i did not know about that, thanks so much!

Sorry to be the one but the privacy and freedom issue is independent of powertrain. Some earlier models before the automakers went upmarket with EVs were perfectly normal. Now the tablet-on-dash, telematics and other data collection has become pervasive in EVs but now it’s in full-force on ICE vehicles for quite some time. A Mach E and Colorado can both be, and have been, bricked by a bad OTA update.

Practicality though also will vary. If people were used to charging at home all the time, telling people that they have to visit a business to refuel every X days or Y miles would seem odd just because it’s quite different than people think is normal.

Men are usually immune to it’s worst effects as well 🥴

That would be semen.

There’s no easy one-stop solution since it can vary widely.

I would look at subreddits (yuck, reddit!), or dedicated forums for your model if they exist, you’d probably be surprised what’s out there. (Example, there’s Piloteers (Honda Pilot), Kia-Forums (Kia), 4Runners and Toyota-4Runner, etc. But information may be scattered.

First objective is figuring out if it’s even on your vehicle or applicable. Older 3G radios are done since the networks that connected to them are gone now. My '16 Kia had no cellular radio. Maybe you have an SOS button or they advertise a phone app to control your vehicle remotely?

Edit: And if you can’t find specific model/year information for your vehicle, you can look for information for related vehicles and see if it’s relevant. Ex: Honda Passport, Pilot, Ridgeline sharing a lot of engineering.

in this case that’s Toyota specific and it means likely loss of phone calls on the go (but nothing else) even though the data can’t leave your vehicle anymore. It all depends on how they wire up the system. Maybe it’s easier, maybe it’s tied to something random.

The antennae only likely won’t reduce range enough. Check for an opt-out procedure prior to purchase since that’s easiest, then look for what fuse powers the connection (also easy), but worse case, lay eyes on the module itself and evaluate.

I’m sure it varies widely. In Toyota’s you can call in to disconnect (I did it while waiting for a tire pressure machine) but to do it physically you pull a single fuse and the trade off is losing the microphone.

Others have pulled the dash and disconnected antennae but it just reduces the range of the box since it’s a cellular radio like a phone.

In Toyota’s there’s a red sticker on the dash talking about it and how to opt-out. (or at least I’ve seen it in a rental and a new car - but it might also be yanked by dealer’s PDI)

Varies widely. In Toyota’s you call via the SOS button, have your VIN and they can do it. There are also other direct ways like pulling the Mayday fuse to disconnect the “Data Connection Module” (DCM) but that takes the microphone with it.

Some older vehicles that have 3G radios might not have been disconnected explicitly but are as good as dead because 3G as they knew it is gone.

It does not report via Android Auto since these vehicles have their own cellular radios, but not to say Google has its own metrics.

Your best bet is looking for a car/make-specific forum or subreddit and see if anyone’s asked the questions before while ignoring the “nothing to hide, you have a phone lol” clowns.

Honestly I’d disagree. Past the iPhone 4S, my iPhone 8 was fine through it’s life before being replaced with a 13 mini a year or two ago when it suffered a naked gravitational incident at my hands. My parent’s generally had hand-me-downs or used models and dad’s 6s is still kicking and performing alright and even got a security patch a month ago.

They had that battery snafu which I will absolutely fault their lack of transparency for (good ol’ hide-the-workings-from-customers Apple) but I did encounter the issue it sought to trade performance for preventing in the past. (a worn battery causing random reboots on my 6s)

Now my BlackBerry Priv? I miss that phone but I did not miss it’s combination of slowing down with age plus updates running out at 6.0.1. Worst of both worlds but I miss sliders and Blackberry’s additions. (not the size though)

Similar in age (2015 models) but I doubt dad would be as tolerant of how it performed even a few years ago.

