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What Gemini should be able to do with WhatsApp: Exactly and only what any other random app on the phone could do with WhatsApp, assuming that you have

What Gemini should be able to do with WhatsApp: Exactly and only what any other random app on the phone could do with WhatsApp, assuming that you have enabled that in exactly the way you would have to enable any other random app to do it. Google needs to not be abusing its position as the source of the OS to give its software special privilege to reach inside of third-party apps.

kccqzy 1y ago
The line is blurry. Google is positioning Gemini not just as an app, but as a OS level feature. The OS can by definition reach into any third-app app to do anything it wants. I'll give some more examples of OS-level features in case it's not clear: copy/paste is an OS-level feature and it is designed to extract arbitrary text or content from third party apps (copy) and insert them into third party apps (paste); screenshotting is an OS-level feature and it is designed to capture the visible views of any third party app with the only exception being DRM content. Apple Intelligence has similar marketing. In last year's WWDC, there was the whole "Siri, when is my mom's flight landing?" segment (see https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2024/101/ https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2024/101/ at 1h22m) that didn't generate any controversy. So for some reason people think Siri should rightfully be an OS-level feature but Gemini should not. Got it. I guess Apple's PR is just that much better than Google's.
- actionfromafar 1y ago
  This is the line of thinking that got Microsoft into trouble back in the day, and they were forced to split the web browser and the operating system. However, operating system technology has come a long way since - the trick is to control not only the computer but the government.
- b112 1y ago
  Dear god! Are you sure? If I ever sensed a forkable event for Android...
  - Hizonner 1y ago
    Well, really the line was crossed when Google Play Services got special privileges (and third party app developers were encouraged to call on Google Play Services as the only practical way to do various things, some of which maybe should have been part of the OS). And the "assistant" crap, and whatever else. ... and GraphenOS isn't exactly a fork, but it's plugging away, fighting the good fight, doing things like making Google Play Services both optional and a lot less privileged on the phone than it thinks it is.
    - overfeed 1y ago
      Devils advocate: Google Play Services was the right solution to all the clamoring about Android fragmentation and OEMs abandoning devices by not providing upgrades.
      - kccqzy 1y ago
        I agree that Google Play Services was the right solution to fragmentation. I also agree that having forks like GrapheneOS was the right solution for a subset of people who like to de-Google themselves.
      - myko 1y ago
        Definitely helped with that and also absolutely frustrating that it is so abusable to keep folks out of the Android garden. Undeniable that Android updates are so much better than in the past, and it's far easier to keep your Android app using modern APIs than your iOS app, because most of those APIs are libraries with full backwards compatibility going back many years.
    - b112 1y ago
      Yes, but GrapheneOS has lost access to Pixel specific drivers/etc, with the repo changes Google made? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44256604 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44256604
- Hizonner 1y ago
  The fact that Google would find it to be convenient for the line to be blurry doesn't mean that anybody looking at it in good faith sees the line as blurry.
  - kccqzy 1y ago
    But some people in good faith can see the line as blurry. Others perhaps not. It's subjective and opinion-based. HN people just like to live in their own bubble thinking no other opinion is valid other than their own.
  - sheepscreek 1y ago
    Google is an advertising company. Apple is a consumer hardware company. Who would you trust more with your data? It’s that simple (irrespective of the ground truth, simply referring to the optics of it).
    - ajross 1y ago
      Google sells hardware and Apple sells ads, in great quantity in both cases. Not sure "it's that simple" at all.
      - dasil003 1y ago
        What percentage of revenue do ads and hardware contribute to the bottom line in Apple and Google? That answer will tell you more about leadership incentives than just hand-waving away the discussion based on the fact that big tech companies tend to dip their toes in a lot of pools.
        fsflover 1y ago
        It's expanding, which is all that matters: https://www.macrumors.com/2024/11/19/apple-now-directly-selling-ads-in-news-app/ https://www.macrumors.com/2024/11/19/apple-now-directly-sell...
        ogurechny 1y ago
- jajko 1y ago
  Its blurry because it was made blurry. It shouldn't be, and any laziness-inducing helper app or product ain't no excuse. These are basic core (and so far immovable) privacy principles, lets not lose sight of this when we delve into whataboutism.
- surgical_fire 1y ago
  > Google is positioning Gemini not just as an app, but as a OS level feature Eeewww. We need a mobile OS competitor. I am seriously considering a move to Fairphone with /e/os. GrapheneOS would be a possibility, but I don't trust Google to make decent hardware, so not super excited to get a Pixel phone.
  - blablabla123 1y ago
    I definitely had to tweak the settings a lot for the battery to not get warm on my Pixel. But after a week I managed and battery life is better than with comparable phones since the background bloat isn't there on Graphene. So far there was a solution for everything, I don't do online banking on the phone though. I wonder if LineageOS might solve this problem already though, /e/os probably would as well
    - baobun 1y ago
      > I definitely had to tweak the settings a lot for the battery to not get warm on my Pixel. But after a week I managed and battery life is better than with comparable phones since the background bloat isn't there on Graphene. I am sure a detailed writeup will be very appreciated if you bother and manage.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - fsflover 1y ago
    > We need a mobile OS competitor. Mobian, PureOS, postmarketOS exist.
    - surgical_fire 1y ago
      Yes, I have an older phone running LineageOS for that matter. But those are typically community efforts, so software support is not certain. It sucks when so many things just expect you to have a working cell phone.
- JohnFen 1y ago
  > Google is positioning Gemini not just as an app, but as a OS level feature. That doesn't make it any better or more acceptable. If anything, it makes it much, much worse. I absolutely don't want any LLM to have OS level access to my data, period.
- Ajedi32 1y ago
  Making OS level features depend on an external cloud service is a rather dubious proposition in general. It feels a bit anti-competitive to me, if nothing else.
- jacquesm 1y ago
  The line is not blurry at all. The line is what I define the line to be on the devices that I've paid for.
