. They are the poster child of “our way or the highway”. At least Android, to be fair that has more to do with the original roots than Google being a good guy, you nearly always have options to turn this kind of thing off even if the OEM doesn’t want you to. If Apple doesn’t give you a toggle you are usually SOL.
no, theres tons you cannot control in android that you can with apple. Cell carrier wants to push bullshit apps to your phone that you don’t want? They do that with android but they cant with apple. Want to delete social media apps? Apple lets you do that. Android doesn’t always let you. You can sometimes disable an app but it can be turned back on remotely and that happens all the time. Want open shit? NEITHER are good. Android pretended to be open for years to help it gain interest and help with rapid adoption since they had to catch up to apple, but they keep chipping away at it. Now they have gemini surveilling everything you do on device, even if turned off, and the only hope is to flash another rom. That isnt an option for every phone either and even when it is, it frequently results in lost functionality like games and banking apps and tap to pay not working.
Google could have made android great. they should have. they did not go down that direction.
The stuff you are complaining about are not only not in your control on either platform but are the result of deals between carriers and OEMs, not technical options or limitations of the OS imposed by the OEM post sale. Which is what I was talking about. Your options for getting rid of that carrier junk also expand greatly with ADB.
Additionally the iPhone comes with tons of pre-loaded apps included in the OS image that someone might not want as well (Stocks, Numbers, etc). It is just that it is Apples apps and for some reason a lot of people have a blind spot when the bloatware is coming from the OEM themselves. Some of them not completely uninstallable either, like the calender app if I remember right. The UI says “uninstall” but if you go to the App Store to reinstall it there is no download or install time, the app just instantly “installs” and reappears in the app list. In other words it was still on the file system the entire time, just like Androids disabled apps.
Carrier stuff isn’t an option on iPhone in the USA. It’s been that way since the beginning and one of the reasons only AT&T was willing to play ball when it launched. Carriers here who want to sell iPhones have to sign a contract with Apple and one of the terms of that contract is they can’t push carrier bloat automatically to customers iPhones. They can promote or incentivize those things but they cannot just push apps to your phone.
You can remove any non essential app that comes with iOS just fine. As for reinstalls, some are pretty quick because rather than completely deleting an app, iOS has the ability to offload it. So when you reinstall, it pulls your old settings and data for the app from the cloud rather than making you enter things again.
Get real. Both are equally shit.
https://www.theregister.com/2025/02/14/apple_app_tracking_probe/
I’m not about to defend Google, but I think Apple are worse. Google are upfront about what they collect and let you download (takeout) or delete everything they have on you at any time you want.
Apple don’t tell you what they are collecting, don’t let you opt-out of data collection and it’s a manual process to access/delete what they have on you.
Neither company is good on their privacy fronts and to champion one over the other is silly.
What? How so?
Well, one of the reasons Siri sucks so terribly is Apple refused to do the mass surveillance data scraping google was doing, so they didn’t have enormous data sets to train Siri on. Second, Apple lets you turn their AI functions on and off system-wide with a simple toggle, where as google lets to chip away at gemini but never actually turn it off.
🤢