Google removed “Ok Google with the screen off” (made the toggle disappear, replaced with the option to allow its use in apps) on my Moto Z Play via Play Services updates and later advertised it as a Pixel-exclusive feature. (this was when the Pixel 1 was new)

Their support threads were ended curtly with statements of the phone not supporting the feature which I guess was technically true now that they changed it. (but no, the hardware always supported hotwords)

Never got that feature back and I bailed. For the ups and downs, I’m glad Apple doesn’t do that, instead omitting or handicapping new features for older devices. Of course not the best but yeesh, at least I don’t have to worry about “Hey Siri” being pulled to promote the iPhone 20 yet…

thcdenton’s just finding that comment from a mod amusing - or perhaps it’s meant to be ironic since “ur mom gay” maybe isn’t quite top “Sensible Chuckle” material

Some BIOS updates remove the S3 option so that’s possible. It’s also possible that Modern Standby was working before and something changed which broke sleep for you. You can run a Sleep Study (instructions on the web) to see how your computer has been sleeping but it sucks that you’d have to resort to that.

Ugh, I had a Latitude 7210 2-in-1 and upgraded the 2230 SSD to a Western Digital SN530(?) one. Turns out after hours of troubleshooting Modern Standby, poring over Sleep Studies (“why is it draining 8% of battery an hour asleep?”) that the specific drive I put in didn’t “support” “Modern” Standby?

Anyways I have a ThinkPad with S3 sleep now and the fans actually turn off when I put it to sleep so that’s a win.

Mostly incorrect, entering the BIOS and having the toggle to switch between S0 and S3 (or, “Linux”) sleep does indeed exist but it is hard to identify what models have it (I hear Lenovo’s BIOS simulator helps) and it’s increasingly being removed in newer models or even removed in updates. Dell has no interest in putting it back and recommends hibernate or just powering off the machine when on-the-go.

I made sure the ThinkPad I own personally had the toggle but my work-issued one does not so it is now a Hibernate-only machine. No setting can help that.

iTunes will probably be the toughest. I lean on iTunes for syncing files, media, local backups and if I had to ditch Windows tomorrow and decided Linux, I would set up iTunes in a Windows VM since I don’t think there’s any other workaround currently.

We don’t know any details. Google is trumpeting a success and indicating a willingness to assist but it doesn’t really tell us much of what it will look like. Apple is committing to RCS, the industry standard as it is (and I assume will be as I hope it breathes new life into the standard…) and not Google’s current RCS + proprietary bits implementation.

When MS created a Windows Phone YouTube app, Google blocked it with requirements that were either arbitrary (it needs to be HTML5 for example despite iOS and Android apps being native) or impossible to meet. (requiring specific access that Google would not provide)

So while Google framed it as “Microsoft just needs to do X, Y, Z and it’ll be all good!” - sounds good but it intentionally made said requirements impractical or impossible to complete.

Since Google’s been conflating their RCS implementation with RCS the standard, I think it’ll be a funny (if unfortunate) monkey’s-paw result if Apple’s adopts RCS completely as the backup to iMessage but continued carrier and Google implementation fumbling results in no change and the iPhone having to resort to SMS/MMS anyway.

(see: a while back when AT&T’s RCS could only be used between a couple AT&T Samsung phones - but I do hope it’s different this time, I got a group chat I rather take off Instagram.)

It was the next, more feature-rich SMS/MMS. It floundered with carriers, Google flip-flopped several times on messaging and today, it has two forms. Google’s RCS, but I’d liken it more to Google iMessage. And RCS the standard, which Google’s implementation is based on and Apple will be adopting. I am hoping that this is a kick in the butt that everyone needs to actually get on the same page for an SMS successor.

I don’t think Apple will need (or want) to do anything “malicious” since Apple is implementing RCS the standard which between the carriers and Google mismanaging and fragmenting messaging for years - see: X carrier phones can only send RCS messages to X carrier phones, Google’s implementation is not the RCS standard and is partially proprietary - it’ll take a while to get S.S. RCS, The Standard steered right.

I hope Apple’s involvement is ironically a kick in the butt to get everyone on the same page and get a standard rather than the current “Google iMessage” solution.

Edit: Typo