12 ms·

Why I don't like smartphones

289 points by antitamper 11y ago

veddox 11y ago
The author has a couple of valid points, the one I definitely agree with the most is the one about centralization. I'm tired of hearing about some cool new app/program that sounds really great, but when I go check it out, it almost always turns out to be tied to the cloud in some way. It makes me want to say "Guys, great software, but can't I just buy it and run it on my own hardware without having to trust you with all my data?" On the other hand, many of his points are also definitely geek-only (especially the one about not controlling one's phone). While I myself tend to agree (which is one reason I personally do not own a smart phone either), most people really don't want or need full root access to their computing platforms.
- dozzie 11y ago
  > "Guys, great software, but can't I just buy it and run it on my own hardware without having to trust you with all my data?" More importantly: "Guys, great software, but how am I supposed to use this after you go out of business?"
  - izacus 11y ago
    Or get bought out by one of the corporate behemoths and killed off in 18 months.
rdl 11y ago
I think a lot of these issues actually could be addressed. Right now, it's essentially a choice between iOS and Android. No serious third platform (Windows Phone, Tizen, BBX, third-party Android ROMs like Cyanogen, etc.) Apple is decent (but not great) user experience, but has a few serious flaws: Apple's morality policing (and other restrictions) keeping apps users do want off the platform, as well as restricting people to using Apple cloud services for a lot of functionality, and not allowing some core OS functionality to be overridden. Apple's cloud services would be less of a problem if they didn't suck. Android (well, the two versions; Google vs. the open version) have much more flexibility, but kind of suck. (way better than they used to be, but still inferior to iOS on a strict functionality basis). I think it's inevitable that more and more computing moves to mobile (the next 2b people on the Internet may ONLY use mobile). Maybe Apple's cloud and policies will improve. Maybe Android will improve in quality. Maybe a new platform will emerge. "Locked down" is awesome IFF it is locked down to the owner; if the owner has to do some small amount of work to lock down a different config, that's ideal. The "owner" might be an individual for a personal phone, or a corporation for a fleet of phones.
Tomte 11y ago
"Smartphones are unapologetically devices for consumption" I see. The author has never noticed anyone taking pictures with their smartphones. And Snapchat is also pure consumption. Except that users are taking pictures (and videos). And modifying them. And transforming them.
- mathgeek 11y ago
  Fair point regarding creation, specifically A/V content. What are your thoughts on the rest of the argument beyond that point?
  - cowsandmilk 11y ago
    nothing I do on my smartphone relies on the cloud more than what I did on my PC. I've been told Facebook is the most popular iPhone app by time open. Facebook did not become more cloud-centric with the smartphone, it was always a web site. Its place in the cloud has nothing to do with battery life. The only apps I can think of that used cloud computing instead of local computing are voice recognition. And that was likely driven by the desire to have a huge corpus of data for learning rather than on-device battery life.
- JorgeGT 11y ago
  And even if they were, what is the problem? Printed books are unapologetically devices for consumption, yet I love them.
thedaydreamer 11y ago
Glad to know somebody else also recognising position:fixed problem. It's really a nightmare. Is it really difficult to understand for their product managers to see that blocking top 20% of user's mobile screen just to hang a navigation which serve no purpose whatsoever is not cool.
- lunula 11y ago
  I assume they do it because other people do it. Because Facebook, LinkedIn, whatsapp, twitter and instagram are supposed to make you cool. Why would you break your site usability this way just to remove the need to copy the URL when you post it somewhere else?
madeofpalk 11y ago
The irony in this article is, due to the lack of a sensible line width, it is much easier to read on a phone than a PC
- mirimir 11y ago
  Just don't fullscreen the browser ;)
  - madeofpalk 11y ago
    I don't like my freedom of screen width being encroached on.
  - silon7 11y ago
    Perhaps browsers should have p { max-width: 72ex; } by default. And a user setting for this, just like default font size.
- zanny 11y ago
  You might be sitting too close to your monitor if you can't read across it comfortably.
- nileshtrivedi 11y ago
  I took the CSS from bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com and turned it into a bookmarklet. Works alright at least on this page: https://jsfiddle.net/49uzxkeu/ https://jsfiddle.net/49uzxkeu/
  - rocky1138 11y ago
    You are doing God's work.
m52go 11y ago
> They have ruined web design. Ironically, the site itself looks super good on a smartphone. I didn't check the source (because I'm on a smartphone...), but it doesn't seem to have any CSS styling applied to it.
- elboru 11y ago
  I had to resize my browser window in order to read this article in my PC. I don't get this kind of "geeky" designs, is there a technical reason why they don't even add basic CSS? I'm not talking about making the articles look "good", but making them readable.
  - zanny 11y ago
    It is an incredibly modern advent this idea that you can never actually use the entire screen to render text for anyone except for mobile viewers. If you cannot read across your screen, you are probably sitting too close to it. I'd rather have wider text that I have to turn my eyes slightly to see all of then narrower text that requires active scrolling. And I don't know of a single OS that you cannot snap your browser window to half the width of your monitor on the edge, which would make this as presentable as anyone in this comment section wants without the site maintainer having to assume everyone wants narrow text.
    - m52go 11y ago
      I'm not sure I agree. There's a reason newspapers, magazines, and other traditional media use narrow columns as well...it's much easier to read.
      - zanny 11y ago
        Traditional news presents information with more vertical space in the first place. The balance is between effort exerted to scroll text that is horizontally compressed vs effort moving your eye across the screen. If you were to put your content on the screen in such a way that you were not padding with whitespace, but instead were doing a multi-column layout like a newspaper, that would be the best of all worlds I imagine, but it would look extremely disjointed to viewers and you would have to lock the vertical scrolling. But websites are not optimizing space for readability with columns - they are just padding the text body, creating more hand work in exchange for less eye work without considering their efforts are making people exert more total work when they have to scroll more, whereas traditional media is not just padding whitespace, it is introducing vertical columns of text adjacent one another.
raesene9 11y ago
I'm not sure that this article is that contentious. Modern smartphones are unabashedly consumer devices made for the mass market and several of the criticisms in this article are features that most people don't want/need. What most people want/need from a smartphone is a device that lets them do things (e.g. send messages, keep up with friends, make phonecalls, browse the Internet) without getting in their way. They're not really in the market for a general purpose computing device like a PC. If you want that kind of device in a smartphone there are less mainstream options, but I don't regard it as surprising that larger companies don't actively cater to them (it's a niche market place) Personally I've got a range of computing devices that I use for different tasks. When I want to read a book, or surf the Internet I use my iPad. When I want to write some code or do my technical job, I use Linux. Now there's the obvious argument that people should have the freedom to control all their computing devices, but that freedom comes at a cost, which is that freer devices are, I would suggest, harder to maintain.(i.e. you need to understand more about the operation of the device in order to manage it). If you're a technical person, you may not see this as a problem, but remember mass-market consumers aren't necessarily very technical...
- madeofpalk 11y ago
  > "Mom I have told you thousands of times! Configure, make and make install, not configure and make install!" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11086290 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11086290
  - merb 11y ago
    If you running configure and make as root you could actually just invoke make install instead of make; make install. Also I wouldn't make install without a local prefix, something like ./configure --prefix=/home/$USER/usr/ or something along the lines. I mean common prefix is /usr/local, but still you shouldn't install anything globally without using your package manager.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
fiatjaf 11y ago
I don't like smartphones also, but I hadn't thought of any of these reasons.
cowsandmilk 11y ago
pfffft... the first line shows an extremely limited world view. Plenty of people are creating using smartphones. Sure, no one is programming on a smartphone, but plenty of people are creating art via the cameras and on-device editing tools. And doing so much more spontaneously than when you had to awkwardly carry around a camcorder waiting for inspiration to hit. Similarly, lots of people only use PCs for consumption. It is their reddit/hulu/netflix device. Both PCs and smartphones are used for creation, just for different types of creation.
- lottin 11y ago
  Yes I see people taking pictures with their phones but do you really call this creating art? I think it gives them the _illusion_ that they're creating something, and maybe that makes them happy, but personally I think it's an act of self-delusion, and quite annoying too.
  - vinay427 11y ago
    I would agree with this. From my experience, most people in my demographic use smartphone cameras for sharing moments on Facebook, Snapchat, etc. which directly fuels content consumption. Relatively few seem to really aspire to be hobbyist photographers.
    - tommorris 11y ago
      Yeah, before the smartphone, all photography was serious. Nobody wandered around with a 35mm compact taking photos of their friends and family and holidays in Disneyland. Everyone was trying to make great works of art with their cameras.
  - tommorris 11y ago
    Better email the Smithsonian and tell them to take all that photography out of the American Art Museum. Ansel Adams was merely under the illusion that he was creating something, but it was just an annoying act of self-delusion. Photography isn't really proper art, especially if done using a smartphone, right?
Philipp__ 11y ago
I liked many facts that are provided in this text. Kinda feel the same way about many of those things. But! I kinda do not have courage to leave smartphone and go for standard cheap cellphone ala 15 years ago. Because I would then have to carry an iPod with me... So music and emails, (I am still student so it is relatively rare occasion to have to respond from phone) are reasons why I am still bind to it. But time I spend on phone is low. Like really low. Especially low since I bought new MacBook, and I usually carry it with me, so those moments when I am forced to use phone for anything (besides listening to music while in transport) are extremely rare. Probable once or twice a month. I always felt there is something wrong with all those smartphones. Mostly because I had a feeling they are time wasting devices (don't get me wrong there are still a certain percent of people who do real work and are very dependable on smartphone and that's ok, but I am not one of them, as for now at least...). When you look at all those apps people install, like 5 different IM apps, 5 social network apps, 10 games, 5 productivity apps... like what the hell? I used to "consume" phone like that, but after few years got really tired, so I introduced life rule that made me feel much better about these devices. Do not install anything that you do not need (Thinking like "Oh, this could come in handy for X situation", no!). Use one app for one task... So I use stock apps and one app for every need I have. So it makes it 5 additional apps besides default ones. And after all that decluttering I found that I simply do not use smartphone as smartphone. I use it as a phone. (Only "heavy usage" could be music where I have Spotify, SoundCloud and Music app installed). I kinda felt better, like I had few more hours packed in a day, so it would be better for me to spend them differently, sit down, order some coffee in cafe and stare through the window, better than staring at 4.7 inch screen, scrolling dozens of unimportant informations... Those reasons are all less technical but equally important in my opinion.
- t0mislav 11y ago
