5 ms·

>> This perceptual dissonance limits our ability to immerse ourselves in the experience. As opposed to the perceptual dissonance of seeing a person inside a sm

>> This perceptual dissonance limits our ability to immerse ourselves in the experience. As opposed to the perceptual dissonance of seeing a person inside a small rectangle we can hold in our hands? Or the strangeness of hearing an entire orchestra while sitting on a bus? The fact that sound emanates from a slightly unnatural place or direction isn't a problem worth addressing, despite the fact that fixing it might make phones 1mm thinner. How about this: Give me a phone with a proper usb port, a couple sim cards, an SD slot, a replaceable battery and a headphone jack. I couldn't possibly care any less about making it any thinner. It's going into a protective case anyway.

fkyoureadthedoc 3y ago
> Give me a phone with a proper usb port, a couple sim cards, an SD slot, a replaceable battery and a headphone jack. I couldn't possibly care any less about making it any thinner. It's going into a protective case anyway. Almost nobody wants this phone. Sure you'll get cheered on by some small group of people that wouldn't actually buy this phone either, but it just wouldn't sell well enough to justify its existence. There's probably already a phone with most of these features.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- matly 3y ago
  You'd be surprised about the amount of people wanting this kind of smartphone. The success of Framework, who are doing something similar in the Laptop world, could be a robust indicator for the demand. Especially the replaceable battery is something we really should get back to IMHO.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    The “success” of Framework? By what metric are you defining success?
    - dns_snek 3y ago
      They employ 45 people and demand for their products is outpacing supply. Assuming they're at least breaking even, that's success.
      - The_Colonel 3y ago
        It's a success in this niche space. Just like there are niche smartphones providing all those features.
        dns_snek 3y ago
        Could you please name these smartphones that run a modern version of Android, have modern hardware, and various niche features?
        The_Colonel 3y ago
        Samsung XCover 6 Pro, Fairphone 5.
- graemep 3y ago
  > Almost nobody wants this phone. Evidence? > Sure you'll get cheered on by some small group of people that wouldn't actually buy this phone either So all the people who say they want a phone like that are lying?
  - krisoft 3y ago
    > So all the people who say they want a phone like that are lying? They are not lying. Just there aren't enough of them to make such a phone worth producing.
  - acdha 3y ago
    Those features describe the average Android phone on the market until the mid-2010s. If there was popular demand, you’d expect the models which continued to have things like headphone jacks to sell well enough that someone would keep making them, but that just hasn’t been the case. This suggests that however genuine the desire is, it’s just not widely shared enough to actually constitute a viable market – somewhere below the level of, say, manual transmissions on cars.
    - graemep 3y ago
      Or it demonstrates a lack of competition in the market which allows a handful of big manufacturers, who have similar incentives to cut costs, to make the same decision to cut costs - lots of small reductions lead to a relatively big total increase in margins. In terms of wh.at actually gets marketed to most consumers choice is quite limited I do have a phone that is about two years old that has a headphone jack. Replaceable batteries and lack of SD card slots is essential deliberately shortening the life of phones to get people to upgrade sooner.
      - fkyoureadthedoc 3y ago
        Batteries are replaceable, just not by you. Do some people replace their phone when the battery sucks? Sure, maybe. But then that phone probably gets refurbished for someone else to buy. The main use of user replaceable batteries for me was always when my phone only lasted a few hours so I had to swap another one. My Samsung Blackjack with 3G would die in like an hour if I was actively using the 3g connection lol. G1 and HTC Evo also didn't last a whole shift at work.
- sandworm101 3y ago
  Well, someone wants these features enough that many will soon be mandatory. USB port = Mandated in the EU by end of 2024. Replaceable battery = Mandated in EU by 2027. Dual sim cards = common in the global south. Headphone jack = wanted by everyone not a youtube influencer. Compromise: I'll accept TWO USB-C ports in exchange for the headphone jack. Usb to 3.5mm adapter wires cost maybe 6$ on amazon.
  - aceazzameen 3y ago
    My next phone will be an imported EU phone. I won't even care if it doesn't connect to cell towers (it will though).
  - rrdharan 3y ago
    I’m not a YouTube influencer and I don’t want a headphone jack. I haven’t used wired headphones in five years.
  - neoberg 3y ago
    Other features you mentioned maybe but no one cares about the headphone jack anymore. I don't remember most people using it a lot even before it started to disappear.
    - sandworm101 3y ago
      I have bought maybe ten usb-to-3.5mm adapters in recent years. I keep giving them away. Last time I went on a work trip (military) I gave away two sets of cheap wired headphones+adapters to kids whose bluetooth headsets had stopped working during long plane/bus rides. (19yo = kid) I'm not kidding when I say I recently saw someone on a plane using a wireless charging station. They had wrapped tape around the phone to hold it on the charger. Progress!
      - Kon-Peki 3y ago
        Have you found good adapters (or ones to avoid)? I've been using the same $9 Apple one for 3+ years at this point. There have been times when I've pulled it out of my bag and saved the day. Young people are amazed that it just works (microphone and all), Mac or Windows, computer or tablet. Ain't progress wonderful?
- TeMPOraL 3y ago
