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.
Almost every app (and many games) being made nowadays are thin clients making api calls where all the work is done on the server.
I don't like it. I like having games from decades ago and still being able to play them long after the companies are dead and its employees working on other things.
On my own time I try to come up with software that can run entirely without the need to communicate with servers, or even without internet access.
The only problem with that is the software becomes that much easier to pirate, but oh well, I guess. I care more about the longevity of my work for my personal projects than whether or not I'm going to make the megabucks with them.
And honestly, for a few games I've worked on for companies in the past, pirates are the only thing keeping those games accessible at all.
The Android SDK will run on Android, so apps can be written and built entirely on the device. Definitions of 'practical' vary, but I have done web development work on an Android tablet with a Bluetooth keyboard. I regularly use a terminal emulator on Android for quick server admin tasks.
> So is a photoalbum, so is a book, so is a TV, so is a music player
Comparing a powerful, expensive, fully programmable computer provided with cameras, GPS, radios with a photoalbum/book/TV is silly.
> They're becoming bigger, more powerful, and some can now be plugged in to monitors
You could plug a Commodore 64 to a television and write software on it, even if its CPU was probably less powerful than the battery controller of my smartphone.
It's obvious that smartphone OSes are designed to turn the device into an addictive toy. Your examples of not owning software and centralization goes on the same line.
> because it's a consumption device rather than both consumption and production, is just silly.
Because it could be something else than just a consumption device (unlike a book or a photo album), as it's technically a general purpose computer. His point makes perfect sense.
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.
It's not actually silly because of the mindset some people have. I know many people who bought an iPad or an iPhone with the mindset of, "GREAT! Now I don't need a computer." They went into it thinking that an iPad or an iPhone was a replacement for a computer and then were basically transformed into someone who could easily produce content to someone who could only produce content with difficulty.
Your argument from analogy is not apt because nobody buys a photoalbum thinking, "GREAT! Now I don't need a camera."
> it's a consumption device rather than both consumption and production, is just silly
It's not just the fact that it's an underutilized general computing device; just look at the apps on your phone and tell me the percentage of them that open to a blank "canvas" rather than some kind of stream / feed.
On the desktop, you have your text editors, word processors, photo editors, video editors, 3D modelers, IDEs, file sharing utilities, digital audio workstations, etc.
On the phone, you have your camera app and maybe an audio recording app. Everywhere you want to produce something on the smartphone is generally tied to sharing it with others -- but then to share a photo, video, or thought, you're almost always coerced into consuming some information first.
I think this is solvable, though, especially by this community. The mobile platform is still young, especially compared to the desktop world. There is time to create real tools that enable more people to create, and don't simply aim to hold users' stares and profit from their personal information.
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.
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.
Does it have to be a platform for creation? I use my phone as a sort of amalgamated media consumption device. I listen to music and audiobooks, track my fitness, read (research) papers, I use it for navigation and maps and of course for communication. I don't want to 'create' on device the size of my palm because it's a poor form factor.
Fundamentally I want something in my pocket that I can query to find information quickly. This is truly sci-fi terminal stuff and we have it today.
Tablets - yes, this is a big problem. It annoys me that I can buy a tablet with great CPU power underneath, but I can't do any real work on it. Real work being development, access to a non-emulated terminal. We're getting closer to this with the MS Surface since you can run desktop applications on it, but I would never buy an iPad or an Android tablet because to me it's just a big phone without the data contract.
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.
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.
You convieniently didnt mention that it also allows their government to know where they are and where they were and what they're saying and what they've said, and what they're reading, and glimpses of what they've seen, forever.
If you then showed them a real computer, nobody in their right mind would have said "yes." The thing about smartphones is, they don't actually do anything new. The only thing better about them is the form factor, they sacrifice everything else in comparison to a real computer. None of those things you listed are inherent to smartphones.
>The smartphone is one of the most significant inventions of the last 100 years.
This is hilarious. Oh yeah sure, nukes are pretty forgettable compared to smartphones, because now anyone can post on Hacker News from while on the toilet.
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.
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.)
I always find fantastic how these kinds of arguments can be made blatantly ignoring that they basically are a plea for authoritarian governments.
Do you realize how bad basic freedoms are? Most people are better off without them, because many would harm themselves. And can you imagine the gains if instead of letting people speak for themselves, we has a single entity vetting everyone's discourse? Man, dictatorship is so great, so efficient.
What does having an ability to gain root access have to do with installing random malware apps?
You can easily have a device with disabled root access and a curated store as a default and make gaining root access an added functionality (similarly how Android Nexus phones require you to issue a fastboot oem unlock command).
Where does this idea that the only alternative to not having some non-technical people install malware is to forbid root access to EVERYONE else?!
I would believe (partially) in the argument of security, if locking down phones was not used for what, in my view, is a clear case of planned obsolescence.
