this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2025
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New survey suggests the vast majority of iPhone and Samsung Galaxy users find AI useless – and I’m not surprised (www.techradar.com)
submitted 8 hours ago by ForgottenFlux@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world
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A survey of more than 2,000 smartphone users by second-hand smartphone marketplace SellCell found that 73% of iPhone users and a whopping 87% of Samsung Galaxy users felt that AI adds little to no value to their smartphone experience.

SellCell only surveyed users with an AI-enabled phone – thats an iPhone 15 Pro or newer or a Galaxy S22 or newer. The survey doesn’t give an exact sample size, but more than 1,000 iPhone users and more than 1,000 Galaxy users were involved.

Further findings show that most users of either platform would not pay for an AI subscription: 86.5% of iPhone users and 94.5% of Galaxy users would refuse to pay for continued access to AI features.

From the data listed so far, it seems that people just aren’t using AI. In the case of both iPhone and Galaxy users about two-fifths of those surveyed have tried AI features – 41.6% for iPhone and 46.9% for Galaxy.

So, that’s a majority of users not even bothering with AI in the first place and a general disinterest in AI features from the user base overall, despite both Apple and Samsung making such a big deal out of AI.

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[–] TylerBourbon@lemmy.world 1 points 49 seconds ago

I do not need it, and I hate how it's constantly forced upon me.

Current AI feels like the Metaverse. There's no demand for it or need for it, yet they're trying their damndest to shove it into anything and everything like it's a new miracle answer to every problem that doesn't exist yet.

And all I see it doing is making things worse. People use it to write essays in school; that just makes them dumber because they don't have to show they understand the topic they're writing. And considering AI doesn't exactly have a flawless record when it comes to accuracy, relying on it for anything is just not a good idea currently.

[–] tiredofsametab@fedia.io 4 points 32 minutes ago

As an android user (Pixel), I've only ever opened AI by accident. My work PC is a mac and it force-reenables apple intelligence after every update. I dutifully go into settings and disable that shit. While summarizing things is something AI can be good at, I generally want to actually read the detail of work communications since, as a software engineer, detail is a teeeny bit important.

[–] ATDA@lemmy.world 3 points 27 minutes ago

Id take Bixby back over this forced AI crap.

I mean I wouldn't but you know....

[–] Tungsten5@lemm.ee 1 points 9 minutes ago

I like the idea of generating emojis with Ai on phones. All other use cases that apple has presented seem useless to me. I was really hoping it would be something, anything, but it was just underwhelming. And then apple didnt even have it ready for the iphone 16 at launch but said the phone was built for apple intelligence..? Seems kinda rushed and half baked to me. I also like using copilot is vscode. Its proven to be pretty good at helping me debug

[–] Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 5 points 1 hour ago

It actually gets in my way every time it does something so that I have stop what I'm doing to kill it. Would love to be able to uninstall it

[–] Ilixtze@lemm.ee 20 points 2 hours ago

Ai is a waste of time for me; I don't want it on my phone , I don't want it on my computer and I block it every time I have the chance. But I might be old fashioned in that I don't like algorithms recommending anything to me either. I never cared what the all seeing machine has to say.

[–] iamjackflack@lemm.ee 3 points 56 minutes ago

Ai sucks and is a waste of humanity’s resources. I hate how everything goes on buzzwords industry trends. This shit needs to stop and just focus on simplicity and reliability. We need to stop trying to sell new things every cycle

[–] WrenFeathers@lemmy.world 19 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that it’s useless.

[–] Sixtyforce@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (2 children)

I don't think it's meant to be useful....for us, that is. Just another tool to control and brainwash people. I already see a segment of the population trust corporate AI as an authority figure they trust.

How could it not be this way? Algorithms trained people to never seek out information on their own. They're trained to be fed info from the rich and never seek anything out on their own.

Like, we say dead internet. Except...nothing is actually stopping us from ditching corporate internet websites and just go back to smaller privately owned or donation run forums.

Check out debate boards. Full of morons using ChatGPT to speak for them and they'll both openly admit it and get mad at you for calling it dehumanizing and disrespectful.

/tinfoil hat

Edit to add more old man yells at clouds detail.

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 49 minutes ago* (last edited 49 minutes ago)

nothing is actually stopping us from ditching corporate internet websites and just go back to smaller privately owned or donation run forums.

I didn't even realize until you said this that I already do that lol

[–] WrenFeathers@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

Good point..

[–] Coreidan@lemmy.world 2 points 55 minutes ago

I don’t see how AI can benefit my phone experience.

I use my phone to make phone calls and for text messaging. Where does AI fit in? It doesn’t.

[–] raynethackery@lemmy.world 1 points 1 hour ago

It's all just to get more data from you so it can monetized.

[–] Jimius@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 hour ago

Just look at Smart Speakers. Basically the early AI at home. People just used them to set timers and ask about the weather. Even though it was capable of much more. Google and others were unable to monetize them for this reason and have mostly given up. (Protip: if you have a google speaker and kids, ask about the animal of the day. It's an addition during COVID times for kids learning at home.)

But people also aren't used to AI yet. Most will still google for something, some already skip that step and have ChatGPT search and summarize. I would not be surprised if the internet of the future is just plain text files for the AI agents to scrape.

[–] mrodri89@lemmy.zip 17 points 3 hours ago

Nothing bores me more than their events that focus on AI.

[–] shortwavesurfer@lemmy.zip 10 points 4 hours ago

I'm shocked, I tell you. Absolutely shocked. And if you believe that, I got some oceanfront property in Arizona. I'll sell you too.

[–] OfficerBribe@lemm.ee 13 points 4 hours ago (3 children)

Not sure if Google Lens counts as AI, but Circle to Search is a cool feature. And on Samsung specifically there is Smart Select that I occasionally use for text extraction, but I suppose it is just OCR.

