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'The tyranny of apps': those without smartphones are unfairly penalised

theguardian.com

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Re: 'The tyranny of apps': those without smartphones are unfairly penalised

#241

Post by userabchn »

2shortplanks wrote: post #167

One thing this article doesn’t mention is how this all falls apart when you spend time in more than one country. My UK bank (Barclays) won’t let me install their app on my US iPhone (i.e. my phone that uses a US based iCloud account). Tesco won’t let me use their loyalty app. I can’t install an app that’ll let me order Starbucks or McDonalds in the UK (I only have access to the US versions of these apps). I can’t wat…

My ugly solution to this problem is to have a free Oracle Cloud VM in the other country that I use to run a VPN (Oracle provides instructions [1]). I then connect to this using OpenVPN on my phone, which allows me have a Google account that thinks I am in the other country and so allows me to install apps that are restricted to that country. I don't have the VPN connected all the time - only when I want to access the App Store using the Google account that I have for the other country.

[1]: https://blogs.oracle.com/developers/post/launching-your-own-...

Re: 'The tyranny of apps': those without smartphones are unfairly penalised

#243

Post by null0ranje »

reaperman wrote: post #227
7thaccount wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At the doctor's office I'll just ask for paper if there is no real website. Apps freaking suck. I probably won't be able to do this forever though. Example of enshitification #456249

I often can no longer ask for a menu at restaurants that expect me to scan a QR code. Well…I can ask, but they don’t have any to provide.

I just leave restaurants that have gone to the online-only menu. It's usually an indicator that there are other terrible cuts in service and quality going on as well.

Re: 'The tyranny of apps': those without smartphones are unfairly penalised

#244

Post by pipecmd »

...following some excerpts from an article in the NZZ (swiss newspaper): "Right to an offline life and much more: French-speaking Switzerland is becoming a global pioneer of a new digital fundamental right". Source: https://www.nzz.ch/schweiz/die-romandie-mausert-sich-zur-wel...

Neuchâtel is including "digital integrity" in its constitution, and other cantons could follow. The National Council had criticized a proposal as purely symbolic. But the consequences are visible in Geneva.

The first time it could be dismissed as an accident, the second time not: that's what Alexis Roussel, the driving force behind a fundamental right to digital integrity, says. Roussel, a member of the Pirate Party and former president, is in good spirits. After Geneva in 2023, his home canton of Neuchâtel also enshrined the new fundamental right in the constitution on November 24. Both times the people voted yes by a very clear margin: 94 percent in Geneva and almost 92 percent in Neuchâtel.

From the new legislative period in 2025, the Neuchâtel constitution will therefore guarantee not only the right to physical, mental and psychological integrity, but also the right to digital integrity. The new right only applies in relation to the state. It includes, for example, the right to security in digital space, the right "not to be monitored, measured and analyzed", the right to an "offline life" and the right to be forgotten.

[...]

In Geneva, Alexis Roussel is already seeing the first consequences of the right to digital integrity. Secondary school students there no longer use the office software Microsoft Office, but the non-commercial alternative Libre Office. The education department explained the change to the newspaper "Le Temps" by saying that Microsoft has been receiving personal data such as names and email addresses since an update to its licensing terms. However, the canton is only allowed to process data at foreign companies if they are "adequately" protected there.

[...]

In the canton of Neuchâtel, too, the new fundamental right is already being mentioned in concrete terms in political debates. The liberal municipal councillor Catherine Zeter said on RTS television about the planned closure of the post office in Boudry that the company would probably prefer to offer its services only digitally. But, said Zeter, this "completely" violates the right to an offline life that the people of Neuchâtel have just decided on with their new fundamental right.

Re: 'The tyranny of apps': those without smartphones are unfairly penalised

#245

Post by ComposedPattern »

It's funny how people in this thread keep saying "well if you're going to complain about people being penalized for not using apps, you might as well complain about people being penalized for not using telephones/cars/internet"... and yes, I am going to complain about all of those things. I imagine that many or most homeless people don't have reliable access to any of the above. I have an anxiety disorder that makes it hard for me to drive or talk on the phone, and I'm sure there are many people with more extreme conditions for whom it's impossible. There are people like Richard Stallman and members of certain religious communities who have strong moral objections to using certain technologies. Society should accommodate all sorts of people and all sorts of ways of living.