  > When you look at all those apps people install, like 5 different IM apps, 5 social network apps, 10 games, 5 productivity apps... like what the hell? I agree, this is so wrong, broken. It shouldn't be like that.
scrollaway 11y ago
Off topic (sorry): Can someone explain to me why firefox's "readable view" is randomly not available on some pages, such as this one? I had to manually add "max-width: 700px" to the html element to read this without straining my eyes. [And funnily enough, author complains about ruining web design when his page is far more readable on a vertical-layout smartphone browser than a 1680x1050 resolution monitor...]
wcummings 11y ago
>They have ruined web design. But I should probably write a whole article on that. Suffice to say however that I am very, very tired of the epidemic of (often massive) position: fixed headers on websites nowadays. I have a blackberry, these bars eat up a lot of screen space on small devices break the page-down functionality. Can't stand them.
- jesseg17 11y ago
  I agree, fixed headers are terrible on mobile devices, But I think it's a little far to say that they have "ruined web design".
emanuelsaringan 11y ago
A more apt title is "I like PCs therefore smartphones suck".
anonymfus 11y ago
Why "smartphones"? If he uses mobile phone which he does not consider "smartphone", he is hypocrite because most of the listed problems apply to them ever more than to so-called "smartphones". If he does not use any mobile phone, he just should name the article "Why I don't like mobile phones".
- taneq 11y ago
  Really? The issues OP lists: * For consumption but not creation - a 'dumb' mobile is even more so, you're stuck with the built-in functionality and can't install any other software. * Not real network clients due to battery limitations - arguably true for 'dumb' phones as well but they don't have the 'powerful CPU and fast network connection' that OP bemoans wasting. * Massive centralization / shift to "the cloud" - 'dumb' phones have limited or no online presence. * Ruined web design - 'dumb' phones have little or no web browsing capability and web pages don't target them. * Insecure - can't really argue that one. * Malevolent / locked down - technically applies to 'dumb' phones but they were never advertised as general purpose software platforms. I'd say most of his points stand.
- nommm-nommm 11y ago
  >Why "smartphones"? Because smartphones are replacing general purpose computers.
ikeboy 11y ago
>With a PC, I don't have to perform some arcane operation to actually have control of the device. Moreover, it seems to be common to discriminate against people who have the gall to “root” their device, or to disable some functionality of the device if such “rooting” is performed. Guess what? Most computers come with unfree operating systems, you need to perform an arcane operation (install Linux) to regain control, and many sites actively discriminate against Linux, including bank sites. (First result I find is http://stealcode.blogspot.com/2008/07/citibank-doesnt-like-linuxubuntu_27.html http://stealcode.blogspot.com/2008/07/citibank-doesnt-like-l..., it's admittedly old but still proves a point.) Edit: also, much of my internet commenting, including this one, is done from smartphones. Does that count as creating?
- Aoyagi 11y ago
  Windows provides incomperably more control than any of the stock mobile OSes.
  - ikeboy 11y ago
    Than iOS, sure, but more control than stock android, given the inherent limitations of the hardware? I think not. You can make your own programs and install outside apks without rooting, just need to change a setting. There's slightly more control in that programs can modify other programs when running as root on Windows, but not on Android. But I don't think that can be described as "incomparable". What specific features are so huge that you don't think a comparison is possible?
    - Aoyagi 11y ago
      Can you, on stock Android, just go and delete system files? Or even do something as simple as editing hosts? Kill system processes? Make multiple users with various rights? Set file/folder permissions? Share files over local network? Install drivers for new hardware? And just for the record, I'm talking about 7, not 10. Comparing the amount of (sub)items listed in control panels with what you get in the settings of most stock Androids should give enough of a hint ^^
jnevill 11y ago
Does the author also not own a television? What did the author think of older cell phones since the same argument applies? The same arguments have applied long before smart phones as well. Did the author not like CD players? Perhaps he/she railed against newspapers too. The first argument is based on a terrible premise that only exists to support authors decision to not have a cell phone. The second argument is just as pitiful as clients have nearly always been centralized. Just because your favorite protocol isn't used often on the device doesn't make this terrible argument stand up. The third argument... I can't even remember what it was because it was stupid, or perhaps my eyeballs rolled so far into the back of my head that I wasn't able to read anymore.
barnabee 11y ago
Most people don't want or need root access to their smartphone but will complain (no matter how much you tell them security is their responsibility when acting as root) when installing random software they found on the internet results in their banking details being stolen followed swiftly by all their money. There are products you can buy in pretty much every category if you need a general purpose computing device, but most people are better off with a locked down device that reduces significantly the amount of harm they can inadvertently expose themselves too. (As an aside, I use an iPhone and can perform - with varying degrees of hassle imposed by iOS' restrictions - many of my day to day "creation" activities, with the bigger annoyance coming from small screen size than the locked down nature of the device. In some cases, in fact, the tools available for mobile OSes are far better than those on the desktop/web due to the incentive created by app store ecosystems.)
- woofiefa 11y ago
  Most people probably don't need free speech either, but we don't remove the possibility anyway. There are also plenty of examples of mobile devices being infected even though the user didn't have root access.
  - barnabee 11y ago
    We don't remove the possibility of open hardware either, there are options for partially or completely open smartphones (as a quick web search will attest) but the most popular products sold by Samsung, Apple, et al. are not. Equally, as for free speech, there are options for completely uncensored speech (although fewer than you think, and even then if you say certain things you'd better hope they can't be traced back to you or have an escape plan) but the most popular ways of communicating (whether online or off) are also locked down to a significant extent. So it's not actually much different for speech vs. access to devices. Feel free to argue for anarchy if that's what you want, but let's not pretend that smartphones represent a special and particularly nefarious restriction of important freedoms.
    - mikegioia 11y ago
IkmoIkmo 11y ago
I don't really see how some of his points support his position. e.g. I don't own a smartphone, because it's a consumption device rather than both consumption and production, is just silly. So is a photoalbum, so is a book, so is a TV, so is a music player. A smartphone is all in one and it's incredibly useful. Beyond that, it is in ways a production device. It's a messaging device, a photo and video taking device, it's great for email, I record audio for my college classes on it etc. Sure you can hardly build software or write books on a smartphone in a practical way, but that's throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Further, smartphones are increasingly becoming production devices, too. They're becoming bigger, more powerful, and some can now be plugged in to monitors and bluetooth keyboards and create a reasonable windows production environment, others have interesting note-taking capabilities. Web design is another one... Bad web designers have ruined web design, just like they were ruining web design before smartphones. Further it doesn't seem like a reason not to use a smartphone, either. I'm in total agreement with him on centralisation... it's a slippery slope, I think. For example I'm still playing games from 15 years ago, because I actually own the software. But many of today's games, even though they have no multiplayer component, would not run if in 15 years their servers shut down... because there's calculation or storage being done in the cloud that is essential to the game running. We don't physically own copies of our software anymore, but rather we own, in a way, a sort of thin client and some login details that we have to hope will last as long as we'd like to use them. This was always a problem, back in the day, too... but at least the software was available. Take any popular MMO, if the servers shut down, people have copies and can run their own servers. In future, this may not be possible anymore. Anyway games are just an example, but it's a trend that's a bit worrying. Although, it's not specific to or exclusively because of smartphones, it's a larger trend.
- akashtndn 11y ago
  The point about it being almost exclusively a consumption device might be, in a way, extreme but not at all silly. " It's a messaging device, a photo and video taking device, it's great for email, I record audio for my college classes on it etc." Majority of what you are referring to as productive tasks are merely the users consuming various services on offer. Although they are useful devices, I agree with the opinion that any significant production work is rarely performed on them. If anything the we subject ourselves to unnecessary consumption more than increasing our productivity.
woofiefa 11y ago
It's absolutely horrible that we have come to accept that not having full control over our devices is acceptable in any way. This will sadly be the leverage to completely end general-purpose computing. Why is a mobile device not just a small form factor? Why does it also have to remove all our rights at the same time?
- eddieroger 11y ago
  Because the market has spoken and clearly wants what Apple and Samsung and HTC are selling. The user base of Hacker News isn't that of the world. Not everyone does their job in front of a computer, and the idea of making this, to them, miraculous device in their pocket a computer is terrifying. They don't want full control of the computer they already have at home. Answering your question: It doesn't have to remove rights, but the economics of making a device that doesn't makes that device unfeasible.
  - amelius 11y ago
    > Because the market has spoken and clearly wants what Apple and Samsung and HTC are selling. The user base of Hacker News isn't that of the world. Solution: define the world as "everybody on Hacker News".
NEDM64 11y ago
This doesn't make any sense. Smartphones are completely different devices than PCs. They shouldn't even be compared. Good thing is just that we can do so much more on a smartphone that we needed a PC before, and by that, I mean sitting in a desk. And no, smartphones aren't for media creation OR consumption. Smartphones are for interpersonal communication first.
frik 11y ago
Oh just to inform you, at least support HTTP too, your HTTPS is broken.
mirimir 11y ago
I agree with most of his points. I also hate the ergonomics. Screens are too small, and input methods are slow and error-prone.
paulftw 11y ago
Most of these reasons can be applied to modern cars, apartment complexes, smart TVs, etc. Title should be "why I don't like this century"
- paulftw 11y ago
  speaking of web design - did smartphones ruin that blog's design?
Lanari 11y ago
For me the only reason why I hate smartphones is that they don't offer me much, and the battery life is a huge problem. The only thing they offer is exclusive apps that I can't use on PC, and since I'm a tech guy I need to use them to be aware of the tech of today.
- jhasse 11y ago
  You can emulate Android on a PC :)
  - Lanari 11y ago
    Yes. But you never be sure how they exactly work... as an example I tried only famous apps on the beginning and only lately I knew that apps can crush and freeze... I don't know what I except, it's embarrassing to never except that...
joosters 11y ago
This person would be happier moving to a pre-computer environment - take a look at their pet hates: https://violations.devever.net/products https://violations.devever.net/products - including: * AMD x86 CPUs * Intel x86 CPUs ...leaving, ARM CPUs, I guess? Windows ARM machines are also on the list. (And surely ARMs should be blacklisted according to his reasoning; he is unhappy with Intel's secure enclave, while ARM has similar features). Some people will never be happy.
- hengheng 11y ago
  I have seen Kernel programmers walk around with MIPS laptops.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
- qb45 11y ago
  > Some people will never be happy. ... with overengineered, potentially buggy and vulnerable junk stuck into their devices which serves no purpose to them and can't be controlled or disabled.
- compactmani 11y ago
  I'm not sure why distaste in x86 suggests one prefers pre-computing environments unless you really internalize x86 as computing, which many people don't.
