News Samsung plans to charge for certain Galaxy AI features after two years

[AC News]

Samsung's big pitch for the Galaxy S24 series was that the new flagships were supercharged with AI. But it failed to mention in the launch event that the phones' best features will be paywalled after two years.

Samsung plans to charge for certain Galaxy AI features after two years : Read more

 

[fuzzylumpkin]

On the one hand, this is total bull. On the other, I don't really blame them because currently that stuff isn't cheap to run.

I guess they've got 2 years to prove the features are indispensable.

 

[mustang7757]

Why didn't they bundle it in their high price tag..lol

 

[BEaRebel]

Like we need yet ANOTHER monthly subscription

 

[silverfang77]

To Hell with that. I'll just use Bard or Copilot.

 

[spARTacus]

Are any of the "AIs" on phones and via browsers really that great yet? Sure, they all kind of work as glorified search engine assistants or even as device/personal assistants. However, is anyone yet really using them for other stuff, with really good success? Maybe i'm missing something.

 

[fuzzylumpkin]

Are any of the "AIs" on phones and via browsers really that great yet? Sure, they all kind of work as glorified search engine assistants or even as device/personal assistants. However, is anyone yet really using them for other stuff, with really good success? Maybe i'm missing something.

The demo at Unpacked did have some genuinely nice looking features, to be honest. Mostly the summarisation stuff. We've seen the webpage summary from the Pixel before and the ability to summarise and question a PDF can be built as a GPT module, but having it built in is very nice. The Samsung notes one though is going to be hugely useful for a lot of people I suspect. Honestly, if it can just read and correct my handwriting the phone is worth it just for that haha.

 

[Stanley Kubrick]

NEVER! I don't use any assistant crap even now! I will NEVER pay a monthly subscription for what is CLEARLY a money grab! I don't want to hear how much it costs to run this stuff! This company is flush with money up the BUTT! They can wipe their A$$e$ with hundred dollar bills right now! No way Jose!

 

[fuzzylumpkin]

NEVER! I don't use any assistant crap even now! I will NEVER pay a monthly subscription for what is CLEARLY a money grab! I don't want to hear how much it costs to run this stuff! This company is flush with money up the BUTT! They can wipe their A$$e$ with hundred dollar bills right now! No way Jose!

You seem to be very angry about it for someone who has no interest lol

 

[Stanley Kubrick]

You seem to be very angry about it for someone who has no interest lol

I'm not angry...just tired of having to fight to NOT be ripped off at every turn. You see here's what's going to happen...we get used to using these features....no doubt they will even improve them over the next two years...you know just like a drug dealer improves the purity of the smack...then once we're addicted to a feature they stick it to us...LOCK up the feature on YOUR phone...you know, the one you paid and arm-and-a-leg-for....and you wake up one day and all of a sudden something you have relied upon for two years STOPS WORKING!
No, I'm not angry.....

 

[fuzzylumpkin]

I'm not angry...just tired of having to fight to NOT be ripped off at every turn. You see here's what's going to happen...we get used to using these features....no doubt they will even improve them over the next two years...you know just like a drug dealer improves the purity of the smack...then once we're addicted to a feature they stick it to us...LOCK up the feature on YOUR phone...you know, the one you paid and arm-and-a-leg-for....and you wake up one day and all of a sudden something you have relied upon for two years STOPS WORKING!
No, I'm not angry.....

Well, you aren't wrong to be fair.

Except about the smack lol.

 

[Stanley Kubrick]

Well, you aren't wrong to be fair.

Except about the smack lol.

Yeah I know, the smack gets cut more and more and diluted...not a good analogy for sure...but I hope the point is getting across because already there are a number of hands on reviews on the "tube" and everyone is just giddy over the AI stuff! Truly a sad situation.

 

[Joshua Luther1]

This is probably the future unfortunately. Features that are on your phone that are only available if you pay for a subscription. It's total bull and if that's where android and specifically Samsung are headed, I'll be switching to iOS. Assuming they don't go the same way. Of course that's the extreme and I probably won't switch.

We're already paying a premium for "extra" features on the Ultra or Pro Max phones. Why do they see the need to lock those down further behind a subscription paywall?

