I can confirm that this works with LineageOS using something like Insular, and I have tested it.

No.
I tried a smart watch for a week or so, and hated wearing it.
Hadn't worn a watch in 20 years, and it felt very strange

Fair enough. I was in that camp for a decade or more myself. I hope you find a solution!

Yes but do they support the digital national ID and SSO apps that are (only) avaliable for android and apple? Until they do, a lot of users are going to be locked into those two big OS vendors.

Yes, but i have a Nothing Phone (1). I should check the other alternatives, but afaik lineageos does not support my phone.

Go to Settings --> Apps

Find "Gemini" and tap into the app page and tap disable

If you can't find Gemini, you phone probably didn't get the Google Play System Update yet, so check the app list when you update next time. (Or you can refuse to update, but outdated android comes with security risks)

Mine is already disable for some reason. Maybe I did that a while ago and forgot about it.

I'm still praying for TempleOS mobile version.

I'm in the UK and today I got asked whether I wanted to leave this on or not - it just notified me and asked me to confirm my consent.

So I think this article's headline is slightly misleading - Google is actively informing users and asking them to confirm their consent.

ADB tools —> remove google services and other spyware apps —> oops, you bricked your phone

When I first got into Android (I miss my Nexus 6 T.T ), it felt like I could do so much more with my phone than I can now. I had so much cool automation shit that leveraged stuff like Google assistant voice commands, but now it's shit on so many levels. It goes beyond the user facing side of things; I used to use the app Tasker for a lot of the automation stuff, and over the years, it seems like the dev has been climbing an uphill battle against Google gating off functionality, and generally making things opaque and difficult for developers.

"The fact that Google has that locked down surely violates some EU laws. But I'm sure they wave away the laws because of "financial security" or some other bullshit. "

I don't know as much as I'd like to about the regulatory side of this, but I know that Google and other big tech have done a masterful job of proactively building themselves into systems such that taking action against them is difficult.

I think that's part of why the US antitrust case against Microsoft a few decades ago fizzled out into nothing — even though Microsoft was deemed to have been a monopolist, the big question was how do we remedy that in a way that isn't going to be harmful? The consensus on this amongst people who I respect is that the results of the Microsoft case was woefully insufficient and something that helped to lay the foundations of the big tech dominance that we see today.

You really think that the holy OS can even fit in such a small, restrictive device as a cellphone? Of course not! It needs room to truly achieve transcendence.

I just use the timer on my microwave, I suppose the kitchen is the most likely place you'd want a timer. Unless you were using 5 minute epoxy.

That's good. I haven't had anything though, hopefully saved by the EU.

I live in Finland using Android on a Nokia and I can switch Gemini off completely and choose to use the old Google Assistant instead. It did initially appear out of nowhere when they patched it in, but I could immediately turn it off with the same prompt that the other guy also got.

If it's unavoidable it seems to be an US only thing atm.