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I don't have a smartphone or at least I wish I didn't

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Re: I don't have a smartphone or at least I wish I didn't

#261

Post by iamnothere »

huurtehoog wrote: post #253
iamnothere wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you saying that you’re forced to use a smartphone? Because I don’t use one. It does make some things harder, but I don’t know what people are expecting. A law to ban smartphones? There’s not enough people who want that. I do think we need rules that require businesses to accept cash, and to have alternative flows that don’t require smartphones for ordinary transactions (like buying food) or financial management.…

No, I'm saying that going to live in a cabin in the woods if you want to is great, not so much if you do it for running out of options. Not a hard concept to grasp. Whether smartphones are optional or not depends on a lot of factors.

I guess I don’t see what this adds to the conversation. What position exactly are you taking here? What should be done based on what you just said? I can’t tell if you’re making a real argument or if it’s an empty complaint about the status quo.

Re: I don't have a smartphone or at least I wish I didn't

#262

Post by gib444 »

rtkwe wrote: post #239
gib444 wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, of course. That would be more believable if it were a comment at the end of the transaction along the lines of "just in case you want to save time next time, our app has the feature" But immediately responding before I've barely finished explaining why I'm here today is a real "fuck you, use the app and stop wasting my time" kind of message

That's the least charitable interpretation, most people aren't avoiding the app intentionally you have to adjust to the fact you're anomalous for not having a smartphone at this point.

I don't owe my bank charity. It's a business transaction - let's not confuse things.

Also, this is a bank that loves to shout about how it's keeping its branches – a promise to keep its branches open, no less.

Perhaps adjust your opinion for this context?

Re: I don't have a smartphone or at least I wish I didn't

#263

Post by JacobKfromIRC »

ButlerianJihad wrote: post #257
JacobKfromIRC wrote: post #256

I tell people I don't have a cell phone, but when pressed I say I technically do have many smartphones, because I keep buying them at garage sales for super cheap and not actually using them. And technically, I also have the iPhone 6s in my car in case of emergency, but its been powered off for multiple years. Other than that phone, I think it's been over a year since I took one out of my house. Oh wait, I forgot, I…

> in case of emergency, but its[sic] been powered off I can't speak for Apple iPhone in particular, but I would never expect any computing device to immediately come to life and be functional if I've left it shut off and disconnected for more than two months in any case. Most of us may be familiar with powering-up a Windows or Linux machine, and then waiting through 4 hours of updates before the system becomes availa…

Thank you,

It's been on my mental to-do list to do a 911 test call (with pre-authorization from my 911 center) from the device at some point, but I've been procrastinating. I decided to try this today.

I didn't expect updates to get in the way because they are usually not required immediately. For example, Windows will force an update eventually but it has to download it first and you can use the computer while it is doing that. I've never had a problem with being unable to use a device due to missing updates, except for an Xbox One which I think was new out of the box.

I did expect charging the device to take some time, like 5 to 10 minutes. I know this isn't good for some kinds of emergencies, but for others it might be okay, so I think it would still be better to have than not have; however, I severely underestimated the time it takes to charge the device though. It took between 60 and 80 minutes to power on. After that, it said the temperature was too hot to operate, which I think was because my car was off and it was hot outside. I took the phone inside at this point and let it cool off while charging connected to my laptop. Then I tried to call the non-emergency number (the one listed here: [1]) from my JMP VoIP phone, and I got no response. I'm not sure if it was because they didn't answer or because of an error in the software I'm using [2], as I've made other calls to Vanilla (the gift card company)'s automated systems today and some of the calls seemed to get no response. I don't want to spam them by calling over and over again until it works though, so I'm going to wait until a different day to try this.

I found a YouTube video [3] that suggested buying a pre-paid feature phone for $20 at Walmart [4], with the caveat that this will not send GPS location data. Maybe I'll end up buying one of these. Ideally I would get a cellular-enabled device that is designed to hold a charge for years if unused, but I'm not aware of any device like that. Or maybe I could get a USB modem like this $20 one I found on Amazon [5], and then I could connect it to my laptop, but I'm not sure if those can make 911 calls.

