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467 points bundie | 8 comments | | HN request time: 1.978s | source | bottom
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jeroenhd ◴[] No.44502053[source]
Google has been working on this since November last year going by the wayback archive of the support page for this feature.

I'm not seeing any indication that Gemini can read your messages, though. You can compose messages and start calls, but I can't get it to read me any of my messages. In fact, I can't even get it to send messages to group chats, only to individual contacts.

The feature makes a lot of sense, of course. WhatsApp is to many countries across the globe what texting and calling is to Americans. If your smart assistant can't even interact with WhatsApp, it's basically useless for many people.

Edit: ah, that explains why I can't make Gemini read my messages to me, Google's own documentation (https://support.google.com/gemini/answer/15574928) says it can't:

    What Gemini can’t do with WhatsApp
    
        Read or summarize your messages
        Add or read images, gifs, or memes in your messages
        Add or play audio or videos in your messages
        Read or respond to WhatsApp notifications
If you connected Google Assistant to WhatsApp, it seems like data may flow that direction, but then you've already hooked WhatsApp into Google before so I don't think anyone will be surprised there.

Does anyone know how I can make Gemini read messages? I can't even find the assistant settings necessary for that stuff to function.

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Hizonner ◴[] No.44502286[source]
What Gemini should be able to do with WhatsApp:

    Exactly and only what any other random app on the phone could do
    with WhatsApp, assuming that you have enabled that in exactly the
    way you would have to enable any other random app to do it.
Google needs to not be abusing its position as the source of the OS to give its software special privilege to reach inside of third-party apps.
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kccqzy ◴[] No.44502323[source]
The line is blurry. Google is positioning Gemini not just as an app, but as a OS level feature. The OS can by definition reach into any third-app app to do anything it wants. I'll give some more examples of OS-level features in case it's not clear: copy/paste is an OS-level feature and it is designed to extract arbitrary text or content from third party apps (copy) and insert them into third party apps (paste); screenshotting is an OS-level feature and it is designed to capture the visible views of any third party app with the only exception being DRM content.

Apple Intelligence has similar marketing. In last year's WWDC, there was the whole "Siri, when is my mom's flight landing?" segment (see https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2024/101/ at 1h22m) that didn't generate any controversy. So for some reason people think Siri should rightfully be an OS-level feature but Gemini should not. Got it. I guess Apple's PR is just that much better than Google's.

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surgical_fire ◴[] No.44502943[source]
> Google is positioning Gemini not just as an app, but as a OS level feature

Eeewww.

We need a mobile OS competitor.

I am seriously considering a move to Fairphone with /e/os.

GrapheneOS would be a possibility, but I don't trust Google to make decent hardware, so not super excited to get a Pixel phone.

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fsflover ◴[] No.44503514[source]
> We need a mobile OS competitor.

Mobian, PureOS, postmarketOS exist.

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1. surgical_fire ◴[] No.44503601[source]
Yes, I have an older phone running LineageOS for that matter.

But those are typically community efforts, so software support is not certain. It sucks when so many things just expect you to have a working cell phone.

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2. gessha ◴[] No.44504162[source]
What company will jump in the competition meat grinder between Google and Apple. Maybe if it’s state-sponsored. I don’t know how much HarmonyOS/Huawei are state-sponsored so I can’t claim there are.
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3. jazzyjackson ◴[] No.44504413[source]
Punkt has a phonen using a fork of grapheneos out of switzerland with some cloud services like VPN attached to make it a completely degoogled 'secure phone', called ApostrophyOS

https://mc02.punkt.ch/en/mc02-5g-secure-phone/

https://www.apostrophy.ch/

Can't vouche for it, I just use a flip phone.

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4. fsflover ◴[] No.44504507[source]
> What company will jump in the competition meat grinder between Google and Apple

Purism did. My Librem 5 works remarkably well given how small the company is.

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5. surgical_fire ◴[] No.44504551{3}[source]
How do you deal with things such as mobile banking? So many services just presume you use either an Android or IOS.

At some point I thought I really needed Android Auto, but I can probably just get a MStick only for that. There are other things that keep me jailed to Android though.

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6. brinerustle ◴[] No.44506862[source]
to get an overview of the degoogled phone market: http://customromhardware.miraheze.org/
7. fsflover ◴[] No.44507155{4}[source]
> How do you deal with things such as mobile banking

One way is to have a spare Android phone sitting at home with no sim-card. Also many (not all) banking apps work with Waydroid. The best way is to switch your bank to one not forcing the duopoly on you.

8. yndoendo ◴[] No.44510603[source]
One from Europe is the most likely contender. The disdain for USA corporations is growing abroad. Could even see Canada and Mexico moving to such entities when a solution is viable.

I have been investing in possible startup organizations. We need it!