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I'd take it one step further and just say to hell with phone numbers. It's about time we can just "resolve" names into devices. With URIs or something prettier.
by TheRealWatson 9y ago
I'd take it one step further and just say to hell with phone numbers. It's about time we can just "resolve" names into devices. With URIs or something prettier.
I know I'm overlooking existing infrastructure and countries with fewer smartphones but we need to leave this behind at some point.
- badestrand 9y agoWhen do you even need to type a phone number anymore? For me it's only in cases when I'm reading it from a website or such, where my phone should be able to read the number from the camera. So maybe the most important ux aspect would be adding some OCR.
- chrsstrm 9y agoYou mean like how DNS works, where a _unique_ name resolves to a _unique_ address? Without each side being unique, how would voice://John_Smith-00003475 be better than a phone number? We already have address abstraction in the form of contact avatars on our phones. Click John's face, then talk. And since this is done locally, I know that a wrong number is just my fault and easy to fix. Choose any reason why a central or even distributed resolution contains an error and suddenly you're back to keying phone numbers just to make a call while we wait for corrections to be issued by, whom, exactly? My parents don't even know the difference between a cellular connection and a WiFi connection on their phones, are they supposed to be responsible for their own online contact records too?
- axaxs 9y agoWell, just as yahoo or gmail do it. Even 'bigjohnfromcanada' or something equally silly, but unique, is easier to remember than 10 or more digits. The other challenges mentioned exist...but dns has served us well, and naptr records already exist..m