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

theguardian.com

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

#331

Post by internet2000 »

RhysU wrote: post #303
internet2000 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I could disagree more with your number 4. Adding a boarding pass to Apple Wallet and having it update itself with gate changes, delays, etc, notifying you and even scribbling skeuomorphically what changed on the pass [0] has been one of the strongest delighters I've experienced in recent times. [0] https://i.imgur.com/OkthcOi.png

Are you not also paying attention to the gate itself and to departure boards? Why do you need your phone to tell you what's posted on numerous displays that you walk past?

> Are you not also paying attention to the […] departure boards?

I’m not, not anymore.

> Why do you need your phone to tell you what's posted on numerous displays that you walk past?

Convenience.

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

#333

Post by Neonlicht »

crazygringo wrote: post #237
tokioyoyo wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m gonna say something stupid — the chances of my phone running out of battery and me not being able to charge it is lower than me losing the paper ticket.

Not stupid at all. I think that's the case for most people. It's easy to lose a random piece of paper. Whereas people are generally extremely aware of where their phone is at all times.

Word. I think I'll actually shut down if I'm further than 25 metres from my phone...

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

#335

Post by gs17 »

lambda wrote: post #156
pqtyw wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. Parking apps are worse than parking meters. I certainly don't agree with that one. I really don't miss having to pay for a fixed number of hours and then having to figure out what to do if I'm running late (or wasting money if I get back early). > 4. Airline apps that are worse than just printing a boarding pass. Unless the app is exceptionally horrible you can just export it to Apple/Android wallet which is muc…

I'm kind of puzzled by your first point. In my experience, parking apps require you to pay in larger chunks of hours than paying with coins used to; many times I have to pay for a minimum of 2 hours of parking with the app when I could pay for just 10 or 15 minutes of parking with coins.

>In my experience, parking apps require you to pay in larger chunks of hours than paying with coins used to;

Here in Nashville, they sold out our public street parking to a private company. Now instead of coins in a meter for the time you want, you have to buy at least an hour for $1.75 (or more), pay by scanning a QR code (which is misprinted on the signs) unless you're in one of the spots where there's a working pay machine, and it now is enforced 24/7 instead of having holidays and weekends off (IIRC it was also free after 6, which was great). Also they had two hour limits where you can't simply move your car, you have to park somewhere they don't check for an indeterminate amount of time. How is any of this an improvement unless you get a cut of the money?

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

#336

Post by jmholla »

karaterobot wrote: post #158

I see that this thread is full of a lot of very valid complaints about the hellish world we've created. But my reaction when these things come up is to point out that we effectively demanded this with our revealed preferences. We're at the triangulation of people preferring to use their phones for most things, while also demanding the lowest price possible. At a certain point, it's natural for companies to realize th…

I don't think that's the case. Just because companies have successful business models doing things this way doesn't mean this is what people want or that it's the only way. It could just as easily be this is the most profitable way (which does not equate with delivered value) and these decisions are made by a subset of people who profit off of the fallout.

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

#337

Post by jmholla »

donatj wrote: post #121

Xfinity sent me a new cable modem this week. Came with zero instructions for set up, just a QR code. Scanned the QR code and it took me to install an app. I begrudgingly installed it. The app had me hit next a few times before scanning a different QR code on the bottom of the modem. That was the entire process. I guess you just have to pay for installation if you don't have a smart phone? It offered for $150+ when I…

You also have to pay them monthly to not use their equipment. It definitely isn't a racket.

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

#338

Post by realityking »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #168
pqtyw wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1. Parking apps are worse than parking meters. I certainly don't agree with that one. I really don't miss having to pay for a fixed number of hours and then having to figure out what to do if I'm running late (or wasting money if I get back early). > 4. Airline apps that are worse than just printing a boarding pass. Unless the app is exceptionally horrible you can just export it to Apple/Android wallet which is muc…

> Unless the app is exceptionally horrible you can just export it to Apple/Android wallet which is much more convenient than having to find a printer. Why do iOS and Android phones have a "wallet", and why a boarding pass would have anything to do with it? There's an electronic solution strictly better than the app, for when you have no printer handy: just give the user the goddamned PDF ! Works everywhere, works off…

You can do that if you want. Most airlines issue PDF boarding passes and both iOS and Android can store and show those files.

Apple Wallet (and Apple Pay) are actually one of my favorite smartphone features. The built-in Wallet (speaking for iOS here) has a few advantages over a folder of PDFs:

- The QR code is always fairly big without having to pan and zoom a PDF file

- The display brightness is automatically increased to make reading the QR code easier

- The Wallet syncs with my Apple Watch (where passes use a different, optimized layout) giving me backup if something where to happen to my phone during boarding

- Passes can be updated by the airline (e.g. gate changes)

- Passes automatically expire, I don’t have to cleanup myself. (There’s archive in case I need an old one)

- Passes can be shown on your lock screen during the boarding time for easier access

- Passes can be multilingual, adapting to your phone’s language

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

#339

Post by maximilianthe1 »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #300
ndriscoll wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The perpetual spinner thing happened at my last job too, and I developed the opinion that putting a spinner into your site at all is a sign of incompetence. For any normal CRUD app, it should take milliseconds to do whatever task. Even with network delays, 150 milliseconds is a reasonable upper bound for end-to-end processing. If you have an animation at all, then your thing is either ridiculously slow or broken. Eit…

> For any normal CRUD app, it should take milliseconds to do whatever task. Even with network delays, 150 milliseconds is a reasonable upper bound for end-to-end processing This is only really true with stable, high speed internet connections. We still cannot take for granted that everyone has that, especially not in rural areas and double especially not on mobile devices

Also, inside buildings in very urban areas

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

#340

Post by [deleted] »

bluefirebrand wrote: post #300
ndriscoll wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The perpetual spinner thing happened at my last job too, and I developed the opinion that putting a spinner into your site at all is a sign of incompetence. For any normal CRUD app, it should take milliseconds to do whatever task. Even with network delays, 150 milliseconds is a reasonable upper bound for end-to-end processing. If you have an animation at all, then your thing is either ridiculously slow or broken. Eit…

> For any normal CRUD app, it should take milliseconds to do whatever task. Even with network delays, 150 milliseconds is a reasonable upper bound for end-to-end processing This is only really true with stable, high speed internet connections. We still cannot take for granted that everyone has that, especially not in rural areas and double especially not on mobile devices

[deleted]
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