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The tech monoculture is finally breaking

jasonwillems.com

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Re: The tech monoculture is finally breaking

#251

Post by kakacik »

BeetleB wrote: post #2

> A Timex ad went viral this year: “Know the time without seeing you have 1,249 unanswered emails.” Having to micromanage notifications is why I have two phones - one without a SIM card. It's nice to be able to do stuff on the phone and know it won't bug you. I simply put the one with the SIM card elsewhere (other room, leave in car, etc). No - I'm not going to spend too much time learning how to "effectively" manage…

Yeah that ship has sailed. A colleague recently reverted back to physical watches, dissing apple's watches as annoying cheap bit of plastics. He prefers his timex, rolex etc. which give you feeling on wrist no smart watch will ever do. He is an extreme minority in current world.

Re: The tech monoculture is finally breaking

#252

Post by mountainb »

lmz wrote: post #178
jasonfarnon wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Gen Z buying iPods and people buying N64 games again is not evidence of the monoculture breaking apart - it's a retreat into the past for the enlightened few because their needs are not being met by modern goods and services." That seems like a charitable interpretation to me. Maybe it's just a retro fashion trend that is even at its peak a tiny blip in the market, like back in the 90s when bell bottoms were "in". G…

The iPod and N64 are about 20 (or more, for the N64) years back from now, no? So about as far back as bell bottoms were from the 90s.

I think the real reason is that it’s an entirely different media experience than the current types. Most modern games are either gambling traps (microtransaction hell) or extremely high fidelity products that leave nothing to the imagination. In McLuhan terms they are hot forms of media, but the old ones are cool in that they invite imaginative participation. Hence the popularity also of intentionally retro looking contemporary indie games.

Re: The tech monoculture is finally breaking

#253

Post by Nursie »

snvzz wrote: post #206

>They’re now working to bring a “next-gen” CRT monitor to market. Wait what? Who? Why have I not heard of this? Did the AI hallucinate? There definitely is interest in next-gen CRTs.

It’s very unlikely to happen because at this point it seems to be effectively a lost technology.

Nobody’s making the tubes any more.

It’s bit like cassette decks - there’s only one manufacturer left and the mechanisms they build are not up to the quality of the ones from the 90s, and a revival is not enough to bootstrap manufacture back to economic viability, it’s very likely a blip.

Re: The tech monoculture is finally breaking

#254

Post by iammjm »

MarkusWandel wrote: post #91
iammjm wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> fully debugged And here I am each morning having to manually enforce sync multiple times to have my fucking Garmin watch sleep data show up in my iPhone Garmin app. I love this watch (Instinct 2) but it’s far from bug free even in its most fundamental functions like data sync

Thats the app, not the watch. On my Android phone, I think it's runnig afoul of OS power saving features.

That's a known, still unfixed issue with Garmins and iPhones. With "smart" devices, the app IS the device!

Re: The tech monoculture is finally breaking

#255

Post by Y-bar »

testdelacc1 wrote: post #235
raffraffraff wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me it's not arbitrary. An android device is a general purpose handheld touchscreen computer that happens to be used for music. That means a bunch of things to me: 1. "Touchscreen first" UX 2. Heavier than it needs to be 3. Worse battery life compared to a non-Android device Using a touchscreen in the rain is impossible. Running out of battery sucks. Going for a run with a 240g brick is no fun, it'll pull your pan…

> 240g brick pantsing you Sometimes I wish people from 1995 could read our threads and see the things we’re complaining about.

240 grams is twice as heavy as for example an average minidisc player (https://www.minidisc.wiki/equipment/sony/portable/mz-g750) which could often weigh less than 100g.

The very first cassette Walkman was about 40 grams light: https://www.soundandvision.com/content/flashback-1979-sony-s...

The Rio MP3 player was 109 grams: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/10/diamond-rio-pmp300-m...

The classic Creative Nomad weighs in at 45g including battery: https://www.crutchfield.com/S-HglCxgxN2we/p_053NX128/Creativ...

