Google’s Android Decision—Bad News For All Samsung, Pixel Users – Forbes
ByZak DoffmanByZak Doffman, Contributor. Android’s hidden problems.Republished on March 13 with stark new analysis on Apple’s AI setback, with further implications for on-device tracking warnings affecting Android users.Google has an awkward Android problem that a recent report highlighted. The AI space race between Google and Samsung and between Android and iPhone has exposed long-standing issues that the companies need to address, issues buried within Android’s core.Google continues to narrow the security and privacy gap to iPhone, with Android 15 and the forthcoming Android 16 bringing upgrades. And while Samsung owners have endured a frustrating wait for their upgrade, this is now imminent and it seems Android 16 will be handled differently. But there’s one awkward black hole that remains: hidden tracking that’s impossible to stop. This is bad news for all Android users, but especially for Galaxy and Pixel users buying handsets with “on-device privacy” built in.The issue is the old versus the new. AI announcements from both Google and Samsung stress on-device, privacy-preserving processing when touting new features. Google’s latest scam detection “protects your privacy by processing everything on-device,” and even its controversial new photo scanning “is done on-device and all of the images or specific results and warnings are private to the user.”Samsung — which pushed hybrid AI before Google — goes further, “Galaxy’s approach to AI personalization,” it says, “from the launch of Samsung’s first AI phone to our continuous innovation of on-device AI, is to never compromise on privacy.”That’s the new. But then we come to the old. As I reported earlier this month, a study published by Trinity College, Dublin has exposed Google’s decision to track Android phones through “cookies, identifiers and other data that Google silently stores on Android handsets,” through the default apps that are pre-installed. This happens despite there being “no consent sought for storing any of this data and no opt out.”There’s a legal dimension to this tracking, which the research team says has been exposed for the first time in their report. This, they say, is a “wake-up call” for data regulators to “start properly protecting” users of Android phones.Google did respond on this legal point, telling me “the researcher acknowledges in the report that they are not legally qualified, and we do not agree with their legal analysis. User privacy is a top priority for Android and we are committed to complying with all applicable privacy laws and regulations.”But on the substance of the tracking, the Trinity team says it “informed Google of our findings, and delayed publication to allow them to respond. They gave a brief response, stating that they would not comment on the legal aspects (they were not asked to comment on these). They did not point out any errors or misstatements (which they were asked to comment on). They did not respond to our question about whether they planned to make any changes to the cookies etc stored by their software.”Google told me “this report identifies a number of Google technologies and tools that underpin how we bring helpful products and services to our users.” There is nothing to suggest the decision to maintain this on-device tracking is to be revisited given these concerns; as things stand the claims remain unaddressed.When you add to this the decisions to delay the deprecation of cookies in Chrome and equally controversially to resurrect digital fingerprinting, you start to see a pattern. Despite the focus on on-device AI processing, the basics have not changed. It suggests we may be seeing an AI privacy push that’s more marketing than privacy related.This leaves Samsung in a strange limbo land. It is pushing to catch iPhone, but it’s tied to Android. And that means these kind of legacy tracking issues impact all its users. At the same time, it cannot rush out security fixes or OS upgrades at the same pace as Pixel, because it does not control both its hardware and core software.Meantime, while there remains a security and privacy gap between Android and iPhone, that has been reversed on the AI front. The iPhone-maker finds itself in a mess having failed to meet the expectations it set for 2025’s Apple Intelligence upgrade, which was central to the launch of the iPhone 16 and latest iPad Pro. And that will take the focus away from the security and privacy differences and new warnings — especially given Google and Samsung both now stressing on-device AI processing.As Google promotes its ever advancing on-device AI assistant, Apple’s looks ever more dated. “Siri isn’t an assistant, it’s an embarrassment,” Macworld complains. “Apple’s inability to make its signature assistant good, let alone competitive, should have heads rolling in Cupertino.” This follows Apple admitting, as Macworld says, that “the big new Siri features that might have made Siri pretty good have been delayed for a year (maybe more). In the meantime, we don’t see any reason to believe that Siri won’t continue its pitiful pace of ‘improvement’ that has left it miles behind its AI competitors.”Apple made AI privacy with on-device processing and its secure cloud enclave the central theme of its offering, a differentiator to Google and Samsung. With Apple yet to make this work, there is no