Somehow this reminds me of the time I downloaded, compiled, and ran a Bitcoin miner with the app called Linux Deploy on my then-new Galaxy Note (the thing called phablet that is now positively small). It ran terribly, but it did run!

Having a complete computer in my pocket was very new to me, coming from Nokia where I struggled (as a teenager) to get any software running besides some JS in a browser. I still don't know where they hid whatever you needed to make apps for this device. Android's power, for me, was being able to hack on it (in the HN sense of the word)

Don't waste time trying to run models locally.

Instead, take the advantage of Termux power, namely the fact that you can install things like Openclaw or Gemini-cli. Google Ai plus or Pro plans are actually really good value, considering they bundle it with storage.

https://www.mobile-hacker.com/2025/07/09/how-to-install-gemi...

There is also Termux:GUI with bindings for languages, which you can use to vibecode your own GUI app, which then can basically serve as an interface to an agent, an Termux API which lets you interface with the phone, including USB devices.

Furthermore, termux has the cloudflared package availble, which lets you use clouflared free ssh tunnels (as long as you have a domain name).

All put together, you can do some pretty cool things.

Fwiw, my pixel 8 runs Qwen3.5 4B with 2 tok/s speed. Via pocketpal app. Somehow cactus app didn't work.