Why I don't like smartphones

Post by c0nducktr » Sun, Feb 14, 2016, 4:37 PM UTC

shpx wrote: post #132

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…

You convieniently didnt mention that it also allows their government to know where they are and where they were and what they're saying and what they've said, and what they're reading, and glimpses of what they've seen, forever.

Post by losvedir » Sun, Feb 14, 2016, 4:45 PM UTC

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…

Post by shopkins » Sun, Feb 14, 2016, 4:47 PM UTC

joosters wrote: post #39

This person would be happier moving to a pre-computer environment - take a look at their pet hates: https://violations.devever.net/products - including: * AMD x86 CPUs * Intel x86 CPUs ...leaving, ARM CPUs, I guess? Windows ARM machines are also on the list. (And surely ARMs should be blacklisted according to his reasoning; he is unhappy with Intel's secure enclave, while ARM has similar features). Some people will n…

Post by joonoro » Sun, Feb 14, 2016, 4:52 PM UTC

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.

Post by newday » Sun, Feb 14, 2016, 4:58 PM UTC

jhasse wrote: post #102

raesene9 wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

neat bug, although only the iPhone 4 and earlier would be unpatchable for it, and those devices are pretty much stuffed from a security standpoint anyway as they're vulnerable to the old DFU mode jailbreaks... I was kind of thinking more of examples of malware where people were actually using the lockdown of the OS to stop users removing it, but hey I said exploits and that's an exploit.

On the other hand: Have you ever heard of examples of malware which told the use to root their phone? I think CyanogenMods solution, where root access has to be enabled in the Developer Settings, which have to be enabled by tapping the Android version number 6 times, is the perfect solution: My mum would stop immediately doing such a complicated thing if she wanted to install something.