viable, more secure alternative to the Google-led Android AI. This matters because while Google and Samsung are promoting on-device AI processing, the dividing line with off-device, cloud processing is still blurred behind various privacy policies.There is also speculation that security is behind the delays to Apple’s AI upgrade, taking pressure off competing offerings. As 9to5Mac says, “it does seem entirely plausible that security is also a key factor. Apple has turned privacy into a key differentiator and selling point for its products, so any vulnerability that allows a rogue app to access and export your personal data would be a complete disaster for the iPhone maker.”And so here we are instead. While this remains fresh news, it does have the potential to turn the Android versus iPhone debate on its head. The longer there’s no viable AI alternative on iPhone to Google’s full Gemini advances, the more the focus falls away from security and privacy given the feature differentiation.And that risk looks more real now with the media pickup for John Gruber’s latest Daring Fireball post, which presents a stark view as to the implications from Apple Intelligence’s sudden stall. “This announcement dropped as a surprise, and certainly took me by surprise to some extent, but it was all there from the start. I should have been pointing out red flags starting back at WWDC last year, and I am embarrassed and sorry that I didn’t see what should have been very clear to me from the start.”Gruber focuses on the reputational risk for Apple, “I’d been lulled into complacency by Apple’s track record of consistently shipping pre-announced products and features. Their record in that regard wasn’t perfect, but the exceptions tended to be around the edges.” But it’s the iPhone versus Android implications that will bite harder.“Samsung, which launched Galaxy AI several months before Apple Intelligence, lacked a similar vision [to Apple’s],” says BGR. “There was no alternative to smart Siri. At Google, we still had to wait for a Gemini assistant that would be able to match the capabilities Apple advertised for Siri. Fast-forward to mid-March, some six months since the iPhone 16 series launched without Apple Intelligence on board, let alone the smart Siri. And now, we just learned that the smart Siri in Apple Intelligence is vaporware.”We’re no longer talking about Apple’s security creds being an AI game-changer. In reality, Apple’s AI isn’t really in the conversation. “AI is the new battleground for smartphones, with features that enhance how we use our devices,” says Android Police, “and Google and Samsung are leading the charge. Google Pixel phones, like the Pixel 9, have been pushing AI-powered experiences with Gemini, with features like Add Me, Call Screen, and Magic Eraser, while Samsung’s Galaxy AI boasts Circle to Search, Live Translate, and Drawing Assist. Google and Samsung approach AI in smartphones differently, but which brand is leading the AI revolution?” TL;DR, it isn’t Apple.To read Android Police’s description of Google’s offering is akin to what Apple was presenting in its ads. “Gemini, Google’s built-in AI assistant, takes the pressure off users in many ways. For instance, you can take a photo of an item and ask Gemini what it’s used for, or ask it to find a restaurant for your next date night, brainstorm ideas for your current project, use it as a personal fitness coach, and identify LEGO pieces.”Except this is real and available now. And “one advantage of Google’s AI approach,” the Android news site says, “is how seamlessly it works without additional apps or services. Native integration with Google Cloud and Google Services makes using your smartphone a breeze. With AI processing done on-device with Tensor chips, you can expect improved speed and privacy across your devices.” This is what we expected from Apple’s on-device focus and end-to-end software and hardware control.And so when stories about Google’s consentless tracking make headlines, for example that “Google is spying on Android users, starting from even before they have logged in to their Google account,” pre Malwarebytes, this doesn’t have the impact it should.“Last week’s announcement, writes Gruber, that “’it’s going to take us longer than we thought to deliver on these features and we anticipate rolling them out in the coming year’ — was, if you think about it, another opportunity to demonstrate the current state of these features. Rather than simply issue a statement to the media, they could have invited select members of the press to Apple Park, or Apple’s offices in New York, or even just remotely over a WebEx conference call, and demonstrate the current state of these features live, on an actual device. That didn’t happen. If these features exist in any sort of working state at all, no one outside Apple has vouched for their existence, let alone for their quality.”None of this changes the nature of the bad news for Google or Samsung users given Android’s tracking, or the need for transparency and clarity as to what is being done on-device, how and by whom. It would be good to see a thorough review of the hidden tracking taking place without consent or opt out — that means “silent” Android tracking and digital fingerprinting. It would be good to see default opt outs introduced across the board. Absent that, each of those on-device marketing messages may need an asterisk.
