71–80 of 206 posts
They had to replace the entire motherboard due to a corrupted BIOS. So it was caused by a bug? The repair cost were about 800 euro's..
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I've seriously contemplated a roll-your-own "dumb phone" solution not only for myself but also for my mother and in-laws (they're all in their 70s). An Adafruit Fona would provide all of the telephonic functionality I'd care about, and then it's just a matter of choice regarding microcontroller, display, etc.
Simply getting a featurephone for people in their 70s has one huge problem: T9 text input.
So, back to land lines with analog phones? Serious question, do any phones exist that can fully owned by the user? For a period, I was excited about the Ubuntu phone because of the fact that I could have full control over it. Sad to see that project terminated. I'm also interested in "dumbphones" that can use CDMA or GSM networks.
For the majority of the history of land lines and analog phones, the phones and lines were owned by the telephone company, and leased by the consumer. This change happened in 1982, 10 years AFTER mobile phones were invented. http://www.nytimes.com/1982/12/16/business/new-era-for-the-t... In fact, some people still lease their phones: https://consumerist.com/2012/04/30/hundreds-of-thousands-of-...
Not sure this really changes your point, of course. :) It is funny to see the surprise in people when they hear that you used to lease the phone in your house. Especially if you are like me and detest cable companies for wanting me to do the same with their crap.
Auto Updates without user interaction is the biggest security benefit I can think of for a normal user. Yes you read that right. It's f*cking great that my parents can use an always up to date browser and OS and I don't need to worry if they have updated all their stuff. Update mechanisms like for Java and other stuff which pop-up and require user interaction are a thing most people will not get right. Actually I rea…
>In 2016, when I got a new phone, the default setting changed and I would just wake up to my device stating, "Tinder has been updated. Deal with it". I turned off auto-updates on my phone. So this happened. Last year or so I traveled to SF and tried to call an Uber home after a long day of walking around. My phone had 5% battery left. I opened the app and there it was... The maps and everything showed up, but then it…
I agree with you. But.. > "Tinder has been updated. Deal with it". is an interesting choice of example. The anger at updates only really makes sense for apps that are entirely local to your hardware. As soon as you have an app where part of it runs on a server that you don't control, that logic goes out the window. They can stop your non-updated app from working with no effort, just by making the server API incompati…
Out of curiosity, would you pay for a standalone Google Docs that worked locally and pushed data to a server (say, a daemon you can also purchase and run in your home computer or droplet) only when you wanted to sync? If you are willing to pay, Microsoft offers much of this through Sharepoint + Office.
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> I turned off auto-updates on my phone. Even if you turn off auto-updates, some things still auto update silently. A long time ago, I wrote a small utility which listened to the PACKAGE_ADDED and PACKAGE_REMOVED events (I don't know if it's still possible to listen to these events on recent Android versions). IIRC, there were two packages that always updated silently (wihout a notification icon) and automatically, e…
Is that a problem? I mean you're using a Google OS. At this point they are selling you a service, not a program. I have no idea what is in one version vs another, and I don't really care as long as the service keeps working. Now, I do still care of being in control of my own hardware, but I do so on my server. I don't know of a cell phone that delivers what I want without being sold as a service rather than a standal…
Auto Updates without user interaction is the biggest security benefit I can think of for a normal user. Yes you read that right. It's f*cking great that my parents can use an always up to date browser and OS and I don't need to worry if they have updated all their stuff. Update mechanisms like for Java and other stuff which pop-up and require user interaction are a thing most people will not get right. Actually I rea…
I agree that there are certainly benefits to auto-updates, but where I tend to dislike them (especially on the phone), is where I have infrequently used apps. To stick with the Uber example, I don't live in a city with Uber, but have it on my phone for when I am. Why do I need to be burdened with using my data to constantly update an app I use once a year. This applies to a lot of apps (airlines, games, etc.). Games…
I wish that Apple would give you an option to not allow an app to access the internet and not just disallow the use of mobile data.
I have an iPhone 4S running iOS 7 (jailbroken of course) and an original MBP retina running Mavericks. I don't update them because the risk of updating is higher than the risk of not updating. Right now everything is working, and everything is set up the way I like it. If I don't update, things might break some day, but there is also a greater-than-zero chance that everything will continue to work for quite a while.…
As someone also still rocking the original MBPr, the peak for it software wise is actually El Capitan I really, really wish i had never updated from that. It was faster, smoother, and more stable there than it was before and after. Definitely way better than Mavericks. I push this thing hard with premiere/ableton live/etc too.
Also, I absolutely despise the El Cap design. The flat look control widgets and icons, the barely visible grey text, the secret hidden controls that only appear when you mouse over them, it all makes me cringe. (Yes, Mav has a few hidden controls as well, but at least now I know where they all are. If I upgrade, I have to go on the secret control easter egg hunt all over again. Life is too short for that kind of bullshit.)
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I agree with you. But.. > "Tinder has been updated. Deal with it". is an interesting choice of example. The anger at updates only really makes sense for apps that are entirely local to your hardware. As soon as you have an app where part of it runs on a server that you don't control, that logic goes out the window. They can stop your non-updated app from working with no effort, just by making the server API incompati…
The anger is still valid because at the end of the day, the software (that used to work) no longer works due to a choice made by the company that makes the software. To the end user there is no difference between "making a breaking API change on the server" and "pushing a native update that disables the app". This may be the current sucky reality of SaaS, but it could be fixed if the market demanded it.
Meaning, effectively, that it will not be fixed.
I understand the frustration. I work on a mobile application that, like Uber, relies on a lot of server-side communication and deliberately stops working if the client is out of date. And I do know that this sucks.
But the reality is, our API is non-public, and so there is no pressure from anyone to maintain backward compatibility. And I have a thousand features that need to ship, with not enough time as it is, or I will start getting heat from management. Abandoning the cadence of "constant breaking changes bundled with client updates" would slow development considerably, for no gain except the one-hundredth-of-one-percent of HN weirdos who care about this stuff. It's just not going to happen.