- Someone 1y ago
  > The line is blurry. Google is positioning Gemini not just as an app, but as a OS level feature The line is blurry, but Microsoft was positioning Internet Explorer as an OS level feature, too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp.#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...: “Microsoft argued that the merging of Windows and IE was the result of innovation and competition, that the two were now the same product and inextricably linked, and that consumers were receiving the benefits of IE for free.” Apple somewhat similarly argued that the iOS App Store is an OS level feature. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games_v._Apple#Background https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games_v._Apple#Background: “Apple has further argued that it requires iOS apps to use its storefront to "ensure that iOS apps meet Apple's high standards for privacy, security, content, and quality" and avoid exposing iOS users to risks from alternative storefronts.” In both cases justice departments (the ones who draw those lines) disagreed with those claims.
  - matthewmc3 1y ago
    So if Google is to learn from others’ past mistakes, it ought to be able to leverage Gemini as long as the user can easily and fully swap out Gemini for an alternative. That was the problem regulators had with IE and the App Store.
    - Someone 1y ago
      And that’s exactly what the ancestor comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44502286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44502286) argued.
- jeroenhd 1y ago
  Implementing their own service as an OS-level feature is a peculiar decision when the EU's DMA would force Google to allow competitors to have the same capabilities. Google already violates the DMA in some minor ways (like how Chromebook clipboard sync can alter the clipboard in the background, but tools like KDE Connect and Microsoft's My Phone cannot). On the other hand, the default "assistant" app is one the user can pick freely in the settings so if whatever API WhatsApp exposes is also usable for Bixby/Bing/Claude/ChatGPT, I imagine things would fit the phone just fine. As for Siri, I think Apple customers just don't really care about Apple gatekeeping apps like these. For some reason, they seem to like Siri (even though I can't get it to do basic things for me, it's somehow even worse than Gemini) and for some reason they trust Apple to access their personal information, so there's no need for controversy.
TeMPOraL 1y ago
Unfortunately the situation on Android is that other apps cannot do anything with WhatsApp, and there's fuck all you can do about it as a user. I shouldn't need Google special-casing Gemini to allow LLMs to interact with my messages. I should be able to wire up Tasker to WhatsApp on one end, and to OpenAI or Anthropic models of my choice via API calls on the other end. Alas, Android is basically like iPhone now, just with more faux choice of vendors and less quality control.
- sfn42 1y ago
  If you give users a way to compromise their own security, scammers will find a way to make users compromise themselves.
  - Ajedi32 1y ago
    Users always have a way to compromise their own security, and short of taking away their freedom completely (e.g. putting them in a mental hospital) that's not possible to fix. Sacrificing human freedom in the name of security is a long, dark, and well-trodden path that I don't think we ought to venture down any further.
    - dineol 1y ago
      "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"
- jeroenhd 1y ago
  WhatsApp has been forced by the EU to provide access to third parties. If there's any app that third party apps can interact with, it's WhatsApp. I also can't really find the mechanism at use here. I don't know if WhatsApp is exposing some kind of dedicated assistant API that an alternative assistant (the one you can pick in the settings) might be able to use.
  - TeMPOraL 1y ago
lern_too_spel 1y ago
> Google needs to not be abusing its position as the source of the OS to give its software special privilege to reach inside of third-party apps Gemini uses the same APIs and permissions as any other Android app.
- lern_too_spel 1y ago
  This is trivial to verify. Just look at the permissions requested by the Google app like I did.
  - windexh8er 1y ago
    Even given all of the historical abuses of Google on Android you still believe an app permission is acting in good faith when Google has hooks elsewhere into the OS? Google has already been successfully sued this year in CA for siphoning off data from phones that are idle and the remainder of states is in process [0]. [0] https://www.androidauthority.com/google-314-million-verdict-misuse-android-user-data-3573164/ https://www.androidauthority.com/google-314-million-verdict-...
    - lern_too_spel 1y ago
      That lawsuit was for using metered cell data not for "siphoning off data." You can look at the Android source code and verify that the Gemini app cannot bypass the permission system. This is unlike iOS, where Apple apps get special access.
  - jeroenhd 1y ago
    Google Gemini shares a namespace with system-level components. You can't just take the APK and check the permissions in it to verify Google's access, you'd also need to go through Play Services, AI Core, and all the other auxiliary Android components to be sure. Without details on how Gemini is interacting with WhatsApp, it's hard to say if Google is privileged or not. It's possible Facebook just struck a deal with Google.
pxc 1y ago
> Google needs to not be abusing its position as the source of the OS to give its software special privilege to reach inside of third-party apps. There are some extremely useful features that you can implement with AI, but currently only at the OS level, not with normal app permissions-- namely live translation of audio streams that belong to another app (calls, video playback, etc.). But I suppose you're still right; it would still be better if Android had an API for sharing app audio streams like this.
janalsncm 1y ago
Siri does this, but the processing happens on-device so it stays private. Seems like a nice compromise. Google has Gemma? So they could also blow Apple out of the water by competing directly there.
- whyoh 1y ago
  >Siri does this, but the processing happens on-device It happens on-device where possible. "Although Apple attempts to do as much as possible on device, certain features require real-time input from Apple servers." Source: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/01/our-longstanding-privacy-commitment-with-siri/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/01/our-longstanding-priv...
amelius 1y ago
I'd be more interested to know what would happen to Google if it turned out they were reading all of our WhatsApp messages. If that's a slap on the wrist, then we can be sure that Google is doing it.
red-iron-pine 1y ago
> Google needs to not be abusing its position as the source of the OS to give its software special privilege to reach inside of third-party apps. good luck. why do you think they bothered to create an OS in the first place? like, what did you think a data mining company would create an OS for?

