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Why I don't like smartphones

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Re: Why I don't like smartphones

#261

Post by jakobegger »

loup-vaillant wrote: post #230
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 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 A palmtop computer (I insist on this more accurate name) is even more than you say. It's something that you use to run arbitrary programs. Now I have a couple questions: why can't I tether my computer to…

You can connect a bluetooth keyboard to an iPhone, and attach an external display using an adapter, or even wirelessly by connecting to an Apple TV. Then you can use it like a desktop, for writing or coding or whatever.

But people don't do that. Because the experience is shit. Smartphone apps are great because they are specifically made for a very specific use case (eg. passive browsing on a small touchscreeen, or messaging, etc). Nobody wants to do software development while waiting in line at the supermarket.

So people use desktops or laptops for coding. You have a faster CPU, more battery, a real keyboard....

And phones aren't as locked down as you say. I can write any app I want for my iPhone, and I can share the source code with others, and they can then install it on their phones... Sure, all the code signing stuff is a nuisance, but it makes downloading apps safe for non-technical users.

Re: Why I don't like smartphones

#262

Post by wlesieutre »

CydeWeys wrote: post #211
wlesieutre wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diablo 3 comes to mind as the canonical example of this, but it's a PC/console game rather than mobile. Single player mode is still run by a remote server, and if you have a bad internet connection or they have a server outage (which has happened many times) it will be unplayable. Blizzard has been much better than most companies about keeping its online infrastructure up and running long after a game loses popularit…

I was asking for examples of mobile apps. There are lots of reasons that the "thin client even for singleplayer" strategy is less feasible for mobile games than for PC games. But still, I didn't buy Diablo 3, and this was one of the reasons why.

I bought it, but not until the price dropped to $20.

And yeah, I can't think of any mobile games that rely on servers for bullshit reasons like D3 does.

Re: Why I don't like smartphones

#263

Post by stephengillie »

CydeWeys wrote: post #211
wlesieutre wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Diablo 3 comes to mind as the canonical example of this, but it's a PC/console game rather than mobile. Single player mode is still run by a remote server, and if you have a bad internet connection or they have a server outage (which has happened many times) it will be unplayable. Blizzard has been much better than most companies about keeping its online infrastructure up and running long after a game loses popularit…

I was asking for examples of mobile apps. There are lots of reasons that the "thin client even for singleplayer" strategy is less feasible for mobile games than for PC games. But still, I didn't buy Diablo 3, and this was one of the reasons why.

Some examples that come to mind are Candy Crush, Marvel Puzzle Quest, Farmville, and Angry Birds. But these aren't mobile-exclusive, and they phone home to retrieve your saved game state from a database.

I'm not aware of an Android-exclusive or iOS-exclusive game that is immersive and not casual. Certainly nothing on even a Diablo-level. Anything close is multi-platform effort.

Re: Why I don't like smartphones

#264

Post by dzhiurgis »

nyan4 wrote: post #116
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…

> So is a photoalbum, so is a book, so is a TV, so is a music player Comparing a powerful, expensive, fully programmable computer provided with cameras, GPS, radios with a photoalbum/book/TV is silly. > They're becoming bigger, more powerful, and some can now be plugged in to monitors You could plug a Commodore 64 to a television and write software on it, even if its CPU was probably less powerful than the battery co…

Not all 7.4 billion people want to write software. Computational power got cheap enough to apply it everywhere. I am sure there were zealots decades before who said they need no pesky battery controllers in their devices.

Re: Why I don't like smartphones

#265

Post by hammock »

thebaer wrote: post #170
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…

> it's a consumption device rather than both consumption and production, is just silly It's not just the fact that it's an underutilized general computing device; just look at the apps on your phone and tell me the percentage of them that open to a blank "canvas" rather than some kind of stream / feed. On the desktop, you have your text editors, word processors, photo editors, video editors, 3D modelers, IDEs, file s…

>It's not just the fact that it's an underutilized general computing device; just look at the apps on your phone and tell me the percentage of them that open to a blank "canvas" rather than some kind of stream / feed.