- hlandau 11y ago
  Look, I use x86 CPUs. I don't have much choice in the matter. But frankly, this stuff needs to be tracked, because there's too much of it to keep in my brain anymore, and if you look at Intel CPUs in particular, the level of malevolence seems to increase with every new tick/tock. Although there are some interesting moves in the works: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Talos-Secure-Workstation https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Talos-Se... Expensive though.
- shopkins 11y ago
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
SFjulie1 11y ago
I love my nokia I bought 1€ on the black market in poland that is charged once a week, have the radio, and a correct mp3 player that you can use as an usb key and is not locked, brickable. In fact I bought 4 of them. I am now awaiting the moment someone will try to smug my phone and show him my wonder and expect him to say: keep your trash! Just for anyone thinking I love nokia, just remember how cumbersome their software were to use. They are so shitty, I don't have a data plan, thus I am making savings on the accessories, the phone (i dont fear to break it) and the communication plan. ~400$/year Compared to my old habits, I am sparing money. I can backup my music, I can load music easily and I don't care anymore. The morale of my story is : don't complain about a market when you are driving it. So called geeks nowadays are a joke that have high incomes, and shape the market of computer and electronics appliance by early adopting the most stupid ideas possible that cost the most. The inability of "geeks" to influence positively with their habits of consumption a market on which they are supposed to be more knowledgeable than the mass makes me wonder about the technology they adopt in companies for producing. They really seem to not care about costs, recurrent expanses, adequation to the needs.
oxplot 11y ago
> Supposedly, with Android you are free to install software from arbitrary sources ... Certainly. Go to Settings -> Security and tick "Unknown sources" option. > With Android devices there is a distinction between “rooted” and “unrooted” devices, which sounds suspiciously similar to “jailbroken” and “unjailbroken”. Sounds like it, sure. But as majority of top Android manufacturers have an official page [1][2][3][4][5] describing how to unlock their bootloaders so arbitrary OS can be installed, that similarity disappears. > With a PC, I don't have to perform some arcane operation to actually have control of the device. Ask your average PC user how to install a different OS, or even how to re-install the same OS and you'll soon find, the process is "arcane" on all platforms. Also note that I found all the official links I listed, to unlocking various android phones, in 5 minutes. > Moreover, it seems to be common to discriminate against people who have the gall to “root” their device, or to disable some functionality of the device if such “rooting” is performed. Nothing stops a PC app developer to put in checks on what ISP you're connected to for example or whether your user has root access. I use Cyanogenmod on my phone and not one app so far has discriminated against me having root access. Point is that it's very uncommon. > I believe there are even online banking applications which reserve the right, in their terms, to detect if a device is “rooted” and refuse to operate on them. Yes, they are the developers and they set the terms. There are also banks whose websites simply reject a particular browser by name, not because it lacks a certain functionality. [1]: http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader [2]: http://developer.sonymobile.com/unlockbootloader/unlock-yourboot-loader/ http://developer.sonymobile.com/unlockbootloader/unlock-your... [3]: http://developer.lge.com/resource/mobile/RetrieveBootloader.dev?categoryTypeCode=ANRS http://developer.lge.com/resource/mobile/RetrieveBootloader.... [4]: https://motorola-global-portal.custhelp.com/app/standalone/bootloader/unlock-your-device-a https://motorola-global-portal.custhelp.com/app/standalone/b...
jtth 11y ago
This is an awful article. It's written assuming you agree with the author already.
- shopkins 11y ago
  How else would you write an article that expresses your purely subjective opinion? It isn't titled "Why you don't like smartphones."
jqm 11y ago
I've never actually owned a smartphone. Well.. that's not true. I had one of the first internet connected phones (I think) back in 2001. I used the internet like 10 time on it. It was (as you can imagine) pretty horrible. Fast forward to now. I don't want the internet at all times. I don't want a $100 a month phone bill. I don't want a $500 device that can fall in the toilet. And most especially, I can't abide little tiny screens. I have $12 Nokia flip phone. My monthly phone bill is less than $25 on pay by minutes. I also have an internet phone at home which costs maybe $30 a year or so and I use for most outgoing calls. I look at everyone, (including my GF who couldn't live without her smartphone) and wonder what it is I don't get. Sure, mobile net could come in handy at times. So I went and got a nexus 7. It hasn't been powered up in 6 months and that was just to make sure a web app I was working on displayed correctly. I'm a tech guy. Not a Luddite (I don't think). But I just really can't stand smartphones for some reason. All that poking at a little tiny screen... when I have a keyboard and 2 27" inch monitors in the next room along with a couple of laptops. A spiral notebook at the cost of 33 cents works really well for keeping shopping lists and notes. And the form factor is a lot better too. I guess I'm getting old. I just don't get it.
erhardm 11y ago
Just because you won't outrun your chain, doesn't mean you're not a slave. Maybe a happy one, but still a slave nonetheless.
musha68k 11y ago
Is it 2008 again? Small, efficient cars work just fine for a lot of people for most day-to-day tasks, not everybody wants to drive a truck all of the time. If we talk education OK, but things have gotten much better since the iPhone/iPad first came out: you can buy your kids a Raspberry Pi Zero for $5 (a $5 truck!) and plug it into an old TV so they can start exploring the endless possibilities of a mostly open general purpose computing device - seriously, how cool is that?! That said, programming isn't the only creative thing you can do with a computer - e.g. iMovie on iOS was great the last time I used it, I also learned to play my first piano songs on the keyboard with Garageband (on my phone)!
decasteve 11y ago
In some ways I agree but it's mostly a pervasive error in perception. Often smartphones are over-marketed as productivity enhancing devices, and that somehow smartphones and tablets are making PCs obsolete. I see them as overpriced for what they provide and I agree with him that a lot of the power available in a smartphone's hardware goes under-used.
wvh 11y ago
I've got a Jolla phone running Sailfish, which is reasonably open. I'm happy with it because as an advanced user I can enable developer mode and modify or fix things. It's a stable and usable system. But Jolla doesn't seem to be doing so well right now. Before that I had a Nokia N9, the only Maemo phone, precurser to Sailfish. Another capable although minimal system. That didn't go anywhere either, because Nokia sold out to Microsoft – who by the way don't seem to be doing so well either in the mobile space. Also Firefox seems to have thrown the towel in the ring already. I'm waiting to see what Ubuntu comes up with in the phone/tablet space. It's certainly taking a long time. I don't understand that with all the people concerned about rights and privacy, and all the open-source affectionados, there just doesn't seem to be that much of a market for alternatives to the big two of Android and Apple iOS. Is it because of locked-down hardware? Or that Linux on desktop and mobile is not a (funding) priority? Or are people that addicted to downloading low-quality apps (i.e. the "eco-system")? Or is there simply not enough demand?
- morganvachon 11y ago
  > Before that I had a Nokia N9, the only Maemo phone The N900 begs to differ with that statement. It ran Maemo 5, and (in my personal opinion) was the best phone of its era hands down.
  - vinay427 11y ago
    Not to mention the N9 was marketed as a MeeGo device, not a Maemo device.
  - tunap 11y ago
    Allow me to FTFY... "of it's era" = "so far" A hardware keyboard IS highly deairable, backspace/tab/ctrl/arrow keys ARE extremelt useful, a file manager(stock) removes necessity of numerous utility(sic) apps. A removable battery/ext storage port do NOT ruin design so much as it fosters future dependence. A cell radio that does voice & data on request IS preferred by those who do not choose to share evwry nuance of their digital existence. To name just a few points. edit: almost forgot, a working iteration of a resistive touchscreen is a far superior experience... when implemented correctly. Still marvel how great my n800 still feels when cuing up tunes in the truck.
qaq 11y ago
How to troll for views 101.
jvandonsel 11y ago
If you had offered someone in 1916 a device that they could put in their pocket that would let them instantly communicate with nearly anyone on the planet, tap into a large fraction of the world's knowledge base, read books, navigate across the country, take photographs and movies, and play almost any song ever written, what do you think that person would say? "No thanks." ? The smartphone is one of the most significant inventions of the last 100 years.
- cognivore 11y ago
  Ah, but you didn't mention the most egregious aspect of a smart phone - a device that they could put in their pocket that would let nearly anyone on the planet instantly communicate with them. That is one Hell of a lot of people I have no interest in talking to.
  - eddieroger 11y ago
    So what? Don't answer. Set up VIP email lists, or SMS. The tool isn't the problem, it's how you use it. I get more email that I don't care about than I do care, so I don't let email distract me, in that I silence it's notifications. But that isn't enough to keep a smartphone out of my pocket.
    - cognivore 11y ago
      Email has the advantage of white lists. Until phones have the same you'll always be looking at a ringing phone trying to decide if it's a call you want to take - in of itself annoying and time-wasting.
- ekianjo 11y ago
  Smartphones are just portable computers. There is nothing new to them apart from the fact that 1) they have internet mobile connection 2) their form factor makes them very practical to carry. Technology-wise, we already had about everything when we had laptops and modems attached to them. It's just become much more convenient but it's still the same concept.
foxrider 11y ago
Ok, so these seem biased, because majority of Android smartphones can in fact be use as equal devices - you can connect a keyboard, fire up VIM or anything else in chroot and you are good to go. If battery power is what you are after - not only there are amazingly long lasting android phones, there are aftermarkets batteries for any model with removable lid. He even directly addresses the point iOS devices are blackboxes. So yeah, I call bullshit on this one, even thou I can see where he is coming from with this.
- mattmanser 11y ago
  Normal people don't plug keyboards in to their tablets and phones.
- camillomiller 11y ago
  Creation doesn't mean necessarily "programming". Design, art and music creation, photomanipulation... We have many surrogates of that on our smartphones. Although I think that considering iPads, iPhones and smartphones barely as devices for consumption is a limited vision, I have to admit that the discrepancy and "inequality" of these devices is evident. The problem is: most of the people wouldn't be creators anyway. Those who are on a Pc/Mac, usually are those who try and find ways to be creators on their smartphones and tablets. By the way, you don't necessarily have to "call bullshit" on someone who simply put forward a singular/unusual vision that happens to be different than yours. You can simply "disagree".
- DatBear 11y ago
  Have you ever written, debugged, tested, and deployed a mobile app solely from a smartphone? That's the point he was making. They're unequal in that the apps on them can't be made by them.
guytv 11y ago
Sounds like an old person rants about "the good old days".
dohboy 11y ago
wow the head up my own butt is high in this one... :O
ekianjo 11y ago
> They are unequal devices. I guess what the author is trying to say, but a better wording would be asymetric.
skywhopper 11y ago
