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

Why today's phones are so boooooring?

andreyor.st

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–58 of 58 posts

Re: Why today's phones are so boooooring?

#51

Post by JohnFen »

Rinzler89 wrote: post #46
JohnFen wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what I want is a phone incapable of running apps. I just want a phone that acts as a phone, does SMS, and ideally has physical number pad.

Where do you live? Plenty of companies today sell 4G/LTE capable dumbphones or featurephones as they're called, including Nokia.

In the US. I have yet to find an actual dumbphone, though. There are plenty of feature phones, but those are just low-specced smartphones. Better than nothing, but not what I really want.

If, for instance, the phone is running something like KaiOS, then it's a low-spec smartphone even if it only presents dumbphone functionality.

Re: Why today's phones are so boooooring?

#52

Post by [deleted] »

SkyPuncher wrote: post #49
JohnFen wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But what I want is a phone incapable of running apps. I just want a phone that acts as a phone, does SMS, and ideally has physical number pad.

Get a low spec phone. It’ll be incompatible with a bunch of apps and run most apps so poorly that you won’t want to use them. Unihertz makes several phones that roughly fit your needs

[deleted]

Re: Why today's phones are so boooooring?

#53

Post by dzhiurgis »

JohnFen wrote: post #45
Rinzler89 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's enough app variety to meet your needs. Phones are now just basic pipes to those apps.

But what I want is a phone incapable of running apps. I just want a phone that acts as a phone, does SMS, and ideally has physical number pad.

> acts as a phone, does SMS

So literally the worst parts of smartphone - unsolicited calls and SMS and dependency of having a phone number in literally every government form, bank and serious website.

Re: Why today's phones are so boooooring?

#54

Post by dzhiurgis »

SAI_Peregrinus wrote: post #48
throwanem wrote: post #9

The article author ignores how little those old phones could actually do, and how much of a pain in the ass it reliably was to get them to actually do most of it. I understand why; none of that would go to his point. But I was also there. Boring is good in technology. It means you don't have to think about it much, and that usually means it is doing its job.

> Boring is good in technology. It means you don't have to think about it much, and that usually means it is doing its job. Phones have gone from being gadgets to being appliances.

Strangely this is not affecting cars.

Tesla is perfectly boring and rational car, yet due saturation people are getting sick of same look and buying vastly inferior competition just to look different.

Even worse, having two identically looking houses next to each other is a nightmare for anyone on creative spectrum and pretty much illegal in most places.

But yes, blame smartphones.

Re: Why today's phones are so boooooring?

#55

Post by throwanem »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #54
SAI_Peregrinus wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Boring is good in technology. It means you don't have to think about it much, and that usually means it is doing its job. Phones have gone from being gadgets to being appliances.

Strangely this is not affecting cars. Tesla is perfectly boring and rational car, yet due saturation people are getting sick of same look and buying vastly inferior competition just to look different. Even worse, having two identically looking houses next to each other is a nightmare for anyone on creative spectrum and pretty much illegal in most places. But yes, blame smartphones.

> Tesla is perfectly boring and rational car

This is anything but what I've heard from people who own them, over drinks at least, and certainly their latest model cannot reasonably be described with either adjective you used.

Re: Why today's phones are so boooooring?

#56

Post by dzhiurgis »

throwanem wrote: post #55
dzhiurgis wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strangely this is not affecting cars. Tesla is perfectly boring and rational car, yet due saturation people are getting sick of same look and buying vastly inferior competition just to look different. Even worse, having two identically looking houses next to each other is a nightmare for anyone on creative spectrum and pretty much illegal in most places. But yes, blame smartphones.

> Tesla is perfectly boring and rational car This is anything but what I've heard from people who own them, over drinks at least, and certainly their latest model cannot reasonably be described with either adjective you used.

Maybe I should've been more specific about model - base Model Y (or as Bjorn Nyland called it - Poor man's Tesla) 0-60 does in 7 seconds which is only 1 second faster than my 14 yo Mazda SUV or parents 20yr old Opel. Yes it does that 0-60 confidently and consistently, but it's not a game changer.

As for rational - it drives itself for most of time, has an app, minimalistic design, great efficiency, spacious and reasonably priced. There is little to improve at this point.

Maybe what lacks is app ecosystem or open source for more ways of customisation/automation, but it's far fetch given rest of industry.

Edit: Now compare Tesla with competition - every feature is an option. Lucky if you get an app. Manual driving for most part. Some even came up with fake engine sound and manual gear shifting on a fucking EV. If they try to minimise button bonanza it's usually a trainwreck. And of course - overboard with external styling - something that means absolutely 0 for your daily driving comfort and experience. All of this mess to _differentiate_ into some niche while selling 100x less cars than 2 mass produced Tesla models.

Re: Why today's phones are so boooooring?

#57

Post by thefz »

vips7L wrote: post #28
Rinzler89 wrote: post #4

>Why today’s phones are so boooooring? Because the HW part of the UX has been commoditized to a giant screen where the big difference in style and UX is made by the SW and UI. In fairness LG has tried experimenting with different HW UX over the years to distinguish themselves[1], and they went bust doing it because consumer weren't into that and voted with their wallets to those making boring phones like everyone els…

I’d kill for a smaller phone.

And more physical buttons. I can't leave my FiiO x3 1st gen because I can control it with a hand in my pocket.

Re: Why today's phones are so boooooring?

#58

Post by thefz »

throwanem wrote: post #9

The article author ignores how little those old phones could actually do, and how much of a pain in the ass it reliably was to get them to actually do most of it. I understand why; none of that would go to his point. But I was also there. Boring is good in technology. It means you don't have to think about it much, and that usually means it is doing its job.

> and how much of a pain in the ass it reliably was to get them to actually do most of it

Nah, Nokia's OS was a joy to use and super fast with its shortcuts.

Post reply on HN