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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

#211

Post by kxrm »

tokioyoyo wrote: post #171
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.

Depends where you are and which flights. Around me, maybe 60% of people use mobile. From the other 40%, some probably got their paper tickets when they checked in their baggage and going with that now. > boarding passes at home before they leave for the airport It’s been years I’ve heard or seen anyone doing it. Even my parents in their 70s get theirs at the airport.

I guess I am weird. I still do this.

I just don't want to have to worry about my device being available during boarding nor do I want to have to stop at a kiosk.

Just print at home, go through security and scan at the gate.

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

#212

Post by mharrig1 »

My anecdote for the pile is that my apartment complex uses one of those apps to pay for laundry services, but is slightly less expensive than the coin based counterparts on the same machine.

What's even worse is that the app is incredibly poorly made such that occasionally some payments just fall into the void and either start the machine for free or require a double charge. Anytime I have reached out to complain about these I just get told to bring my phone closer to the machine.

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

#213

Post by adrian_b »

Kwpolska wrote: post #48
sumuyuda wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The solution is that banks should support any TOTP client for authentication and not just their proprietary app. So you can use open source software or a hardware key.

Can your TOTP client show what operation you’re approving? Because my bank app can.

I had a couple of such TOTP clients from different banks. For approving an operation, both of them required me to sign the amount of money transferred by that operation (i.e. they generated a one-time code that depended on a hash of the amount of money), so no confusions were possible.

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

#214

Post by OptionOfT »

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 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 worked.

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

#215

Post by kxrm »

noqc wrote: post #161
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…

what if your phone runs out of battery?

For me it is less about being concerned about my device running out of batteries. It's more about some weird incompatibility between my device and the scanner.

It's one less thing to worry about when I just want to get on the plane. My paper ticket isn't going to lock before I get to the gate, or not be bright enough. I won't have to "play" with my ticket to keep it active and proper for the scanner.

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

#216

Post by tdeck »

zulban wrote: post #195
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.

Perhaps I can be patient and explain the underlying concepts here, since they seem to be unintuitive to a small minority of very condescending commenters:

1. I like to have access to my photos and videos while I'm on the go. You never know when the subject of some trip or experience from 2 years ago will come up in conversation, and I'll want to show a photo of it to someone I'm talking to. Since photos and videos don't weight anything inside my phone, it's no trouble to carry them.

2. I don't like to give cloud services all my photos and videos. Despite the extremely dark pattern in Google Photos where it tries multiple times a month to trick me into enabling cloud backup, I've kept it off. Some of my photos may be sensitive things like personal documents, I'd rather not have to think about what's in the cloud and what isn't, and what is deleted where. These services also often aren't free and I'd prefer not to pay for them.

3. I back up my phone regularly to my personal computer, so losing my phone doesn't mean I lose all the media on my phone.

4. And since I know someone will ask, I lock my phone. Not with a fingerprint; with a passcode. It's not perfect but I'm comfortable with the level of security.

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

#217

Post by kxrm »

LinuxBender wrote: post #183
tdb7893 wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the US large companies in rural areas also often use apps in the same way as they do in the city (at least they did the last time I visited) and at least all the people I know in rural areas have had smartphones for a long time and use apps a lot (though maybe the fact that the area I know well is near a major university has made it a bit techier). The smaller local stores don't use apps so even in Chicago most pl…

People here do have smart phones and I'm sure some have apps installed. What I am saying is none of that is required today. Nobody here is penalized for not installing some app.

Unless it's McDonalds. Then you pay more for not having the app.

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

#218

Post by dalke »

hkwerf wrote: post #12
unsupp0rted wrote: post #3

> He does own a smartphone – an Apple iPhone he bought secondhand about three years ago – but says: “I don’t use apps at all. I don’t download them for security reasons.” Yes and? He makes a choice and he is being penalized for it. Presumably the benefits for him outweigh the costs. For Richard Stallman they do. There is no innate human right to grocery store coupons or private parking lots.

I have to install an app to communicate with my child's state-sponsored daycare. I'll have to install an app to communicate with the teachers at his future school. Is this still fine? It'd be one thing, if it were just apps. But all of these apps are essentially just containers for some web application. Do you get access to the web application without the app? No. So what's the point of the apps? So they can send you…

Here in Sweden, it took me about 5 months but I was able to get the school to send me info by email. They switched to an app-only system, and I have no smartphone.

Setting aside any issues related to privacy or US corporate control over my life, I'm one of the people who doesn't use a smartphone because the temptation to be online, at the drop of the hat, is too much to resist.

I compare it to being like someone who needs to lose weight, so keeps all chocolate out of the house, while everyone seems to expect me to have a luscious bar of high quality chocolate with me all the time, just sitting there, begging me to eat it.

There is an ongoing debate about smartphones at school, and the addiction and distraction they can be for kids. I think my strongest argument is that the addiction and distraction don't simply disappear for adults, and there was no way they were going to force me to get a smartphone.

I don't think that would work for those with a smartphone, but it's a crack keeping an alternative open.

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

#219

Post by _fat_santa »

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…

And don't forget an increasing number of consumer electronics now need to be "activated" via an app.

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

#220

Post by adrian_b »

Yeul wrote: post #61
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…

By choice. Society doesn't penalize anyone if they decide to go off the grid. Look at it this way: should the rest of us with smartphones pay for that bank office?

At least for me, the problem is not the closing of the brick-and-mortar branches, though that has happened near me, because for the last 25 years I have used those only seldom, preferring on-line banking.

What annoys me now is the closing of the on-line banking Web sites, which could be used easily and without any problem from any computer or smartphone, and their replacement with apps, which may force you not only to have a smartphone but also to be a customer of Apple or Google, because some banks refuse to provide their Android apps otherwise than through the Google app store.

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