Phones are unique devices in generally requiring you to buy new hardware after 2 or 3 years if you want up-to-date software. This is wasteful and infuriating. My 13 year old PC is still able to run the latest version of Ubuntu, and does a pretty good job at it.
I really really wish Nokia had gone the N900/N9 route. Or now that they somehow acquire Jolla. For us, developers, phones are small computers. There's no difference. Locked down devices are simply restricting our ability to do things. We need something different.
Good argument, except: On Android, currently, we have 3 completely separate "App with no permissions" to "Full bootloader unlock" exploit chains. (in 5.1)
Malicious people always find a way to abuse your system.
Restricting freedom for security means you will get neither.
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?
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:
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.
...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).
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.
... with overengineered, potentially buggy and vulnerable junk stuck into their devices which serves no purpose to them and can't be controlled or disabled.
"The initial focus of Violations Tracker is on things that act against the interests of people who own or use items of technology, and in the interests of the manufacturer or other entities."
It seems he's just making note of anti-user practices on various devices and software, e.g. "Amazon can delete content remotely" on Amazon Kindle devices. Makes sense to me.
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.
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...]
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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)!
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.
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...
> 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...
That's a common fallacy perpetuated by Apple and similar companies but it's simply not true. Having the ability to unlock your device, install apps after you enable unknown sources and hange other parts of it do not have to come at the cost for "average user" (whoever that is). You can make a secure simple default and still not waste development time and resources locking down the devices.
But I am neither getting freedom nor security with smart phones. My 2 year old smart phone have never received a security update. It has become a piece of crap just within 2 years.
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.
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.
>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-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?
[+] [-] IkmoIkmo|10 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] cableshaft|10 years ago|reply
I don't like it. I like having games from decades ago and still being able to play them long after the companies are dead and its employees working on other things.
On my own time I try to come up with software that can run entirely without the need to communicate with servers, or even without internet access.
The only problem with that is the software becomes that much easier to pirate, but oh well, I guess. I care more about the longevity of my work for my personal projects than whether or not I'm going to make the megabucks with them.
And honestly, for a few games I've worked on for companies in the past, pirates are the only thing keeping those games accessible at all.
[+] [-] jdietrich|10 years ago|reply
Novels written on mobile phones are a popular literary subculture in Japan.
http://www.ualberta.ca/~berban/cell/cellwho.html
The Android SDK will run on Android, so apps can be written and built entirely on the device. Definitions of 'practical' vary, but I have done web development work on an Android tablet with a Bluetooth keyboard. I regularly use a terminal emulator on Android for quick server admin tasks.
http://www.android-ide.com/
[+] [-] nyan4|10 years ago|reply
Comparing a powerful, expensive, fully programmable computer provided with cameras, GPS, radios with a photoalbum/book/TV is silly.
> They're becoming bigger, more powerful, and some can now be plugged in to monitors
You could plug a Commodore 64 to a television and write software on it, even if its CPU was probably less powerful than the battery controller of my smartphone.
It's obvious that smartphone OSes are designed to turn the device into an addictive toy. Your examples of not owning software and centralization goes on the same line.
[+] [-] ekianjo|10 years ago|reply
Because it could be something else than just a consumption device (unlike a book or a photo album), as it's technically a general purpose computer. His point makes perfect sense.
[+] [-] 300bps|10 years ago|reply
It's not actually silly because of the mindset some people have. I know many people who bought an iPad or an iPhone with the mindset of, "GREAT! Now I don't need a computer." They went into it thinking that an iPad or an iPhone was a replacement for a computer and then were basically transformed into someone who could easily produce content to someone who could only produce content with difficulty.
Your argument from analogy is not apt because nobody buys a photoalbum thinking, "GREAT! Now I don't need a camera."
[+] [-] thebaer|10 years ago|reply
It's not just the fact that it's an underutilized general computing device; just look at the apps on your phone and tell me the percentage of them that open to a blank "canvas" rather than some kind of stream / feed.
On the desktop, you have your text editors, word processors, photo editors, video editors, 3D modelers, IDEs, file sharing utilities, digital audio workstations, etc.
On the phone, you have your camera app and maybe an audio recording app. Everywhere you want to produce something on the smartphone is generally tied to sharing it with others -- but then to share a photo, video, or thought, you're almost always coerced into consuming some information first.
I think this is solvable, though, especially by this community. The mobile platform is still young, especially compared to the desktop world. There is time to create real tools that enable more people to create, and don't simply aim to hold users' stares and profit from their personal information.
[+] [-] TheAceOfHearts|10 years ago|reply
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|10 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] joshvm|10 years ago|reply
Fundamentally I want something in my pocket that I can query to find information quickly. This is truly sci-fi terminal stuff and we have it today.