kccqzy 1y ago

The line is blurry. Google is positioning Gemini not just as an app, but as a OS level feature. The OS can by definition reach into any third-app app to do anything it wants. I'll give some more examples of OS-level features in case it's not clear: copy/paste is an OS-level feature and it is designed to extract arbitrary text or content from third party apps (copy) and insert them into third party apps (paste); screenshotting is an OS-level feature and it is designed to capture the visible views of any third party app with the only exception being DRM content. Apple Intelligence has similar marketing. In last year's WWDC, there was the whole "Siri, when is my mom's flight landing?" segment (see https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2024/101/ https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2024/101/ at 1h22m) that didn't generate any controversy. So for some reason people think Siri should rightfully be an OS-level feature but Gemini should not. Got it. I guess Apple's PR is just that much better than Google's.

actionfromafar 1y ago
This is the line of thinking that got Microsoft into trouble back in the day, and they were forced to split the web browser and the operating system. However, operating system technology has come a long way since - the trick is to control not only the computer but the government.
b112 1y ago
Dear god! Are you sure? If I ever sensed a forkable event for Android...
- Hizonner 1y ago
  Well, really the line was crossed when Google Play Services got special privileges (and third party app developers were encouraged to call on Google Play Services as the only practical way to do various things, some of which maybe should have been part of the OS). And the "assistant" crap, and whatever else. ... and GraphenOS isn't exactly a fork, but it's plugging away, fighting the good fight, doing things like making Google Play Services both optional and a lot less privileged on the phone than it thinks it is.
  - overfeed 1y ago
    Devils advocate: Google Play Services was the right solution to all the clamoring about Android fragmentation and OEMs abandoning devices by not providing upgrades.
    - kccqzy 1y ago
      I agree that Google Play Services was the right solution to fragmentation. I also agree that having forks like GrapheneOS was the right solution for a subset of people who like to de-Google themselves.
    - myko 1y ago
      Definitely helped with that and also absolutely frustrating that it is so abusable to keep folks out of the Android garden. Undeniable that Android updates are so much better than in the past, and it's far easier to keep your Android app using modern APIs than your iOS app, because most of those APIs are libraries with full backwards compatibility going back many years.
  - b112 1y ago
    Yes, but GrapheneOS has lost access to Pixel specific drivers/etc, with the repo changes Google made? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44256604 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44256604
Hizonner 1y ago
The fact that Google would find it to be convenient for the line to be blurry doesn't mean that anybody looking at it in good faith sees the line as blurry.
- kccqzy 1y ago
  But some people in good faith can see the line as blurry. Others perhaps not. It's subjective and opinion-based. HN people just like to live in their own bubble thinking no other opinion is valid other than their own.
- sheepscreek 1y ago
  Google is an advertising company. Apple is a consumer hardware company. Who would you trust more with your data? It’s that simple (irrespective of the ground truth, simply referring to the optics of it).
  - ajross 1y ago
    Google sells hardware and Apple sells ads, in great quantity in both cases. Not sure "it's that simple" at all.
    - dasil003 1y ago
      What percentage of revenue do ads and hardware contribute to the bottom line in Apple and Google? That answer will tell you more about leadership incentives than just hand-waving away the discussion based on the fact that big tech companies tend to dip their toes in a lot of pools.
      - fsflover 1y ago
        It's expanding, which is all that matters: https://www.macrumors.com/2024/11/19/apple-now-directly-selling-ads-in-news-app/ https://www.macrumors.com/2024/11/19/apple-now-directly-sell...
      - ogurechny 1y ago
jajko 1y ago
Its blurry because it was made blurry. It shouldn't be, and any laziness-inducing helper app or product ain't no excuse. These are basic core (and so far immovable) privacy principles, lets not lose sight of this when we delve into whataboutism.