Good catch on the typo. I saw your message right before I went to sleep and considered editing it, but I thought it would be weird to edit but not reply so I decided to wait until today to do both, and now I'm out of time to edit the post.

[1] https://texasecc.org/contact [2] https://app.cheogram.com [3] https://invidious.nerdvpn.de/watch?v=HSu9tnnpKXg [4] https://www.walmart.com/ip/Tracfone-TCL-Flip-3-16GB-Gray-Pre... [5] https://www.amazon.com/Portable-Router-300Mbps-Hotspot-Unloc...

Re: I don't have a smartphone or at least I wish I didn't

#264

Post by Cider9986 »

ZlibraryKO wrote: post #258
Cider9986 wrote: post #2

I want to use GrapheneOS without the ability to access the browser and without the ability to install new apps. At least without a password. A long one written down on paper would be enough friction for me. You could also give it to a trusted person. You can also write/give only a portion of a password and then memorize the other part. Afaict there's not an effective way to do this like you can on iPhones with Apple…

I have a setup on GrapheneOS which works using a DNS whitelist So everything is blocked by default (ControlD dns provider) and only a few websites are accessible. The password to the owner profile is locked away and can only be unlocked by waiting, so the DNS setting can't be changed on a whim. I'm very happy with this setup. This way it does not really matter that you can install apps because to be interesting they…

I hope you never find a workaround :)

Re: I don't have a smartphone or at least I wish I didn't

#265

Post by ranger_danger »

cfeduke wrote: post #55
no_input wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the problem is that things that once did not require and realistically shouldn't require apps (like the toilet example - which I can't tell if hyperbole or not) are now "app enabled" by default. Sure, you have taken the time to curate your mobile experience and silence things but a majority of the people in the world don't do that as it takes more time and effort than they are willing or able to give (why sil…

The example could be hyperbole, but Home Depot and Lowes both offer a wide selection of "smart toilets" and if we think "oh this is just a weird niche thing that will never catch on" let's remember how difficult it is to not purchase a Smart TV when television shopping these days.

I recently visited both and could not find a single smart toilet... strange.

Re: I don't have a smartphone or at least I wish I didn't

#266

Post by arximboldi »

hawaiianbrah wrote: post #130
arximboldi wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i bought my first smartphone this year. when traveling I was carrying the android tablet half of the time in my backpack, and even at home more and more you need apps for everything (e.g. lockersat club, gym entry, supermarket loyalty card, etc). i just gave up. grapheneos + olauncher give me a minimal and open source enough experience to make it somewhat tolerable, but it makes me sad that as a society we've come to…

Supermarket loyalty card surprises me there. It isn’t just a physical card? Or a phone number? That’s all I ever use at any of our supermarkets.

Denns in Germany recently moved to an app. I used to have a physical card but I lost it and they told me they don't print them anymore. I imagine many other are like that.

Re: I don't have a smartphone or at least I wish I didn't

#267

Post by tarxvf »

theandrewbailey wrote: post #225
lanfeust6 wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how I roll, but I also have a couple of sandboxed apps like MS Auth that I sideloaded. I learned last year that, not shockingly, major sports venues now require showing digital tickets for entry, but thus far it's been possible to access them with a browser.

Earlier this year, I went to a concert that required the Ticketmaster app. I searched desperately for an option to print off a paper ticket, but didn't find one. I enabled the Google Play features in GrapheneOS to install it, and I hated the Ticketmaster app experience the entire time. (Concert was great though) P.S. Stop sideloading apps. Don't use Big Tech vocabulary for something that we did before. You installed…

FWIW you can just about always pick them up will-call. Ticketmaster will tell you this is impossible, but the venue always has a way around it, for in case you lose/drop your phone, etc. And it helps reinforce to the venue that ticketmaster is not perfect.

Call the venue directly to verify ahead of time.

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