4 ms·

I find smart phone UI's really annoying. I'd love it if my phone behaved more like Unix. It would be great to be able to do stuff like grep the address book to

I find smart phone UI's really annoying. I'd love it if my phone behaved more like Unix. It would be great to be able to do stuff like grep the address book to extract contact details, edit a config file to change ring tone, manage alarms with cron use apt to update all apps etc.

pinaceae 11y ago
while driving.
wingerlang 11y ago
You are one of 0.0001% that would want that. The only thing that makes me annoyed on a smartphone is pretty much the switching between UI and typing things.
- bigger_cheese 11y ago
  My main gripe is I really hate how many screens and presses I have to go through to set what should be simple options. I use my phone (2 to 3 year old Android) as my alarm clock. If I want to sleep in for an extra 20 mins tomorrow I need to. 1. Press clock button. 2. Press Alarm button 3. Deselect my current alarm to deactivate it 4. Press Add Alarm 5. Tap repeatedly on the "scroll wheels" to select correct time If the phone had something resembling a CLI you could just echo the newtime + Alarm into the scheduler. Another example I get a text message from someone who is not a contact. I want to save that number I have to open the message takes about 5 or six clicks to "copy" the number into address book. Why can't I drop to command prompt "echo Phone no. Name >> address book
  - robwormald 11y ago
    I'm not a huge Siri user, but "Hey Siri, set my alarm for 8:50" works great and its something I use all the time, mostly because of what you're describing.
  - wingerlang 11y ago
    I can't say for Android, but alarm is usually quite sucky on iOS as well. I've set it up to be recurring though, and I haven't had these annoying issues for months. If you're a developer and have the time and effort required, you could always root/jailbreak your phone and fix the issues you have for yourself. EDIT: it is also likely that people have already solved it, or made tools that can solve it. I know people are already running cronjobs on their iPhones, there's even an scheduling automation app and so on.
  - xnzakg 11y ago
    "echo Phone no. Name >> address book" And then you accidentally use ">" instead of ">>". Woops.
agumonkey 11y ago
More and more I want my dumbphone fixed API back with 4 or 5 instant access zero latency operations. Quite often I barely have the time to swipe to unlock->camera ... I need fixed and tactile interactions. But that's for IRL usage. Otherwise when sitting in a train, generic data operations could be nice.
davidgerard 11y ago
http://newstechnica.com/2008/09/22/free-software-foundation-announces-gnuphone/ http://newstechnica.com/2008/09/22/free-software-foundation-...
aaronbrager 11y ago
You can type commands into Siri. "Set an alarm for 6am".

pinaceae 11y ago

while driving.

wingerlang 11y ago

You are one of 0.0001% that would want that. The only thing that makes me annoyed on a smartphone is pretty much the switching between UI and typing things.

bigger_cheese 11y ago
My main gripe is I really hate how many screens and presses I have to go through to set what should be simple options. I use my phone (2 to 3 year old Android) as my alarm clock. If I want to sleep in for an extra 20 mins tomorrow I need to. 1. Press clock button. 2. Press Alarm button 3. Deselect my current alarm to deactivate it 4. Press Add Alarm 5. Tap repeatedly on the "scroll wheels" to select correct time If the phone had something resembling a CLI you could just echo the newtime + Alarm into the scheduler. Another example I get a text message from someone who is not a contact. I want to save that number I have to open the message takes about 5 or six clicks to "copy" the number into address book. Why can't I drop to command prompt "echo Phone no. Name >> address book
- robwormald 11y ago
  I'm not a huge Siri user, but "Hey Siri, set my alarm for 8:50" works great and its something I use all the time, mostly because of what you're describing.
- wingerlang 11y ago
  I can't say for Android, but alarm is usually quite sucky on iOS as well. I've set it up to be recurring though, and I haven't had these annoying issues for months. If you're a developer and have the time and effort required, you could always root/jailbreak your phone and fix the issues you have for yourself. EDIT: it is also likely that people have already solved it, or made tools that can solve it. I know people are already running cronjobs on their iPhones, there's even an scheduling automation app and so on.
- xnzakg 11y ago
  "echo Phone no. Name >> address book" And then you accidentally use ">" instead of ">>". Woops.

agumonkey 11y ago

More and more I want my dumbphone fixed API back with 4 or 5 instant access zero latency operations. Quite often I barely have the time to swipe to unlock->camera ... I need fixed and tactile interactions. But that's for IRL usage. Otherwise when sitting in a train, generic data operations could be nice.

davidgerard 11y ago

http://newstechnica.com/2008/09/22/free-software-foundation-announces-gnuphone/ http://newstechnica.com/2008/09/22/free-software-foundation-...

aaronbrager 11y ago

You can type commands into Siri. "Set an alarm for 6am".