  Key part of GP's comment: > It's going into a protective case anyway. With that in mind, it seems it's not really customers that want ever thinner, ever more sealed and port-free phones. The very first purchase they make after buying a new phone already defeats the purported benefits of those design choices. I maintain this market is supplier-driven, and customer preferences have near-zero bearing on how phones look like today.
  - krisoft 3y ago
    > The very first purchase they make after buying a new phone already defeats the purported benefits of those design choices. While protective cases make the phones marginally thicker they don't make them less water proof. Which is in my opinion the purpose of making phones sealed and as port-free as possible. And even with the protective case my current phone is much thinner than any phone I had with a user replaceable battery.
    - The_Colonel 3y ago
      That may be a justification, but IMHO not the actual reason. It's about cost cutting, improving reliability, making space for more marketable features like camera and battery. BTW, Samsung Galaxy S5 had all those features, even replaceable battery and was still waterproof.
  - nonrandomstring 3y ago
    The question of "what people want" is fascinating. Like forever, some of the smartest people around admitted that they did not know. They created the entire field of market research. Today I think that is dead. In the past decade we moved to an entirely different model of force-fed consumerism, which is driven, as you say, entirely by the supply side. Oddly the near communist era uniformity we see goes against our stated beliefs in data-driven, targeted markets. A whole other layer is how we increasingly project our own desires onto others and assume they must be crazy not to want the exact same thing as ourselves. Where does that come from? Here on HN I get tired of hearing these very strident, cock-sure remarks about "what people want is...". Let's just admit we don't have much idea about what other people want. There's nowt as queer as folk. And some of the most interesting markets may in fact be marginal. Smaller markets do not mean unprofitable ones.
- globular-toast 3y ago
  Sony has somehow made it work (except the replaceable battery). I think the only thing they've got rid of recently is the notification LED. It doesn't help when a very large number of phone users only care about one thing: it being an Apple phone. They will lap up anything Apple gives them every single time. It doesn't matter what the features are.
  - acdha 3y ago
    > It doesn't matter what the features are. What is more likely: that millions of people spend money on something they use constantly without caring whether it’s actually good, or that your emotional attachment to Android has caused you not to reconsider whether your tastes are in fact universally shared? Any time you see billions of dollars changing hands for years in a competitive market but don’t understand why, the answer is always to learn more about it.
  - krisoft 3y ago
    > They will lap up anything Apple gives them every single time. It doesn't matter what the features are. Or, Apple actually makes well made good phones which people find desirable? I understand it is popular to talk trash about them, but maybe their popularity is not all just a product of misguided masses?
  - fkyoureadthedoc 3y ago
    > Sony has somehow made it work And yet every post about phones there's people acting like no phones that meet their requirements exist. They definitely exist. I think what they really intend to say is "Why doesn't Samsung put these exact features I want on the Galaxy S Whatever"
    - globular-toast 3y ago
      Yes. iPhone users in particular don't even know about Android. There are two phone manufacturers: Apple and Samsung.
- brnaftr361 3y ago
  I think there are actually a lot of demands that are unserviced in the phone market. There really isn't a way for the consumer to signal this, though. In lieu of consumers I think companies tend to listen to influencers and journalists. I got that impression from watching the evolution of the Xperia Compact which solicited a lot of hate from journalists for its appearances and the misalignment from the norms. Hate to which Sony in many aspects decided to bend a knee to, much to my chagrin. I will say however, that I expect the biggest confounder is the expense to tool and maintain a niche phone makes it less feasible given the limited demand. It nonetheless does exist, and I hope that such costs can be reduced so the market can diversify its offerings and I can have another XZ1c experience.
scarface_74 3y ago
The Homermobile of phones? https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/The_Homer https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/The_Homer Do you also want a phone with a hardware keyboard and a dedicated push to talk button?
- jvansc 3y ago
  There’s still room for my HAM radio, right?
- NBJack 3y ago
  PTT would be great with WhatsApp messages. I would love having a hardware keyboard again personally, especially when I need fire up a SSH session to fix something. The inaccuracies of touch keyboards are a real pain sometimes.
  - scarface_74 3y ago
    I mean the newest iPhones have a programmable button on the side that will let you run a shortcut to launch any app you want to among other things…
- sandworm101 3y ago
  Foldable screens, extra mini screens on the back of phones, wireless charging, little vibrators to simulate pushing physical keys, multiple cameras, accelerometers that track calories burned ... the modern cellphone is already well past The Homer.
justsomehnguy 3y ago
Motorola G-series. Not all of these, but still.
sofixa 3y ago
> Give me a phone with a proper usb port, a couple sim cards, an SD slot, a replaceable battery and a headphone jack without the proper usb port ("only" type C), LG had a number of phones ticking all those boxes (while being good phones, good cameras, good screens, the whole thing). They sold so poorly LG left the market.
- gchamonlive 3y ago
