I think you took it way more offensively than it was intended.

There are exceedingly few phones that have them anymore - particularly more powerful ones. I prefer a headphone jack because I don’t have to juggle keeping everything charged long enough for when I want to use it.

A prime example is when I go to sleep. I live on a somewhat busy street in an apartment facing said street. I have noisy neighbors. My spouse is used to sleeping with the TV on (there are reasons for this which I understand) - thankfully, the screen doesn’t have to be on. As such, I use wired earbuds that block out most external sound, along with an audio track I’ve been using for many years on a loop to put (and keep) me to sleep. Show me any wireless earbuds that’ll last the night, block out sound, and not be too big to lay upon comfortably since I’m a side-sleeper (let alone not have controls accidentally activated by laying on them).

ETA: Never mind that my Bluetooth earbuds always seem to develop a problem keeping contact with their charge contacts in the case before long, so it’s not infrequent that I go to use them and they’re dead when they shouldn’t be.

Expulsion of an enema all over the camera would be tempting if it weren’t such a mess to clean up. Maybe in a rental…

Nowhere near an expert in this, but I know I’ve seen in the past that you could set your phone to turn on at a specific time (which means the RTC at a minimum is still running) - could a determined adversary not find a way to take advantage of that?

Your carrier HAS ratted on you. Under the incoming US administration, I’ve little doubt they will again.

If you’re logging in via Wi-Fi, that shouldn’t transmit your IMEI - but I admit that I don’t know if that’s something they do behind the scenes. They also could just use your IP address if logging in from home. They would be making an assumption you hadn’t sold it (or given it to someone else), but I can see that not being enough assurance.

As such, get a used tablet that you only ever use on public Wi-Fi (i.e. never log it into your home Wi-Fi). I’m sure there are some really cheap old ones on eBay - just make sure it’s on a version of Android the Play Store still supports (I think 6 is the minimum nowadays).

You can create an account on an Android phone that has no SIM or other accounts on it without being required to provide a phone number. Use an old wiped phone just for this.

I will never buy another Chromebook except maybe to use as a tablet. I simply can’t stand the needlessly dumbed-down keyboard layout.

Plus no ads, and MUCH more efficiently written code to boot - win-win!

Just don’t hook it up to the Internet…

Yeah, the Google Minis are hit or miss for us a lot, too. I don’t generally have the keyword activation switched on with my phone, but was going to activate it if need be for this. I’ve got a Bluetooth headset with very good background noise cancellation (according to those I’ve spoken to on the phone), so I’m hoping/assuming that will help it understand me more reliably, and that Assistant activation via its button will obviate the need for turning on keyword activation.

Replying to my own post in case anyone’s following this (still too new to Lemmy to know if that’s a thing - guess I’ll look into it after this).

Apparently, Moto may be working on something that fills this need. The promo video in this article only demonstrates things I think Google Assistant might already be capable of (or maybe slightly more), but the article states what they’re working on involves using apps on your phone to do things rather than just being a microphone and speaker for stuff that actually happens mostly on Google’s servers. Crossing my fingers that includes doing what I want rather than just being focused on buying things as demonstrated in the teaser video.

In the meantime, I’ve stumbled across the fact that Google’s built-in TalkBack feature has support for keyboard shortcuts. This likely means I can use a small handheld Bluetooth game controller along with an app to map the buttons to the appropriate key presses in order to move around the screen, and thus control the Android device without looking at or touching it. That means using Google Assistant to launch the apps, and the controller to actually use it via TalkBack. I’ll likely test this next weekend & report back if anyone’s interested.

ETA: Forgot to mention: remembered that my kid has an iPad required by his school some years ago, but so far as we can see the capabilities are roughly on par with Android so switching platforms doesn’t seem to be the answer.

Not a category in interested in, but I did take a spin through your collection on GitLab. You lost all credibility with me when I saw your top web browser pick was Brave.

I have a few Google Home Minis, and so far as I know they are the same thing - just rebranded. It’s basically the same thing as Google Assistant built into every Google-approved/equipped (meaning it has their full suite of apps pre-installed) device. They’re just so limited. I know of no way to get them to read Lemmy posts as in my added second example.

I also thought of another use case for what I’m after that might be more universally applicable and easily understood. Imagine someone doing some relatively mindless menial job such as working an assembly line, janitorial work, chauffer - something where your mind is relatively unoccupied, but you’re not free to look at and/or touch your device (whether it be due to practicality, or job rules). While doing that job, I want to be able to have the device read and interact with something of interest to me at that moment (ADHD is a fickle mistress), rather than just relying on podcasts with predefined content. Kind of like having someone next to me doing all the interfacing between me and the device.

(EDIT: minor swipe keyboard corrections.)

Yeah, I wouldn’t just jump in without looking first. If I can’t find a way to do this, then I’m definitely gonna have to take a trip to the nearest Apple Store, though. Thanks very much for the input!

iOS will open your Lemmy client, start reading posts to you aloud, and go into a post of interest upon command without you ever looking at or touching the screen (using my newer example that I added to the OP)? I’m seriously going to have to look into getting an iDevice of some sort if so.

Imagine someone blind who also has Parkinson’s - they can’t see to use Voice Access, and they can’t control their hands well enough to interact with the screen physically in a reliable manner using TalkBack. You can’t actually use those two accessibility features together - they are mutually exclusive in that they require you either be able to see the screen, OR you must be able to interact with it physically as it reads out what you’re touching. Why is there no way to interact entirely verbally?

ETA: please see my added example in OP.

This feels like a bait question to get people to break the new “no politics” rule.

Misspelled hooliganism, sorry.

Can’t answer for anybody else, but from what admittedly limited information I’m aware of there are many reasons I’d not want to move to India - Modi, pollution so bad in places you can hardly see through it at times, rampant huliganism hooliganism, sexism, mobs severely beating/killing people (most not even nearly for “justifiable” causes), high unemployment, castes, people still openly using public streets for restrooms, etc. Doesn’t seem like it’s any better than the Ununited States of America.

What do you have difficulty exiting?