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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

#501

Post by kevincox »

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…

IMHO at some point it makes sense to start requiring the internet, it makes a lot of things easier. But when we do that we need to ensure that everyone is supported. For example ensuring that people have ready internet access at public libraries. Providing government-provided email inboxes for receiving government communication (lots of homeless people get locked out of regular free mail providers). Train support staff at these libraries (or whatever institution provides these services) to help people who need assistance though the government processes, including doing it on their behalf when required.

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

#502

Post by tmnvix »

joseda-hg wrote: post #460
TeMPOraL wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> Why do iOS and Android phones have a "wallet", and why a boarding pass would have anything to do with it? It's not that deep, just a skeuomorphic name for somewhere where you'd keep importants/valuables for quick access, credit/debit cards, boarding passes, concert tickets Not unlike keeping a folded up copy of a pass in a physical wallet (Which may not be universal, but I would have guessed not that uncommon eithe…

And if your phone is out of order? I used a PDF version of the boarding pass on my laptop in the past due to a flat phone. Even when my phone is available I still just use the PDF version that was emailed to me. I never use my phone 'wallet' for anything.

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

#503

Post by TheDong »

rixed wrote: post #446
kortilla wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

VOTE MOTHERFUCKER Local government politics work. State politics even kinda work. The fact that murder is on your list but not voting is mind boggling.

Ok, maybe something less desperate than voting but appropriate in this case: create a competitor to disrupt the suckers? Maybe using the same API?

The users of the sub-par app are captive, the hospital or insurance company is mandating it, and neither the doctor nor patients are free to choose a competing app.

If you create a technically better app for the users, people still won't be able to use it unless you also are chosen by those higher up, and since there's likely already a strong existing relationship between the executives at the existing company and at the medical compan(ies), that means creating a competitor also will require building a lot of social capital with the decision makers, taking them to dinner and on golf trips, and so on.

It will take years of your life, millions of dollars (since a 1-man company will never be seen as legitimate enough to provide a medical app, you'll need a large company with many employees), and the chance of success is minimal.

I don't see how this is an "appropriate" response to a bad app.

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

#504

Post by crusty »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #136
pcthrowaway wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

City of Vancouver parking meters have to accept cash still. If you try putting a quarter in and it doesn't work (as is often the case because of tampering with the coin slots), I believe you don't have to pay for parking.

going back to pre-smartphone but still true, in the US at least, it is generally illegal to park at a broken meter and you can get a ticket -- because otherwise there would be incentive to break the meter so you could park there for free.

Are you extrapolating experiences from a small area or at of municipalities, because I've never been ticketed for parking at a broken meter in the US.

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

#505

Post by drdec »

cbozeman wrote: post #285
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…

> > 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). Yeah... nothing more I love than having to scan a QR code to get an app from someone I don't know, then go through the signup process, then input a buncha personal i…

> Looking to the left or right of your desk is how you should be finding your printer.

The desk at my AirBnB doesn't seem to have one.

> They're not gold bars. They're not expensive.

If someone has an alternate solution to owning a printer that works for them, whats it to you? Owning a printer so you can print half of the boarding passes you need every time you fly seems excessive to me

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

#506

Post by TheDong »

kortilla wrote: post #398
Henchman21 wrote: post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

VOTE MOTHERFUCKER Local government politics work. State politics even kinda work. The fact that murder is on your list but not voting is mind boggling.

Where can I vote for "Medical establishments should have an accessible-friendly browser-accessible no-javascript webpage for all functionality"?

I see the "democrat" and "republic" checkboxes, but I don't see the magical third "Good apps, and also health insurance companies have to cover medical claims without questioning whether my doctor is competent, denying each claim once, and requiring 3 months of arguing on a phone"

I've been voting, and as far as I can tell every option I have ever been able to vote for has been fully in support of crappy apps and crappy healthcare.

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

#507

Post by odiroot »

2shortplanks wrote: post #167

One thing this article doesn’t mention is how this all falls apart when you spend time in more than one country. My UK bank (Barclays) won’t let me install their app on my US iPhone (i.e. my phone that uses a US based iCloud account). Tesco won’t let me use their loyalty app. I can’t install an app that’ll let me order Starbucks or McDonalds in the UK (I only have access to the US versions of these apps). I can’t wat…

This is all rather easy on Android. You can have multiple Google (Play) accounts set to different countries.

But most app developers don't even enforce it. I had UK bank apps installed through my "German" Google account.

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

#508

Post by rad_gruchalski »

scarface_74 wrote: post #488
rad_gruchalski wrote: post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You’re already at the airport. Just look around, stop staring at the phone.

Until two years ago, I flew out of ATL - the busiest airport in the US. Am I suppose to look on the board and look for my flight out of the hundreds of flights to see if anything has changed and keep looking every 30 minutes? If I’m sitting at a restaurant or a bar I should get up every 20 minutes to see if something has changed? Should I also print out MapQuest directions before I go somewhere and wait for the paper…

> Until two years ago, I flew out of ATL - the busiest airport in the US. Am I suppose to look on the board and look for my flight out of the hundreds of flights to see if anything has changed and keep looking every 30 minutes?

That’s what I usually do. It’s not that much of an effort to look at the screen right at the gate you’re sitting at to confirm that nothing has changed. I‘ve been to ATL twice, it’s not that bad.

What are you going to do when something happens to your phone …

Can you imagine… how did we manage to live before everyone and their dog had a phone in their pocket.

So yeah… yeah? That’s exactly what you supposed to be doing.

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

#509

Post by odiroot »

__turbobrew__ wrote: post #401
2shortplanks wrote: post #167

One thing this article doesn’t mention is how this all falls apart when you spend time in more than one country. My UK bank (Barclays) won’t let me install their app on my US iPhone (i.e. my phone that uses a US based iCloud account). Tesco won’t let me use their loyalty app. I can’t install an app that’ll let me order Starbucks or McDonalds in the UK (I only have access to the US versions of these apps). I can’t wat…

I recently travelled to Europe and found that a number of transportation apps disallowed me installing them. Toll road apps, public transit, etc… It was a major pain, and to make it worse I got fined €130 by Ausfinag for not paying tolls, but I couldn’t install their app and I bought the wrong sticker at the gas station because as it turns out there are a bunch of special areas with additional tolls above the base to…

Truth be told, the tolls in Austria are a total mess.

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

#510

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

ndriscoll wrote: post #283
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…

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…

Nah. We have a spinner, but I also have a timeout handler.

The reason is that the app's backend (and many of the servers on which it depends) can be hosted on the lowest-tier-dogshit-shared-hosting plan. I would love to have a better backend server, but we are a nonprofit, and can't afford better. This app would be a lot faster, with a more robust backend.

But error handling/reporting is a true art, and should never be an afterthought. In my experience, I need to start thinking about error management, as soon as I start planning.

In my experience, the best error handling is to not have errors, and, quite often, good UX is the answer to that. If the user doesn't do something that might cause agita, then they don't get an error.

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