This is a situation that will further cause the rich to get richer off the backs of the middle class. Unsuspecting and ignorant people, no disrespect, will pay for it because they don't think they have a choice or think they need those features.

I'm also just getting tired of everything going subscription based. Look at how both Apple and Google charge us to backup photos and videos when we could invest a whole lot less money to back them up to a Nas or ssds at home. But we pay for cloud subscription services out of convenience and accessibility. People were all up in arms about google taking away free unlimited photo backups on Google photos using a Pixel. Now we're just used to paying for it.

I get it. I love the convenience of cloud based solutions that we have to pay for. But not everyone does. I know people who are online content creators who specifically use Nas servers to back up their content. Obviously they have terabytes and terabytes of content that it makes more sense to use a Nas or ssds. And there's no compressing of the media when it's backed up.

Frog in the pot analogy though when it comes to companies introducing these subscription based services.

 

[spARTacus]

I use hard drives and scheduled task manager (windows) robocopy .bat scripts for a significant portion of backup needs locally, and I'm just an average Joe wanting to ensure family photos don't get lost. It's really not that hard. With windows shares its pretty easy to basically setup a local "nas like" arrangement on one's local wifi. If one really wants, one can even cross overlap some local windows folders for back up also as "cloud" folders using the likes of things like OneDrive, GoogleDrive, etc.. if one really thinks one needs "some" files accessible everywhere even when not at home. One thing that irks me is the way we've basically defaulted into a mode of just always having to be cloud connected and dependant. It's just sustaining the need for massive expensive data plans.

 

[fuzzylumpkin]

I use hard drives and scheduled task manager (windows) robocopy .bat scripts for a significant portion of backup needs locally, and I'm just an average Joe wanting to ensure family photos don't get lost. It's really not that hard. With windows shares its pretty easy to basically setup a local "nas like" arrangement on one's local wifi. If one really wants, one can even cross overlap some local windows folders for back up also as "cloud" folders using the likes of things like OneDrive, GoogleDrive, etc.. if one really thinks one needs "some" files accessible everywhere even when not at home. One thing that irks me is the way we've basically defaulted into a mode of just always having to be cloud connected and dependant. It's just sustaining the need for massive expensive data plans.

Hate to break it to ya, but if you were one before, you stopped being an average Joe when you learned how to use batch files.

Running your own NAS is certainly a good option for some, although it is worth remembering that only having local copies of files is risky in and of itself (if you are just using hard disks connected to a PC for example, you only need to have your PSU go bad in the wrong way and everything is gone ). But even a lot of techies find they are just more hassle to manage than they're worth, and they have a relatively high initial setup cost.

 

[spARTacus]

Hate to break it to ya, but if you were one before, you stopped being an average Joe when you learned how to use batch files.

Running your own NAS is certainly a good option for some, although it is worth remembering that only having local copies of files is risky in and of itself (if you are just using hard disks connected to a PC for example, you only need to have your PSU go bad in the wrong way and everything is gone ). But even a lot of techies find they are just more hassle to manage than they're worth, and they have a relatively high initial setup cost.

I've had a few drives crap out on me over the years. Always wise to never have everything on only one single hard drive. Robocopy works well to keep sync between primary, secondary, backups. Yes, if one's residence burns down then risk of loosing things that are physical. However, additional strategies can also be used.

Yeah I guess I'm not an average Joe, but certainly not either an online content creator with TBs and TBs. However, enough that I don't want to have to find ways to sync all of it always up and down from a cloud.

 

[Laura Knotek]

Hate to break it to ya, but if you were one before, you stopped being an average Joe when you learned how to use batch files.

Running your own NAS is certainly a good option for some, although it is worth remembering that only having local copies of files is risky in and of itself (if you are just using hard disks connected to a PC for example, you only need to have your PSU go bad in the wrong way and everything is gone ). But even a lot of techies find they are just more hassle to manage than they're worth, and they have a relatively high initial setup cost.

I use one local backup and two cloud backups (Google and Microsoft).

 

[fuzzylumpkin]

I use one local backup and two cloud backups (Google and Microsoft).

That's the best strategy in my opinion

 

[notforhire]

I use one local backup and two cloud backups (Google and Microsoft).

ditto

 

[spARTacus]

Maybe someday AI could help for even more optimal cost and efficient backups between local and cloud based storage.