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PinePhone Review

drewdevault.com

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Re: PinePhone Review

#241

Post by _e »

jdillaaa wrote: post #227
rsync wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I do have some of the Twilio SIMs but I live in a verizon-only zone so ... Interesting how you are sending SMS with different caller-ID based on contacts, but I am curious - without a VOIP dialer, can you place voice calls from your native dialer with different caller ID ? Please, please email (or trouble ticket) twilio and ask them to add an "email" verb to twiml ... That is one of the big missing links in all…

> Interesting how you are sending SMS with different caller-ID based on contacts, but I am curious - without a VOIP dialer, can you place voice calls from your native dialer with different caller ID ? Yes it is not very pleasant, and it is how you basically described it where you call a Twilio number, and then type in the destination. You could set up some sort of signaling where you activate the outbound number with…

Here is a possible way to call from the native dialer in the event that data is not available...

One can prepend a calling card-like sequence, using hard and soft pauses, before the actual telephone number gets called so all calls get routed through twilio (or any VoIP carrier) for managing the caller id.

In other words, you are calling your personal calling card telephone number for every call so you will enter in your code and then enter the telephone number that you would like to call.

Re: PinePhone Review

#242

Post by jbboehr »

spurgu wrote: post #206
squarefoot wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Large screens are more usable, small screens are more portable. There's no way to have both unless we completely rethink the mobile platform itself moving away from the dream of having one big clunky jack of all trades, but rather as a group of devices, all interconnected (mesh PAN + shared storage) and equipped with the hardware they need for the task, so that one small screen device is used as a phone, a bigger one…

In my experience, having used smartphones since 2008 (Nokia N95, N900, then mostly Android since), I can confidently say that 4-5 inches is a sweet spot for usability/portability. Anything less than that becomes difficult to type on and larger than that obv improves readability but you can go up to 50 inches if you disregard portability and I haven't had a 5+ inch mobile that I haven't had problems with keeping put i…

Conspiracy theory inbound: The size of the battery is precisely tuned such that after two years of degradation, it lasts less than a day (~16 hours), so people are driven to upgrade. All thickness "improvements" are incidental.

Re: PinePhone Review

#243

Post by thekyle »

lonelappde wrote: post #171
thekyle wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are some American banks that don't have a website but have an app? I'm curious.

BofA, the bank that most Americans use, doesn't support mobile check deposit outside of the native app.

I have an account with Bank of America and was not aware of this so thanks. That said, you can do pretty much everything else via the website. The opposite is also probably true, that there are some features on the website not available on the app (for example can you open a new CD in the app?).

Re: PinePhone Review

#244

Post by ge96 »

mouldysammich wrote: post #120
ge96 wrote: post #72

My concerns are: resting ram usage, could I decrease if I could run like a tiling manager(with some main buttons). And can it run on virgin mobile/cheap networks like that edit: holy crap this sway thing may be the i3 hmm, next question would be can you attach it to a big monitor + keyboard/mouse through the USB C

I think hdmi out is supposed to work, according to a blog post from a few months ago anyway. https://www.pine64.org/2019/06/06/june-2019-news-pinephone-p...

that's good to know, I think possibly if it was more powerful would be down to use it as a "single all around device" granted I'm not doing like hardcore video processing/gaming generally just software stuff.

Re: PinePhone Review

#245

Post by ge96 »

stamps wrote: post #166
ge96 wrote: post #72

My concerns are: resting ram usage, could I decrease if I could run like a tiling manager(with some main buttons). And can it run on virgin mobile/cheap networks like that edit: holy crap this sway thing may be the i3 hmm, next question would be can you attach it to a big monitor + keyboard/mouse through the USB C

The hardware is there. With some work a USB C dock can be plugged in and the phone can be used as a portable work station.

that's the plan hopefully if they keep going

Re: PinePhone Review

#246

Post by squarefoot »

dmitriid wrote: post #207
squarefoot wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting point. I have seen some friends happily using Windows phones but most of them were/are either Microsoft employees or working mostly with Windows software, so I guess they needed the deepest integration with the Windows ecosystem, which is understandable. As for other users, it is possible that Windows phones had either some limitation compared to other platforms or they lacked the killer app that would ma…