Re: 'The tyranny of apps': those without smartphones are unfairly penalised

#246

Post by Kwpolska »

tdeck wrote: post #202
internet2000 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I could disagree more with your number 4. Adding a boarding pass to Apple Wallet and having it update itself with gate changes, delays, etc, notifying you and even scribbling skeuomorphically what changed on the pass [0] has been one of the strongest delighters I've experienced in recent times. [0] https://i.imgur.com/OkthcOi.png

You can do that with a boarding pass downloaded from the airline website or emailed to you by the airline. But some airlines like to hide this option in order to force you to download their app.

How can you remotely update a PDF file after someone downloaded it?

Re: 'The tyranny of apps': those without smartphones are unfairly penalised

#247

Post by tdeck »

kxrm wrote: post #238
ryandrake wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Since photos and videos don't weight anything inside my phone, it's no trouble to carry them. But in your example they -do- weigh something, measured in megabytes. So there is an obvious tradeoff in terms of what you can fit on your phone with some spare empty margin, similar to physical goods that you need to fit into a backpack when you know you might pick something else up along the way.

No, they don't "weigh" anything. Digital storage is so far removed from this concept. Let us not excuse poor business practices by trying to offload a piece of their business systems on to their customers' devices. I shouldn't have to provide space on my property to conduct business with another organization.

To extend the already poor and tortured analogy, imagine if a paper train ticket were the size and weight of an 800 page textbook that you had to lug around, and 799 of the pages were filled with some boilerplate copied from a different company's train ticket book, that nobody ever needed to look at.

But if you have a problem with the train ticket textbook, people will come out of the woodwork to tell you that you're not managing or carrying your belongings properly. I should get a bigger bag, or I should carry fewer of the books I actually want to read. Why am I carrying around so many things anyway? It's irresponsible! Sure I've got room for a piece of paper, but that's not enough these days. Don't I know that I'll need space for the train ticket textbook?

Re: 'The tyranny of apps': those without smartphones are unfairly penalised

#248

Post by michaelmrose »

azemetre wrote: post #206
kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People should instead just vote with you feet and dollars. That'll be inconvenient, but if it bothers you enough, you'll make the effort. A crucial part of this approach is to let your doctor know exactly why you're leaving. If they're losing business over it, they'll look for alternatives. And if the EHR company loses money, they'll look to make changes, too.

Usually when people say vote with your wallet, it means those with more money make the rules. What recourse does an individual have if they live in a rural area with 1 or 3 doctors that all use the same hostile software? Should they suffer because they don't have money or the ability to go else where?

Most people don't have 3 doctors let alone 3 which all use the same niche/bad customer facing software.

Those that do should organize to make their displeasure known. Senior decision makers are probably incompetent boobs rather than compete assholes.

If they live somewhere with 1 doc they should vote with their feet by leaving before the town finishes dying around them.

Re: 'The tyranny of apps': those without smartphones are unfairly penalised

#249

Post by kxrm »

ryandrake wrote: post #236
crazygringo wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just don't want to have to worry about my device being available during boarding I don't think most people worry about that at all. Why wouldn't it be available? If you're heading to the airport from home, your battery is charged. And if your phone somehow breaks on the way, you print at a kiosk. It seems far more likely that I'd lose a random piece of paper on the way to the airport than lose my phone...

Maybe I'm weird, but when I go on a trip, I generally pack my smartphone, if I bring it at all. It would be a royal pain to go find it again when I get into line to board.

Same, I do recognize that walking around without a smartphone starting to become "weird" to others though. I don't mind being weird.

I live in a major US city and get hit up for cash by the homeless sometimes. When I explain I do not have a cellphone to them when they ask for money through some cash app. They look bewildered. Just 20 years ago I was the only one carrying around such a device for IT reasons. Now I am putting limits on my digital life, and it makes me socially "weird".

Re: 'The tyranny of apps': those without smartphones are unfairly penalised

#250

Post by bdcravens »

joshdavham wrote: post #127

I’m fascinated by this phenomenon of apps proposing solutions that are far worse than the previous existing solutions. For example: 1. Parking apps are worse than parking meters. 2. Tinder is worse than IRL speed dating. 3. Duolingo is worse than language classes. 4. Airline apps that are worse than just printing a boarding pass. 5. Etc It really makes me frustrated as someone who builds software and generally thinks…

Having taken both academic classes in Spanish, and using Duolingo for multiple years, I feel like Duolingo is a faster, more cost effective option for establishing a foundation. Obviously if you want to approach fluency, submersion is necessary.
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