Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why I don't like smartphones

devever.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

171–180 of 294 posts

Re: Why I don't like smartphones

#171

Post by JoeAltmaier »

CydeWeys wrote: post #165
msabalau wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smartphones outsell computers 5 to 1 and for the next billion smartphone users a smartphone will be their first computer. Dismissing them as mere refinement of what went before is to ignore the scale of their impact on the world. One may as well dismiss laptops with modems as "more fully featured telegraphs", or "smaller mainframes".

> for the next billion smartphone users a smartphone will be their first computer. Smartphones will be their first and last computer. Laptops, let alone desktops, are being permanently bypassed.

Well, no. There are lots of situation where a tiny screen and no keyboard is laughably insufficient.

Re: Why I don't like smartphones

#172

Post by joshvm »

IkmoIkmo wrote: post #24

I don't really see how some of his points support his position. e.g. I don't own a smartphone, because it's a consumption device rather than both consumption and production, is just silly. So is a photoalbum, so is a book, so is a TV, so is a music player. A smartphone is all in one and it's incredibly useful. Beyond that, it is in ways a production device. It's a messaging device, a photo and video taking device, it…

I don't think smartphones have ruined web design, it's actually forced people to develop responsive websites which work well on multiple screen sizes. Bootstrap makes this stupidly easy nowadays and probably would never have been created if it weren't for mobile.

Re: Why I don't like smartphones

#173

Post by qb45 »

CydeWeys wrote: post #136
cableshaft wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Almost every app (and many games) being made nowadays are thin clients making api calls where all the work is done on the server. I don't like it. I like having games from decades ago and still being able to play them long after the companies are dead and its employees working on other things. On my own time I try to come up with software that can run entirely without the need to communicate with servers, or even wit…

> Almost every app (and many games) being made nowadays are thin clients making api calls where all the work is done on the server. This is not true of games. Can you name any? Yes, multiplayer games require a server component, but they're not thin clients. And games that are not multiplayer generally don't require a server at all except possibly for DRM. People don't like wasting their data plan unnecessarily and th…

> This is not true of games. Can you name any? Yes, multiplayer games require a server component, but they're not thin clients. And games that are not multiplayer generally don't require a server at all except possibly for DRM.

Well, who cares. Try playing Star Craft II in 20 years or whatever it takes Blizzard to go out of business. All while v1 will keep working, even in multiplayer (LAN mode over VPN).

Re: Why I don't like smartphones

#174

Post by jokoon »

Smartphone are really bad for power users. Android is good, but to me it doesn't allow users to really do what they want with it.

It works well, but if you look at its software design, it's miles away from what you could do with linux.

I just WISH there was some code editor designed for a touchscreen. I have this idea of a graphical code editor like scratch.mit.edu, except the editor already has this code hierarchy, and it shows text directly. This would be perfect for a touchscreen.

Re: Why I don't like smartphones

#175

Post by ant6n »

msabalau wrote: post #129
ekianjo wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Smartphones are just portable computers. There is nothing new to them apart from the fact that 1) they have internet mobile connection 2) their form factor makes them very practical to carry. Technology-wise, we already had about everything when we had laptops and modems attached to them. It's just become much more convenient but it's still the same concept.

Smartphones outsell computers 5 to 1 and for the next billion smartphone users a smartphone will be their first computer. Dismissing them as mere refinement of what went before is to ignore the scale of their impact on the world. One may as well dismiss laptops with modems as "more fully featured telegraphs", or "smaller mainframes".

Exactly because the smartphone will be the first computer for the next billion users, the points made by the linked article are important.

That argument is not as relevant as evidence of the importance of the invention of the smartphone vs the laptop with a modem.