  That is a post-hoc fallacy, implying LG sold poorly because it stuck with these design choices. Even if you didn't mean that, the way you built your paragraph, describing the design choices and then saying LG sold poorly and left the market draws exactly this kind of causation. https://www.techradar.com/news/why-lg-is-leaving-the-mobile-phone-business https://www.techradar.com/news/why-lg-is-leaving-the-mobile-... https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2021/04/05/after-years-of-losses-lg-is-shutting-down-its-smartphone-business/?sh=2ff50a855e25 https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2021/04/05/after-y... These two articles indicate only that LG was struggling in the market and decided to focus elsewhere.
  - swores 3y ago
    They provided two true statements, they didn't link them causally even if they could have done more to make sure people didn't assume that they were implying causation (or maybe they were implying that they think it's likely).
    - antiframe 3y ago
      If I say "I hadn't done any of my homework in Calculus. I failed the class." Most readers would assume that the homework statement is related to the failure statement. Even if the real reason was the homework was with zero points and I failed the final exam because I left after five minutes to chase my future wife down before she flew home. That's the thing with language, it's not formal logic and readers make all sorts of inferences based on order and content of statements. That's what makes for good writing and reading between the lines. I don't know what the poster meant, but drawing a conclusion that there is some correlation due to statement choice is normal.
haswell 3y ago
> As opposed to the perceptual dissonance of seeing a person inside a small rectangle we can hold in our hands?… I don’t think it makes to frame this as “opposed” to any of the other factors you’re mentioning. This is setting up a false dichotomy. Having experienced “Spatial Audio”, there is a clear benefit to a sound system that more closely mimics the expectations of our brain’s auditory processing. More than just the sound itself, there’s a certain kind of “presence” or “thereness” that you can experience as a viewer that isn’t possible with traditional speakers, and it can transform certain kinds of content. The person (or whatever you’re watching) is indeed still shown on a piece of glass, but the experience of that can be improved significantly. If a speaker-in-the-screen can achieve something similar, that’s compelling. I don’t see the relevance of the bus scenario, where externally broadcast audio is never the right choice. The phone you describe sounds terrible to me (I’d like the headphone jack back but the battery is a tradeoff) but that’s because you and I have different preferences and priorities. And there’s nothing preventing all of the above from being integrated into a device should there be a market for it. And phones aren’t the only devices that can benefit.
ojosilva 3y ago
No, no, give me a phone that is light! What I want is paper-level weights, say 300 GSM (grams/sq-meter) which is the weight density of a business-card. Let's fight repetitive stress first, the one related to the holding of smartphones for hours. Then we can tackle trigger-thumb related issues later (I hope) once, ie, it tracks eye movements reliably and efficiently. Our generation is bound for a lot of health issues related to hand-held devices.
- sandworm101 3y ago
  Correct. With enough effort we may soon be able to interact with others via our phones using only eye blinks. The one thing this generation needs is less physical activity.
  - itishappy 3y ago
    Nothing gets my blood flowing like my Twitter routine, whew lad. Been moving up to 2400 calories per day of pure whey. These thumb gains aint easy, but the grind is worth it. Nobody is getting their physical activity via their smartphone usage.
    - sandworm101 3y ago
      Not yet. My startup is going to disrupt the cellphone battery industry by attaching a small crank to the back of every phone. We predict this will reduce child obesity, saving billions in health care cost the moment we go public.
isodev 3y ago
Phones becoming thinner and lighter would be amazing though. Imagine iPhone 7 sized device packing the features of iPhone 15 Pro. Having the screen be responsible for (or assisting) haptics will also mean “spatial haptics” can be a thing, with extreme precision. Also, no more “finger obscuring speaker opening” while holding your phone. I’m all in on thinner phones with less parts.
SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
Like the phrase “Nothing in our evolution could have prepared us for this”. I first saw it at XKCD.
darkerside 3y ago
Well, why not add a keyboard and call it a laptop?
aceazzameen 3y ago
But it will be great for marketing, a justification to increase the price of new phones, and overall great for shareholders. Also a no thanks for me.
dumbfounder 3y ago
All those things you want take up space. Wouldn’t it be good if current stuff took up less space so you could have more and better features? Of course it would. Not that you are getting those features, but other features like a bigger battery, a better camera, a bigger screen, blah blah blah are all easier to do if the necessary features take up less space and weigh less. And I think it’s cool, it might even open up a whole new gaming concept incorporating locational sound.
nonrandomstring 3y ago
> This perceptual dissonance Check out Michel Chion and the idea of the "audio-visual contract" [0] I forget, but it has a more formal definition like source fusing in experimental perceptual psychology. What happens is there is a brief dissonance, but it only lasts for a few milliseconds and then our brains _very_ quickly adjust to align what we see and hear, and crucially what we attribute as the source of sounds. This is a actually not a learned but a low-level adaptation because sound travels slowly compared to light and it reflects (echos) so our brains must be able to re-synchronise effortlessly. [0] http://www.filmsound.org/chion/av-contr.htm http://www.filmsound.org/chion/av-contr.htm

