The "Post-PC" era (smartphones)

[UCyborg]

Android seems to have removed many sensible features, presumably because they were unpopular and would annoy clumsy users when enabled accidentally. Probably, this is also what happened to landscape mode. Touchscreens encourage an oversimplified interface with only the most popular choices for this reason; the medium truly is the message.

Some features these days are standard while back then, they were in custom OS builds (eg. Cyanogenmod, LineageOS) or installable through Xposed modules. One banal example, turning on camera flash to use as a flashlight. Though you could have a separate app for that

I don't have a list of potentially useful things that may have disappeared, just this one with Wi-Fi was obvious to me.

What about landscape mode? Other than some apps not supporting it, at least it's still there in Android 14.

[moonbat]

My first was Android 2.2 on Samsung Galaxy Mini.

Ditto,it probably didn't last long enough. Can't recall seeing it there or maybe it was a Samsung thing. The only Samsung I've had was the Galaxy S2 in 2011.

[UCyborg]

Wi-Fi sleep policy was in stock Google's OS. No idea if already in 2.2, but definitely in 4.4 and probably in 3.0 as well.

https://android.googlesource.com/platform/packages/apps/Settings/+/abeff00%5E%21/

Regarding apps stopping working, the most problematic would be apps tied to online services. Free and especially open source ones are usually OK and should work with features that existed at time of release indefinitely. The most bizarre IMO is Android Auto, each and every version is practically bombed to stop working after a while and must be constantly updated. Online connectivity for maps is understandable, but then it's useless even just for juggling music player. When Android version is dropped, that's it. Not something I "need" personally, just tried it out to see what's it about.

And don't even dare to have your phone slightly deviate from the norm, that can break them too.

[Mæstro]

Online connectivity for maps is understandable, but then it's useless even just for juggling music player.

Stand-alone satellite navigators have existed for decades. Anyone else recall Tomtom? When the successors are patently degenerate, I have less reason to show any charity towards them.

And don't even dare to have your phone slightly deviate from the norm, that can break them too.

Just like web development and Chrome! How curious. I wonder whether Chrome and Android have got anything in common that might be responsible for this.

[UCyborg]

AFAIK, Google can give / respond to information about traffic jams and suggest alternative route. My car has its own navigation and if it was a must, I'd like to prefer it over Google, out of principle, but even enthusiasts of the car brand say it's better to just use Google...

So far, once in a blue moon having to drive into unknown, I tended to take a virtual drive with help of their Maps and Street View on home computer. Chromium tends to work the best for these.

And yes, Chromium is kinda de-facto on Android. AFAIK, not a single installable WebView implementation that isn't Chromium exists for it.

[frostknight]

AFAIK, Google can give / respond to information about traffic jams and suggest alternative route. My car has its own navigation and if it was a must, I'd like to prefer it over Google, out of principle, but even enthusiasts of the car brand say it's better to just use Google...

So far, once in a blue moon having to drive into unknown, I tended to take a virtual drive with help of their Maps and Street View on home computer. Chromium tends to work the best for these.

And yes, Chromium is kinda de-facto on Android. AFAIK, not a single installable WebView implementation that isn't Chromium exists for it.

There is a map application on f-droid called organic maps. I don't know how good it actually is.

[Mæstro]

So far, once in a blue moon having to drive into unknown, I tended to take a virtual drive with help of their Maps and Street View on home computer. Chromium tends to work the best for these.

I cannot drive myself. For trips by foot within this town to unfamiliar locations, OpenStreetMap and information about the local bus network available offline have sufficed. On random excursions in the States where others are driving me, without any particular destination in mind, paper maps and their familiarity as locals with the surrounding area serve.

[UCyborg]

With the recent update, the petrol station app I've been using since about COVID-19 era (for paying for petrol and occasional coffee) stopped working correctly (problem with login). But apparently only for some users. Nothing in logcat. Oh well, I'll wait if next version works, if not, back to paying with card, no biggie.

There was an update one year ago, which was supposedly minor, but bumped min version from Android 7 to 8.