surgical_fire 1y ago
> Google is positioning Gemini not just as an app, but as a OS level feature Eeewww. We need a mobile OS competitor. I am seriously considering a move to Fairphone with /e/os. GrapheneOS would be a possibility, but I don't trust Google to make decent hardware, so not super excited to get a Pixel phone.
- blablabla123 1y ago
  I definitely had to tweak the settings a lot for the battery to not get warm on my Pixel. But after a week I managed and battery life is better than with comparable phones since the background bloat isn't there on Graphene. So far there was a solution for everything, I don't do online banking on the phone though. I wonder if LineageOS might solve this problem already though, /e/os probably would as well
  - baobun 1y ago
    > I definitely had to tweak the settings a lot for the battery to not get warm on my Pixel. But after a week I managed and battery life is better than with comparable phones since the background bloat isn't there on Graphene. I am sure a detailed writeup will be very appreciated if you bother and manage.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- fsflover 1y ago
  > We need a mobile OS competitor. Mobian, PureOS, postmarketOS exist.
  - surgical_fire 1y ago
    Yes, I have an older phone running LineageOS for that matter. But those are typically community efforts, so software support is not certain. It sucks when so many things just expect you to have a working cell phone.
JohnFen 1y ago
> Google is positioning Gemini not just as an app, but as a OS level feature. That doesn't make it any better or more acceptable. If anything, it makes it much, much worse. I absolutely don't want any LLM to have OS level access to my data, period.
Ajedi32 1y ago
Making OS level features depend on an external cloud service is a rather dubious proposition in general. It feels a bit anti-competitive to me, if nothing else.
jacquesm 1y ago
The line is not blurry at all. The line is what I define the line to be on the devices that I've paid for.
Someone 1y ago
> The line is blurry. Google is positioning Gemini not just as an app, but as a OS level feature The line is blurry, but Microsoft was positioning Internet Explorer as an OS level feature, too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp.#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...: “Microsoft argued that the merging of Windows and IE was the result of innovation and competition, that the two were now the same product and inextricably linked, and that consumers were receiving the benefits of IE for free.” Apple somewhat similarly argued that the iOS App Store is an OS level feature. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games_v._Apple#Background https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games_v._Apple#Background: “Apple has further argued that it requires iOS apps to use its storefront to "ensure that iOS apps meet Apple's high standards for privacy, security, content, and quality" and avoid exposing iOS users to risks from alternative storefronts.” In both cases justice departments (the ones who draw those lines) disagreed with those claims.
- matthewmc3 1y ago
  So if Google is to learn from others’ past mistakes, it ought to be able to leverage Gemini as long as the user can easily and fully swap out Gemini for an alternative. That was the problem regulators had with IE and the App Store.
  - Someone 1y ago
    And that’s exactly what the ancestor comment (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44502286 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44502286) argued.
jeroenhd 1y ago
Implementing their own service as an OS-level feature is a peculiar decision when the EU's DMA would force Google to allow competitors to have the same capabilities. Google already violates the DMA in some minor ways (like how Chromebook clipboard sync can alter the clipboard in the background, but tools like KDE Connect and Microsoft's My Phone cannot). On the other hand, the default "assistant" app is one the user can pick freely in the settings so if whatever API WhatsApp exposes is also usable for Bixby/Bing/Claude/ChatGPT, I imagine things would fit the phone just fine. As for Siri, I think Apple customers just don't really care about Apple gatekeeping apps like these. For some reason, they seem to like Siri (even though I can't get it to do basic things for me, it's somehow even worse than Gemini) and for some reason they trust Apple to access their personal information, so there's no need for controversy.

