The "Post-PC" era (smartphones)

[frostknight]

Would anybody here be interested in a single, coherent essay post about why I reject smartphones? I have made many scattered comments on the subject here and elsewhere, but I can collate it.

Up to you

I still don't completely get why you don't get a grapheneos phone though.

At least that would be non-surveillance, well except for the carrier of course

[Mæstro]

This question is more apt than you think. Family have gathered already that data collection, my principled objections to ceding any influence at all to Google (or Apple), are one of the core reasons I refuse smartphones, and have vaguely mentioned the existence of Android substitutes, although Graphene and Lineage never came up by name.

I believe the world groans under the burden which cramming smartphones into daily life has imposed. I see it in the lives of those close to me. I hate it when I see something beautiful and want to show a loved one, and the first thing she does is throw her mobile in my face to try to get a picture of it. I hate it when I must compete for loved ones’ attention against a magic oblong designed to capture all the attention it can. I hate when a noisy oblong disrupts an insomniac loved one’s sleep. i hate that these devices can drive loved ones into assorted varieties of lunacy. I believe smartphones ought never to have existed, and to avoid hypocrisy, I should abstain from them altogether.

I believe new technologies have the obligation to justify themselves. Not adopting something new is the default. Technology was made for man, not man for technology. (The same goes for social conventions and institutions.) I have been willing in my life to experiment with curiosities before deciding, possibly after a few years, they were needless and putting them aside. I weighed smartphones in the balance and found them wanting, even if I disregard how caustic they are to sanity and society. My private needs, including those others have expressed and which I admit out of my regard for them, could be met without others’ assistance through a landline or a feature phone. I do not need or want a gadget, even if it is popular these days and going without one means working out an alternative time after time.

Suppose it were possible to install Graphene or Lineage onto something like the Cat S22 Flip (actually given me as a gift, now collecting dust), or perhaps the Unihertz Titan. Suppose the bargain were sweetened by finding an icon pack (surely, one exists) which could make the user interface appear like early 2010s smartphones. Such a device would be personally tolerable. But the fact is, to my knowledge, there are no smartphones which avoid crossing either red line: the touchscreen-and-flat design interfacing on one side, Nimrod the king on the other. Graphene-compatible devices suffice for only the latter; devices with physical buttons, only the former.

[Night Wing]

I ran across this article earlier this evening. Just hope some of you do not own a particular two year old Apple iPhone model smartphone because if you do, you just might run into Apple's "planned obsolescence".

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech ... inued.html

[frostknight]

I ran across this article earlier this evening. Just hope some of you do not own a particular two year old Apple iPhone model smartphone because if you do, you just might run into Apple's "planned obsolescence".

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech ... inued.html

Planned obsolescence is an evil business model IMO.

[UCyborg]

I recently noticed the system showing that AIMP (the version current last July) has been using whooping 0,9 GB of RAM! Quite extreme for music player. I did notice the app has large heap flag in its manifest. Now I wonder if there's a genuine reason for this flag in this case. Playing FLACs, having them preloaded? I'm not exactly audiophile, I think they're more overkill on the phone than usual.

The remote control app for Samsung TVs I found, it also had this flag. I'm 100% certain it isn't needed in this case. I removed it. Might do the same for AIMP next time I update and see what happens.

I think rooting is still quite useful. Sometime ago I installed the module that I didn't realize was that useful until now. Android normally refuses to install app over existing one which signature has changed. With Android Core Patch, you can. So if you edit the app where something bugged you, you can install your version signed with your own or debug certificate, overwriting existing one and keeping data.

[BenFenner]

I have not read all 9 pages of this thread, but I will chime in.

I have never owned a smart phone, nor even had a cell phone with SMS/text messaging capability.

I'm not sure I ever will.

[Mæstro]

The same family member who expressed the sharpest concerns about my not possessing a smartphone said today, when he was in a much better mood, that he does not really need a telephone himself. Probably, his attitudes about this sort of thing have to do more with his mood and health in general than anything else.

I said before that a landline would suffice for almost all practical purposes. An interesting question would be how loved ones could remain in contact if separated in different towns without the use of a mobile phone (even a feature one), minding that payphones have fallen into disrepair.

[ownedbywuigi]

I ran across this article earlier this evening. Just hope some of you do not own a particular two year old Apple iPhone model smartphone because if you do, you just might run into Apple's "planned obsolescence".

