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Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

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Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#261

Post by amelius »

haltcatchfire wrote: post #164
Nursie wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a Huawei P20 Pro that did much the same back in 2018. I never really used it for much, a bit of light browsing and really just as a gimmick, buit yeah, there was a desktop of sorts and you could use all the apps, and the touchpad/mouse thing worked. You could attach a bluetooth keyboard too, IIRC. Kindof a shame my iphone doesn't do this (I assume, I haven't tried), but I'm not sure if I'd use it.

iPhone has good support for peripherals, hubs and external displays, but lacks a desktop mode.

Great, can I plug a USB drive in, and use it?

Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#262

Post by amelius »

lisp2240 wrote: post #169

A smartphone is an appliance like a washing machine or a blender. It should just work. I will gladly pay extra for appliances that perform well. I will gladly pay extra for appliances that require no maintenance and can’t be broken. If I want something unreliable I can program or hack, I will go to a real PC.

With this mindset, computers would still be typewriters or calculators.

Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#263

Post by [deleted] »

ghaff wrote: post #110
cassepipe wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Happy user of a Galaxy S7 from 2016. It's smaller than what you can get now and has a physical apps/home/back area which I love. I use them till I break or lose them. I never have to care about because I know I can get a second had one for less than 100 euros. Not having valuable stuff with is really liberating. Will use them until I can't no more.

Who regularly gets phones lost or stolen? I did break one once hiking with some sort of rock collision in my pocket but this isn't a regular thing over many years.

[deleted]

Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#264

Post by david-gpu »

hannofcart wrote: post #258

The only thing forcing most of us to upgrade every 3 years is the fact that most phones now come with their batteries are either soldered on (in the lower end versions) or come with connectors (most often I think) but replacement requires prying open the case and specialized tools/knowledge. Honestly, today's phones are an overkill for most mobile computing tasks except for a very small niche of users who might run v…

There is also security updates, as well as the wear and tear on a physical device that is constantly exposed to scratches, dust, and whatnot.

I would like to use them for four or five years with a battery replacement at the midpoint.

Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#265

Post by wruza »

maccard wrote: post #178
lisp2240 wrote: post #169

A smartphone is an appliance like a washing machine or a blender. It should just work. I will gladly pay extra for appliances that perform well. I will gladly pay extra for appliances that require no maintenance and can’t be broken. If I want something unreliable I can program or hack, I will go to a real PC.

Couldn’t agree more. The locked down nature of my iPhone is something I actively desire - the curation on the App Store isn’t perfect, but it’s better than the Wild West that is the play store. I _want_ an ecosystem where developers are forced to upgrade their apps to use the latest APIs to take advantage of the new device features.

Fully agree with the first part, but not the second. I absolutely don’t care if an app that worked when I installed it doesn’t do new 500MP AI continuity things today. What I personally care about is a selection of apps that don’t suck the privacy soul out of you by design and tradition at the first start. The fact that google not only allows but promotes, let’s say, a gallery that instantly requires address book, sms, gps, bluetooth, etc accesses, and no one bats an eye about it and continues to cheer android phones - is “amazing”.

Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#266

Post by astrange »

Kirby64 wrote: post #107
hilbert42 wrote: post #102

I find it highly annoying that these rather powerful handheld smartphone computers don't have decent port access for use with instrumentation, etc. A huge range of features comes to mind from Geiger counters, oscilloscopes, sound level measurement, light intensity, etc , etc. The potential to expand the smartphone capability is enormous yet no manufacturer has tackled it. Why not? Why aren't there multiple USB ports?…

> Why aren't there multiple USB ports? By now why don't all phones use USB-3? Why isn't there general purpose D/A and A/D ports/outputs for instrumentation? Why don't they include a GPIB-like bus to connect to things? Why can't we use the screen as an oscilloscope with a bandwidth of say 100MHz? Because the population of people that would actually use that functionality rounds to approximately 0. There do exist phone…

> Why isn't there general purpose D/A and A/D ports/outputs for instrumentation?

There is one, it's the headphone jack. (Or dongle.)

Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#267

Post by mihaaly »

Absolutely warranted, but there is no reason to worry, apps will keep up with the performance development and in a blink of an eye you will be forced (security, security security!!) to upgrade to the new versions of phone app or photo app dragging in 'free' and top notch AI assisted VR capabilities or whatnot that require power beyond current levels. Do you need that feature? Absolutely not. Nevertheless, you will have it. Rumours say MS is working on some sort of AR into Teams, which is just a random example of trigering "... but why?" Ryan Reynolds meme look. Wasting of resources is always a good reason for pushing up the performance ceiling.

Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#268

Post by david-gpu »

water-your-self wrote: post #190
CMDBob wrote: post #124

It's funny, as my phone (A 2022 Moto Razr) can work as PC, if I plug it into a monitor with it's USB-C port. I can plug it into a monitor, and plug a mouse and keyboard into the monitor's inbuilt USB-C hub, and it works just fine. Has a desktop mode and everything! If the monitor doesn't have a hub in it, I can use the phone as a mouse/touchpad! Plus, if the monitor supports it, it'll even keep it charged rather than…

What temperature does your phone reach when you do this for an hour?

Phones perform thermal throttling before getting too hot. The question thus becomes: how does it perform after one hour?

Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#269

Post by herbst »

hannofcart wrote: post #258

The only thing forcing most of us to upgrade every 3 years is the fact that most phones now come with their batteries are either soldered on (in the lower end versions) or come with connectors (most often I think) but replacement requires prying open the case and specialized tools/knowledge. Honestly, today's phones are an overkill for most mobile computing tasks except for a very small niche of users who might run v…

Battery replacement can be done in specialized shops on almost any phone for a fair price.

My bigger issue is usually that the phones get so heavily outdated that banking apps stop working. And it's based on pure luck if the modding community build something great for my phone so I at least could use it as server, cam, or whatever. Also the charging slots breaking / turning unreliable which most wouldn't repair on a $100-$200 phone.

Re: Unless my phone can be a PC, I don't want to keep paying for extra performance

#270

Post by chvid »

As phones look today and as how they are used, I think we have reached peak usability at around iPhone X. Afterwards - the additional computing, camera, network, form factor that have come with iPhone up to 16 - have provided very little additional end-user value.

So unless phone makers want to be in the situation where end-users are less and less willing to pay for and upgrade to a new phone, they have to figure out something new.

Either turning the phone into a massive local personal AI device with lots of local compute. Or as suggested here opening the phone up and turning it into a general computing device.

Personally I would prefer the latter and I am kinda skeptical of the former eventhough it seems the path major manufacturers (Apple, Qualcomm) are taking.

There are some pursing a more general form of computing - in particular Samsung and Huawei:

https://www.samsung.com/us/apps/dex/

https://www.harmonyos.com/en/

(Though still a very closed model of computing where the device provisioned with software through an app store rather being completely under the end-user's control. Perhaps business model plays a role here.)

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