Interestingly, using Microsoft's latest tools to produce .NET MAUI based Android app, that apparently sets minimum to 5 if you don't do / need anything special. I excepted it'd be higher. Though from what they said at work, they killed Xamarin in a way you couldn't even build the existing app you had based on it.

They use NuGet at work to pull dependent libraries for application (not sure if this applies to Android app, I know it does for .NET based server application). I know it bloats local package cache over time. And it sounds like all these modern solutions using centralized approach, which doesn't sound like the best idea to me.

[Mæstro]

For the monopolist, establishing yourself as single point of failure is ideal. His interests are never ours, but this holds anywhere.

I already abandoned smartphones by mid-2019, so I cannot speak a word about smartphone usage habits during the epidemic. My closest approach would be using my clamshell to dial into a lecture (I was then in undergrad) being held over Zoom. I have only been dimly aware of the existence of commercial software reliant on smartphones. At face value, the idea is daft as a brush. Why does anybody choose to use this?

[UCyborg]

There was a security guy inside the station at the time. I heard it was bad idea to get in if you weren't vaccinated.

[Gemmaugr]

There was a security guy inside the station at the time. I heard it was bad idea to get in if you weren't vaccinated.

That was the start of the Digital ID push, and showcases exactly how the "Post-PC" smartphone era can be highly dangerous. Collecting all of a persons identity and actions in a single device. Banking (Bank-ID, e-currency, CBDC/Central Bank Digital Currency), shopping (IRL card, Online), government institutes (Taxes, Healthcare, etc), online presence verification (social media/Discord/VPN, etc), Image and message scanning (Chat Control, etc). A constant virtual surveillance presence without privacy. Authoritarian in the extreme. Enabled by smartphones.

[Mæstro]

I forget who said this or where, but I recall somebody discussing how, in 2005, the idea of bringing a tracking device with you wherever you went would be laughed off as bad science fiction. A few years before, the GIzmondo, which attempted to brand such a tracking device (for parents wishing to monitor their children) as a handheld console, failed spectacularly. Just a decade later, the masses decided such a thing was a blessing, not a curse, and for Candy Crush instead of whatever games the Gizmondo had.

Within a week, I will be off Discord and can, without nagging reservations, watch whatever becomes of this circus, enjoying every minute of it. The early Gen Y friend I mentioned before finally installed Monal and created a Jabber account, so I can breathe easy. Seven years I have waited for this day. My long tolerance of a site I disliked and knew would someday decay, all for a friend’s sake, has been worth it. Now, I will truly be free.

[frostknight]

Collecting all of a persons identity and actions in a single device. Banking (Bank-ID, e-currency, CBDC/Central Bank Digital Currency), shopping (IRL card, Online), government institutes (Taxes, Healthcare, etc), online presence verification (social media/Discord/VPN, etc), Image and message scanning (Chat Control, etc). A constant virtual surveillance presence without privacy. Authoritarian in the extreme. Enabled by smartphones.

This is why I advocate for protesting this crap as much as possible, by refusing to use proprietary operating systems as much as possible.

Using linux or BSD, using coreboot instead of stock bios, using as few blobs with remote crap as possible, etc...

They should have as little data to collect as possible.

This crap would have done severe damage under a certain man named Hitler. Imagine how much longer he would have stayed in power...

Awful, simple and to the point.

[Gemmaugr]

This crap would have done severe damage under a certain man named Hitler. Imagine how much longer he would have stayed in power...

Awful, simple and to the point.

Indeed. Any of the isms derived from Marx and Engels in fact. By Giovanni Gentile (Mussolini), Adolf, Lenin, Stalin, Mao. They would've have been thrilled to find specific people whenever and wherever they were and limit their means of travel and speech and item ownership.

[Mæstro]

China still exists. A discussion of how smartphones in particular, distinct from measures like the Great Firewall, have aided Hsi would be welcome if I could find one.

This is why I advocate for protesting this — as much as possible, by refusing to use proprietary operating systems as much as possible… They should have as little data to collect as possible.