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech ... inued.html

That's not planned obsolescence, that's just making a new model? The devices are still on Apple's refurbished store and probably in their education store too.

planned obsolescence is actually KILLING the model when it still has some use (e.g, the iPhone XS not getting iOS 26)

[Mæstro]

Perceived obsolescence is the canonical phrase for cases where a new model is introduced and accompanied with marketing to convince the masses that the old should be abandoned, even if the old remains perfectly workable.

[andyprough]

The same family member who expressed the sharpest concerns about my not possessing a smartphone said today, when he was in a much better mood, that he does not really need a telephone himself. Probably, his attitudes about this sort of thing have to do more with his mood and health in general than anything else.

I said before that a landline would suffice for almost all practical purposes. An interesting question would be how loved ones could remain in contact if separated in different towns without the use of a mobile phone (even a feature one), minding that payphones have fallen into disrepair.

I would just note that payphones have not fallen into disrepair. In my experience, they have fallen into non-existence. We don't have modern cities full of broken payphones; we have modern cities with no payphones.

[Mæstro]

Conditions vary by country, of course. In Germany, it is common enough to see payphones where vandals or the elements have torn the receivers off!

[andyprough]

Conditions vary by country, of course. In Germany, it is common enough to see payphones where vandals or the elements have torn the receivers off!

Interesting! That was America about 20 years ago. I think a lot of cities had them removed completely because a) they were covered in graffiti and had become eyesores, and b) the people using them were often drug dealers who were using them as their business phone.

[Moonchild]

I think the only places I've seen payphones in the past few decades has been inside malls, airports and other similarly secured premises. It is feasible there.

[moonbat]

Payphones are still around on streets in Australia despite barely being used. The ones by Telstra double up as free Wifi access points for their customers.

[UCyborg]

https://www.androidauthority.com/wireless-emergency-alerts-map-view-android-3653406/

Few days ago, I've seen one of these alerts live. It's been a bit too windy around here lately.

[Mæstro]

I have heard about some careless North American towns restricting their announcements about closing government services to Facebook. Trusting Google with one’s life like this is just as terrifying.

[UCyborg]

I would presume the messages contain coordinates for software to show on the map. Doesn't strike me that Google's involvement is significant, they're not the ones dispatching messages.

The time with the old bank app is running out for me, I got notification few days ago it'll stop working later this April. I said I'll keep the old version on the old phone 'till it breaks. Now might be the time to activate the new one on new phone. Hopefully it isn't much more pickier than the old one. Well, on pickiness, supposedly these things today are 64-bit only.

They changed web UI again as well, it's still "meh" compared to 10 years ago. And the time it takes to open certain pages, I've been waiting way over half minute for contact page to load. Modern developers are incredibly incompetent.

[Mæstro]

Ten years ago is now too recent: the push to mobile was already underway for years before 2016. We are beginning about now to see adults who are simply too young to recall the time before flat design conquered the world. Someone on this board even said a few days ago that he grew up entirely with Metro, which we should recall is the Windows Phone’s lasting legacy.

I have wondered lately about how much mobile application development itself, as opposed to attempts to imitate smartphone conventions on desktop, is responsible for decaying web design. This occurred to me partly through how most ‘desktop apps’ are simply websites in Electron, but also through how Wikipedia claims without any citation that site-specific applications now account for more online traffic than web browsers, whether desktop or mobile. How would one even go about measuring that? I could believe it if it were so. The stupid bill I have posted about elsewhere fails to distinguish between websites and web applications. If most developers think of websites as if they were mobile applications also, this could explain much of our plight.

[UCyborg]

Back then, I could access banking services through web site alone, the 2FA factor was a personal certificate imported in the web browser (Mozilla) or system cert store (other browsers). This worked just great.

Now we need stupid unreliable mobile apps to get anywhere. Of course, I can't activate it, says wrong codes...waiting what bank will say.

Also the petrol station app suddenly wanted my phone number last time I went to petrol station (so mail was enough for all those years, not anymore). And when I entered it, the circle just spun and didn't go anywhere. So couldn't initiate payment through the app.

[UCyborg]

NPCs! As if re-installing the app ever solves anything.

It's like that retarded advice on MS support forums where the NPCs ALWAYS suggest DISM and SFC...as if corrupted system files are a problem in 99% of cases.