One of the best things about Snapchat is that it always opens on the camera. It orients the user immediately towards creation and sharing, rather than consuming.

Re: Why I don't like smartphones

#266

Post by throwawayaway »

icebraining wrote: post #227
throwawayaway wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point people are making is that if it's the only thing on the shelf it's not easy to opt out.

http://www.ubuntu.com/phone/devices https://shop.goldelico.com/wiki.php?page=GTA04%20Complete (soon?) http://neo900.org/

Hope springs eternal!

Re: Why I don't like smartphones

#267

Post by loup-vaillant »

lmm wrote: post #251
loup-vaillant wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's still a silly distinction and pedantic. No, it's a crucial one, for a simple reason: you're not supposed to change the firmware of your car, but you change the software in your palmtop computer quite often. Car firmware is special purpose (let's ignore some high-end multimedia stuff), while your palmtop computer can and does run any program. Nothing technically prevents you from tethering a keyboard, mouse, an…

If the Java compiler doesn't run on android phones then it's only because no-one actually cares enough to make it do so. There's no reason you couldn't run a full IDE on an android device with a keyboard, mouse and big screen tethered to it and use it to work on programs for that device (including updates to the IDE itself), except that it would be dumb; nothing technically prevents you from doing that.

And why would that be dumb? Because my phone doesn't have the CPU power?

Granted, doing this set us back a few years. Still, for my day to day computing (everything except 3D gaming and maybe HD movies), I would totally love to have my phone run GNU/Linux with my favourite window manager when tethered, and an Android-like touch-based shell when unplugged.

Re: Why I don't like smartphones

#268

Post by loup-vaillant »

jakobegger wrote: post #261
loup-vaillant wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 A palmtop computer (I insist on this more accurate name) is even more than you say. It's something that you use to run arbitrary programs. Now I have a couple questions: why can't I tether my computer to…

You can connect a bluetooth keyboard to an iPhone, and attach an external display using an adapter, or even wirelessly by connecting to an Apple TV. Then you can use it like a desktop, for writing or coding or whatever. But people don't do that. Because the experience is shit. Smartphone apps are great because they are specifically made for a very specific use case (eg. passive browsing on a small touchscreeen, or me…

> Because the experience is shit.

And whose fault is it exactly? Those things have more than enough power to run a full GNU/Linux distribution, complete with IDE and all.

There are a few easy (yet deal-breaking) problems. We don't have docking stations like laptops do, and I bet the driver support for GNU/Linux is crap. Then there's the mismatch between desktop peripherals and a tiny touch screen.

The hard problem is the weakness of the CPU. Right now, we're kinda set back 12 years. We could imagine the docking station providing some co-processor, even additional RAM, or something that gives the phone more processing power when docked. Solve that with a standard docking interface, and you just turned phones into ultra-portable desktop computers. (Oh, and don't forget to invent a virtual machine that can be efficiently implemented in hardware. Something like asm.js or SPIR-V might be a starting point.)

> I can write any app I want for my iPhone, and I can share the source code with others, and they can then install it on their phones...

Don't everyone is supposed to pay something like 99$ a year for the privilege?

Re: Why I don't like smartphones

#269

Post by icebraining »

throwawayaway wrote: post #266
icebraining wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.ubuntu.com/phone/devices https://shop.goldelico.com/wiki.php?page=GTA04%20Complete (soon?) http://neo900.org/

Hope springs eternal!

Hope? I'm fine with my Nexus tablet and feature phone.

Re: Why I don't like smartphones

#270

Post by Lanari »

jhasse wrote: post #70
Lanari wrote: post #38

For me the only reason why I hate smartphones is that they don't offer me much, and the battery life is a huge problem. The only thing they offer is exclusive apps that I can't use on PC, and since I'm a tech guy I need to use them to be aware of the tech of today.

You can emulate Android on a PC :)

Yes. But you never be sure how they exactly work... as an example I tried only famous apps on the beginning and only lately I knew that apps can crush and freeze... I don't know what I except, it's embarrassing to never except that...
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