Live data from Hacker News

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

androidauthority.com

321–330 of 430 posts

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

#321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. You want thousands of people to do useless and potentially unpaid work? I want the opposite: that I can write the code once and it will work forever, requiring maybe only security fixes (which is not even required for many apps). I am not interested in spending my time for mai…

> You want thousands of people to do useless and potentially unpaid work?

I think this is an extreme interpretation of what I said. I want software that is maintained. Android has a problem with apps refusing to update to hold onto legacy permissions that are restricted in newer versions (or at least it did when I moved back from android to iOS in ~2022). Apps that don't work with biometrics, or handle the notch properly are other examples.

> I want the opposite: that I can write the code once and it will work forever,

That only happens if the environemnt the code is run in is frozen, and if the underlying API was prescient enough in the first place. Device resolutions and aspect ratios have changed dramatically in the last few years. Access to buttons/input methods have changed on iOS and Android. Hardware has chagned dramatically.

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

#322
A CHEAP PHONE WITH ROOT IS FAR MORE BETTER THAN EXPENSIVE PHONE LIKES ROG,

BUT GOOD SMARTPHONE MANUFACTURERS LIKE SAMSUNG AND ALL DONT ALLOW EASY ROOT, NOT WITHOUT RISK OF BRICK AND LOSS OF DATA

AND PHONES LIKE PIXEL AND ONE PLUS THAT ALLOWS FOR ROOT ON THEIR OLDER MODELS ARENT THAT GREAT IN TERMS OF UI AND PERFORMANCE LIKE SAMSUNG

BUT SAYING PERFORMANCE ISNT NECESSARY IS FALSE

I GOT MY FIRST PHONE AND SINCE 7YRS I DID NOT TOUCHED MY PC OR LAPTOP, WITH PHONE + ADB + TERMUX I HAVE LINUX DISTRO IN POCKET,

WITH PROOT BASED DISTRO YOU CAN ALSO DO MINOR IMAGE EDITING AND VIDEO ENCODING

THOUGH BATTERY OPTIMIZATION OF ANDROID MIGHT CRASH

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

#323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe because the Atrix is from 13 years ago? They mentioned the Dex, a much more recent product with the same goals.

Which is precisely why I would expect it to be the start of such a discussion. The "use your smartphone as your PC" thing has been attempted again and again for, as you said, 13 years. Generally it's a commercial failure because it turns out that isn't something most people want. That seems hugely important to such a conversation.

What commercial failure? It's a free feature.

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

#324
post #322

A CHEAP PHONE WITH ROOT IS FAR MORE BETTER THAN EXPENSIVE PHONE LIKES ROG, BUT GOOD SMARTPHONE MANUFACTURERS LIKE SAMSUNG AND ALL DONT ALLOW EASY ROOT, NOT WITHOUT RISK OF BRICK AND LOSS OF DATA AND PHONES LIKE PIXEL AND ONE PLUS THAT ALLOWS FOR ROOT ON THEIR OLDER MODELS ARENT THAT GREAT IN TERMS OF UI AND PERFORMANCE LIKE SAMSUNG BUT SAYING PERFORMANCE ISNT NECESSARY IS FALSE I GOT MY FIRST PHONE AND SINCE 7YRS I D…

All caps gang loud and clear.

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

#325
post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do. One was lost watching a video in the bathtub. A wasp came very closed to my head and I dived into the water with phone in hand sadly. Another one fell off my bike phone holder while riding on old style pavement (lots of vibrations) and the car behind me rolled over it (still functional except for the screen though, I was impressed). Another was lost because I left it in a stupid place that I did not have access…

And I broke 1 phone in 15 years. Yeah, losing one every 2 years is somewhat extreme.

It actually makes sense though. If they can get a usable phone for about $100, then they can break at least 10 of them before they are even close to the cost of a single iphone. With that kind of reasoning you can afford to do much more risky and fun stuff with your phone.

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

#326
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm unconvinced. Lots of people are increasingly fine with just phones. My dad I sort of see but I had a co-worker who told me their kid didn't even want a laptop for schoolwork which blew my mind a bit but so it goes. Any hybrid would be a compromise for me. I do have multiple systems--almost certainly more than I need.

> a co-worker who told me their kid didn't even want a laptop for schoolwork It's not like kids ever wanted computers for schoolwork in general...

They absolutely did. Back in the early 2000 everyone in my friend group would tell their parents that they needed a powerful PC for schoolwork and that's how they got gaming PCs.

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

#327
post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Im surprised Apple hasn’t done this yet. I thought about this maybe 5-6 years ago as a product idea. My thought was that you had a monitor with a wireless charging pad built into the base, drop you phone on the base and it automatically connects to the monitor and other peripherals and starts charging. You just pick up your phone and leave and it automatically disconnects. I think other commenters are right that this…

It would not be hard for them to do this, and some apps exist to emulate a desktop environment when you plug the iPhone into a dock and hook it up to a monitor, but it's pretty sad that Apple won't embrace something like this. Despite the fact that the largest iPhone and smallest iPad are less than 2" difference, the $130 Apple Pencil will not work with an iPhone Pro Max, and both devices run different operating syst…

Is ipadOS really a distinct OS these days?

I always had the impression it's just iOS with a slightly different configuration.

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

#328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Smartphones are content consumption devices." The point I put forward is what I and a small select section of the market wants as features—NOT what's on offer from manufacturers now. The argument people are putting here is that manufacturers would not serve that market. These are two separate issues. Isn't that clear? When someone makes what I want then I'll buy it. BTW, I've not suggested anything that cannot be ma…

The tiny minority of people who want this do not form a market large enough to bear the amortized engineering and manufacturing cost of adding those niche features. Imagine somebody asking for phones that have a built-in Swiss army knife because there is a (tiny) segment of the market who would benefit from it. Before it makes sense to integrate these features to the phone, you would expect to see a thriving ecosyste…

"The tiny minority of people who want this do not form a market large enough to bear the amortized engineering and manufacturing cost of adding those niche features"

I beg to differ, Fairphone thinks it's economically viable to make phones that are upgradeable by changing modules. The company is doing it now!

All I want is a spare slot inside one of these phones that I can insert a specialized module. There would be no problem in getting specialized manufacturers to make those modules, witness the fact that there are already thousands of small modular devices on the market already.

If Fairphone were to provide a slot I'm damn sure there'd be call to use it. Think Raspberry Pi and all its ports, just transfer the concept to a phone that's almost suitable now.

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

#329

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 ha…

I never understood why one app has to cover everything. Apps are bloatware today. Same goes for Windows. All I wanted worked on 98SE or XP. How did OS get from 1GB to 30GB for listening music, surfing, some office, watching pictures? Ah yes, teams, onedrive, defender, firewall (I have my own hardware why do I need this forced) and other cloud integration no one asked for and if they ever forced only online account, that's where I draw the line with MS and I'm sure they will do it soon. They badly need and want our data.

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

#330

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 ha…

> apps will keep up with the performance development and in a blink of an eye Web apps gang here. I don't know about the rest of you folks, but I rarely install an app unless I have to or there is no other option. The few apps that do get installed aren't all that taxing.

I almost never install an app unless absolutely required to either, but you talk as if web apps weren't some of the worst offenders in the matter of performance wasted.
Post reply on HN