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Something is wrong when the ‘telephone app’ on your phone becomes 3rd party

martinruenz.de

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Re: Something is wrong when the ‘telephone app’ on your phone becomes 3rd party

#321

Post by SXX »

skewart wrote: post #320

One of the central complaints in the blog post is that it's too hard to get your hands on an Android phone that doesn't come with impossible-to-remove bloatware. I've been amazed and annoyed by this too. I understand all the reasons why manufacturers add these apps to the phone. But still, I would gladly buy a phone that came with a stripped down version of Android, no bloatware, and received regular updates and secu…

> Heck, I'd be happy if to buy a phone from someone who just resells devices after flashing a decent ROM onto them and makes updates easy somehow.

Sadly this would be useless without Google Apps and it's license forbid it. Google doesn't care as long as you install GApps on your own device, but anyone who try to sell would clearly trigger lawsuit.

Re: Something is wrong when the ‘telephone app’ on your phone becomes 3rd party

#322

Post by fpgeek »

brokenmachine wrote: post #269
fpgeek wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - Someone else pointed out that the article isn't about a choice, the dialer was forced on the user. If you want the phone to come with a dialer (I think most people do), then some dialer will inevitably be forced on people. And unless you think phone calls are an optional feature, it makes perfect sense that the dialer cannot be deleted. The only complaint I can see here is that phone manufacturers can make bad ch…

> And unless you think phone calls are an optional feature, it makes perfect sense that the dialer cannot be deleted. I don't see the connection here. Why shouldn't people be able to delete the dialer if they don't like the phone company's choice? I understand preinstalling one, but preventing people from choosing another if they want seems unnecessary.

As a practical matter, I don't think either the phone manufacturer or the phone company want to be in the position of certifying that every replacement dialer meets regulatory requirements (911, for example). If customers can always roll back to the preinstalled one, they don't need to.

Re: Something is wrong when the ‘telephone app’ on your phone becomes 3rd party

#324

Post by krrrh »

djsumdog wrote: post #251
krrrh wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mostly use data-only SIMs on my phone and make/receive the very few calls I need to via VOIP, which is almost certainly the near future. For instance in Myanmar, where they have only had widespread mobile phone service for a couple of years, the most popular phone plans from Oodooroo are sold as data-only, and include info for downloading a VOIP app for legacy calls. I had an amusing time in one of their stores wat…

So.. even data-only sims have an actual phone number right? That's baked into the GSM/HSDPA protocols right? (IIRC only WiMAX and LTE allow IP only without a number). So even those data-only plans must still have a number, that either never connects or cost something insane like 100MB worth per-min?

Yeah there is a phone number. Usually it doesn't work for calls or SMS, or you can have that blocked for it. It's not worth using or thinking about. IMessage and Facetime work with email addresses, whatsapp and signal can be associated with any phone number, and don't need to use the one on your SIM card.

Doing FaceTime audio or a VOIP service is at most half-a-MB per minute, and th call quality usually way better than regular cellular. Cheap over LTE, and inconsequential over wifi.

Re: Something is wrong when the ‘telephone app’ on your phone becomes 3rd party

#325

Post by krrrh »

jvagner wrote: post #311
krrrh wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mobile phones are called "Handys" in German. It's become such a satisfying and appropriate name for handheld computers, as distinct from traditional personal computers. In British English, they've always called cellphones "mobiles", which is also a nice short name for mobile computers.

I spent a lot of time (months each year, for 5 years) in Berlin and never heard this... FWIW

I'm pretty sure this will Baader-Meinhoff it into recognition for you. It's in the A1 level vocab, and I would see it on signs outside of Spätis and phone stores on a daily basis.

Re: Something is wrong when the ‘telephone app’ on your phone becomes 3rd party

#326

Post by ralmeida »

ksk wrote: post #319
ralmeida wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not?

Free markets are just a tool we came up with to serve us, the general public. Where they don't, we don't let them operate. A public utility should not be operating in a free market (and I'm glad they don't).

Who exactly is 'they' in this case? Also, what is the 'public utility' involved here? Wasn't the root comment talking about manufacturers?