fkyoureadthedoc 3y ago

> Give me a phone with a proper usb port, a couple sim cards, an SD slot, a replaceable battery and a headphone jack. I couldn't possibly care any less about making it any thinner. It's going into a protective case anyway. Almost nobody wants this phone. Sure you'll get cheered on by some small group of people that wouldn't actually buy this phone either, but it just wouldn't sell well enough to justify its existence. There's probably already a phone with most of these features.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
matly 3y ago
You'd be surprised about the amount of people wanting this kind of smartphone. The success of Framework, who are doing something similar in the Laptop world, could be a robust indicator for the demand. Especially the replaceable battery is something we really should get back to IMHO.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  The “success” of Framework? By what metric are you defining success?
  - dns_snek 3y ago
    They employ 45 people and demand for their products is outpacing supply. Assuming they're at least breaking even, that's success.
    - The_Colonel 3y ago
      It's a success in this niche space. Just like there are niche smartphones providing all those features.
      - dns_snek 3y ago
        Could you please name these smartphones that run a modern version of Android, have modern hardware, and various niche features?
        The_Colonel 3y ago
        Samsung XCover 6 Pro, Fairphone 5.
graemep 3y ago
> Almost nobody wants this phone. Evidence? > Sure you'll get cheered on by some small group of people that wouldn't actually buy this phone either So all the people who say they want a phone like that are lying?
- krisoft 3y ago
  > So all the people who say they want a phone like that are lying? They are not lying. Just there aren't enough of them to make such a phone worth producing.
- acdha 3y ago
  Those features describe the average Android phone on the market until the mid-2010s. If there was popular demand, you’d expect the models which continued to have things like headphone jacks to sell well enough that someone would keep making them, but that just hasn’t been the case. This suggests that however genuine the desire is, it’s just not widely shared enough to actually constitute a viable market – somewhere below the level of, say, manual transmissions on cars.
  - graemep 3y ago
    Or it demonstrates a lack of competition in the market which allows a handful of big manufacturers, who have similar incentives to cut costs, to make the same decision to cut costs - lots of small reductions lead to a relatively big total increase in margins. In terms of wh.at actually gets marketed to most consumers choice is quite limited I do have a phone that is about two years old that has a headphone jack. Replaceable batteries and lack of SD card slots is essential deliberately shortening the life of phones to get people to upgrade sooner.
    - fkyoureadthedoc 3y ago
      Batteries are replaceable, just not by you. Do some people replace their phone when the battery sucks? Sure, maybe. But then that phone probably gets refurbished for someone else to buy. The main use of user replaceable batteries for me was always when my phone only lasted a few hours so I had to swap another one. My Samsung Blackjack with 3G would die in like an hour if I was actively using the 3g connection lol. G1 and HTC Evo also didn't last a whole shift at work.
sandworm101 3y ago
Well, someone wants these features enough that many will soon be mandatory. USB port = Mandated in the EU by end of 2024. Replaceable battery = Mandated in EU by 2027. Dual sim cards = common in the global south. Headphone jack = wanted by everyone not a youtube influencer. Compromise: I'll accept TWO USB-C ports in exchange for the headphone jack. Usb to 3.5mm adapter wires cost maybe 6$ on amazon.
- aceazzameen 3y ago
  My next phone will be an imported EU phone. I won't even care if it doesn't connect to cell towers (it will though).
- rrdharan 3y ago
  I’m not a YouTube influencer and I don’t want a headphone jack. I haven’t used wired headphones in five years.
- neoberg 3y ago
  Other features you mentioned maybe but no one cares about the headphone jack anymore. I don't remember most people using it a lot even before it started to disappear.
  - sandworm101 3y ago
    I have bought maybe ten usb-to-3.5mm adapters in recent years. I keep giving them away. Last time I went on a work trip (military) I gave away two sets of cheap wired headphones+adapters to kids whose bluetooth headsets had stopped working during long plane/bus rides. (19yo = kid) I'm not kidding when I say I recently saw someone on a plane using a wireless charging station. They had wrapped tape around the phone to hold it on the charger. Progress!
    - Kon-Peki 3y ago
