7 ms·

> I love the idea of an on-device model that I can say something like "who's going to the baseball game this weekend" and it'll intelligently check my calendar

• inerte 1y ago
  You don't add to your calendar but you probably got a confirmation email. Or you may have used an app that could expose this data to the operating system. OR, you called, and the phone app transcribed and summarized the call. Same for the wallet... if you have your credit card / banking app installed it could expose this. But yeah, none _needs_ any of that, for different degrees of fun and life optimization.
• JoshTriplett 1y ago
  > If I'm going to the cinema or baseball or any other event... I don't have it in any calendar. If I don't have it in my calendar, it doesn't happen. I would fail to actually go to the event otherwise.
  • ryandvm 1y ago
    Same. Calendar events, reminders, and timers are the only way anything in my life gets done.
    • taco_emoji 1y ago
      I also have ADHD!
      • FirmwareBurner 1y ago
        I doubt only ADHD people are aided by this. Lots of people are just busy nowadays juggling home, work, kids, friends, hobbies, errands, etc.
      • aembleton 1y ago
        I don't have ADHD but also do this. I just forget stuff too easily.
  • dmd 1y ago
    I'm calendar-driven to such an extent that I joke that all it would take to murder me would be to insert "jump off a cliff" in my calendar.
    • SweetSoftPillow 1y ago
      I never use a calendar; most days, I don't even know what day it is. So, your approach is very interesting to me. Could you please tell me more about what your day looks like on the calendar? How detailed is it, and do you do this even on holidays?
      • jhickok 1y ago
        not OP, but the only way for me and my 3 kids (2 high school, 1 junior high) to keep everything straight between appointments, sporting events and practice, work schedules (2 kids have jobs) is to use a shared calendar. We learned early a few things, like 1. don't get cute and put padding because you are worried about being late, it messes with other people 2) don't put reminders, they confuse people 3. if it isnt in the calendar, it isnt happening We used our calendar for a recent road trip to keep everything sorted. Even on vacations, if you are doing more than chilling at a campsite, it can be very useful for the same reasons.
      • dmd 1y ago
        I think you're reading more into this than I meant. For example, today: [todo/home] clean air filters [todo/home] take out trash [todo/home] refill [daughter]'s medication [work] 9:30 meeting with [person] [home] 10:30 doctor appt @ 313 river [home] 11:30 [daughter] dropoff at middle school orientation [work] 13:45 meeting with [person] [home] 16:00 [daughter] cello lesson [todo/work] 16:45 check if zpool is done resilvering [home] 19:30 ?outdoor contradance @ c? I cannot imagine how people operate without a calendar. How would you remember a half dozen or dozen things, every day, some of which might have been scheduled weeks or months in advance?
        • SirMaster 1y ago
          It's simple, I don't have things like that that I need to do on any sort of daily basis. I have a work calendar for work meetings, but never saw a need for personal calendar. OK sure I put doctor and dentist on my personal calendar, but dentist is 2x a year and doctor is like once a year for a physical. On my personal calendar I might have a dozen things put on it for the whole year. Some upcoming family event, some wedding, etc.
  • buu700 1y ago
    I'm in between. I do use a calendar for pre-planned personal outings, but more for blocking off dates/times than tracking details. If I hide work meetings, pretty much my entire calendar is just a bunch of events generically named "Balls" with no other information. Occasionally I'll use someone's name or the name of a travel destination.
• cm2012 1y ago
  I dont think I have left my house without my phone in 5+ years.
  • jama211 1y ago
    I think it’s been 15+ years for me
    • ethbr1 1y ago
      Do you folks not go camping?
      • encrypted_bird 1y ago
        Speaking for myself, that costs money and time, neither of which I have.
      • JoshTriplett 1y ago
        Many people take their phone with them when camping. Even if there's some desire to "disconnect" (which not everyone has), people still want 1) a device for emergency calls, 2) a camera, and 3) a map.