Framing the matter as one of proprietary against open-source software, I think, misses the point. After all, we are here because Mozilla has proven open-source spyware feasible. It is also straightforward enough to test whether proprietary software leaks or phones home. Smartphones have promoted the idea that everything and everyone ought to be online almost constantly. (This is not an exaggeration. Most Japanese say they are just that!) Nought can be won from an offline device or application. Injecting the internet into offline life is a necessary condition (not to say sufficient) for whatever else has followed.

[Moonchild]

After all, we are here because Mozilla has proven open-source spyware feasible. It is also straightforward enough to test whether proprietary software leaks or phones home.

To wit, that something is Open Source provides zero guarantees that what you are actually using is clean. Even more so, also to refer back to Mozilla, if most but not all is Open Source, or what is provided excludes proprietary configuration that pivots something to spyware, then all bets are off. Does anyone outside of Mozilla really know what remote configuration firefox does? I doubt it. That browser is filled with hundreds of affiliate partnerships by now, none of which are explicitly disclosed to the casual user. On a darker side, what the binary is might not even be built from the open source code in other situations or from other vendors; because it is hard to verify.

[frostknight]

Framing the matter as one of proprietary against open-source software, I think, misses the point.

Proprietary software though doesn't have to disclose any info. At least with open source you can find out if it has spyware by reading the code.

Also, security issues are harder to find in proprietary code too. And whether they get fixed is up in the air especially. If vendor don't want to fix, you won't get it fixed.

With open source, you can at least make a mod with that fix needed put in it.

I guess in essence, proprietary has more drawbacks.

Although, the big problem is if it has any proprietary aspects at all. Open source is good if its pure, but if both are mixed, there will be problems.

Think google on this front minimum, google is open source proprietary software.

[moonbat]

what the binary is might not even be built from the open source code in other situations or from other vendors; because it is hard to verify.

Would verifiable builds help (assuming Mozilla cared to do so)? I think the feasibility for Pale Moon was discussed here before, not that it seems necessary.

[Mæstro]

At least with open source you can find out if it has spyware by reading the code.

I always hated how English uses the indefinite you. As a learner, I tended at first to interpret it as referring to me, personally, and because I am fairly weird, the generic statements often did not apply to me, which would confuse me. Like most people, I cannot read the code because I cannot programme. Perhaps unlike most, even attempting runs up against disability-related limits. On the other hand, i am competent enough with computers (presumably; I have never attempted) to study how to use standard network monitors and test whether a given piece of software, which may as well be a black box.

Your other comments stand, for the most part, but it suffices to note that a Twitter clone which reimplements the now-MIT licenced feed algorithm would be just as predatory as Musk’s original, even if the back-end are fully open. Suppose the EU amended the DSA to mandate all very large firms trading here (and their hundreds of ‘partners’, why not?) must release every last bit of their source, and Facebook and friends complied. Would Facebook be any less entrenched by network effects and the rest? Would it gain any redeeming value? A Stallman-approved smartphone is still a smartphone.

[frostknight]

Your other comments stand, for the most part, but it suffices to note that a Twitter clone which reimplements the now-MIT licenced feed algorithm would be just as predatory as Musk’s original, even if the back-end are fully open. Suppose the EU amended the DSA to mandate all very large firms trading here (and their hundreds of ‘partners’, why not?) must release every last bit of their source, and Facebook and friends complied. Would Facebook be any less entrenched by network effects and the rest? Would it gain any redeeming value? A Stallman-approved smartphone is still a smartphone.

That would be true in most senses. It would be up to the developer base to lessen such an effect.

Because yes, you are still using someone elses server. And at the end of the day, that is still a problem. You can't remove the problem completely, just the worst parts of it.

So if everything was open sourced, you'd have a better chance of fighting this cat and mouse game. The mice would be harder to mess with aka.

The cat's challenge would increase dramatically I think. Still, nothing is 100% perfect in this world it seems as far as most thing go especially.