      Have you found good adapters (or ones to avoid)? I've been using the same $9 Apple one for 3+ years at this point. There have been times when I've pulled it out of my bag and saved the day. Young people are amazed that it just works (microphone and all), Mac or Windows, computer or tablet. Ain't progress wonderful?
TeMPOraL 3y ago
Key part of GP's comment: > It's going into a protective case anyway. With that in mind, it seems it's not really customers that want ever thinner, ever more sealed and port-free phones. The very first purchase they make after buying a new phone already defeats the purported benefits of those design choices. I maintain this market is supplier-driven, and customer preferences have near-zero bearing on how phones look like today.
- krisoft 3y ago
  > The very first purchase they make after buying a new phone already defeats the purported benefits of those design choices. While protective cases make the phones marginally thicker they don't make them less water proof. Which is in my opinion the purpose of making phones sealed and as port-free as possible. And even with the protective case my current phone is much thinner than any phone I had with a user replaceable battery.
  - The_Colonel 3y ago
    That may be a justification, but IMHO not the actual reason. It's about cost cutting, improving reliability, making space for more marketable features like camera and battery. BTW, Samsung Galaxy S5 had all those features, even replaceable battery and was still waterproof.
- nonrandomstring 3y ago
  The question of "what people want" is fascinating. Like forever, some of the smartest people around admitted that they did not know. They created the entire field of market research. Today I think that is dead. In the past decade we moved to an entirely different model of force-fed consumerism, which is driven, as you say, entirely by the supply side. Oddly the near communist era uniformity we see goes against our stated beliefs in data-driven, targeted markets. A whole other layer is how we increasingly project our own desires onto others and assume they must be crazy not to want the exact same thing as ourselves. Where does that come from? Here on HN I get tired of hearing these very strident, cock-sure remarks about "what people want is...". Let's just admit we don't have much idea about what other people want. There's nowt as queer as folk. And some of the most interesting markets may in fact be marginal. Smaller markets do not mean unprofitable ones.
globular-toast 3y ago
Sony has somehow made it work (except the replaceable battery). I think the only thing they've got rid of recently is the notification LED. It doesn't help when a very large number of phone users only care about one thing: it being an Apple phone. They will lap up anything Apple gives them every single time. It doesn't matter what the features are.
- acdha 3y ago
  > It doesn't matter what the features are. What is more likely: that millions of people spend money on something they use constantly without caring whether it’s actually good, or that your emotional attachment to Android has caused you not to reconsider whether your tastes are in fact universally shared? Any time you see billions of dollars changing hands for years in a competitive market but don’t understand why, the answer is always to learn more about it.
- krisoft 3y ago
  > They will lap up anything Apple gives them every single time. It doesn't matter what the features are. Or, Apple actually makes well made good phones which people find desirable? I understand it is popular to talk trash about them, but maybe their popularity is not all just a product of misguided masses?
- fkyoureadthedoc 3y ago
  > Sony has somehow made it work And yet every post about phones there's people acting like no phones that meet their requirements exist. They definitely exist. I think what they really intend to say is "Why doesn't Samsung put these exact features I want on the Galaxy S Whatever"
  - globular-toast 3y ago
    Yes. iPhone users in particular don't even know about Android. There are two phone manufacturers: Apple and Samsung.
brnaftr361 3y ago
I think there are actually a lot of demands that are unserviced in the phone market. There really isn't a way for the consumer to signal this, though. In lieu of consumers I think companies tend to listen to influencers and journalists. I got that impression from watching the evolution of the Xperia Compact which solicited a lot of hate from journalists for its appearances and the misalignment from the norms. Hate to which Sony in many aspects decided to bend a knee to, much to my chagrin. I will say however, that I expect the biggest confounder is the expense to tool and maintain a niche phone makes it less feasible given the limited demand. It nonetheless does exist, and I hope that such costs can be reduced so the market can diversify its offerings and I can have another XZ1c experience.