TeMPOraL 1y ago

Unfortunately the situation on Android is that other apps cannot do anything with WhatsApp, and there's fuck all you can do about it as a user. I shouldn't need Google special-casing Gemini to allow LLMs to interact with my messages. I should be able to wire up Tasker to WhatsApp on one end, and to OpenAI or Anthropic models of my choice via API calls on the other end. Alas, Android is basically like iPhone now, just with more faux choice of vendors and less quality control.

sfn42 1y ago
If you give users a way to compromise their own security, scammers will find a way to make users compromise themselves.
- Ajedi32 1y ago
  Users always have a way to compromise their own security, and short of taking away their freedom completely (e.g. putting them in a mental hospital) that's not possible to fix. Sacrificing human freedom in the name of security is a long, dark, and well-trodden path that I don't think we ought to venture down any further.
  - dineol 1y ago
    "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety"
jeroenhd 1y ago
WhatsApp has been forced by the EU to provide access to third parties. If there's any app that third party apps can interact with, it's WhatsApp. I also can't really find the mechanism at use here. I don't know if WhatsApp is exposing some kind of dedicated assistant API that an alternative assistant (the one you can pick in the settings) might be able to use.
- TeMPOraL 1y ago

lern_too_spel 1y ago

> Google needs to not be abusing its position as the source of the OS to give its software special privilege to reach inside of third-party apps Gemini uses the same APIs and permissions as any other Android app.

lern_too_spel 1y ago
This is trivial to verify. Just look at the permissions requested by the Google app like I did.
- windexh8er 1y ago
  Even given all of the historical abuses of Google on Android you still believe an app permission is acting in good faith when Google has hooks elsewhere into the OS? Google has already been successfully sued this year in CA for siphoning off data from phones that are idle and the remainder of states is in process [0]. [0] https://www.androidauthority.com/google-314-million-verdict-misuse-android-user-data-3573164/ https://www.androidauthority.com/google-314-million-verdict-...
  - lern_too_spel 1y ago
    That lawsuit was for using metered cell data not for "siphoning off data." You can look at the Android source code and verify that the Gemini app cannot bypass the permission system. This is unlike iOS, where Apple apps get special access.
- jeroenhd 1y ago
  Google Gemini shares a namespace with system-level components. You can't just take the APK and check the permissions in it to verify Google's access, you'd also need to go through Play Services, AI Core, and all the other auxiliary Android components to be sure. Without details on how Gemini is interacting with WhatsApp, it's hard to say if Google is privileged or not. It's possible Facebook just struck a deal with Google.

pxc 1y ago

> Google needs to not be abusing its position as the source of the OS to give its software special privilege to reach inside of third-party apps. There are some extremely useful features that you can implement with AI, but currently only at the OS level, not with normal app permissions-- namely live translation of audio streams that belong to another app (calls, video playback, etc.). But I suppose you're still right; it would still be better if Android had an API for sharing app audio streams like this.

janalsncm 1y ago

Siri does this, but the processing happens on-device so it stays private. Seems like a nice compromise. Google has Gemma? So they could also blow Apple out of the water by competing directly there.

whyoh 1y ago
>Siri does this, but the processing happens on-device It happens on-device where possible. "Although Apple attempts to do as much as possible on device, certain features require real-time input from Apple servers." Source: https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/01/our-longstanding-privacy-commitment-with-siri/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2025/01/our-longstanding-priv...

amelius 1y ago

I'd be more interested to know what would happen to Google if it turned out they were reading all of our WhatsApp messages. If that's a slap on the wrist, then we can be sure that Google is doing it.

red-iron-pine 1y ago

> Google needs to not be abusing its position as the source of the OS to give its software special privilege to reach inside of third-party apps. good luck. why do you think they bothered to create an OS in the first place? like, what did you think a data mining company would create an OS for?