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

martinruenz.de

331–340 of 345 posts

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

#331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Dialing" a phone is niche functionality that most people don't use anymore - generally, people don't know phone numbers anymore, they don't really see them, and they definitely don't use them, they just tap on a name or face in their contact list. A phone number is an identifier that you use once when obtaining a contact (or it gets shared by someone, so you don't enter it even that one time). If a phone actually re…

Not so sure about this... just yesterday I got stuck behind a freight forwarding truck that was labelled with only the company name, a list of destination ports, and a phone number. Lawyers, doctors, and bail-bondsmen still advertise via their phone number. Entire generations still go to phone numbers as their primary means of reaching someone remotely.

Yes, this is the (rare) use case for the first call you make to a stranger. If you have a pre-existing relationship with a particular lawyer or doctor, you tap on their name or face in the contacts app.

Like, thinking about this I understood that don't know the phone number of my wife. I (probably?) have it written down somewhere outside my phone, I had known it by heart many years ago, but life was different back then, and as far as I recall it may be that I have not used it in any meaningful way for more than full ten years.

I recall that I have given her phone number to others on some occasions, but it involved sending a contact - possibly the number was displayed at the screen during that process, but neither I nor the receiver really read it, and it that way even before smartphones were a thing and sharing a contact happened over SMS.

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

#332
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then we had "microcomputers" (desktop PC sized). Rather disappointed we didn't call laptops "nanocomputers" and phones "picocomputers" :)

In Swedish, the term "stordator", literally "big computer" refers to a mainframe. I really like your idea of nano and picocomputers. It's consistent, and really reflects on the miniaturisation that we have seen since since the invention of the computer.

Since "computer" pre-dates digital, it might be a good time to come up with a more apt base term too. It's not as if most people's usage of them (at least as far as they know!) is performing arithmetic.

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

#333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is exactly the problem with technology. This is YOUR problem with the technology. Normal muggles care for none of this conversation. They want something that works, which is what modern smartphones do. They like that the dialer provides fancy stuff like visual voicemail, automatic transcription, phone-number-to-business-name mapping, etc. Most people don't care about trying to avoid Google Services, in fact mo…

> Normal muggles care for none of this conversation. If only because the same companies are training users to require all these extras, by effectively (and mostly inadvertently) erasing past knowledge. I'm sure Google would love it if their engineers could remove dialing entirely, what number could you possibly want to call that's not listed in Google somewhere? A lot of those same muggles were/are fine before these…

> Look at one process I'm sure most of us are familiar with: getting a cute girl's (or guy's) phone number

People still get phone numbers? I just get LINE user names (which you exchange by scanning a QR code). I'm sure in other countries it's WhatsApp or Facebook accounts...

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

#334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

10-15, which is far more than I get legitimate phone calls

I have never received one. Ever. I have had a mobile phone for twenty years. This problem seems very specific to the US.

I don't think it is specific to only US, in India i get on average 10/week, I never had a problem in Germany though.. it depends on regulations i guess

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

#335

Or that just means that we still call the device in our pocket a "phone" for legacy reasons. If we are okay with having a third party handles our messages, VoIP etc, why not the phone app?

It's a small tablet, really.

A phablet?

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

#336
post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're right. I am dual nationality US/UK so sometimes I tend to cross my metaphors. Perhaps a better, British example would be the word "motor" instead of "auto". Used in words like "motorway", but I've never heard anyone actually use it to mean "car" outside of 80s cockney rap. (Which is apparently a thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/'Ullo_John!_Gotta_New_Motor%3F )

Nah, still pretty widely used in certain circles - even to the extent that you can have a car sales site called motors and it be obvious: http://www.motors.co.uk/

Well that's certainly an interesting example - that website uses the word "car" in every instance except the domain name.

I think as a usage it's regarded as vaguely old fashioned and twee.

For comparison here's https://www.mobiles.co.uk/ - again, in every instance the noun is either "phone" or the fully qualified "mobile phone".

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

#337
You don't need to root a phone to install a new operating system. What you do likely need to do is unlock the bootloader, if at all possible.

If it's supported by LineageOS, use that instead. If not - perhaps consider buying a phone that is. If you're really privacy conscious, perhaps look at the CopperheadOS options - they're specifically known for privacy.

Other than that, this is the sad state of big data and advertising. Unless you fight back agasint it, everything about you is going to be poked, proded, and collected for futher processing and aggregation. Hell, a lot of you probably work in that industry here.

You should not assume that any device manufacturer has your interests in mind, as the trends have overwhelmingly shown that anything proprietary always leads to them finding a way to further line their pockets as interest for their product wanes, or their investors get greedier.

These are facts of life; take action but don't be surprised when you're being misled and taken advantage of when you're putting the trust of something so integral in a proprietary party.

Godspeed.

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

#338
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like how minicomputer used to mean "computer that's only as big as a chest freezer." Every now and then I hear laypeople use the term "mini-computer" to mean a computer that's really small by their standards, like a raspberry Pi.

And then we had "microcomputers" (desktop PC sized). Rather disappointed we didn't call laptops "nanocomputers" and phones "picocomputers" :)

So, would a smartwatch be an "attocomputer"?

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

#339
post #227

Or that just means that we still call the device in our pocket a "phone" for legacy reasons. If we are okay with having a third party handles our messages, VoIP etc, why not the phone app?

Paul Graham nailed it: If the iPad had come out before the iPhone, we'd all be calling them "tablets". http://paulgraham.com/tablets.html

You mean, like the Newton? ;)

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

#340
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then we had "microcomputers" (desktop PC sized). Rather disappointed we didn't call laptops "nanocomputers" and phones "picocomputers" :)

In Swedish, the term "stordator", literally "big computer" refers to a mainframe. I really like your idea of nano and picocomputers. It's consistent, and really reflects on the miniaturisation that we have seen since since the invention of the computer.

In Norwegian, it's "stormaskin" for mainframe.
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