"Smartphones are unapologetically devices for consumption." The vast majority of social media posts being written, photos and videos being taken and edited, and music being recorded and performed with these devices show this is wrong. Anyway, how did most people use their desktop and laptop computers 10-15 years ago at the peak of popularity of those devices? "They are not real network clients." This isn't even actually his complaint. His complaint is that smartphones have too-limited battery life. The smartphone battery life we have today would have been considered a miracle 10 years ago. "They have led to massive centralization." True enough. Unfortunately, that's how the money which funds the Internet gets made. That said, there's nothing stopping the author from using his smartphone in a distributed manner and helping to build the infrastructure to support the same. "There are no secure smartphones." There are no secure networked computers, period. "They have ruined web design." I'm not sure web design in general has ever been all that great. The people who practice the art are severely restricted between the demands of their employers and the limitations of the platform. Smartphones have driven the latest changes in fashion, sure. Fashion will change, and the older you get, the less you'll care for it. "capabilities are all too often restricted by device manufacturers or carriers." It's true. But I don't think the smartphone is the problem. Microsoft and Intel started talking up the locked-down hardware that only runs trusted code approach 15 years ago or more. Smartphones came along soon thereafter, and are designed along the same lines. It's frustrating, but for a certain class of device, one that you want to Just Work for handling the basics of human communication, I think it's a reasonable tradeoff. There's still plenty of hardware that lets you do anything you want with it. It's critical that such devices remain available, but with the rise of DIY style hardware--Raspberry Pi and Arduino et alia--I'm very hopeful. The gap between these solutions and high-priced high-performance components will only narrow over the next decade. Ultimately, though, unless you're manufacturing the hardware entirely by yourself, you have to trust someone. You don't want to trust Apple. But we have to trust the companies who make our wifi chips, our graphics chips, our CPUs, our USB chips. Even our cables soon may be sophisticated enough that they might include the hardware necessary to stream what we're displaying on our monitors directly to the NSA and the MPAA. Good luck!
TheAceOfHearts 11y ago
The section about mobile devices being for consumption instead of creation really resonated with me. I still use my smartphone every day, but none of my uses are related to content creation; it's mostly a time killer while I'm away from a desktop. I've become pretty strict about installing applications on my smartphone. It seems like so many applications just wanna track everything you do and blast ads in your face. And the worst ones even start showing random notifications! To me this just shows a total lack of respect from their part. I always regret installing applications that behave this way. What's most surprising to me about mobile is that somehow it just keeps getting worse. I've been a smartphone user since the Nexus One came out, and I currently own a Nexus 5X. I don't think I've ever had a smartphone that was as buggy and crashed as often as this! If you're on Android, I strongly suggest installing Firefox with uBlock Origin and Ghostery. It makes the mobile web much better. But overall, doing anything on mobile feels like a painful chore.
- CydeWeys 11y ago
  I am a software engineer today because I learned to program in TI-Basic on a TI-82, a calculator which is so inferior to modern smartphones in all ways that that fact needs no further explanation. And yet the TI-82 came built-in with everything you needed to write and run your own programs, on the device. Modern smartphones do not. In that one sense they are significantly less capable than those TI calculators.
  - soared 11y ago
    > Modern smartphones do not Excluding so many apps and web apps that enable you to write and test code on mobile/tablet? Excluding all the content writing and note taking apps? Excluding 'game builder' apps? I don't agree with your point. Android lets you run android sdk anyways.
    - CydeWeys 11y ago
      Can you link me to some of these apps that let you write code on the phone itself? (Preferably Android, as that's what I have.) I haven't actually used any, and I'm curious. But the important point is -- the phones don't come with them. The TI-82 literally had a button that you'd press to access programs, and the submenu within was "Run" or "Edit". That discoverability was very important. The kinds of people who would search for and use apps to write programs on the device are the kinds of people like us, who don't need it. (I do all my Android development in Android Studio on a workstation, for obvious reasons.)
Polarity 11y ago
used a iphones for multiple years, but dont need it nowadays. dunno, just dont need it anymore.
dlsx 11y ago
A-Motherfucking-Men Fucking Steve Jobs was a literal piece of controlling shit and all of his products deserve the dumpster. Sheep get slaughtered.
Aoyagi 11y ago
My problem with modern smartphones is that they are turning from productivity-focused devices into toys...
max_ 11y ago
This article reminds me of this http://blog.codinghorror.com/all-programming-is-web-programming/ http://blog.codinghorror.com/all-programming-is-web-programm...
secstate 11y ago
As an Android user with a fairly vanilla Moto X install of L, I'm pretty satisfied with my ability to change the OS. F-Droid is a big victory here too, with regards to being able to find F/OSS mobile apps. I can't say anything nice about iOS's app ecosystem. All that aside, this is a hilariously misdirected rant on par with Stallman. The purity of the vision of freedom advanced by RMS (or the OP) is to be admired for it's theory, but no more capable of being reality than Marx's vision for Communist Russia.
- petra 11y ago
  What's your usecase for f-droid ? For most apps there,except ad-blocking, you can find nicer versions in the play store.
  - secstate 11y ago
    Because F-Droid only indexes open source software and lists the license. On the play store, who knows what state the source is in for a given app.
Chris2048 11y ago
Here's a good argument about smart devices; To be practical they require a lowering of security. think google/facebook etc logins. Think lastpass. I bought a crappy tablet from amazon, and was just about to add my credentials to it (http://www.ibtimes.com/amazon-selling-40-android-tablets-come-pre-installed-malware-2181424 http://www.ibtimes.com/amazon-selling-40-android-tablets-com...), then realised if the tablet was compromised, anyone able to remote-in to it would have access to one hell of a lot through my single-sign in accounts. Security for these things is improving, but it's still not there yet.
- soared 11y ago
  > anyone able to remote-in to it would have access to one hell of a lot through my single-sign in accounts. How is this different to desktop, where most people autofill or lastpass all their accounts?
  - Chris2048 11y ago
    It's possible motherboards can be compromised as well, though I've not seen so many reports as such. Another aspect to this is for a regular PC, you often install your own OS, while the tablets have a pre-built customized android,many many features locked down.
wangchow 11y ago
Consider that smart phones have only been around for a little more than a decade. It took several decades of development for general-purpose computers to become viable to the mainstream, so the smart-phone technology is just in its infancy. While the battery consumption issues are definitely a problem, progress is being made to curb them: http://news.mit.edu/2016/neural-chip-artificial-intelligence-mobile-devices-0203 http://news.mit.edu/2016/neural-chip-artificial-intelligence... Really we need innovation in the hardware space in addition to less bloated and more refined APIs. Perhaps more efficient Virtual Machine layers that sit on top of the OS layer. Or even get rid of those entirely and force C++ only, but then the precious security sandbox is gone. In any case, it seems a lot of the OS changes being made are feature-driven more than anything. They are trying to compete on features instead of stabilizing and refining the core. Or, maybe we need a new mobile OS design and some open hardware to support it. Personally, I think BB10 had a lot going for it with QNX and C++ APIs, but because they don't have the precious "apps" consumers demanded it became even more bloated with the sluggish android runtime. What's more, Device manufacturers push higher-resolution displays and faster CPUs and GPUs--all things that impact battery life. But why not improve upon these gradually while bolstering battery life instead? Consumers won't buy it that's the problem and hardware manufacturers just want to sell units to satisfy shareholders. The problem is no different than the junk-food industry: consumers don't know what's best for themselves or what they need, yet they develop strong opinions about what they want and companies, hungry for market share meet those demands.
- Tempest1981 11y ago
  > hardware manufacturers just want to sell units to satisfy shareholders. Sure. Don't underestimate the importance of staying in business, or having enough market share to attract developers.
jokoon 11y ago
Smartphone are really bad for power users. Android is good, but to me it doesn't allow users to really do what they want with it. It works well, but if you look at its software design, it's miles away from what you could do with linux. I just WISH there was some code editor designed for a touchscreen. I have this idea of a graphical code editor like scratch.mit.edu, except the editor already has this code hierarchy, and it shows text directly. This would be perfect for a touchscreen.
ausjke 11y ago
I don't like staring at the small screen that will damage my eyesight along the way, I also don't like some unnecessary time wasted on it. However its benefits outweighs those drawbacks way much, so no, I do like my smartphone.
brandonmenc 11y ago
These are all reasons why I wouldn't replace my laptop with a smartphone, but that's not what a smartphone is for in the first place.
nqzero 11y ago
tl;dr - why i don't like toasters
adamrezich 11y ago
I don't understand this post. Smartphones give you access to the Internet at all times. They are not very well-suited to creation, but are fairly well-suited for communication and consumption. Either that's what you're looking for in a device, or it's not. It's quite clear that consumers want these devices, so what's the problem? I would never replace my computer with a smartphone, but that hardly seems to be a valid argument for why one shouldn't "like them". I don't get why this has so many points right now.
ggreer 11y ago
The content consumption/creation distinction is a useful one, and I agree that phones are definitely more geared toward consumption. Still, I think the author drastically underestimates the benefits of smartphones, especially when it comes to the non-technical crowd. Let's see what's been using my phone's battery lately. In decreasing order of usage: • Nike Running • Strava (cycling app) • Safari (mostly Hacker News) • Mail • Messages • Notes • Health I also use imiwa (Japanese dictionary), Anki (spaced repetition), Maps, Dark Sky (an amazing weather app), and Kindle. Thanks to my phone, I take more photos. I read more books. I can summon an Uber. Yes, some of these uses are purely content consumption, but many are incredibly useful. While a dumb phone and some dedicated devices could do many of these things, they couldn't do them as well. For example, if someone texts, "Where are you?" I can reply with my GPS location and a map. That feature alone has saved me tons of time and frustration. Even if all the issues raised by the author are valid (I don't think they are), there's still the fact that without my phone, I wouldn't be quite as knowledgeable, as cultured, or as healthy. Those are the criteria we should use when evaluating these devices, not idealogical ones.
Eridrus 11y ago
People keep yelling that smartphones are insecure, and I wouldn't necessarily say they are wrong when your adversary is a TLA, but they are much safer than desktop computers. If you look at what a modern exploit kit is targeting, it is most certainly not mobile devices, it is very much desktop browsers and plugins. They have far less malware than desktops, despite the scare tactics about how much malware has been in app stores in the past, this has largely been resolved in reputable app stores. Partly because app stores actually let companies examine the software online before people install it, so now there is malware scanning for every single thing you install. But mostly because these devices have enforced permissions models where users will get suspicious if a random app wants to read your SMS messages. Sure, a determined adversary can hack your phone, but they can hack your desktop too, and that's exactly what they're doing.
lisper 11y ago
A really weird thing happens when I try to access this site. In Safari it fails with the error, "Safari can't open this page because it cannot establish a secure connection to devever.net." It also breaks the back button. WGET also fails with "Unable to establish SSL connection." OpenSSL does this: [ron@mighty:~] openssl s_client -host www.devever.net -port 443 CONNECTED(00000003) write:errno=54 But it works in Firefox and Chrome without even a warning.
lo_fye 11y ago
Old man yells at cloud
petrosianii 11y ago
You guys should check out this HN thread. It deals with some of the same issues we're talking about here. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11036843 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11036843

