Technology

i've had dynamic lock screens available since my 2010 HTC desire... don't really see how that's new. absolutely ruined the battery life so i never really used it but it has definitely been an option on every phone since.

as for llms in phones, i will do everything i can to keep them out. if the npu chips were open and had published apis it would be a different thing. as it stands now it's just a black box data vacuum that can tell jokes.

I had to look up dynamic lock screens, but it looks like it just changes your wallpaper? That might be neat but doesn't seem that exciting.

In terms of AI I'm not aware of anything AI on my phone.

Honestly I feel like phones have stagnated. I've had the "same" phone since 2016 (if not before). The fingerprint sensor, that's probably the last thing that made me excited, was that 2016? Obviously screens have gotten better and battery life has gone up, but it's the same phone.

I'd like to see ports added back to mainline phones. I've only ever bought a phone with a headphone jack so it makes my options limited. I'd like to see headphone jacks, SD cards & quickly replaceable batteries come back.

The only thing that could make me excited again about phones is small size with under display camera (so no notch) or headphones jack with good DAC circuitry. Also groundbreaking battery tech.

Don't care at all about dynamic lock screens. Actively want to keep AI out of my phone, maybe excepting specific apps. Battery tech by itself is nice but you know that stronger batteries will just result in even power hungrier phones, so no real good will come of it. Hinged phones break more and cost more.

NTN (satellite text messaging for when you have no cell coverage) is the main interesting phone tech to appear recently IMHO. Everything else is just little tweaks or outright regressions. I prefer more repairability and openness to more features by now.

I just got a pixel 9 a few weeks ago and although the AI is all over the place and really easy to use, it also blows donkey cock and never actually works. It fails to provide even basic information. It's replies to texts are completely deranged. I asked it to total my Yahtzee card and it just made up numbers and told me I scored like 700 points.

I haven't really used AI before it got shoehorned into my phone, is it supposed to be bad? What, like a joke? Because I don't get it. I feel like that development money would have been better spent literally anywhere.

IMHO the very low price of batteries is the best tech trend of the year!

Hm, what do you like about Dynamic lock screens? Wouldn't they consume more energy and add to optical overstimulation? To be honest, it's a feature that I could live without.

AI is something else, I see that as a real trend. Though there is a lot of noise right now. Simple algorithms often just claim to be AI.

Personally, I think that AI is useful when editing and managing your photos. The phone might be able to predict how you like your photos cropped, how to remove unwanted elements or which photos contain your favorite people etc.

Also, AI might predict what you want to do next on your phone and suggest the proper apps or information.

I heard of someone talking to ChatGPT on a longer car ride. He said it was a surprisingly pleasant experience. 😊