Tablets - yes, this is a big problem. It annoys me that I can buy a tablet with great CPU power underneath, but I can't do any real work on it. Real work being development, access to a non-emulated terminal. We're getting closer to this with the MS Surface since you can run desktop applications on it, but I would never buy an iPad or an Android tablet because to me it's just a big phone without the data contract.
[+] [-] seivan|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jvandonsel|10 years ago|reply
"No thanks." ?
The smartphone is one of the most significant inventions of the last 100 years.
[+] [-] ekianjo|10 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] shpx|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] joonoro|10 years ago|reply
If you then showed them a real computer, nobody in their right mind would have said "yes." The thing about smartphones is, they don't actually do anything new. The only thing better about them is the form factor, they sacrifice everything else in comparison to a real computer. None of those things you listed are inherent to smartphones.
>The smartphone is one of the most significant inventions of the last 100 years.
This is hilarious. Oh yeah sure, nukes are pretty forgettable compared to smartphones, because now anyone can post on Hacker News from while on the toilet.
[+] [-] fiatjaf|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] cognivore|10 years ago|reply
That is one Hell of a lot of people I have no interest in talking to.
[+] [-] barnabee|10 years ago|reply
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.)
[+] [-] logicrook|10 years ago|reply
Do you realize how bad basic freedoms are? Most people are better off without them, because many would harm themselves. And can you imagine the gains if instead of letting people speak for themselves, we has a single entity vetting everyone's discourse? Man, dictatorship is so great, so efficient.
[+] [-] izacus|10 years ago|reply
You can easily have a device with disabled root access and a curated store as a default and make gaining root access an added functionality (similarly how Android Nexus phones require you to issue a fastboot oem unlock command).
Where does this idea that the only alternative to not having some non-technical people install malware is to forbid root access to EVERYONE else?!
[+] [-] nextos|10 years ago|reply
Phones are unique devices in generally requiring you to buy new hardware after 2 or 3 years if you want up-to-date software. This is wasteful and infuriating. My 13 year old PC is still able to run the latest version of Ubuntu, and does a pretty good job at it.
I really really wish Nokia had gone the N900/N9 route. Or now that they somehow acquire Jolla. For us, developers, phones are small computers. There's no difference. Locked down devices are simply restricting our ability to do things. We need something different.
[+] [-] kuschku|10 years ago|reply
Malicious people always find a way to abuse your system.
Restricting freedom for security means you will get neither.
[+] [-] woofiefa|10 years ago|reply
There are also plenty of examples of mobile devices being infected even though the user didn't have root access.
[+] [-] wvh|10 years ago|reply
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?
[+] [-] Tomte|10 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] wangchow|10 years ago|reply
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...
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.
[+] [-] joosters|10 years ago|reply
* 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.
[+] [-] hlandau|10 years ago|reply
Although there are some interesting moves in the works: https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Talos-Se... Expensive though.
[+] [-] qb45|10 years ago|reply
... with overengineered, potentially buggy and vulnerable junk stuck into their devices which serves no purpose to them and can't be controlled or disabled.
[+] [-] shopkins|10 years ago|reply
"The initial focus of Violations Tracker is on things that act against the interests of people who own or use items of technology, and in the interests of the manufacturer or other entities."
It seems he's just making note of anti-user practices on various devices and software, e.g. "Amazon can delete content remotely" on Amazon Kindle devices. Makes sense to me.
[+] [-] hengheng|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] compactmani|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dublinben|10 years ago|reply
Or POWER8.[0]
[0]https://raptorengineeringinc.com/TALOS/prerelease.php
[+] [-] madeofpalk|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] scrollaway|10 years ago|reply
[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...]
[+] [-] ggreer|10 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] cowsandmilk|10 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] woofiefa|10 years ago|reply
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|10 years ago|reply
Answering your question: It doesn't have to remove rights, but the economics of making a device that doesn't makes that device unfeasible.
[+] [-] veddox|10 years ago|reply
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|10 years ago|reply
More importantly: "Guys, great software, but how am I supposed to use this after you go out of business?"
[+] [-] musha68k|10 years ago|reply
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)!
[+] [-] thedaydreamer|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] raesene9|10 years ago|reply
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...
[+] [-] izacus|10 years ago|reply
That's a common fallacy perpetuated by Apple and similar companies but it's simply not true. Having the ability to unlock your device, install apps after you enable unknown sources and hange other parts of it do not have to come at the cost for "average user" (whoever that is). You can make a secure simple default and still not waste development time and resources locking down the devices.
[+] [-] VarunAgw|10 years ago|reply
[+] [-] madeofpalk|10 years ago|reply
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11086290
[+] [-] decasteve|10 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] Eridrus|10 years ago|reply
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.
[+] [-] ikeboy|10 years ago|reply
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-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?