scarface_74 3y ago

The Homermobile of phones? https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/The_Homer https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/The_Homer Do you also want a phone with a hardware keyboard and a dedicated push to talk button?

jvansc 3y ago
There’s still room for my HAM radio, right?
NBJack 3y ago
PTT would be great with WhatsApp messages. I would love having a hardware keyboard again personally, especially when I need fire up a SSH session to fix something. The inaccuracies of touch keyboards are a real pain sometimes.
- scarface_74 3y ago
  I mean the newest iPhones have a programmable button on the side that will let you run a shortcut to launch any app you want to among other things…
sandworm101 3y ago
Foldable screens, extra mini screens on the back of phones, wireless charging, little vibrators to simulate pushing physical keys, multiple cameras, accelerometers that track calories burned ... the modern cellphone is already well past The Homer.

justsomehnguy 3y ago

Motorola G-series. Not all of these, but still.

sofixa 3y ago

> Give me a phone with a proper usb port, a couple sim cards, an SD slot, a replaceable battery and a headphone jack without the proper usb port ("only" type C), LG had a number of phones ticking all those boxes (while being good phones, good cameras, good screens, the whole thing). They sold so poorly LG left the market.

gchamonlive 3y ago
That is a post-hoc fallacy, implying LG sold poorly because it stuck with these design choices. Even if you didn't mean that, the way you built your paragraph, describing the design choices and then saying LG sold poorly and left the market draws exactly this kind of causation. https://www.techradar.com/news/why-lg-is-leaving-the-mobile-phone-business https://www.techradar.com/news/why-lg-is-leaving-the-mobile-... https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2021/04/05/after-years-of-losses-lg-is-shutting-down-its-smartphone-business/?sh=2ff50a855e25 https://www.forbes.com/sites/siladityaray/2021/04/05/after-y... These two articles indicate only that LG was struggling in the market and decided to focus elsewhere.
- swores 3y ago
  They provided two true statements, they didn't link them causally even if they could have done more to make sure people didn't assume that they were implying causation (or maybe they were implying that they think it's likely).
  - antiframe 3y ago
    If I say "I hadn't done any of my homework in Calculus. I failed the class." Most readers would assume that the homework statement is related to the failure statement. Even if the real reason was the homework was with zero points and I failed the final exam because I left after five minutes to chase my future wife down before she flew home. That's the thing with language, it's not formal logic and readers make all sorts of inferences based on order and content of statements. That's what makes for good writing and reading between the lines. I don't know what the poster meant, but drawing a conclusion that there is some correlation due to statement choice is normal.