Re: The tech monoculture is finally breaking

#256

Post by medstrom »

pmontra wrote: post #238
raffraffraff wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me it's not arbitrary. An android device is a general purpose handheld touchscreen computer that happens to be used for music. That means a bunch of things to me: 1. "Touchscreen first" UX 2. Heavier than it needs to be 3. Worse battery life compared to a non-Android device Using a touchscreen in the rain is impossible. Running out of battery sucks. Going for a run with a 240g brick is no fun, it'll pull your pan…

My first Android phone was a Samsung Galaxy S2. It weighted two grams less than that Hiby R1. Of course it was much larger, but tiny by today's standards. https://m.gsmarena.com/samsung_i9100_galaxy_s_ii-3621.php

I loved the buttons on the Galaxy Spica https://www.gsmarena.com/samsung_i5700_galaxy_spica-pictures...

Now that I think about it, going no-buttons might have been a driver towards larger screens. Having at least a few buttons seemed to make it much less necessary.

Re: The tech monoculture is finally breaking

#257

Post by domh »

californical wrote: post #95
Aurornis wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You cannot buy a dedicated MP3 player today with the software polish and quality of life that an iPod had in the early 2000s I could see how many people would assume this, but it’s actually false. There’s actually a big selection of dedicated audio players that do the job very well now. The battery life and audio quality are extremely good because there’s a niche market for them with a lot of competition. If you th…

I looked pretty hard - I specifically don’t want an android OS called an mp3 player. I want a dedicated media player that has physical button controls (not touch screen), is very snappy, has a good UI, and has a purpose-built OS specific to only playing songs and podcasts, and maybe movies, which I can sync with my computer (maybe with rsync or whatever else). No apps. The only option that I could find was an iPod cl…

I've been tentatively eyeing up this which I think meets all of your requirements: https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005008384398058.html

Re: The tech monoculture is finally breaking

#258

Post by medstrom »

fumar wrote: post #174
idibiks wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a problem with "single-purpose" devices for kids, too. Drawing tablets, music players. They're all actually full Android phones (sans cell modem) and tablets. It sucks.

Why is android bad here? An android launcher can create the illusion of a single purpose device. What difference does it make? Battery life?

The issue isn't really Android, it's the touchscreen and the way the UX is a regression from many analog single-purpose devices.

If you gonna have a single-purpose device - make it analog (or close to analog)!

Don't give it a perceptible boot-time and all the other flaws that come with general-purpose computing. Don't make the user have to "wake up the device", let alone have to visually confirm that it is woken-up, before they can switch to the next song.

Re: The tech monoculture is finally breaking

#259

Post by tass »

Y-bar wrote: post #255
testdelacc1 wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 240g brick pantsing you Sometimes I wish people from 1995 could read our threads and see the things we’re complaining about.

240 grams is twice as heavy as for example an average minidisc player ( https://www.minidisc.wiki/equipment/sony/portable/mz-g750 ) which could often weigh less than 100g. The very first cassette Walkman was about 40 grams light: https://www.soundandvision.com/content/flashback-1979-sony-s... The Rio MP3 player was 109 grams: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2016/10/diamond-rio-pmp300-m... The classic Creative Nomad w…

Almost certainly a typo, the first Walkman was 390g or 14 ounces (not 1.4oz)

Re: The tech monoculture is finally breaking

#260

Post by nehal3m »

kakacik wrote: post #249
raffraffraff wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me it's not arbitrary. An android device is a general purpose handheld touchscreen computer that happens to be used for music. That means a bunch of things to me: 1. "Touchscreen first" UX 2. Heavier than it needs to be 3. Worse battery life compared to a non-Android device Using a touchscreen in the rain is impossible. Running out of battery sucks. Going for a run with a 240g brick is no fun, it'll pull your pan…

Whats wrong with some Nokia brick? Has bluetooth, probably 3.5mm jack too, lasts a week, has more physical buttons than you need for playing mp3s. Costs little

I have a few, and for managing and playing music the UX is absolute ass. Fine for dialing a number and occasionally switching to silent mode, but that's about it.
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