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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

#691

Post by asdff »

OptionOfT wrote: post #214
pqtyw wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. Parking apps are worse than parking meters. I certainly don't agree with that one. I really don't miss having to pay for a fixed number of hours and then having to figure out what to do if I'm running late (or wasting money if I get back early). > 4. Airline apps that are worse than just printing a boarding pass. Unless the app is exceptionally horrible you can just export it to Apple/Android wallet which is muc…

I recently got bitten in the rear by Delta not updating boarding passes stored in Apple Wallet, even though it had / has all permissions to do so. Only when I checked the time and wondered why we weren't boarding yet, and opened the app did I notice that the gate changed. Even afterwards the one stored in Apple Wallet did not update. I even tried to do the pull-to-refresh. Eventually I pulled to refresh, and that wor…

This is my experience most flights to be honest. LAX doesn't assign gates until the last minute so apple wallet is usually wrong. Google search for the flight number always works of course.

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

#692

Post by asdff »

realityking wrote: post #304
OptionOfT wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently got bitten in the rear by Delta not updating boarding passes stored in Apple Wallet, even though it had / has all permissions to do so. Only when I checked the time and wondered why we weren't boarding yet, and opened the app did I notice that the gate changed. Even afterwards the one stored in Apple Wallet did not update. I even tried to do the pull-to-refresh. Eventually I pulled to refresh, and that wor…

To be fair, a printed boarding pass also didn’t update when the gate changed.

Actually, it is updated more currently usually. Apple wallet will not update for me with the current gate. By the time I show up to the airport 2 hours before the flight and get a paper pass on the other hand usually the gate is already set. But apple wallet still won't always reflect that update to the gate. Whereas my printed pass does. As well as the good old fashioned boards of flights, which are pretty easy to gleam considering they are alphabetized.

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

#693

Post by asdff »

steelframe wrote: post #666
ryandrake wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don’t people just print their boarding passes at home before they leave for the airport? Or worst case, use the kiosks at the airports which print passes? Very few of the passengers in line ahead of me are using their phones.

Printing a boarding pass at home works for the flight out. But what about the returning flight? Just last week I flew back home from SFO. I needed to change the flight at the last minute. The app failed to update with the new flight. The airline had removed all the boarding pass kiosks from that airport and only seemed to have luggage drop service. I asked an airport employee how I could get a boarding pass printed,…

What airline was this so I stay far away

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

#694

Post by asdff »

JustExAWS wrote: post #629
tdeck wrote: post #493

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Or I could just use an app and get a push notification.

If you have a half gig spare for such an app these days maybe

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

#695

Post by asdff »

HDThoreaun wrote: post #645
RhysU wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you not also paying attention to the gate itself and to departure boards? Why do you need your phone to tell you what's posted on numerous displays that you walk past?

no I dont waste my time with the screens anymore.

What all 10 seconds?

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

#696

Post by akdor1154 »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #300
ndriscoll wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The perpetual spinner thing happened at my last job too, and I developed the opinion that putting a spinner into your site at all is a sign of incompetence. For any normal CRUD app, it should take milliseconds to do whatever task. Even with network delays, 150 milliseconds is a reasonable upper bound for end-to-end processing. If you have an animation at all, then your thing is either ridiculously slow or broken. Eit…

> For any normal CRUD app, it should take milliseconds to do whatever task. Even with network delays, 150 milliseconds is a reasonable upper bound for end-to-end processing This is only really true with stable, high speed internet connections. We still cannot take for granted that everyone has that, especially not in rural areas and double especially not on mobile devices

And when your users are in the same continent as your backend.

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

#697

Post by genewitch »

marssaxman wrote: post #639
JustExAWS wrote: post #631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Wallet app is built in on the iPhone. Do you also print out directions from Mapquest before you leave home?

I'm sure that is convenient for those iPhone users who want to make use of the feature. > Do you also print out directions from Mapquest before you leave home? That sure was the way it used to work, wasn't it?

Thomas Guide is more my style.

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

#698

Post by looofooo0 »

gs17 wrote: post #335
lambda wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm kind of puzzled by your first point. In my experience, parking apps require you to pay in larger chunks of hours than paying with coins used to; many times I have to pay for a minimum of 2 hours of parking with the app when I could pay for just 10 or 15 minutes of parking with coins.

>In my experience, parking apps require you to pay in larger chunks of hours than paying with coins used to; Here in Nashville, they sold out our public street parking to a private company. Now instead of coins in a meter for the time you want, you have to buy at least an hour for $1.75 (or more), pay by scanning a QR code (which is misprinted on the signs) unless you're in one of the spots where there's a working pa…

Has nothing to do with technology.

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

#699

Post by akdor1154 »

brookst wrote: post #529
yurishimo wrote: post #517

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the entire philosophy behind all of the apps run by DHH/Basecamp. The web should be the default and native apps should only be used for software that just isn’t possible through the web (yet).

The problem is that users much prefer native apps. The idiomatic UI, the use of OS specific capabilities (even if the same result could be done without), the appearance of better performance because the app launches before a network connection is made. We can opine all we want about how things should work, but the ground truth is a good native app has higher user satisfaction, more engagement, whatever metric you wan…

> We can opine all we want about how things should work, but the ground truth is a good native app has higher user satisfaction, more engagement, whatever metric you want other than development cost/non-customer concerns.

No way / at most, HIGHLY context dependant. Facebook/Insta/social media slug of the year? Yes, probably app is desired.

My bank? Maybe, at a strech, if it's good.

My local doctor? The real estate agent im trying to rent a house from? Amazon/AliExpress/Shopee? A movie theatre? My council street parking system? My university? Fuck no i dont want your shitty apps on my device.

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

#700

Post by genewitch »

joseda-hg wrote: post #469
noqc wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that hard to maintain a random piece of paper, you do it with your ID, which presumably you do not keep on your phone. It is much harder to ensure an iPhone won't randomly be miscalibrated and shut off at 30%.

I do it with my ID because I've conditioned myself to check for it everytime I'm going to move places, or rather, check for my wallet, which usually has my ID inside it, but has burned me on a couple of ocassions Also, some people do keep their ID on their phones, either directly on the back of the case (I've seen it more on young women, maybe because lack of pockets) or with something like a magnetic wallet

Louisiana has digital ID, I don't use it but my wife does and it seems to work OK. I think you can have your phone locked with the ID up, which is the only way I'd consider using it, anyhow.

Its been a while since I've heard any issues with it. I prefer the physical card still.

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