From Galaxy AI branded features I have tested only Drawing assist which is an image generator. Fooled around for 5 minutes and have not touched it again. I am using Samsung keyboard and I know it has some kind of text generator thing, but have not even bothered myself to try it.

[–] LaggyKar@programming.dev 3 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Not sure if Google Lens counts as AI, but Circle to Search is a cool feature.

Not to the point where it's worth having a button for it permanently taking up space at the bottom of the screen.

On a lot of phones you can hide the navigation pill, but Samsung started forcibly showing it when they added Circle to Search. Fortunately I don't have a Samsung phone.

[–] Evotech@lemmy.world 4 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

It's cool

Is it useful? Idk

[–] TrueStoryBob@lemmy.world 2 points 2 hours ago

They're kinda like the S-Pen... is it cool? Sure! Do I find myself using it? No, not really.

[–] Bluefruit@lemmy.world 4 points 4 hours ago

Certainly counts, Samsung has a few features like grabbing text from images that I found useful.

My problem with them is its all online stuff and I'd like that sort of thing to be processed on device but thats just me.

I think folks often are thinking AI is only the crappy image generation or chat bots they get shoved to. AI is used in a lot of different things, only difference is that those implementations like drawing assist or that text grabbing feature are actually useful and are well done.

[–] Zak@lemmy.world 17 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

The AI thing I'd really like is an on-device classifier that decides with reasonably high reliability whether I would want my phone to interrupt me with a given notification or not. I already don't allow useless notifications, but a message from a friend might be a question about something urgent, or a cat picture.

What I don't want is:

  • Ways to make fake photographs
  • Summaries of messages I could just skim the old fashioned way
  • Easier access to LLM chatbots

It seems like those are the main AI features bundled on phones now, and I have no use for any of them.

[–] drthunder@midwest.social 5 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

That's useful AI that doesn't take billions of dollars to train, though. (it's also a great idea and I'd be down for it)

[–] dustyData@lemmy.world 3 points 1 hour ago

You mean paying money to people to actually program. In fair exchange for their labor and expertise, instead of stealing it from the internet? What are you, a socialist?

/s

[–] thingAmaBob@lemmy.world 22 points 5 hours ago

Unless it can be a legit personal assistant, I’m not actually interested. Companies hyped AI way too much.

[–] ZeroGravitas@lemm.ee 141 points 8 hours ago (14 children)

A 100% accurate AI would be useful. A 99.999% accurate AI is in fact useless, because of the damage that one miss might do.

It's like the French say: Add one drop of wine in a barrel of sewage and you get sewage. Add one drop of sewage in a barrel of wine and you get sewage.

[–] Imacat@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 4 hours ago

99.999% accurate would be pretty useful. Theres plenty of misinformation without AI. Nothing and nobody will be perfect.

Trouble is they range from 0-95% accurate depending on the topic and given context while being very confident when they’re wrong.

[–] dojan@lemmy.world 42 points 7 hours ago (2 children)

I think it largely depends on what kind of AI we're talking about. iOS has had models that let you extract subjects from images for a while now, and that's pretty nifty. Affinity Photo recently got the same feature. Noise cancellation can also be quite useful.

As for LLMs? Fuck off, honestly. My company apparently pays for MS CoPilot, something I only discovered when the garbage popped up the other day. I wrote a few random sentences for it to fix, and the only thing it managed to consistently do was screw the entire text up. Maybe it doesn't handle Swedish? I don't know.

One of the examples I sent to a friend is as follows, but in Swedish;

Microsoft CoPilot is an incredibly poor product. It has a tendency to make up entirely new, nonsensical words, as well as completely mangle the grammar. I really don't understand why we pay for this. It's very disappointing.

And CoPilot was like "yeah, let me fix this for you!"

Microsoft CoPilot is a comedy show without a manuscript. It makes up new nonsense words as though were a word-juggler on circus, and the grammar becomes mang like a bulldzer over a lawn. Why do we pay for this? It is buy a ticket to a show where actosorgets their lines. Entredibly disappointing.

[–] KSPAtlas@sopuli.xyz 10 points 5 hours ago

Most AIs struggle with languages other than English, unfortunately, I hate how it reinforces the "defaultness" of English

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[–] ricecooker@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 hours ago

It's possible that people don't realize what is AI and what is an AI marketing speak out there nowadays.

For a fully automated Her-like experience, or Ironman style Jarvis? That would be rad. But we have not really close to that at all. It sort of exists with LLM chat, but the implementation on phones is not even close to being there.

[–] criticon@lemmy.ca 2 points 3 hours ago

I love the AI features for photos of my galaxy, but other than that I don't use it

[–] Arkouda@lemmy.ca 17 points 6 hours ago

AI was never meant for the average person but the average person had to be convinced it was for funding.

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 7 points 5 hours ago

Anyone who has been paying attention has been waiting for this enormous bag of shit to explode already.

[–] MyOpinion@lemm.ee 38 points 8 hours ago

AI is useless and I block it anyway I can.

[–] spankmonkey@lemmy.world 30 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (1 children)

"Stop trying to make ~~fetch~~ AI happen. It's not going to happen."

AI is worse that adding no value, it is an actual detriment.

[–] octopus_ink@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 hour ago

I feel like I'm in those years of You really want a 3d TV, right? Right? 3D is what you've been waiting for, right? all over again, but with a different technology.

It will be VR's turn again next.

I admit I'm really rooting for affordable, real-world, daily-use AR though.

[–] Asmodeus_Krang@infosec.pub 4 points 5 hours ago

Honestly I can't say I've ever had a reason to use it on my phone.

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