289 points by antitamper 11y ago

The author has a couple of valid points, the one I definitely agree with the most is the one about centralization. I'm tired of hearing about some cool new app/program that sounds really great, but when I go check it out, it almost always turns out to be tied to the cloud in some way. It makes me want to say "Guys, great software, but can't I just buy it and run it on my own hardware without having to trust you with all my data?" On the other hand, many of his points are also definitely geek-only (especially the one about not controlling one's phone). While I myself tend to agree (which is one reason I personally do not own a smart phone either), most people really don't want or need full root access to their computing platforms.

dozzie 11y ago
> "Guys, great software, but can't I just buy it and run it on my own hardware without having to trust you with all my data?" More importantly: "Guys, great software, but how am I supposed to use this after you go out of business?"
- izacus 11y ago
  Or get bought out by one of the corporate behemoths and killed off in 18 months.

rdl 11y ago

I think a lot of these issues actually could be addressed. Right now, it's essentially a choice between iOS and Android. No serious third platform (Windows Phone, Tizen, BBX, third-party Android ROMs like Cyanogen, etc.) Apple is decent (but not great) user experience, but has a few serious flaws: Apple's morality policing (and other restrictions) keeping apps users do want off the platform, as well as restricting people to using Apple cloud services for a lot of functionality, and not allowing some core OS functionality to be overridden. Apple's cloud services would be less of a problem if they didn't suck. Android (well, the two versions; Google vs. the open version) have much more flexibility, but kind of suck. (way better than they used to be, but still inferior to iOS on a strict functionality basis). I think it's inevitable that more and more computing moves to mobile (the next 2b people on the Internet may ONLY use mobile). Maybe Apple's cloud and policies will improve. Maybe Android will improve in quality. Maybe a new platform will emerge. "Locked down" is awesome IFF it is locked down to the owner; if the owner has to do some small amount of work to lock down a different config, that's ideal. The "owner" might be an individual for a personal phone, or a corporation for a fleet of phones.

Tomte 11y ago

"Smartphones are unapologetically devices for consumption" I see. The author has never noticed anyone taking pictures with their smartphones. And Snapchat is also pure consumption. Except that users are taking pictures (and videos). And modifying them. And transforming them.

mathgeek 11y ago
Fair point regarding creation, specifically A/V content. What are your thoughts on the rest of the argument beyond that point?
- cowsandmilk 11y ago
  nothing I do on my smartphone relies on the cloud more than what I did on my PC. I've been told Facebook is the most popular iPhone app by time open. Facebook did not become more cloud-centric with the smartphone, it was always a web site. Its place in the cloud has nothing to do with battery life. The only apps I can think of that used cloud computing instead of local computing are voice recognition. And that was likely driven by the desire to have a huge corpus of data for learning rather than on-device battery life.
JorgeGT 11y ago
And even if they were, what is the problem? Printed books are unapologetically devices for consumption, yet I love them.

thedaydreamer 11y ago

Glad to know somebody else also recognising position:fixed problem. It's really a nightmare. Is it really difficult to understand for their product managers to see that blocking top 20% of user's mobile screen just to hang a navigation which serve no purpose whatsoever is not cool.

lunula 11y ago
I assume they do it because other people do it. Because Facebook, LinkedIn, whatsapp, twitter and instagram are supposed to make you cool. Why would you break your site usability this way just to remove the need to copy the URL when you post it somewhere else?

madeofpalk 11y ago

The irony in this article is, due to the lack of a sensible line width, it is much easier to read on a phone than a PC

mirimir 11y ago
Just don't fullscreen the browser ;)
- madeofpalk 11y ago
  I don't like my freedom of screen width being encroached on.
- silon7 11y ago
  Perhaps browsers should have p { max-width: 72ex; } by default. And a user setting for this, just like default font size.
zanny 11y ago
You might be sitting too close to your monitor if you can't read across it comfortably.
nileshtrivedi 11y ago
I took the CSS from bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com and turned it into a bookmarklet. Works alright at least on this page: https://jsfiddle.net/49uzxkeu/ https://jsfiddle.net/49uzxkeu/
- rocky1138 11y ago
  You are doing God's work.

m52go 11y ago

> They have ruined web design. Ironically, the site itself looks super good on a smartphone. I didn't check the source (because I'm on a smartphone...), but it doesn't seem to have any CSS styling applied to it.

elboru 11y ago
I had to resize my browser window in order to read this article in my PC. I don't get this kind of "geeky" designs, is there a technical reason why they don't even add basic CSS? I'm not talking about making the articles look "good", but making them readable.
- zanny 11y ago
  It is an incredibly modern advent this idea that you can never actually use the entire screen to render text for anyone except for mobile viewers. If you cannot read across your screen, you are probably sitting too close to it. I'd rather have wider text that I have to turn my eyes slightly to see all of then narrower text that requires active scrolling. And I don't know of a single OS that you cannot snap your browser window to half the width of your monitor on the edge, which would make this as presentable as anyone in this comment section wants without the site maintainer having to assume everyone wants narrow text.
  - m52go 11y ago
    I'm not sure I agree. There's a reason newspapers, magazines, and other traditional media use narrow columns as well...it's much easier to read.
    - zanny 11y ago
      Traditional news presents information with more vertical space in the first place. The balance is between effort exerted to scroll text that is horizontally compressed vs effort moving your eye across the screen. If you were to put your content on the screen in such a way that you were not padding with whitespace, but instead were doing a multi-column layout like a newspaper, that would be the best of all worlds I imagine, but it would look extremely disjointed to viewers and you would have to lock the vertical scrolling. But websites are not optimizing space for readability with columns - they are just padding the text body, creating more hand work in exchange for less eye work without considering their efforts are making people exert more total work when they have to scroll more, whereas traditional media is not just padding whitespace, it is introducing vertical columns of text adjacent one another.

raesene9 11y ago

I'm not sure that this article is that contentious. Modern smartphones are unabashedly consumer devices made for the mass market and several of the criticisms in this article are features that most people don't want/need. What most people want/need from a smartphone is a device that lets them do things (e.g. send messages, keep up with friends, make phonecalls, browse the Internet) without getting in their way. They're not really in the market for a general purpose computing device like a PC. If you want that kind of device in a smartphone there are less mainstream options, but I don't regard it as surprising that larger companies don't actively cater to them (it's a niche market place) Personally I've got a range of computing devices that I use for different tasks. When I want to read a book, or surf the Internet I use my iPad. When I want to write some code or do my technical job, I use Linux. Now there's the obvious argument that people should have the freedom to control all their computing devices, but that freedom comes at a cost, which is that freer devices are, I would suggest, harder to maintain.(i.e. you need to understand more about the operation of the device in order to manage it). If you're a technical person, you may not see this as a problem, but remember mass-market consumers aren't necessarily very technical...

madeofpalk 11y ago
> "Mom I have told you thousands of times! Configure, make and make install, not configure and make install!" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11086290 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11086290
- merb 11y ago
  If you running configure and make as root you could actually just invoke make install instead of make; make install. Also I wouldn't make install without a local prefix, something like ./configure --prefix=/home/$USER/usr/ or something along the lines. I mean common prefix is /usr/local, but still you shouldn't install anything globally without using your package manager.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]

fiatjaf 11y ago

I don't like smartphones also, but I hadn't thought of any of these reasons.

cowsandmilk 11y ago

pfffft... the first line shows an extremely limited world view. Plenty of people are creating using smartphones. Sure, no one is programming on a smartphone, but plenty of people are creating art via the cameras and on-device editing tools. And doing so much more spontaneously than when you had to awkwardly carry around a camcorder waiting for inspiration to hit. Similarly, lots of people only use PCs for consumption. It is their reddit/hulu/netflix device. Both PCs and smartphones are used for creation, just for different types of creation.

lottin 11y ago
Yes I see people taking pictures with their phones but do you really call this creating art? I think it gives them the _illusion_ that they're creating something, and maybe that makes them happy, but personally I think it's an act of self-delusion, and quite annoying too.
- vinay427 11y ago
  I would agree with this. From my experience, most people in my demographic use smartphone cameras for sharing moments on Facebook, Snapchat, etc. which directly fuels content consumption. Relatively few seem to really aspire to be hobbyist photographers.
  - tommorris 11y ago
    Yeah, before the smartphone, all photography was serious. Nobody wandered around with a 35mm compact taking photos of their friends and family and holidays in Disneyland. Everyone was trying to make great works of art with their cameras.
- tommorris 11y ago
  Better email the Smithsonian and tell them to take all that photography out of the American Art Museum. Ansel Adams was merely under the illusion that he was creating something, but it was just an annoying act of self-delusion. Photography isn't really proper art, especially if done using a smartphone, right?

Philipp__ 11y ago

I liked many facts that are provided in this text. Kinda feel the same way about many of those things. But! I kinda do not have courage to leave smartphone and go for standard cheap cellphone ala 15 years ago. Because I would then have to carry an iPod with me... So music and emails, (I am still student so it is relatively rare occasion to have to respond from phone) are reasons why I am still bind to it. But time I spend on phone is low. Like really low. Especially low since I bought new MacBook, and I usually carry it with me, so those moments when I am forced to use phone for anything (besides listening to music while in transport) are extremely rare. Probable once or twice a month. I always felt there is something wrong with all those smartphones. Mostly because I had a feeling they are time wasting devices (don't get me wrong there are still a certain percent of people who do real work and are very dependable on smartphone and that's ok, but I am not one of them, as for now at least...). When you look at all those apps people install, like 5 different IM apps, 5 social network apps, 10 games, 5 productivity apps... like what the hell? I used to "consume" phone like that, but after few years got really tired, so I introduced life rule that made me feel much better about these devices. Do not install anything that you do not need (Thinking like "Oh, this could come in handy for X situation", no!). Use one app for one task... So I use stock apps and one app for every need I have. So it makes it 5 additional apps besides default ones. And after all that decluttering I found that I simply do not use smartphone as smartphone. I use it as a phone. (Only "heavy usage" could be music where I have Spotify, SoundCloud and Music app installed). I kinda felt better, like I had few more hours packed in a day, so it would be better for me to spend them differently, sit down, order some coffee in cafe and stare through the window, better than staring at 4.7 inch screen, scrolling dozens of unimportant informations... Those reasons are all less technical but equally important in my opinion.

t0mislav 11y ago
> When you look at all those apps people install, like 5 different IM apps, 5 social network apps, 10 games, 5 productivity apps... like what the hell? I agree, this is so wrong, broken. It shouldn't be like that.

