Live data from Hacker News

Essential Phone, available now

essential.com

511–520 of 695 posts

Re: Essential Phone, available now

#511
post #508

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Proprietary means privately owned. Who owns Javascript? ECMA is a public standard.

I think he means the unobfuscated code is proprietary.

Could be. It's not obfuscated

> // Polyfill for creating CustomEvents on IE9/10/11

> function EmailInput(e,t,i,n){function r()

but it does contain some proprietary code from GreenSock.

Re: Essential Phone, available now

#512
post #407

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> No, it's really not. It's literally just a tool I use for communication. I'm curious, wouldn't that imply you're not the demographic they're seeking? So are you basically saying, "I'm not in their demographic"? Or is there another point to your comment that I'm missing. I ask because often I see people get pissy about statements like this, almost as if they think the web page was curated for them. I could make a we…

I don't like the marketing appeal to some sort of deep emotional instinct that the advertisement is making. I think it's ridiculous that consumer goods represent who I am and what I might stand for. That's silliness and hyperbole, right? To say that a person's phone choice defines them in any sort of meaningful way is extremely silly to me. This feels similar to something like: "This product stands for freedom! You s…

> To say that a person's phone choice defines them in any sort of meaningful way is extremely silly to me.

For someone buying a mainstream product like a Samsung or Apple phone, I'd agree that it doesn't mean very much. To someone buying a niche product like this though, it definitely says something about the person's values.

Re: Essential Phone, available now

#513

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure they used Sharp as a partner, so it isn't like they started from scratch. That guess is based on this Sharp phone looking mighty familiar ( http://www.gsmarena.com/sharp_aquos_s2_taken_apart_a_bezelle... ) and Rubin having worked with Sharp extensively during the Danger days. (most of the Sidekicks were made by Sharp) I'm kinda sort interested in this device, but honestly I'm in the sit and wait given tha…

Sharp for some reason refuses to sell their smartphones outside of Japan. When I lived there I had a Sharp phone - and it was amazing. Smoothest non-stock android experience I've had. Recently they were selling [did this finally happen?] off their phone business to foxconn because it was falling behind. Man, if you actually tried to sell your phones, Sharp, they might have sold? Funny concept. If this phone is indeed…

Sharp was at one point selling their Aquos phone on Sprint, I'm not sure if they still do though

Re: Essential Phone, available now

#514
post #506
post #483

Since no one else has, I'll take the piss out of this "hollier than thou" bullshit. > Devices are your personal property. We won’t force you to have anything you don’t want. Devices are your personal property. The SoC is still a proprietary trade secret, the baseband is still spying on you for the NSA, the GPU is still a closed blob piece of shit. No mainline driver support, bootloader is closed source, firmware is c…

>> Devices shouldn’t become outdated every year. They should evolve with you. I really don't understand this sentiment. I've still got my iPhone 6 Plus. I haven't seen the need to upgrade yet. It does absolutely everything I want. At this rate, the only reason I'm going to upgrade is if I destroy my phone somehow (I've yet to even put a major scratch on any of my smartphones over the years) or if a vendor comes out w…

>>I've still got my iPhone 6 Plus.

Not the parent, but that's pretty new. I used a 4s earlier this year and there were several apps that couldn't be upgraded and/or stopped working.

Re: Essential Phone, available now

#515
post #449

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no way I'm going to be continually looking for new incoming CVE that affect my old phone and making sure I have solid workarounds. The risk is too high that I'd miss one, mess up a fix, and then be vulnerable. And even if the risk wasn't that high, we're talking about a lot of time sunk into looking through security postings and verifying my own fixes/workarounds. It doesn't have to take too many minutes per…

That's a total straw man. You don't need to keep up with CVE. You really think I learned about e.g. StageFright through reading CVE or expected you to do that? If there's a serious vulnerability that actually needs your attention, you will read about it in the news (certainly on HN, most likely also the general news if it affects a sizable population). You will become aware of it somehow, most likely before a patch i…

> If there's a serious vulnerability that actually needs your attention, you will read about it in the news

The ol' security through tech press approach. Seriously though, you can't have the security of your devices dependent on whether or not someone has come up with a catchy name for their exploit. The exploits with names like broadpwn and stagefright are the exceptions, not the rules, there are plenty of critical CVE's that have never had cool names or tech articles written about them. Even if an exploit has a cool name and some press, what if people don't upvote it when it gets posted here (or reddit/wherever)?