> They probably should have copied or mocked a mainstream mobile interface, that is, offer something an user from either Android or iOS would not find alien to use, then offer something more, say free Office apps, then after the userbase had grown start to build the rest. Why would the user base grow? The main problem Windows Phone had was the dearth of apps that users actually wanted. MS had to build their own YouTu…

Because the number of potential developers on this platform is at least an order of magnitude bigger than all Windows Mobile developers on this planet. Probably more. Developers also that happen to be the first users as well, an aspect very different from the one Windows Mobile had to struggle into. If ths thing turns out as interesting as it promises there would be hundreds thousands of people willing to work on various tasks to bring it on par with other platforms. That day we'd have to find a benevolent dictator, sort of a mobile version of Linus Torvalds, which would direct them various teams right to the spot, since it's very likely that groups being working on say accounting software (just to name the most boring thing to me if I was in their shoes) would proceed at 1/4 speed compared to those working on say video acceleration or networking tools.

It will start as a community toy, then one day, possibly after the 2nd or 3rd model, normal phones users will start to notice that little thing that doesn't get advertising, doesn't ask for DNA when installing apps, doesn't spy what the user says, writes, buys or where he/she goes and when, consumes a fraction of their metered data plan since great part of it (ads/junk/telemetry) has been blocked or never requested/created by design, offers equivalent non spying apps etc, all at the cost of avoiding the usual social media apps (I assume FB/TW will never allow a port of their clients there, especially if sandboxed). For some people losing FB/TW or GMaps could be too much, but others wouldn't care. It will slowly but steadily gain a good mostly technical userbase. If I had a date to be concerned about, it will be the day its growing userbase size could raise a flag in some offices, so that the following day the folks that made it possible will get a huge offer to sell the entire operation. That eventuality would deem the project to become a copy of any other platform out there. There's hardware production involved; forking the blueprints wouldn't be enough.

Re: PinePhone Review

#247

Post by postingFourFast »

rchaud wrote: post #167
afandian wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how do people without phones participate in society? I don't use a google account on my phone, so that means no App Store. I'm trying to one day get rid of my google account too. It doesn't cause me many issues in the UK though I can't use things like Uber, and that's no loss to me. How would I get on in Denmark?

I'm in Canada and access Uber via their PWA. m.uber.com I think, I just did the "add to home screen" thing and it launches as a fullscreen web app. No need to have the app installed.

Piranha Walrus Arson?

Re: PinePhone Review

#248

Post by pjmlp »

dzypa wrote: post #192
thekyle wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If the user can't interact with their bank, whatchu YouTube, talk to their friends and parents over Snapchat or Skype, call Uber, play Spotify, etc etc etc, it doesn't matter in the least if your phone is 100% open source. Most of this should be available on the PinePhone at launch (albeit not as nicely as on Android). Bank - should have a website (and if they don't have a website they most likely don't have an app…

No whatsapp = dead in the water in Europe.

And Viber, which is quite famous on Balcan countries.

Re: PinePhone Review

#249

Post by pjmlp »

thenewnewguy wrote: post #154
dmitriid wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You greatly overestimate the number of users who care about how closed or how open an ecosystem is. If the user can't interact with their bank, whatchu YouTube, talk to their friends and parents over Snapchat or Skype, call Uber, play Spotify, etc etc etc, it doesn't matter in the least if your phone is 100% open source. Microsoft had sunk billions into trying to get the ecosystem off the ground. What makes you think…

People on HN seem to hate them, but honestly progressive web apps have potential to solve most/all of those usecases.

I love them, thanks to it I have refocused on mobile Web, even though I tend to prefer native apps.

For traditional CRUD apps, PWAs are quite alright, and one avoids having to deal with Android's always changing "best practices", with a stagnant Android Java.

Re: PinePhone Review

#250

Post by pjmlp »

dmitriid wrote: post #141
zdkl wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Hopefully) Ease and flexibility of development for 3rd party applications?

Do people really complain about ease and flexibility of development for iOS and Android?

In regards to Android, it is more lack of thereof.
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