scrollaway 11y ago

Off topic (sorry): Can someone explain to me why firefox's "readable view" is randomly not available on some pages, such as this one? I had to manually add "max-width: 700px" to the html element to read this without straining my eyes. [And funnily enough, author complains about ruining web design when his page is far more readable on a vertical-layout smartphone browser than a 1680x1050 resolution monitor...]

wcummings 11y ago

>They have ruined web design. But I should probably write a whole article on that. Suffice to say however that I am very, very tired of the epidemic of (often massive) position: fixed headers on websites nowadays. I have a blackberry, these bars eat up a lot of screen space on small devices break the page-down functionality. Can't stand them.

jesseg17 11y ago
I agree, fixed headers are terrible on mobile devices, But I think it's a little far to say that they have "ruined web design".

emanuelsaringan 11y ago

A more apt title is "I like PCs therefore smartphones suck".

anonymfus 11y ago

Why "smartphones"? If he uses mobile phone which he does not consider "smartphone", he is hypocrite because most of the listed problems apply to them ever more than to so-called "smartphones". If he does not use any mobile phone, he just should name the article "Why I don't like mobile phones".

taneq 11y ago
Really? The issues OP lists: * For consumption but not creation - a 'dumb' mobile is even more so, you're stuck with the built-in functionality and can't install any other software. * Not real network clients due to battery limitations - arguably true for 'dumb' phones as well but they don't have the 'powerful CPU and fast network connection' that OP bemoans wasting. * Massive centralization / shift to "the cloud" - 'dumb' phones have limited or no online presence. * Ruined web design - 'dumb' phones have little or no web browsing capability and web pages don't target them. * Insecure - can't really argue that one. * Malevolent / locked down - technically applies to 'dumb' phones but they were never advertised as general purpose software platforms. I'd say most of his points stand.
nommm-nommm 11y ago
>Why "smartphones"? Because smartphones are replacing general purpose computers.

ikeboy 11y ago

>With a PC, I don't have to perform some arcane operation to actually have control of the device. Moreover, it seems to be common to discriminate against people who have the gall to “root” their device, or to disable some functionality of the device if such “rooting” is performed. Guess what? Most computers come with unfree operating systems, you need to perform an arcane operation (install Linux) to regain control, and many sites actively discriminate against Linux, including bank sites. (First result I find is http://stealcode.blogspot.com/2008/07/citibank-doesnt-like-linuxubuntu_27.html http://stealcode.blogspot.com/2008/07/citibank-doesnt-like-l..., it's admittedly old but still proves a point.) Edit: also, much of my internet commenting, including this one, is done from smartphones. Does that count as creating?

Aoyagi 11y ago
Windows provides incomperably more control than any of the stock mobile OSes.
- ikeboy 11y ago
  Than iOS, sure, but more control than stock android, given the inherent limitations of the hardware? I think not. You can make your own programs and install outside apks without rooting, just need to change a setting. There's slightly more control in that programs can modify other programs when running as root on Windows, but not on Android. But I don't think that can be described as "incomparable". What specific features are so huge that you don't think a comparison is possible?
  - Aoyagi 11y ago
    Can you, on stock Android, just go and delete system files? Or even do something as simple as editing hosts? Kill system processes? Make multiple users with various rights? Set file/folder permissions? Share files over local network? Install drivers for new hardware? And just for the record, I'm talking about 7, not 10. Comparing the amount of (sub)items listed in control panels with what you get in the settings of most stock Androids should give enough of a hint ^^

jnevill 11y ago

Does the author also not own a television? What did the author think of older cell phones since the same argument applies? The same arguments have applied long before smart phones as well. Did the author not like CD players? Perhaps he/she railed against newspapers too. The first argument is based on a terrible premise that only exists to support authors decision to not have a cell phone. The second argument is just as pitiful as clients have nearly always been centralized. Just because your favorite protocol isn't used often on the device doesn't make this terrible argument stand up. The third argument... I can't even remember what it was because it was stupid, or perhaps my eyeballs rolled so far into the back of my head that I wasn't able to read anymore.

barnabee 11y ago

Most people don't want or need root access to their smartphone but will complain (no matter how much you tell them security is their responsibility when acting as root) when installing random software they found on the internet results in their banking details being stolen followed swiftly by all their money. There are products you can buy in pretty much every category if you need a general purpose computing device, but most people are better off with a locked down device that reduces significantly the amount of harm they can inadvertently expose themselves too. (As an aside, I use an iPhone and can perform - with varying degrees of hassle imposed by iOS' restrictions - many of my day to day "creation" activities, with the bigger annoyance coming from small screen size than the locked down nature of the device. In some cases, in fact, the tools available for mobile OSes are far better than those on the desktop/web due to the incentive created by app store ecosystems.)

woofiefa 11y ago
Most people probably don't need free speech either, but we don't remove the possibility anyway. There are also plenty of examples of mobile devices being infected even though the user didn't have root access.
- barnabee 11y ago
  We don't remove the possibility of open hardware either, there are options for partially or completely open smartphones (as a quick web search will attest) but the most popular products sold by Samsung, Apple, et al. are not. Equally, as for free speech, there are options for completely uncensored speech (although fewer than you think, and even then if you say certain things you'd better hope they can't be traced back to you or have an escape plan) but the most popular ways of communicating (whether online or off) are also locked down to a significant extent. So it's not actually much different for speech vs. access to devices. Feel free to argue for anarchy if that's what you want, but let's not pretend that smartphones represent a special and particularly nefarious restriction of important freedoms.
  - mikegioia 11y ago

IkmoIkmo 11y ago

I don't really see how some of his points support his position. e.g. I don't own a smartphone, because it's a consumption device rather than both consumption and production, is just silly. So is a photoalbum, so is a book, so is a TV, so is a music player. A smartphone is all in one and it's incredibly useful. Beyond that, it is in ways a production device. It's a messaging device, a photo and video taking device, it's great for email, I record audio for my college classes on it etc. Sure you can hardly build software or write books on a smartphone in a practical way, but that's throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Further, smartphones are increasingly becoming production devices, too. They're becoming bigger, more powerful, and some can now be plugged in to monitors and bluetooth keyboards and create a reasonable windows production environment, others have interesting note-taking capabilities. Web design is another one... Bad web designers have ruined web design, just like they were ruining web design before smartphones. Further it doesn't seem like a reason not to use a smartphone, either. I'm in total agreement with him on centralisation... it's a slippery slope, I think. For example I'm still playing games from 15 years ago, because I actually own the software. But many of today's games, even though they have no multiplayer component, would not run if in 15 years their servers shut down... because there's calculation or storage being done in the cloud that is essential to the game running. We don't physically own copies of our software anymore, but rather we own, in a way, a sort of thin client and some login details that we have to hope will last as long as we'd like to use them. This was always a problem, back in the day, too... but at least the software was available. Take any popular MMO, if the servers shut down, people have copies and can run their own servers. In future, this may not be possible anymore. Anyway games are just an example, but it's a trend that's a bit worrying. Although, it's not specific to or exclusively because of smartphones, it's a larger trend.

akashtndn 11y ago
The point about it being almost exclusively a consumption device might be, in a way, extreme but not at all silly. " It's a messaging device, a photo and video taking device, it's great for email, I record audio for my college classes on it etc." Majority of what you are referring to as productive tasks are merely the users consuming various services on offer. Although they are useful devices, I agree with the opinion that any significant production work is rarely performed on them. If anything the we subject ourselves to unnecessary consumption more than increasing our productivity.

woofiefa 11y ago

It's absolutely horrible that we have come to accept that not having full control over our devices is acceptable in any way. This will sadly be the leverage to completely end general-purpose computing. Why is a mobile device not just a small form factor? Why does it also have to remove all our rights at the same time?

eddieroger 11y ago
Because the market has spoken and clearly wants what Apple and Samsung and HTC are selling. The user base of Hacker News isn't that of the world. Not everyone does their job in front of a computer, and the idea of making this, to them, miraculous device in their pocket a computer is terrifying. They don't want full control of the computer they already have at home. Answering your question: It doesn't have to remove rights, but the economics of making a device that doesn't makes that device unfeasible.
- amelius 11y ago
  > Because the market has spoken and clearly wants what Apple and Samsung and HTC are selling. The user base of Hacker News isn't that of the world. Solution: define the world as "everybody on Hacker News".

NEDM64 11y ago

This doesn't make any sense. Smartphones are completely different devices than PCs. They shouldn't even be compared. Good thing is just that we can do so much more on a smartphone that we needed a PC before, and by that, I mean sitting in a desk. And no, smartphones aren't for media creation OR consumption. Smartphones are for interpersonal communication first.

frik 11y ago

Oh just to inform you, at least support HTTP too, your HTTPS is broken.

mirimir 11y ago

I agree with most of his points. I also hate the ergonomics. Screens are too small, and input methods are slow and error-prone.

paulftw 11y ago

Most of these reasons can be applied to modern cars, apartment complexes, smart TVs, etc. Title should be "why I don't like this century"

paulftw 11y ago
speaking of web design - did smartphones ruin that blog's design?

Lanari 11y ago

For me the only reason why I hate smartphones is that they don't offer me much, and the battery life is a huge problem. The only thing they offer is exclusive apps that I can't use on PC, and since I'm a tech guy I need to use them to be aware of the tech of today.

jhasse 11y ago
You can emulate Android on a PC :)
- Lanari 11y ago
  Yes. But you never be sure how they exactly work... as an example I tried only famous apps on the beginning and only lately I knew that apps can crush and freeze... I don't know what I except, it's embarrassing to never except that...

joosters 11y ago

This person would be happier moving to a pre-computer environment - take a look at their pet hates: https://violations.devever.net/products https://violations.devever.net/products - including: * AMD x86 CPUs * Intel x86 CPUs ...leaving, ARM CPUs, I guess? Windows ARM machines are also on the list. (And surely ARMs should be blacklisted according to his reasoning; he is unhappy with Intel's secure enclave, while ARM has similar features). Some people will never be happy.

hengheng 11y ago
I have seen Kernel programmers walk around with MIPS laptops.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
qb45 11y ago
> Some people will never be happy. ... with overengineered, potentially buggy and vulnerable junk stuck into their devices which serves no purpose to them and can't be controlled or disabled.
compactmani 11y ago
I'm not sure why distaste in x86 suggests one prefers pre-computing environments unless you really internalize x86 as computing, which many people don't.
hlandau 11y ago
Look, I use x86 CPUs. I don't have much choice in the matter. But frankly, this stuff needs to be tracked, because there's too much of it to keep in my brain anymore, and if you look at Intel CPUs in particular, the level of malevolence seems to increase with every new tick/tock. Although there are some interesting moves in the works: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Talos-Secure-Workstation https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Talos-Se... Expensive though.
shopkins 11y ago