Re: Something is wrong when the ‘telephone app’ on your phone becomes 3rd party

#327

Post by derefr »

sirn wrote: post #285
derefr wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're not just talking about dialing a phone; we're talking about a Phone app. Which is—besides being a dialer—also a call history list, and a notification UI that appears when you receive a call to let you decide whether to accept it or not. Both of those use-cases benefit far more from looking up numbers than dialing does. As it is, if I'm sitting at my desk with my iPhone and get a call from a number I don't recog…

iOS do have this integration in the form of Caller Identification. An app can provide a caller information to the Phone app (I believe in a form of a database, rather than sending each call to remote server) and it will show up in the caller screen. Any VoIP app that integrate with CallKit will automatically get this functionality as well. Whoscall is one example and is pretty popular in Asia.

Huh, neat. I guess I never really thought about how large phone storage has gotten. (A thought—if they're doing this all-locally, then they don't technically even need a separate API: phone number databases could just act as Contacts sources, with each virtual contact containing a field denoting "not actually someone I know, just someone who is calling me" so they won't show up in the Contacts app.)

Re: Something is wrong when the ‘telephone app’ on your phone becomes 3rd party

#328

Post by ksk »

ralmeida wrote: post #326
ksk wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free markets are just a tool we came up with to serve us, the general public. Where they don't, we don't let them operate. A public utility should not be operating in a free market (and I'm glad they don't).

Who exactly is 'they' in this case? Also, what is the 'public utility' involved here? Wasn't the root comment talking about manufacturers?

It was in the context of telcos dictating rules to manufacturers.

Re: Something is wrong when the ‘telephone app’ on your phone becomes 3rd party

#329

Post by walrus01 »

djsumdog wrote: post #265
walrus01 wrote: post #90

I have never heard of a "Wileyfox Swift". If you need an awesome and capable Android 7.0 based dual SIM phone with zero carrier crapware/bloatware and a close to stock Android experience, the OnePlus 3T (64 or 128GB version) is a good choice. Since Oneplus' falling out with Cyanogen Inc, and the financial failure of Cyanogen, Oneplus' own OxygenOS is essentially a re-implemented CyanogenMod that has all of the same f…

The thing about that was, Cyanogen stayed very silent and OnePlus's entire advertising strategy was very dodgy. I suspect Cyanogen was just sick of OnePlus's shit when they signed with that 2nd Indian distributor. Now that the Cyanogen company is dissolved, who knows what the truth was. Lately I've started using CarbonRom. It's pretty nice.

no, it's actually the reverse, oneplus got sick of cyanogen's shit when cyanogen threatened to sue them for selling oneplus phones in India, which is a huge market. Cyanogen (Incorporated) claimed they had an exclusive agreement with an Indian company called Micromax to sell cynaogenOS phones in India. Oneplus got fed up and re-implemented all of the great features of cyanogenmod in their own fork of android (OxygenOS/HydrogenOS, respectively for english and chinese language markets).

Cyanogen Inc ran themselves into the ground with dodgy business practices and threatening all of their partners, which resulted in no reputable phone manufacturer wanting to put their OS on any new models of phones.

Re: Something is wrong when the ‘telephone app’ on your phone becomes 3rd party

#330

Post by gerdesj »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #283
gerdesj wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Handy (CA, US etc) == handjob (GB etc). Presumably handy is an abbreviation of handjob. I know blowjob is in common parlance at least on both sides of the pond. Perhaps it is just as well DE didn't pick blowey or blowie (those are in use over here in a similar way to handy on the left edge of the pond.) Handy could work in the UK except that it is extensively used already as an adjective eg: "that's a bit handy" or "…

A mildly interesting dovetail to all that is that a vernacular for phone used to be "the blower". I suspect through comparison of early phones with [ships] communication voice-pipes. Cf. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speaking_tube#Domestic_use .

Good catch - "blower". I still use that term myself and so do several others in my acquaintance. Even kids understand what I mean so it is definitely embedded in the national conscience here still or at least they get the idea by reference and context.

Without any research whatsoever I'll also venture that "blowing" is what people used to do when they had to rush downstairs to answer the new fangled telephonic device and ended up out of breath. However, again without research, there is a good chance that the RN and co would have referred to the voice tubes on ships as "blowers" because that is the sort of word they would pick. I know a lot of modern matelots and that theory fits nicely.

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