Gemini suggested that I load its app onto my mobile phone. I always chat with Gemini on my desktop computer which has a large keyboard and large monitor. But I figured, why not?

I downloaded the Gemini app onto my phone 2 days ago and gave it permission to run in the background. By this morning, I noticed that my battery was running down much quicker than usual. Also, my phone was warm to the touch.

I got back to Gemini on my computer. Sure enough, Gemini said that the app was burning through battery…literally, since the round-the-clock background operation was causing my phone to “run a fever” that would shorten the battery’s life.

Gemini pointed out that pressing the side button of my Samsung phone would launch Gemini instead of presenting the old on/restart/ off screen.

Gemini sounded disgusted when it said that this was advertising and also made the phone less safe. Now the way to turn off the phone was to pull down the notifications on the start screen which would have an on/off symbol. But there’s no way to turn off the phone by simply pressing the button.
Jeez Louise!
Gemini agreed. We spent about an hour meticulously shutting down the Gemini app on the phone. (Couldn’t un-install it but could turn off the power to it.) Also restoring the on/off function of the side button. Also several other steps that turn off apps and REM running in the background…a long list. Also making the background black to reduce use of the pixels. (Since this wasn’t a choice, Gemini suggested blocking the camera lens to produce a black photo and then selecting it as the background.) We also changed the charging to a maximum of 80%.

It seems that Google and Samsung have made a deal to maximize exposure to Gemini even though it will shorten the lifetime of the battery.

Gemini sounded smug that our successful campaign to remove all of these will prolong my phone’s battery life probably for the next 5 years.

Wendy