      • prawn 1y ago
        Yes, far more than the average person - vehicle, car camping, backcountry, kayak, etc. I take my phone as a camera (still/video), for an extra map option with GPS, and for reading e-books or editing photos at night in the tent.
      • seany 1y ago
        I try and do some kind of camping once a month and always have my phone. Typically it's in airplane mode and gets used for photos, maps, ebooks.
      • cm2012 1y ago
        I want my phone more when camping.
      • 1y ago
• johntb86 1y ago
  How do you get your tickets? Do you just buy in person at the theater or ballpark?
  • dakiol 1y ago
    I expressed myself wrong. I do purchase tickets online. Then I just remember the day. No calendar. I don’t take advantage of the digital assets (email confirmation, etc)
• losvedir 1y ago
  Unless you're mailing letters, it's almost certain that your life is in "digital format". It sounds like you just don't use a calendar. But surely you have an email confirmation for your movie, baseball, or event ticket. And maybe you texted or otherwise messaged with your friends who were going? Took pictures on your phone with them? Carried your phone with you when you went.
  • dakiol 1y ago
    Right. I meant I don’t make use of such digital assets. They are there because of tech giants, but i just don’t gain much from them.
    • yagisoba 1y ago
      The argument is that you could potentially make easy use of these digital assets via an assistant that has secure, private access to them. As someone who forgets to use his calendar for social events, I'd love to be able to ask "what events are going on this weekend" and have it show me everything I've agreed to do via email/text message/3p messenger app.
      • taskforcegemini 1y ago
        I don't trust that a fuzzy automatism adds anything beneficial to that
• dfxm12 1y ago
  If you have an email receipt, and you store email on your phone, it's probably accessable. I don't think you're missing out on anything though. Re: geek, AI has a lot of mainstream hype at the moment. I don't think there's anything inherently geeky about buying into the hype.
• Sohcahtoa82 1y ago
  > If I'm going to the cinema or baseball or any other event... I don't have it in any calendar. When I buy a ticket to an event and the e-mail about it arrives, Google automatically adds the event to my calendar. My wife and I have shared our calendars with each other, too, so we both see it no matter who buys the ticket.
• d0gsg0w00f 1y ago
  I'm right there with you. I work in tech, but I don't want to fuss with tech when I'm off the clock. Like, it all annoys me and just feels like work. When my router breaks I just buy a new one. When my laptop gives me the first sign of trouble I just buy a new one. I see people fussing with unlocking their phones to pay for lunch and I am totally bewildered. Why is it so hard to pull a card out of your pocket? I have a rule "no new chargers" when buying stuff. If it comes with some proprietary charger I make a half-assed attempt to keep up with it but I just throw it in the trash after about 6 months and buy something with a cord. Maybe I'm an old man, but maybe that means I know now that life is too short to spend my Saturday morning messing with HomeAssistant.
  • zer0zzz 1y ago
    I can empathize. I have some similar rules: - if an app won’t sign up without a phone number I don’t use it anymore - if a product is single purpose, and isn’t a phone or some jogging tracker or a set top box I don’t buy it - if a product requires me to sign into a service for it to do anything, I don’t buy it
  • gambiting 1y ago
    >>I see people fussing with unlocking their phones to pay for lunch and I am totally bewildered. How are people "fussing with unlocking their phones" to pay though? It literally couldn't be any easier - I pull it out, touch the screen on the fingerprint sensor to unlock it and tap on the terminal, done. It's about 200x easier than pulling the card out of my wallet, and the card can only be used for contactless up to a certain amount, and half the time it randomly asks me for my pin anyway so the whole benefit of contactless is lost. Paying with your phone is a massive improvement to convenience. >> When my laptop gives me the first sign of trouble I just buy a new one. I mean I hope you recognize the incredible priviledge behind that statement - for a lot of people tinkering with their laptop isn't about being a hobby IT person, it's about the fact that a new laptop costs half their salary so it's quite literally not an option. >> life is too short to spend my Saturday morning messing with HomeAssistant. Sure but you make it sound like it's a chore - most people(I'd guess) set up HA because it provides value in their lives, that other, more simpler devices cannot provide. So at the cost of X number of hours once a year you get a device that consolidates all of your home automation and data. If you could buy a premade device that did it without fuss - I'm sure a lot of people would.