Re: Essential Phone, available now

#516
post #506
post #483

Since no one else has, I'll take the piss out of this "hollier than thou" bullshit. > Devices are your personal property. We won’t force you to have anything you don’t want. Devices are your personal property. The SoC is still a proprietary trade secret, the baseband is still spying on you for the NSA, the GPU is still a closed blob piece of shit. No mainline driver support, bootloader is closed source, firmware is c…

>> Devices shouldn’t become outdated every year. They should evolve with you. I really don't understand this sentiment. I've still got my iPhone 6 Plus. I haven't seen the need to upgrade yet. It does absolutely everything I want. At this rate, the only reason I'm going to upgrade is if I destroy my phone somehow (I've yet to even put a major scratch on any of my smartphones over the years) or if a vendor comes out w…

> I've still got my iPhone 6 Plus. I haven't seen the need to upgrade yet. It does absolutely everything I want.

That's hardly an old phone. Do you see yourself still using it in 3 years time?

Re: Essential Phone, available now

#517
post #479

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Lasting hardware means nothing without lasting software. The Nexus 6P is a perfect example of this: https://m.theregister.co.uk/2017/05/01/google_eol_for_nexus_... I've had mine a year and a half, and it doesn't even feel close to struggling with things. Performance is great. Yet, it's going to be artificially deprived of the latest Android releases starting one month from now, and won't even receive security updat…

Lineage OS works very well with the 6P, incidentally.

Lineage OS isn't a substitute for vendor support. Lineage is dependent on vendors for updated drivers and firmware blobs. So if there's a bug in the firmware, like the recent BCM43xx vulnerability, you are still SOL if the particular chip in your device is no longer supported by the vendor.

Re: Essential Phone, available now

#518
post #338

You want fixable and well designed, long software updates, and a good price? Buy an (old) iPhone. I've got a 5S -- still perfectly fast for what I use it for (email, youtube, brokerage account, general internet, some small games), and is getting OS updates and security patches until IOS11. It's $120 on eBay; a new screen can be had for $13, a new battery for $11. it's solidly designed and there's a gigantic field of…

Is it fast? I have a 6. In addition to the bulkier size, apps are often slow and the battery life is atrocious. I'm considering updating when the new iPhone releases in the fall.

I have none of these problems with a 6 plus. Maybe backup, factory wipe + restore, or go to an apple store and ask for help?

Also, what do you mean by "atrocious"? I get 1-2 days with heavy use.

Finally, the 5 phones I've seen this week seem snappy enough, and so does my 6 plus. It really sounds like your phone is screwed up.

Re: Essential Phone, available now

#519

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meh, I bought my first OnePlus phone a few months ago and while the phone itself is great, I've been thoroughly unimpressed with their support and unavailability of most accessories, both from OnePlus and 3rd parties. It's a huge turn off and I won't buy another one.

I bought a OnePlus 3 this year to replace my Nexus 5 after catastrophic hardware failure. :( The phone is great in every way except ergonomics. It's so fat that holding it hurts my hand. Apparently they had a smaller model for the generation before the 3, but the OnePlus 5 is absurdly fat only; I'm not going to be able to keep buying their phones.

I replaced my Nexus 5 with a OnePlus 2, great phone, but apart from some speed boosts and camera upgrade I kinda really miss my Nexus 5. The NFC, it being super light, small, wireless charging, great design, fast updates. No idea what phone to get next. Nothing I've seen really matches the Nexus 5. :(

Re: Essential Phone, available now

#520

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a total straw man. You don't need to keep up with CVE. You really think I learned about e.g. StageFright through reading CVE or expected you to do that? If there's a serious vulnerability that actually needs your attention, you will read about it in the news (certainly on HN, most likely also the general news if it affects a sizable population). You will become aware of it somehow, most likely before a patch i…

> If there's a serious vulnerability that actually needs your attention, you will read about it in the news The ol' security through tech press approach. Seriously though, you can't have the security of your devices dependent on whether or not someone has come up with a catchy name for their exploit. The exploits with names like broadpwn and stagefright are the exceptions, not the rules, there are plenty of critical…

You seem to think that a security hole being "critical" implies you need to care about it. You do not. You only need to care about actual threats, not mere security holes. A "critical" CVE that nobody exploits is pretty darn pointless to worry about, just like how the fact that cellular communication is plaintext isn't really tickling too many people because the average criminal isn't using a Stingray. And an expoit that becomes widespread will get the press attention, precisely because people will want to know about it. (Unless you're the kind of person who's always one of the first few to catch a virus, in which case either you're a security researcher, or you're looking for trouble, or you're hanging out on the wrong networks...)
Post reply on HN