Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

'The tyranny of apps': those without smartphones are unfairly penalised

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 870 posts

Re: 'The tyranny of apps': those without smartphones are unfairly penalised

#321

Post by jmholla »

vladms wrote: post #297
ComposedPattern wrote: post #245

It's funny how people in this thread keep saying "well if you're going to complain about people being penalized for not using apps, you might as well complain about people being penalized for not using telephones/cars/internet"... and yes, I am going to complain about all of those things. I imagine that many or most homeless people don't have reliable access to any of the above. I have an anxiety disorder that makes…

Sorry to hear about your condition, and while I think society can decide to accommodate to some conditions, I disagree with that idea that it "should accommodate". It is a common decision, and sometimes the answer will be "no, we don't accommodate for that, sorry". In the end, everything has a cost (being it effort, resources, time, etc.). Regarding the article, there are many cheap smartphones (<100eur) so I wonder…

> Sorry to hear about your condition, and while I think society can decide to accommodate to some conditions, I disagree with that idea that it "should accommodate". It is a common decision, and sometimes the answer will be "no, we don't accommodate for that, sorry". In the end, everything has a cost (being it effort, resources, time, etc.).

This falls apart when you realize this isn't just a consistent percentage of the population. It's a large portion of the population at different portions of their lives. It's something like 90% of adults will be disabled in their lives.

How many times have you lost your phone, or broken it without an immediately available backup?

Re: 'The tyranny of apps': those without smartphones are unfairly penalised

#322

Post by throwawayqqq11 »

Henchman21 wrote: post #266
Boogie_Man wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At what point does this constitute a hostile action against the user and what degree of retaliation is appropriate? Open question for everyone.

I’m gonna punt on the question of where the line is for hostile actions and use some past legal justification of “I know it when I see it” and I see it clearly here. The second part is the more interesting question to me: Appropriate reactions would seem to include: - finding a new doctor/practice/provider. Super hard in practice as they seem to be geographical monopolies a la the cable networks - providing appropria…

You have forgotten sabotage or whistle blowing. If i would work for such a crappy manager, i would let upper management know.

Feeling helpless is the moment you loose.

Re: 'The tyranny of apps': those without smartphones are unfairly penalised

#323

Post by Neonlicht »

lsecondario wrote: post #290
cbozeman wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

> Society is about conforming. This is an expression of personal preference. It is a common preference but not universal.

Society is what people invented so that different people can live together. If you do not conform you're banished to jail.

Re: 'The tyranny of apps': those without smartphones are unfairly penalised

#324

Post by johnea »

vladms wrote: post #297
ComposedPattern wrote: post #245

It's funny how people in this thread keep saying "well if you're going to complain about people being penalized for not using apps, you might as well complain about people being penalized for not using telephones/cars/internet"... and yes, I am going to complain about all of those things. I imagine that many or most homeless people don't have reliable access to any of the above. I have an anxiety disorder that makes…

Sorry to hear about your condition, and while I think society can decide to accommodate to some conditions, I disagree with that idea that it "should accommodate". It is a common decision, and sometimes the answer will be "no, we don't accommodate for that, sorry". In the end, everything has a cost (being it effort, resources, time, etc.). Regarding the article, there are many cheap smartphones (<100eur) so I wonder…

Your argument is of course predicated on the assumption that "society" doesn't fail to accommodate you...

Requireing purchase of a private companies product, and accommpanying service, to access merdical or government services should be illegal...

Apple or goggle don't speak for me...

Re: 'The tyranny of apps': those without smartphones are unfairly penalised

#325

Post by _Algernon_ »

fifticon wrote: post #120

My doctor/'s office was just forced to switch to app-instead-of-website for patient interation. Ironically, the old and this new software came from same megacorp I work for (different department, same story). The old web interface was rather good and rather sensible-practical-sane. It was almost as if someone had asked a doctor what he actually needed for his patients, and then understood his answer and also managed…

Companies need to be held accountable for their negligent behaviour

Re: 'The tyranny of apps': those without smartphones are unfairly penalised

#326

Post by jmholla »

realityking wrote: post #304
OptionOfT wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently got bitten in the rear by Delta not updating boarding passes stored in Apple Wallet, even though it had / has all permissions to do so. Only when I checked the time and wondered why we weren't boarding yet, and opened the app did I notice that the gate changed. Even afterwards the one stored in Apple Wallet did not update. I even tried to do the pull-to-refresh. Eventually I pulled to refresh, and that wor…

To be fair, a printed boarding pass also didn’t update when the gate changed.