Re: Why I don't like smartphones

#176

Post by joshvm »

TheAceOfHearts wrote: post #125

The section about mobile devices being for consumption instead of creation really resonated with me. I still use my smartphone every day, but none of my uses are related to content creation; it's mostly a time killer while I'm away from a desktop. I've become pretty strict about installing applications on my smartphone. It seems like so many applications just wanna track everything you do and blast ads in your face.…

Does it have to be a platform for creation? I use my phone as a sort of amalgamated media consumption device. I listen to music and audiobooks, track my fitness, read (research) papers, I use it for navigation and maps and of course for communication. I don't want to 'create' on device the size of my palm because it's a poor form factor.

Fundamentally I want something in my pocket that I can query to find information quickly. This is truly sci-fi terminal stuff and we have it today.

Tablets - yes, this is a big problem. It annoys me that I can buy a tablet with great CPU power underneath, but I can't do any real work on it. Real work being development, access to a non-emulated terminal. We're getting closer to this with the MS Surface since you can run desktop applications on it, but I would never buy an iPad or an Android tablet because to me it's just a big phone without the data contract.

Re: Why I don't like smartphones

#177

Post by petra »

secstate wrote: post #151

As an Android user with a fairly vanilla Moto X install of L, I'm pretty satisfied with my ability to change the OS. F-Droid is a big victory here too, with regards to being able to find F/OSS mobile apps. I can't say anything nice about iOS's app ecosystem. All that aside, this is a hilariously misdirected rant on par with Stallman. The purity of the vision of freedom advanced by RMS (or the OP) is to be admired for…

What's your usecase for f-droid ? For most apps there,except ad-blocking, you can find nicer versions in the play store.

Re: Why I don't like smartphones

#178

Post by ant6n »

joshvm wrote: post #172
IkmoIkmo wrote: post #24

I don't really see how some of his points support his position. e.g. I don't own a smartphone, because it's a consumption device rather than both consumption and production, is just silly. So is a photoalbum, so is a book, so is a TV, so is a music player. A smartphone is all in one and it's incredibly useful. Beyond that, it is in ways a production device. It's a messaging device, a photo and video taking device, it…

I don't think smartphones have ruined web design, it's actually forced people to develop responsive websites which work well on multiple screen sizes. Bootstrap makes this stupidly easy nowadays and probably would never have been created if it weren't for mobile.

Modern web sites look like crap and don't work. My banking website recently switched to a mobile first website ('responsive' is a lie). Now the UI is so giant that it cannot show a list of 6 account names with a balance next to it on a single desktop screen with a resolution of 3360 x 2100 pixels.

Re: Why I don't like smartphones

#179

Post by endemic »

VarunAgw wrote: post #15
raesene9 wrote: post #7

I'm not sure that this article is that contentious. Modern smartphones are unabashedly consumer devices made for the mass market and several of the criticisms in this article are features that most people don't want/need. What most people want/need from a smartphone is a device that lets them do things (e.g. send messages, keep up with friends, make phonecalls, browse the Internet) without getting in their way. They'…

But I am neither getting freedom nor security with smart phones. My 2 year old smart phone have never received a security update. It has become a piece of crap just within 2 years.

Can this problem be solved by installing a custom ROM, such as CyanogenMod? I've only used Nexus Android phones, so am curious how to stay updated if using a phone from an OEM.

Re: Why I don't like smartphones

#180

Post by joonoro »

jvandonsel wrote: post #98

If you had offered someone in 1916 a device that they could put in their pocket that would let them instantly communicate with nearly anyone on the planet, tap into a large fraction of the world's knowledge base, read books, navigate across the country, take photographs and movies, and play almost any song ever written, what do you think that person would say? "No thanks." ? The smartphone is one of the most signific…

>"No thanks." ?

If you then showed them a real computer, nobody in their right mind would have said "yes." The thing about smartphones is, they don't actually do anything new. The only thing better about them is the form factor, they sacrifice everything else in comparison to a real computer. None of those things you listed are inherent to smartphones.

>The smartphone is one of the most significant inventions of the last 100 years.

This is hilarious. Oh yeah sure, nukes are pretty forgettable compared to smartphones, because now anyone can post on Hacker News from while on the toilet.

Post reply on HN