5 ms·

Amazing. That’s a feature you’d expect at the top of an HN brainstorm for comically bad, far fetched phone ideas.

uo21tp5hoyg 3y ago
sure, but only because HN is mostly men working in tech. these types of features are far more popular among women. (not all women of course)
- iamacyborg 3y ago
  Citation needed
  - uo21tp5hoyg 3y ago
    I can't provide a direct citation but I worked on image detection shopping for Kakao[1] and can say from personal observation that at least in Korea these features are far more popular (and ridiculously profitable) among women. According to Forbes women drive 70-80% of all consumer purchasing decisions in the US[2] so I can't imagine it's that rare there either, but I could be wrong and this could be an entirely eastern thing but given Huawei is a Chinese company I would bet it's a very popular feature for the phone. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakao https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakao 2. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescontentmarketing/2019/05/13/20-facts-and-figures-to-know-when-marketing-to-women/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescontentmarketing/2019/05/...
    - witchesindublin 3y ago
      But South Korea is a much more gender-divided country where women go shopping and men go shooting.
      - NavinF 3y ago
        I think you just described a lot of other countries such as America and Canada.
      - uo21tp5hoyg 3y ago
        Hence the inclusion of the statistics for the United States also.
        witchesindublin 3y ago
        [dead]
        fomine3 3y ago
        Regardless is it true or false, so what? GP indicated that the feature is useful at least in some markets.
        dang 3y ago
        Please don't post this sort of thing here. Nationalistic and gender generalizations turn into flamewars and we're trying to avoid that on this site. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
_yb2s 3y ago
The next version: When you touch an item in a photo you automatically buy it. There is supposedly a way to see that this is happening and cancel it, but that part of the interface isn't intuitive and attempts to cancel more often result in additional purchases. This cannot be turned off, and the new phone can't be used in the first place until you set up credit card billing. It also seems to trigger "automatically" and "by accident" very frequently.
- PebblesRox 3y ago
  It's already bad enough that my toddler can order photo canvases of a picture of himself getting ketchup out of the fridge via the Google Photos app. (He even chose expedited shipping . . . to our old address!) Fortunately we got a refund from customer service the first time. The second time, I saw the email soon enough to cancel within the 2 hour deadline. (This was after removing all our payment info from the phone, which was the only way I could see to enforce that he couldn't do it again, but then someone made a payment and ended up saving the payment method again.) I feel like it's only a matter of time before it happens again; at least the address is correct now so we'd actually receive the item if we were unable to cancel/refund.
  - nine_k 3y ago
    Stop. Do you mean that the fridge has Google Photos app running? Or do you mean that your phone is not locked when given to the enterprising toddler in question?
    - PebblesRox 3y ago
      Sorry for the confusion, the fridge was just part of the photo he was looking at. We gave him the phone to look at photos, thinking he couldn’t make too much trouble with that app. But while looking at a photo of himself with ketchup, he managed to complete the ordering process for ordering a photo canvas - a feature of the photos app I had always ignored until I saw the email that the order had shipped.
      - 3y ago
readyplayernull 3y ago
Shhh, the Windows 11 team might hear you.
- ozfive 3y ago
  Loud and clear!
oefrha 3y ago
I’ve witnessed a good number of online interactions that went like “where do I buy your blouse/dress”, “I don’t recall, just use <app>’s AI feature to recognize it”. I’ve witnessed it once or twice in meatspace as well. So it’s absolutely a thing that real people find useful, especially among women who are into clothes shopping.
- Neekerer 3y ago
  Taobao's image search is excellent. I haven't had a need to use a western service but Taobao can find just about anything via a picture search.

sure, but only because HN is mostly men working in tech. these types of features are far more popular among women. (not all women of course)

iamacyborg 3y ago
Citation needed
- uo21tp5hoyg 3y ago
  I can't provide a direct citation but I worked on image detection shopping for Kakao[1] and can say from personal observation that at least in Korea these features are far more popular (and ridiculously profitable) among women. According to Forbes women drive 70-80% of all consumer purchasing decisions in the US[2] so I can't imagine it's that rare there either, but I could be wrong and this could be an entirely eastern thing but given Huawei is a Chinese company I would bet it's a very popular feature for the phone. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakao https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kakao 2. https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescontentmarketing/2019/05/13/20-facts-and-figures-to-know-when-marketing-to-women/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescontentmarketing/2019/05/...
  - witchesindublin 3y ago
    But South Korea is a much more gender-divided country where women go shopping and men go shooting.
    - NavinF 3y ago
      I think you just described a lot of other countries such as America and Canada.
    - uo21tp5hoyg 3y ago
      Hence the inclusion of the statistics for the United States also.
      - witchesindublin 3y ago
        [dead]
        fomine3 3y ago
        Regardless is it true or false, so what? GP indicated that the feature is useful at least in some markets.
        dang 3y ago
        Please don't post this sort of thing here. Nationalistic and gender generalizations turn into flamewars and we're trying to avoid that on this site. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.

_yb2s 3y ago

The next version: When you touch an item in a photo you automatically buy it. There is supposedly a way to see that this is happening and cancel it, but that part of the interface isn't intuitive and attempts to cancel more often result in additional purchases. This cannot be turned off, and the new phone can't be used in the first place until you set up credit card billing. It also seems to trigger "automatically" and "by accident" very frequently.

PebblesRox 3y ago
It's already bad enough that my toddler can order photo canvases of a picture of himself getting ketchup out of the fridge via the Google Photos app. (He even chose expedited shipping . . . to our old address!) Fortunately we got a refund from customer service the first time. The second time, I saw the email soon enough to cancel within the 2 hour deadline. (This was after removing all our payment info from the phone, which was the only way I could see to enforce that he couldn't do it again, but then someone made a payment and ended up saving the payment method again.) I feel like it's only a matter of time before it happens again; at least the address is correct now so we'd actually receive the item if we were unable to cancel/refund.
- nine_k 3y ago
  Stop. Do you mean that the fridge has Google Photos app running? Or do you mean that your phone is not locked when given to the enterprising toddler in question?
  - PebblesRox 3y ago
    Sorry for the confusion, the fridge was just part of the photo he was looking at. We gave him the phone to look at photos, thinking he couldn’t make too much trouble with that app. But while looking at a photo of himself with ketchup, he managed to complete the ordering process for ordering a photo canvas - a feature of the photos app I had always ignored until I saw the email that the order had shipped.
    - 3y ago

readyplayernull 3y ago

Shhh, the Windows 11 team might hear you.

ozfive 3y ago
Loud and clear!

oefrha 3y ago

I’ve witnessed a good number of online interactions that went like “where do I buy your blouse/dress”, “I don’t recall, just use <app>’s AI feature to recognize it”. I’ve witnessed it once or twice in meatspace as well. So it’s absolutely a thing that real people find useful, especially among women who are into clothes shopping.

Neekerer 3y ago
Taobao's image search is excellent. I haven't had a need to use a western service but Taobao can find just about anything via a picture search.