But you also don't expect it to.

Re: 'The tyranny of apps': those without smartphones are unfairly penalised

#327

Post by LinuxBender »

cheschire wrote: post #268
LinuxBender wrote: post #124

I think this article is city-centric. I am in a rural area in the US and I have only had a smart phone for 2 years and have never installed any apps beyond Mumla that I use for my own self hosted uMurmur server. I have never browsed the web from the phone. My life today is just as it was in the 1970's in that regard. All the businesses here have printed coupons. There are local printed newspapers. I have zero depende…

Well, not so much city-centric as it is population-centric. Cities are population centers, so there is correlation. The scale you are thinking in is comparable to a small web forum being sustainably moderated by the owner of the site, while the majority of the world exists in a place like reddit that has more moderator users than even large web forums have in total. Reddit would not be sustainable if they had to pay…

I'm not trying to gatekeep here, I'm just saying I don't see why you find this topic interesting?

My ulterior motive and secret agenda is to let people know they can escape that nonsense. Many rural areas are getting faster internet but are much more chill. There are pros and cons people can research themselves. For me most of the cons are pros.

If I can save even one person per year from the social, government and store apps that have massive teams of marketing psychological warfare experts manipulating them then I have done my hero's doodie.

Re: 'The tyranny of apps': those without smartphones are unfairly penalised

#328

Post by Neonlicht »

joshdavham wrote: post #127

I’m fascinated by this phenomenon of apps proposing solutions that are far worse than the previous existing solutions. For example: 1. Parking apps are worse than parking meters. 2. Tinder is worse than IRL speed dating. 3. Duolingo is worse than language classes. 4. Airline apps that are worse than just printing a boarding pass. 5. Etc It really makes me frustrated as someone who builds software and generally thinks…

I recently had to buy a printer because some shitty company didn't accept my smartphone screen.

It was a lot less convenient let me tell you.

Re: 'The tyranny of apps': those without smartphones are unfairly penalised

#329

Post by crazygringo »

lenkite wrote: post #259
crazygringo wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's more about some weird incompatibility between my device and the scanner. That's not a thing. They're literally just cameras looking for a QR code. And unlocking your phone and adjusting brightness is pretty effortless, I dunno. I already do those things lots of times a day.

Its not effortless...and god forbid if your drop your smartphone and get it cracked. This headache is simply avoided with plain old paper reliability.

> and god forbid if your drop your smartphone and get it cracked

Then you print a boarding pass at the kiosk? But I've cracked a phone once in ten years, it's not really something I'm worried about.

And paper isn't reliable. For most people, you're much more likely to lose a random sheet of paper than for your phone to suddenly permanently stop working.

Re: 'The tyranny of apps': those without smartphones are unfairly penalised

#330

Post by OptionOfT »

realityking wrote: post #304
OptionOfT wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I recently got bitten in the rear by Delta not updating boarding passes stored in Apple Wallet, even though it had / has all permissions to do so. Only when I checked the time and wondered why we weren't boarding yet, and opened the app did I notice that the gate changed. Even afterwards the one stored in Apple Wallet did not update. I even tried to do the pull-to-refresh. Eventually I pulled to refresh, and that wor…

To be fair, a printed boarding pass also didn’t update when the gate changed.

No, but when you have a device in your hands, with an app provided by the company you're dealing with, and they specifically request permissions to send you notifications, you start to rely on it.

An unreliable boarding pass in Apple Wallet is worse than a paper boarding pass.

With the paper one I know I need to check the screens etc. With the Apple the app implies that you no longer have to do this.

And you get used to it. You stop doing the things you did before. That muscle memory disappears. Not dissimilar to driving with GPS, or programming with AI.

Post reply on HN