geese a-floating

"There's actually enough water out there for the geese to float on!"

(my thought upon seeing the usually-mostly-dry weed-grown lake-bed behind Qiao's house after some rain)

smart reply

I've been impressed lately with how pertinent some of the text reply suggestions are on my phone. (Although sometimes they aren't.) It makes replying easier and also seems a good way to learn "what is a good normal response to xyz" if a reply doesn't come easily to one's mind.

But I thought I had turned suggestions off before; hadn't I been concerned about it sending my texts to a server some where, to be analyzed, in order to return the suggestions? So I went into the settings, and found this... the "on-device intelligence part" surprised me:

Messages app - Settings - "Suggestions in chat"
(Google Assistant, Smart Reply, Suggested Actions)

"Smart Reply, suggested actions, and Assistant suggestions are generated with on-device intelligence by Messages.

Suggestions are not shared with Google nor anyone else until you tap them.

If you allow Messages to access your device's location, you'll see more local suggestions."


But what about that "until you tap them" part. I guess that means that once you select and use one of the suggested replies, then it probably sends both the other person's text as well as the selected reply to some server. So I guess my original concern remains.