I do agree that they are very close; maybe I’m an Apple apologist, but I put ICEBlocker in the same class as Tea. They both claimed to be to protect their target audience; Tea was exposed as having been Vibe Coded by someone who knew SFA about user data security and ICEBlocker had a huge honeypot of user data that the government would love to subpoena.

That is exactly right. But the demographic of Pixel owners likely to install GrapheneOS (or Sailfish or Ubuntu Touch or whatever) and the demographic of GrapheneOS users likely to buy a Pixel probably has a fair overlap.

Long-term support is never something that Normies (that don’t want iPhones) contemplate. They would rather buy the cheapest phone; they don’t see the value in a software vendor supported phone. That is why Samsung is more of a household name than Pixel.

Google have also shown that their long-term support is pointless when they pivot and implement their own version of Apples “walled garden” on the Play Store and the Android ecosystem.

Their implied guarantee of openness is just as facetious as Apples implied guarantee of privacy.

A gold or yellow wash should salvage them.

A mottled tan “filter” at the other end will also make them more cigarette-like.

I’m surprised it isn’t more.

Pixels are the reference platform for a lot of open-source phone operating systems. A disproportionate number of people who purchased Pixels are the type of person who did believe Googles motto of “Don’t be Evil”, even after Google abandoned the motto.

Now that Google is inarguably Evil (not Musk Evil, but definitely more Evil than Apple), these people are searching for solutions. They are gun-shy and are not likely to get an Evil iPhone, have a large investment in the Android ecosystem so are unlikely to pivot to Linux Phone, and the niche Android variants are more likely to be assassinated by Google.

GrapheneOS is the obvious choice. I’m surprised it isn’t a higher percentage.

Penny Arcade did it best with the Magic Hate Ball.

https://art.penny-arcade.com/photos/215099323_Noxws-L-2.jpg

https://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2001/08/13/how-indeed

One thing (only good thing) about Vista was that it rationalised Printer (and Scanner) Drivers.

The UI was consistent between printer manufacturers and everything could be accessed through one interface.

Then the Printer manufacturers complained to MS because they couldn’t have infinite branding all over the interface and the feature was dumbed down in 7.

Meanwhile Apple used the same UI for all Printers (based on CUPS) and didn’t even let a company logo appear in the interface.

Not all the Apple CUPS drivers were available for Linux CUPS so unfortunately Linux (at the time) still had their device compatibility issues.

In some fields, General Purpose LLMs are useful;

• Marketting copy that no one reads.
• Business reports that push an agenda for political reasons.
• Political analysis that puts an agenda for political reasons.

That is why they are being adopted wholesale by certain companies; marketeers and analysts for lobbying groups and political movements.

So yes, they are useless for any legitimate case, but are useful for justification of lies to certain gullible individuals (consumers and politicians).

That said, the fact that Deloitte was forced to (partially) pay the Australian Government back for a report that was all AI Dross is enheartening. The fact that it was only a partial refund and the company is not being prosecuted for Fraud is disenheartening.

It is Optimised.

Just not optimised for efficiency or ease of use.

It is optimised for extracting as much personal metadata as possible, feeding as many ads as possible, monopolising users attention and manipulating political opinions.

That is the thing about general purpose LLMs. They really are impressive to people with below average experience and knowledge in a specific field.

People who actually do know something; academics, professionals and hobbyists realise that they are completely useless for their specific use case.

Unfortunately then they use it for something they are ignorant about and then they forget how useless they are.

My old workplace had a stain like that just above the reps desk. It was directly below the toilet in the Executive Suite.

They were too “frugal” to get a plumber in and the stain kept getting bigger and bigger.

About a month after I left for a better job, one of my former coworkers told me that it finally gave way.

The manager came in to a huge pile of excrement all over the reps new laptop and splash stains (and accompanying smell) all throughout the phone room.

So glad I left.

They are still in way too much. Every time I go into an Apple Store they try to ram their “Apple Intelligence” down my throat.

Managers aren’t being held accountable for their management decisions either.

“Oh, I sacked our entire workforce and sold all the company assets, so the figures will look amazing this month.”

<one month later>

“Oh, the figures are down this month, a golden handshake!? Thank you very much.”