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

theguardian.com

491–500 of 870 posts

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

#491

My doctor/'s office was just forced to switch to app-instead-of-website for patient interation. Ironically, the old and this new software came from same megacorp I work for (different department, same story). The old web interface was rather good and rather sensible-practical-sane. It was almost as if someone had asked a doctor what he actually needed for his patients, and then understood his answer and also managed…

I was really expecting your personal usage of the app to involve invoking developer privileges, and inserting your text through the much more user friendly UX of DBeaver..

I can't decide if I'm disappointed or relieved

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

#492

My doctor/'s office was just forced to switch to app-instead-of-website for patient interation. Ironically, the old and this new software came from same megacorp I work for (different department, same story). The old web interface was rather good and rather sensible-practical-sane. It was almost as if someone had asked a doctor what he actually needed for his patients, and then understood his answer and also managed…

The annoying part is that website can just be used as an app. For a booking app we don't need native performance; just a webpage-inside-an-app is fine. In most cases, it should be fairly straight-forward and cheap to make this work.

What happens is they hire some contracting firm and they go "whole thing will have to be redone" so they get more work, and that's how you end up with a "solution" like this. Basically the software equivalent of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq6WME576ZE

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

#493
post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would you need to do that? The boarding pass has a QR code on it; the QR code links to your ticket. If you need to change your booking, they can email you a new one.

They are referring to gate and time changes

And? These are available on google, on the airline's website, and on screens throughout the terminal. Many airlines will send them to you via SMS. There's no need to have a whole app just to check your gate assignment.

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

#494

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…

I believe they alwasy want and do change or revolution, or the most notorius ones disrupt life.

No improvement - displacement vector towards the positive half space of life quality - is implied, except for those selling it.

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

#495
post #492

My doctor/'s office was just forced to switch to app-instead-of-website for patient interation. Ironically, the old and this new software came from same megacorp I work for (different department, same story). The old web interface was rather good and rather sensible-practical-sane. It was almost as if someone had asked a doctor what he actually needed for his patients, and then understood his answer and also managed…

The annoying part is that website can just be used as an app. For a booking app we don't need native performance; just a webpage-inside-an-app is fine. In most cases, it should be fairly straight-forward and cheap to make this work. What happens is they hire some contracting firm and they go "whole thing will have to be redone" so they get more work, and that's how you end up with a "solution" like this. Basically th…

What’s even more asinine is the website can be updated without publishing to an app store. You always have the latest version and all these apps are just a thin veneer on some CRUD endpoints anyway.

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

#496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think this article is city-centric. It's an article about the situation in the UK. If your "rural area" is in the US, it is not surprising that it's a bit different than anything in the article.

That makes sense. I think the US tries to mimic big city behavior in the EU so it's probably just a matter of time for big cities in the US to have the same problems. Maybe that means I have a few more decades for any of that to find it's way to me. Curious how prevalent this behavior is in the rural parts of the UK.

I realize this might not be a kosher comment for HN, and i aphid for that. But you seem to have imagined some inherent divide between the mechanics of urban and rural (and apparently foreign and domestic) lives or at least governance. With this imagined division, you are free to ascribe whatever outcome that affects cities to whatever cause, since you live in a different state of existence.

I'm not saying that as an insult, but rather because I don't think there's an inherent difference, I just think rural communities are harder for companies to monetize, for multiple reasons - think density and average income.

But like Amazon, they will get there, and unlike cities, rural communities have less ability to resist and less ability to support a diversity of options. Think about the takeover of Walmart and Dollar General/Tree.

I don't think there's anything special inherent to your rural community that protects you from all this "progress". You're just living through the time before it catches up to your community. And i bet if you think about the effects of the arrival of changes like Walmart's rural expansion, you might find that they upset rural life as well, reducing wages, extracting money from the local economy instead of allowing it to continue to circulate locally, and then investing driving distances, and the associated costs in fuel and time among others.

My guess is that you will go from blaming cities for their problems to blaming cities for your communities problems once they reach you.

But maybe if you reevaluate your perspective, you could help your community prepare to resist those changes while you still have time.

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

#497
post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It makes it easier for them to regularly increase pricing without printing new menus. I wonder if any restaurants are doing A/B testing with pricing

I'm not generally evil, so I never would have thought of doing this. Therefore it must be the correct answer.

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

#498

Ticketmaster is the worst of these for me. They have a near monopoly, and started forcing this shit on everyone a few years ago with covid as the excuse. Now going to one of their concerts is like taking an international flight. Forget privacy, forget having a paper stub as a souvenir (not even an option), forget paying with cash. As I avoid ticketmaster, I've avoided most concerts the last few years... only going to…

Even for those who is OK with Ticketmaster - there is little "surprise" - hostile location/IP-based blockings. Do you want to buy some tickets for concert in Germany while being on trip in non-EU country? No way - we are just blocking you! They even learned to detect whether a client use VPN so latter could not circumvent this ridiculous obstacle.

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

#499

When visiting the UK last summer we tried to go to a train museum. There were three public parking lots around with different app based parking systems. We were unsuccessful in using any of them due to various issues relating to poor cell service, lack of UK phone number etc. In the end we had to leave without visiting the museum. It was farcical.

Even those having phone and app have trouble in the form of hefty penalties when cell service does not allow them paying in the hard 5 minute mandated. There was a little 'scandal' (more like the usual random weekly media article pick for traffic increasing annoyment from among the thousands of similar f ups not getting any traction) recently provoking thunderous and colorful statements from officials. Regualation change may come in some form sometime perhaps that solves something possibly, but change something for certain, perhaps.

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

#500
It is even worse: people with smartphones not running software from either Google or Apple are penalized. I have huge problems right now because the only second factor from one of my banks (that also has the inbox for my insurances) is a Android app that requires play protect.
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