haswell 3y ago

> As opposed to the perceptual dissonance of seeing a person inside a small rectangle we can hold in our hands?… I don’t think it makes to frame this as “opposed” to any of the other factors you’re mentioning. This is setting up a false dichotomy. Having experienced “Spatial Audio”, there is a clear benefit to a sound system that more closely mimics the expectations of our brain’s auditory processing. More than just the sound itself, there’s a certain kind of “presence” or “thereness” that you can experience as a viewer that isn’t possible with traditional speakers, and it can transform certain kinds of content. The person (or whatever you’re watching) is indeed still shown on a piece of glass, but the experience of that can be improved significantly. If a speaker-in-the-screen can achieve something similar, that’s compelling. I don’t see the relevance of the bus scenario, where externally broadcast audio is never the right choice. The phone you describe sounds terrible to me (I’d like the headphone jack back but the battery is a tradeoff) but that’s because you and I have different preferences and priorities. And there’s nothing preventing all of the above from being integrated into a device should there be a market for it. And phones aren’t the only devices that can benefit.

ojosilva 3y ago

No, no, give me a phone that is light! What I want is paper-level weights, say 300 GSM (grams/sq-meter) which is the weight density of a business-card. Let's fight repetitive stress first, the one related to the holding of smartphones for hours. Then we can tackle trigger-thumb related issues later (I hope) once, ie, it tracks eye movements reliably and efficiently. Our generation is bound for a lot of health issues related to hand-held devices.

sandworm101 3y ago
Correct. With enough effort we may soon be able to interact with others via our phones using only eye blinks. The one thing this generation needs is less physical activity.
- itishappy 3y ago
  Nothing gets my blood flowing like my Twitter routine, whew lad. Been moving up to 2400 calories per day of pure whey. These thumb gains aint easy, but the grind is worth it. Nobody is getting their physical activity via their smartphone usage.
  - sandworm101 3y ago
    Not yet. My startup is going to disrupt the cellphone battery industry by attaching a small crank to the back of every phone. We predict this will reduce child obesity, saving billions in health care cost the moment we go public.

isodev 3y ago

Phones becoming thinner and lighter would be amazing though. Imagine iPhone 7 sized device packing the features of iPhone 15 Pro. Having the screen be responsible for (or assisting) haptics will also mean “spatial haptics” can be a thing, with extreme precision. Also, no more “finger obscuring speaker opening” while holding your phone. I’m all in on thinner phones with less parts.

SV_BubbleTime 3y ago

Like the phrase “Nothing in our evolution could have prepared us for this”. I first saw it at XKCD.

darkerside 3y ago

Well, why not add a keyboard and call it a laptop?

aceazzameen 3y ago

But it will be great for marketing, a justification to increase the price of new phones, and overall great for shareholders. Also a no thanks for me.

dumbfounder 3y ago

All those things you want take up space. Wouldn’t it be good if current stuff took up less space so you could have more and better features? Of course it would. Not that you are getting those features, but other features like a bigger battery, a better camera, a bigger screen, blah blah blah are all easier to do if the necessary features take up less space and weigh less. And I think it’s cool, it might even open up a whole new gaming concept incorporating locational sound.

nonrandomstring 3y ago

> This perceptual dissonance Check out Michel Chion and the idea of the "audio-visual contract" [0] I forget, but it has a more formal definition like source fusing in experimental perceptual psychology. What happens is there is a brief dissonance, but it only lasts for a few milliseconds and then our brains _very_ quickly adjust to align what we see and hear, and crucially what we attribute as the source of sounds. This is a actually not a learned but a low-level adaptation because sound travels slowly compared to light and it reflects (echos) so our brains must be able to re-synchronise effortlessly. [0] http://www.filmsound.org/chion/av-contr.htm http://www.filmsound.org/chion/av-contr.htm