• godelski 1y ago
  > I pay with debit/credit cards but I don't have any digital wallet. I don't take my phone with me most of the time (my phone is big and having it hanging in my pockets is not nice). I hate having things in my pockets, so that's actually why I like digital wallets. Honestly I'd rather forgo my phone but it is easier to give up my wallet, which is only carried for the ID. But I've also recently moved away from flagship phones and I really don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. I also used to root devices and underclock them after having them for some years to help extend their lives. Similarly I didn't feel like I was missing out on much. But at the same time, whenever a new phone would drop I'd feel like there was this cool new feature yet when I actually had it in my hands none of those features were actually that big of a deal. Even if nice. So moving to a non-flagship is nice entirely due to it being smaller and fitting in my pocket better. And it's not all about the thickness... > Which is weird again, because I'm supposed to be the "geek". I don't think it is weird. I think it is just that innovation has slowed down but marketing hasn't. I mean there's still lots of things to geek out about and lots of dreams and fantasies about the future and tech that just don't have anything to do with the current direction of innovation.
  • throwaway290 1y ago
    What non flagship phones or digital wallets you use?
  • _puk 1y ago
    There's non flagship, and there's ex-flagship. I'd much rather have an ex-flagship phone that, at the time, had what was considered one of the best cameras (actually pretty much all I care about). That said, I'm looking forward to trying this out in about 5 years! Written from my "new to me" pixel 6.
    • t_mahmood 1y ago
      I had to fix my broken OnePlus 7t last year, with Lineage OS I don't miss a thing, except my bank app. For which I use an old Moto. I used to be a flagship phone buyer all the time. But I now feel spending too much on a new phone is kind of a waste, as phones are getting too locked down to the users, and too open to the advertisers. I just want a phone where I can flash lineage OS, and done with it. It's almost like buying hardware that are Linux friendly, a feat that was difficult once, now things are better. Really looking out for a Linux based phone that works
• AlecSchueler 1y ago
  > (my phone is big and having it hanging in my pockets is not nice). Not to critique how you love but a little bum bag could fix this.
• mycall 1y ago
  You are not a target customer for smartphones.
• ryandrake 1y ago
  I used to consider myself a "tech guy" but the world seems to have moved on without me. I look at announcements of new phones and computers and I'm not even remotely excited about any of it. They're not solving any problem that I have anymore. I have a 9 year phone, and nothing released since then has really been compelling enough for me to upgrade. The only reason I will probably get a new one at some point is because the OS manufacturer and 3rd party app developers have (at best) stopped supporting my device and (at worst) are actively blocking my using their software/websites purely because of the age of the otherwise perfectly working device. I used to have this "I'm missing something" thought but I don't think that anymore. This isn't me failing to get on board with what they think I should care about--It's the device manufacturers who are missing/ignoring my needs in the market.
  • ricardonunez 1y ago
    Same, I only catch up on tech by reading summaries sometimes and for a couple of weeks when I know I need a new device. I’m still the friends and family go to tech person for purchases and support but don’t need to be always up to do, which is great since I’m not interested anymore like when I was young.
  • freetime2 1y ago
    It's really only the camera improvements that have been driving my interest in new phones for a while now. But even smartphone cameras have matured to the point where I'm content to use a phone for 4 years before upgrading.
• myaccountonhn 1y ago
  I think you're doing technology right tbh. We don't really need all this new tech, and it's better for the environment to just skip it and keep using what we have.