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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

#191

Post by rangestransform »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #136
pcthrowaway wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

City of Vancouver parking meters have to accept cash still. If you try putting a quarter in and it doesn't work (as is often the case because of tampering with the coin slots), I believe you don't have to pay for parking.

going back to pre-smartphone but still true, in the US at least, it is generally illegal to park at a broken meter and you can get a ticket -- because otherwise there would be incentive to break the meter so you could park there for free.

This is only an issue because the US somehow became allergic to enforcing vandalism and property crime laws aggressively

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

#192

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

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

#194

Post by dpkirchner »

pqtyw wrote: post #141
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…

> 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 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).

Maybe it's better these days, but back when I used to use online apps/sites to pay for parking in private lots, 4/5 times I still got a "ticket." I never had to pay the fine with money, only with time.

I think it really was the 4th time I decided to stop using those apps entirely.

Sometimes I wonder if the devs behind these apps and processes feel embarrassed by the results. I would be, even if the failures weren't my fault.

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

#195

Post by zulban »

tdeck wrote: post #92

One thing not mentioned yet is what happens when you've got a cheaper phone filled with photos and videos. At various times I've had to spend a few minutes deleting things just to download some stupid 100 meg app that I need to use for a total of 5 minutes to complete some basic task.

If you have a place to live, you shouldn't carry all your belongings with you in a backpack when you go outside.

Similarly, a phone should not be your archive of all your media.

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

#196

Post by bloak »

ekianjo wrote: post #38
JeanMarcS wrote: post #10

My brother doesn't have à smartphone (by choice). For example, he cannot access his bank account via his desktop anymore. He have to go to his agency in person. Well we all did that for years so it's just annoying, because he still have the possibility to do it and it's his choice. But what will happen if all the brick and mortar close ? When will it be mandatory to get a smartphone for his bank app, just to have acc…

the solution is to let the market do its work and move to another bank?

I rather get the impression that the market doesn't always work like economists would like it to work. But do we really need competing banks just for the basic stuff like processing payments? It seems plausible that it's a good idea to have multiple competing banks for the more complex services but perhaps the basic processing of payments could be handled by the government, which already has the monopoly of providing the currency in the first place. Just a thought. Free markets are a tool, not a religion, right?

Some people might insist that a government monopoly would be worse but here in the UK I've noticed that government web sites are usually less crap than web sites created by the private sector.

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

#197

Post by LinuxBender »

realo wrote: post #190
LinuxBender wrote: post #124

I think this article is city-centric. I am in a rural area in the US and I have only had a smart phone for 2 years and have never installed any apps beyond Mumla that I use for my own self hosted uMurmur server. I have never browsed the web from the phone. My life today is just as it was in the 1970's in that regard. All the businesses here have printed coupons. There are local printed newspapers. I have zero depende…

Don't worry... The 21st century should reach you too, eventually.

No worries. This troglodyte will bury his head in the sand. There will be a documentary about us and even the Amish will be shaking their heads. People in the 25th century will look back in envy after the machines take over and they had to reset civilization with EMP's back to agrarian or hunter gatherers. All of that pales in comparison to what happens from the years 201 BG to 108 BG during the Butlerian Jihad.

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

#198

Post by adrian_b »

JeanMarcS wrote: post #10

My brother doesn't have à smartphone (by choice). For example, he cannot access his bank account via his desktop anymore. He have to go to his agency in person. Well we all did that for years so it's just annoying, because he still have the possibility to do it and it's his choice. But what will happen if all the brick and mortar close ? When will it be mandatory to get a smartphone for his bank app, just to have acc…

While I have a smartphone, I choose to not have a Google account.

One of the banks that I am using has terminated its on-line banking service, which I had been using for almost 20 years, replacing it with an app.

That would not have been a problem if they would have provided the app themselves on their Web site, but they refuse to do this and they provide the app only in the Google on-line store, which I cannot use because I do not have a Google account, despite the fact that the app is free.

Therefore I have reduced a lot the number of operations that I do through that bank, redirecting them to another bank, which still has on-line banking on their Web site. Fortunately, for now the bank that has closed their on-line banking Web site still keeps an SMS service, which allows me e.g. to check the balance of my account from my phone and which notifies me about the transactions on my credit card.

Many years ago, I have closed all my accounts at a bank that has annoyed me by updating their on-line banking Web site so that it no longer accepted any browsers except Microsoft Internet Explorer. At that time I have hoped that it will be the last time when I leave a bank because they believe that they can force their customers to also be customers of unrelated third parties, but now this problem with Google has appeared.

I am not a US citizen and the bank is not from USA. I doubt that it can be legal for a bank here in Europe to condition their services by their customer becoming the customer of a foreign entity that is Google. However I cannot afford to waste time and money to determine the legality of their actions.

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

#199

Post by hsbauauvhabzb »

iforgotpassword wrote: post #111
everdrive wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But they won't. HN is quite good at suggesting a lot of genuinely intelligent and valid potential technical solutions, but most banks won't even think about supporting TOTP broadly. They'll lean into smartphones and apps because this is where the bast majority of their customers are. In this case the 'tyranny' is the overwhelming preference of other people. The masses have spoken, and they want everything to be on th…

Also because ticking boxes. You just provide an app that fulfills all the silly security requirements for banking apps and then if something goes wrong, the customer has the burden of proving it's the banks fault. I've had my banking app installed on an old Samsung phone running lineageos. I only powered it on when I had to do online banking. At some point I needed to update the app and they started checking for root…

Maybe not for you, but rooted phones are a legitimate risk for users that do sideload pirated games and malware etc. I still think the risks are arbitrary, but I can understand why banks want to avoid rooted phones

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

#200

Post by dmos62 »

dole wrote: post #89
dmos62 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say it's just a hyperbole as if the comparison being made (dictatorship or violence or whatever) has no meaning for the speaker or the listener.

Scary things make people pay attention and click the links. I loathe the casual use of the term “lynching” by people in the public eye but same rules apply, using exaggerated, scary words to sell your weak point. Not saying I agree with it, but it’s marketing and journalism.

Sure, I understand why people use comparisons. It's just that I'd like to encourage conscious use of language.
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