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

SFjulie1 11y ago

I love my nokia I bought 1€ on the black market in poland that is charged once a week, have the radio, and a correct mp3 player that you can use as an usb key and is not locked, brickable. In fact I bought 4 of them. I am now awaiting the moment someone will try to smug my phone and show him my wonder and expect him to say: keep your trash! Just for anyone thinking I love nokia, just remember how cumbersome their software were to use. They are so shitty, I don't have a data plan, thus I am making savings on the accessories, the phone (i dont fear to break it) and the communication plan. ~400$/year Compared to my old habits, I am sparing money. I can backup my music, I can load music easily and I don't care anymore. The morale of my story is : don't complain about a market when you are driving it. So called geeks nowadays are a joke that have high incomes, and shape the market of computer and electronics appliance by early adopting the most stupid ideas possible that cost the most. The inability of "geeks" to influence positively with their habits of consumption a market on which they are supposed to be more knowledgeable than the mass makes me wonder about the technology they adopt in companies for producing. They really seem to not care about costs, recurrent expanses, adequation to the needs.

oxplot 11y ago

> Supposedly, with Android you are free to install software from arbitrary sources ... Certainly. Go to Settings -> Security and tick "Unknown sources" option. > With Android devices there is a distinction between “rooted” and “unrooted” devices, which sounds suspiciously similar to “jailbroken” and “unjailbroken”. Sounds like it, sure. But as majority of top Android manufacturers have an official page [1][2][3][4][5] describing how to unlock their bootloaders so arbitrary OS can be installed, that similarity disappears. > With a PC, I don't have to perform some arcane operation to actually have control of the device. Ask your average PC user how to install a different OS, or even how to re-install the same OS and you'll soon find, the process is "arcane" on all platforms. Also note that I found all the official links I listed, to unlocking various android phones, in 5 minutes. > Moreover, it seems to be common to discriminate against people who have the gall to “root” their device, or to disable some functionality of the device if such “rooting” is performed. Nothing stops a PC app developer to put in checks on what ISP you're connected to for example or whether your user has root access. I use Cyanogenmod on my phone and not one app so far has discriminated against me having root access. Point is that it's very uncommon. > I believe there are even online banking applications which reserve the right, in their terms, to detect if a device is “rooted” and refuse to operate on them. Yes, they are the developers and they set the terms. There are also banks whose websites simply reject a particular browser by name, not because it lacks a certain functionality. [1]: http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader http://www.htcdev.com/bootloader [2]: http://developer.sonymobile.com/unlockbootloader/unlock-yourboot-loader/ http://developer.sonymobile.com/unlockbootloader/unlock-your... [3]: http://developer.lge.com/resource/mobile/RetrieveBootloader.dev?categoryTypeCode=ANRS http://developer.lge.com/resource/mobile/RetrieveBootloader.... [4]: https://motorola-global-portal.custhelp.com/app/standalone/bootloader/unlock-your-device-a https://motorola-global-portal.custhelp.com/app/standalone/b...

jtth 11y ago

This is an awful article. It's written assuming you agree with the author already.

shopkins 11y ago
How else would you write an article that expresses your purely subjective opinion? It isn't titled "Why you don't like smartphones."

jqm 11y ago

I've never actually owned a smartphone. Well.. that's not true. I had one of the first internet connected phones (I think) back in 2001. I used the internet like 10 time on it. It was (as you can imagine) pretty horrible. Fast forward to now. I don't want the internet at all times. I don't want a $100 a month phone bill. I don't want a $500 device that can fall in the toilet. And most especially, I can't abide little tiny screens. I have $12 Nokia flip phone. My monthly phone bill is less than $25 on pay by minutes. I also have an internet phone at home which costs maybe $30 a year or so and I use for most outgoing calls. I look at everyone, (including my GF who couldn't live without her smartphone) and wonder what it is I don't get. Sure, mobile net could come in handy at times. So I went and got a nexus 7. It hasn't been powered up in 6 months and that was just to make sure a web app I was working on displayed correctly. I'm a tech guy. Not a Luddite (I don't think). But I just really can't stand smartphones for some reason. All that poking at a little tiny screen... when I have a keyboard and 2 27" inch monitors in the next room along with a couple of laptops. A spiral notebook at the cost of 33 cents works really well for keeping shopping lists and notes. And the form factor is a lot better too. I guess I'm getting old. I just don't get it.

erhardm 11y ago

Just because you won't outrun your chain, doesn't mean you're not a slave. Maybe a happy one, but still a slave nonetheless.

musha68k 11y ago

Is it 2008 again? Small, efficient cars work just fine for a lot of people for most day-to-day tasks, not everybody wants to drive a truck all of the time. If we talk education OK, but things have gotten much better since the iPhone/iPad first came out: you can buy your kids a Raspberry Pi Zero for $5 (a $5 truck!) and plug it into an old TV so they can start exploring the endless possibilities of a mostly open general purpose computing device - seriously, how cool is that?! That said, programming isn't the only creative thing you can do with a computer - e.g. iMovie on iOS was great the last time I used it, I also learned to play my first piano songs on the keyboard with Garageband (on my phone)!

decasteve 11y ago

In some ways I agree but it's mostly a pervasive error in perception. Often smartphones are over-marketed as productivity enhancing devices, and that somehow smartphones and tablets are making PCs obsolete. I see them as overpriced for what they provide and I agree with him that a lot of the power available in a smartphone's hardware goes under-used.

wvh 11y ago

I've got a Jolla phone running Sailfish, which is reasonably open. I'm happy with it because as an advanced user I can enable developer mode and modify or fix things. It's a stable and usable system. But Jolla doesn't seem to be doing so well right now. Before that I had a Nokia N9, the only Maemo phone, precurser to Sailfish. Another capable although minimal system. That didn't go anywhere either, because Nokia sold out to Microsoft – who by the way don't seem to be doing so well either in the mobile space. Also Firefox seems to have thrown the towel in the ring already. I'm waiting to see what Ubuntu comes up with in the phone/tablet space. It's certainly taking a long time. I don't understand that with all the people concerned about rights and privacy, and all the open-source affectionados, there just doesn't seem to be that much of a market for alternatives to the big two of Android and Apple iOS. Is it because of locked-down hardware? Or that Linux on desktop and mobile is not a (funding) priority? Or are people that addicted to downloading low-quality apps (i.e. the "eco-system")? Or is there simply not enough demand?

morganvachon 11y ago
> Before that I had a Nokia N9, the only Maemo phone The N900 begs to differ with that statement. It ran Maemo 5, and (in my personal opinion) was the best phone of its era hands down.
- vinay427 11y ago
  Not to mention the N9 was marketed as a MeeGo device, not a Maemo device.
- tunap 11y ago
  Allow me to FTFY... "of it's era" = "so far" A hardware keyboard IS highly deairable, backspace/tab/ctrl/arrow keys ARE extremelt useful, a file manager(stock) removes necessity of numerous utility(sic) apps. A removable battery/ext storage port do NOT ruin design so much as it fosters future dependence. A cell radio that does voice & data on request IS preferred by those who do not choose to share evwry nuance of their digital existence. To name just a few points. edit: almost forgot, a working iteration of a resistive touchscreen is a far superior experience... when implemented correctly. Still marvel how great my n800 still feels when cuing up tunes in the truck.

qaq 11y ago

How to troll for views 101.

jvandonsel 11y ago

If you had offered someone in 1916 a device that they could put in their pocket that would let them instantly communicate with nearly anyone on the planet, tap into a large fraction of the world's knowledge base, read books, navigate across the country, take photographs and movies, and play almost any song ever written, what do you think that person would say? "No thanks." ? The smartphone is one of the most significant inventions of the last 100 years.

cognivore 11y ago
Ah, but you didn't mention the most egregious aspect of a smart phone - a device that they could put in their pocket that would let nearly anyone on the planet instantly communicate with them. That is one Hell of a lot of people I have no interest in talking to.
- eddieroger 11y ago
  So what? Don't answer. Set up VIP email lists, or SMS. The tool isn't the problem, it's how you use it. I get more email that I don't care about than I do care, so I don't let email distract me, in that I silence it's notifications. But that isn't enough to keep a smartphone out of my pocket.
  - cognivore 11y ago
    Email has the advantage of white lists. Until phones have the same you'll always be looking at a ringing phone trying to decide if it's a call you want to take - in of itself annoying and time-wasting.
ekianjo 11y ago
Smartphones are just portable computers. There is nothing new to them apart from the fact that 1) they have internet mobile connection 2) their form factor makes them very practical to carry. Technology-wise, we already had about everything when we had laptops and modems attached to them. It's just become much more convenient but it's still the same concept.

foxrider 11y ago

Ok, so these seem biased, because majority of Android smartphones can in fact be use as equal devices - you can connect a keyboard, fire up VIM or anything else in chroot and you are good to go. If battery power is what you are after - not only there are amazingly long lasting android phones, there are aftermarkets batteries for any model with removable lid. He even directly addresses the point iOS devices are blackboxes. So yeah, I call bullshit on this one, even thou I can see where he is coming from with this.

mattmanser 11y ago
Normal people don't plug keyboards in to their tablets and phones.
camillomiller 11y ago
Creation doesn't mean necessarily "programming". Design, art and music creation, photomanipulation... We have many surrogates of that on our smartphones. Although I think that considering iPads, iPhones and smartphones barely as devices for consumption is a limited vision, I have to admit that the discrepancy and "inequality" of these devices is evident. The problem is: most of the people wouldn't be creators anyway. Those who are on a Pc/Mac, usually are those who try and find ways to be creators on their smartphones and tablets. By the way, you don't necessarily have to "call bullshit" on someone who simply put forward a singular/unusual vision that happens to be different than yours. You can simply "disagree".
DatBear 11y ago
Have you ever written, debugged, tested, and deployed a mobile app solely from a smartphone? That's the point he was making. They're unequal in that the apps on them can't be made by them.

guytv 11y ago

Sounds like an old person rants about "the good old days".

dohboy 11y ago

wow the head up my own butt is high in this one... :O

ekianjo 11y ago

> They are unequal devices. I guess what the author is trying to say, but a better wording would be asymetric.

skywhopper 11y ago

"Smartphones are unapologetically devices for consumption." The vast majority of social media posts being written, photos and videos being taken and edited, and music being recorded and performed with these devices show this is wrong. Anyway, how did most people use their desktop and laptop computers 10-15 years ago at the peak of popularity of those devices? "They are not real network clients." This isn't even actually his complaint. His complaint is that smartphones have too-limited battery life. The smartphone battery life we have today would have been considered a miracle 10 years ago. "They have led to massive centralization." True enough. Unfortunately, that's how the money which funds the Internet gets made. That said, there's nothing stopping the author from using his smartphone in a distributed manner and helping to build the infrastructure to support the same. "There are no secure smartphones." There are no secure networked computers, period. "They have ruined web design." I'm not sure web design in general has ever been all that great. The people who practice the art are severely restricted between the demands of their employers and the limitations of the platform. Smartphones have driven the latest changes in fashion, sure. Fashion will change, and the older you get, the less you'll care for it. "capabilities are all too often restricted by device manufacturers or carriers." It's true. But I don't think the smartphone is the problem. Microsoft and Intel started talking up the locked-down hardware that only runs trusted code approach 15 years ago or more. Smartphones came along soon thereafter, and are designed along the same lines. It's frustrating, but for a certain class of device, one that you want to Just Work for handling the basics of human communication, I think it's a reasonable tradeoff. There's still plenty of hardware that lets you do anything you want with it. It's critical that such devices remain available, but with the rise of DIY style hardware--Raspberry Pi and Arduino et alia--I'm very hopeful. The gap between these solutions and high-priced high-performance components will only narrow over the next decade. Ultimately, though, unless you're manufacturing the hardware entirely by yourself, you have to trust someone. You don't want to trust Apple. But we have to trust the companies who make our wifi chips, our graphics chips, our CPUs, our USB chips. Even our cables soon may be sophisticated enough that they might include the hardware necessary to stream what we're displaying on our monitors directly to the NSA and the MPAA. Good luck!

