{"id":375401,"date":"2026-08-19T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/?p=375401"},"modified":"2026-08-19T00:00:23","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T07:00:23","slug":"new-phones-now-make-going-dumb-harder-smart-features-are-built-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/new-phones-now-make-going-dumb-harder-smart-features-are-built-in\/","title":{"rendered":"New phones now make going dumb harder: smart features are built in"},"content":{"rendered":"

New phones now come with smart features<\/a><\/strong> baked in, whether you\u2019re buying an Apple iPhone or an Android<\/a> handset. That means on-device and cloud-based automation is already there in the camera, battery management, voice commands, and the suggestions your phone surfaces throughout the day. Privacy worries are still high, though, and a lot of buyers still put performance, battery life, and cameras ahead of any of those extras.<\/p>\n\n

Which also makes smart features<\/strong> harder to avoid. Phone makers now build both the hardware and the software around NPUs, scene detection, low-light and portrait processing, along with memory, battery, and app-usage tuning. You can turn off a chatbot or ignore an AI wallpaper tool. You can\u2019t really opt out of the automation that shapes how the phone performs from one day to the next.<\/p>\n\n

Privacy remains the biggest concern<\/strong>. Among US smartphone owners, 34% say they\u2019re worried about data collection, profiling, and software drawing sensitive conclusions without clear consent. More on-device processing does keep some data local, and some features can work offline, but you still don\u2019t get clear answers about what\u2019s being analyzed, what\u2019s stored, or what actually switches off.<\/p>\n\n

People still rank the basics higher<\/strong>. In a July 2026 survey in India with more than 40,000 respondents, performance and speed came first at 87%, ahead of battery at 79% and cameras at 77%.<\/p>\n\n

US smartphone owners are skeptical, too. A quarter<\/strong> don\u2019t find these tools helpful, 45% won\u2019t pay extra for them, and 73% of Apple iPhone users plus 87% of Samsung Galaxy users say they see little or no value in them. That\u2019s happening even as market forecasts put the market at $124.3 billion in 2025 and $140.8 billion in 2026.<\/p>\n\n

If you want a simpler phone, it\u2019s still a good idea to limit permissions<\/a><\/strong>, because the next wave of these features is expected to handle things like bookings, product comparisons, and routines for you.<\/p>\n\n

You\u2019ll find these features across current Apple iPhone and Android handsets right out of the box.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

New phones now come with smart features baked in, whether you\u2019re buying an Apple iPhone or an Android handset. That means on-device and cloud-based automation is already there in the camera, battery management, voice commands, and the suggestions your phone surfaces throughout the day. Privacy worries are still high, though, and a lot of buyers … Continue reading “New phones now make going dumb harder: smart features are built in”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9325,"featured_media":375400,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","wpcf-pageviews":0},"categories":[1015],"tags":[],"usertag":[],"vertical":[],"content-category":[6771],"class_list":["post-375401","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","content-category-ai"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375401","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9325"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=375401"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375401\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":375402,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/375401\/revisions\/375402"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375400"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=375401"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=375401"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=375401"},{"taxonomy":"usertag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/usertag?post=375401"},{"taxonomy":"vertical","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/vertical?post=375401"},{"taxonomy":"content-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cms-articles.softonic.io\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/content-category?post=375401"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}