TheAceOfHearts 11y ago

The section about mobile devices being for consumption instead of creation really resonated with me. I still use my smartphone every day, but none of my uses are related to content creation; it's mostly a time killer while I'm away from a desktop. I've become pretty strict about installing applications on my smartphone. It seems like so many applications just wanna track everything you do and blast ads in your face. And the worst ones even start showing random notifications! To me this just shows a total lack of respect from their part. I always regret installing applications that behave this way. What's most surprising to me about mobile is that somehow it just keeps getting worse. I've been a smartphone user since the Nexus One came out, and I currently own a Nexus 5X. I don't think I've ever had a smartphone that was as buggy and crashed as often as this! If you're on Android, I strongly suggest installing Firefox with uBlock Origin and Ghostery. It makes the mobile web much better. But overall, doing anything on mobile feels like a painful chore.

CydeWeys 11y ago
I am a software engineer today because I learned to program in TI-Basic on a TI-82, a calculator which is so inferior to modern smartphones in all ways that that fact needs no further explanation. And yet the TI-82 came built-in with everything you needed to write and run your own programs, on the device. Modern smartphones do not. In that one sense they are significantly less capable than those TI calculators.
- soared 11y ago
  > Modern smartphones do not Excluding so many apps and web apps that enable you to write and test code on mobile/tablet? Excluding all the content writing and note taking apps? Excluding 'game builder' apps? I don't agree with your point. Android lets you run android sdk anyways.
  - CydeWeys 11y ago
    Can you link me to some of these apps that let you write code on the phone itself? (Preferably Android, as that's what I have.) I haven't actually used any, and I'm curious. But the important point is -- the phones don't come with them. The TI-82 literally had a button that you'd press to access programs, and the submenu within was "Run" or "Edit". That discoverability was very important. The kinds of people who would search for and use apps to write programs on the device are the kinds of people like us, who don't need it. (I do all my Android development in Android Studio on a workstation, for obvious reasons.)

Polarity 11y ago

used a iphones for multiple years, but dont need it nowadays. dunno, just dont need it anymore.

dlsx 11y ago

A-Motherfucking-Men Fucking Steve Jobs was a literal piece of controlling shit and all of his products deserve the dumpster. Sheep get slaughtered.

Aoyagi 11y ago

My problem with modern smartphones is that they are turning from productivity-focused devices into toys...

max_ 11y ago

This article reminds me of this http://blog.codinghorror.com/all-programming-is-web-programming/ http://blog.codinghorror.com/all-programming-is-web-programm...

secstate 11y ago

As an Android user with a fairly vanilla Moto X install of L, I'm pretty satisfied with my ability to change the OS. F-Droid is a big victory here too, with regards to being able to find F/OSS mobile apps. I can't say anything nice about iOS's app ecosystem. All that aside, this is a hilariously misdirected rant on par with Stallman. The purity of the vision of freedom advanced by RMS (or the OP) is to be admired for it's theory, but no more capable of being reality than Marx's vision for Communist Russia.

petra 11y ago
What's your usecase for f-droid ? For most apps there,except ad-blocking, you can find nicer versions in the play store.
- secstate 11y ago
  Because F-Droid only indexes open source software and lists the license. On the play store, who knows what state the source is in for a given app.

Chris2048 11y ago

Here's a good argument about smart devices; To be practical they require a lowering of security. think google/facebook etc logins. Think lastpass. I bought a crappy tablet from amazon, and was just about to add my credentials to it (http://www.ibtimes.com/amazon-selling-40-android-tablets-come-pre-installed-malware-2181424 http://www.ibtimes.com/amazon-selling-40-android-tablets-com...), then realised if the tablet was compromised, anyone able to remote-in to it would have access to one hell of a lot through my single-sign in accounts. Security for these things is improving, but it's still not there yet.

soared 11y ago
> anyone able to remote-in to it would have access to one hell of a lot through my single-sign in accounts. How is this different to desktop, where most people autofill or lastpass all their accounts?
- Chris2048 11y ago
  It's possible motherboards can be compromised as well, though I've not seen so many reports as such. Another aspect to this is for a regular PC, you often install your own OS, while the tablets have a pre-built customized android,many many features locked down.

wangchow 11y ago

Consider that smart phones have only been around for a little more than a decade. It took several decades of development for general-purpose computers to become viable to the mainstream, so the smart-phone technology is just in its infancy. While the battery consumption issues are definitely a problem, progress is being made to curb them: http://news.mit.edu/2016/neural-chip-artificial-intelligence-mobile-devices-0203 http://news.mit.edu/2016/neural-chip-artificial-intelligence... Really we need innovation in the hardware space in addition to less bloated and more refined APIs. Perhaps more efficient Virtual Machine layers that sit on top of the OS layer. Or even get rid of those entirely and force C++ only, but then the precious security sandbox is gone. In any case, it seems a lot of the OS changes being made are feature-driven more than anything. They are trying to compete on features instead of stabilizing and refining the core. Or, maybe we need a new mobile OS design and some open hardware to support it. Personally, I think BB10 had a lot going for it with QNX and C++ APIs, but because they don't have the precious "apps" consumers demanded it became even more bloated with the sluggish android runtime. What's more, Device manufacturers push higher-resolution displays and faster CPUs and GPUs--all things that impact battery life. But why not improve upon these gradually while bolstering battery life instead? Consumers won't buy it that's the problem and hardware manufacturers just want to sell units to satisfy shareholders. The problem is no different than the junk-food industry: consumers don't know what's best for themselves or what they need, yet they develop strong opinions about what they want and companies, hungry for market share meet those demands.

Tempest1981 11y ago
> hardware manufacturers just want to sell units to satisfy shareholders. Sure. Don't underestimate the importance of staying in business, or having enough market share to attract developers.

jokoon 11y ago

Smartphone are really bad for power users. Android is good, but to me it doesn't allow users to really do what they want with it. It works well, but if you look at its software design, it's miles away from what you could do with linux. I just WISH there was some code editor designed for a touchscreen. I have this idea of a graphical code editor like scratch.mit.edu, except the editor already has this code hierarchy, and it shows text directly. This would be perfect for a touchscreen.

ausjke 11y ago

I don't like staring at the small screen that will damage my eyesight along the way, I also don't like some unnecessary time wasted on it. However its benefits outweighs those drawbacks way much, so no, I do like my smartphone.

brandonmenc 11y ago

These are all reasons why I wouldn't replace my laptop with a smartphone, but that's not what a smartphone is for in the first place.

nqzero 11y ago

tl;dr - why i don't like toasters

adamrezich 11y ago

I don't understand this post. Smartphones give you access to the Internet at all times. They are not very well-suited to creation, but are fairly well-suited for communication and consumption. Either that's what you're looking for in a device, or it's not. It's quite clear that consumers want these devices, so what's the problem? I would never replace my computer with a smartphone, but that hardly seems to be a valid argument for why one shouldn't "like them". I don't get why this has so many points right now.

ggreer 11y ago

The content consumption/creation distinction is a useful one, and I agree that phones are definitely more geared toward consumption. Still, I think the author drastically underestimates the benefits of smartphones, especially when it comes to the non-technical crowd. Let's see what's been using my phone's battery lately. In decreasing order of usage: • Nike Running • Strava (cycling app) • Safari (mostly Hacker News) • Mail • Messages • Notes • Health I also use imiwa (Japanese dictionary), Anki (spaced repetition), Maps, Dark Sky (an amazing weather app), and Kindle. Thanks to my phone, I take more photos. I read more books. I can summon an Uber. Yes, some of these uses are purely content consumption, but many are incredibly useful. While a dumb phone and some dedicated devices could do many of these things, they couldn't do them as well. For example, if someone texts, "Where are you?" I can reply with my GPS location and a map. That feature alone has saved me tons of time and frustration. Even if all the issues raised by the author are valid (I don't think they are), there's still the fact that without my phone, I wouldn't be quite as knowledgeable, as cultured, or as healthy. Those are the criteria we should use when evaluating these devices, not idealogical ones.

Eridrus 11y ago

People keep yelling that smartphones are insecure, and I wouldn't necessarily say they are wrong when your adversary is a TLA, but they are much safer than desktop computers. If you look at what a modern exploit kit is targeting, it is most certainly not mobile devices, it is very much desktop browsers and plugins. They have far less malware than desktops, despite the scare tactics about how much malware has been in app stores in the past, this has largely been resolved in reputable app stores. Partly because app stores actually let companies examine the software online before people install it, so now there is malware scanning for every single thing you install. But mostly because these devices have enforced permissions models where users will get suspicious if a random app wants to read your SMS messages. Sure, a determined adversary can hack your phone, but they can hack your desktop too, and that's exactly what they're doing.

lisper 11y ago

A really weird thing happens when I try to access this site. In Safari it fails with the error, "Safari can't open this page because it cannot establish a secure connection to devever.net." It also breaks the back button. WGET also fails with "Unable to establish SSL connection." OpenSSL does this: [ron@mighty:~] openssl s_client -host www.devever.net -port 443 CONNECTED(00000003) write:errno=54 But it works in Firefox and Chrome without even a warning.

lo_fye 11y ago

Old man yells at cloud

petrosianii 11y ago

You guys should check out this HN thread. It deals with some of the same issues we're talking about here. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11036843 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11036843