There’s (mostly) nothing wrong with the technology. It’s the enshittification and profit motive behind nearly everything that’s the real problem.
How do you separate the two? To me smartphones seem like the sort of thing that was always headed in a bad direction. It’s inherently a tracking device. Touchscreens are easy to use and intuitive but really slow and inefficient for most things that go beyond browsing/viewing content. It pushes you to get all your software from a centralized walled garden. If it weren’t for smartphones, the people who mostly only use smartphones probably wouldn’t be spending a lot of time on the internet, and that would be for the best.
How do you separate the two?
you end capitalism
Makes sense, though I meant that more in the sense of like, how can it be said that there is nothing wrong with the technology when it’s been designed around the profit motive.
How do you separate the two?
A major change in how our economy works. No, I don’t expect this to actually happen in my lifetime.
I think that having the convenience of an easy-to-use, always-online device in your pocket at all times is inherently addicive. The profit motive just compounds this issue on purpose to extract wealth, but it is more of a symptom of a larger issue.
Humans, nor any other animal on this planet have ever existed in an era that they can be always connected to everyone in their species at all times; even having that ability at all is revolutionary and unprecidented.
It used to be that the only people you talk to would be people in your local area, but now a significant portion of the percentage of people that an average person is likely to encounter on a daily basis is via means where their real character is hidden behind a carefully curated mask.
smartphone manufacturers have almost no common standards, they are made to be bought and then disposed of instead of upgrading the specs
it’s impossible to do stuff like upgrading ram which would be very easy on a computer, and every smartphone has a different cpu
companies are doing their best to keep the open source guys out of the game, which in my opinion would solve a lot of the issues if this weren’t the case
I want a smartphone without ios or android but just plain linux, which should be upgradable and durable, possibly with open source firmware and that kind of stuff
Don’t worry! RAM is not upgradable on a lot of laptops now as well"!
Or storage if you’re a Mac owner.
Both if you’re a mac owner actually! I’m pretty sure the only user replaceable components are the screen and battery.
You can still replace the battery? They’re slacking.
I mean I use a fairphone with /e/OS from Murena. This solves the issue of open source and upgradability/replacability mostly for me. I like the idea of bare linux phones but the hardware and software is just not there yet. I used an iPhone before that and while I miss some aspects of apple hardware I am really happy to be able to just replace parts without this tremendous glue they put in their phone and like 20 different screws and steps to replace one part. Besides some minor inconveniences the switch was definitely the right move!
I hate how /e/OS’s ‘BlissLauncher’ doesn’t let you leave an empty space between icons on the homescreen. I don’t know whether switching to a different launcher will break /e/OS’s widgets etc, and it bugs me just little enough to ignore it. The worst thing is that because you can’t leave gaps (unless you leave the bottom row partially blank, which is dumb because that’s the most important row), moving any app requires swapping it with another, which requires a minimum of three app-drags. In practice four, because draggin one app onto another will turn the icon into a folder with the two apps in them, so you’ll have to open the folder and drag em both out.
I hate it so much. Why can’t they just make a normal homescreen?
I switched to a different launcher a while ago. The one I use is Kvaesitso. It also has a widget integration and relies more on search although I can still pin Apps I want. I believe most alternate Launchers have their own Widget integration in a way so I’d recommend you try that
From my experience, all the linux for mobile distros I’ve tried on my Pinephone were a really bad experience, with a lot of issues. But the option is there, and while it wasnt reliable enough to use as a daily phone, I still carry it in the bag with a dock and Kali, which sometimes can get useful during pentesting.
Maybe a flatpak repo with mobile-first software?
The problem is the chipsets, which include the radio. They have their own proprietary code, including some built in firmware. Along with things like roaming, negotiating frequencies, requesting MMS downloads and other niggly details, you have stuff like handling sim cards, emergency services modes, and public alerts. All of which I’ve heard are lightly documented and a pain to work with… It’s a lot of compatibility layers built up over the years
You can get a Linux phone today, the consensus just seems to be it’s not ready as a primary phone
You don’t hate smartphones; you hate capitalism.
a lot of the issues listed are related to the impact of technology on our lives. not on the system that controls the means of the technology’s production. unless you’re trying to say that smartphones are only possible under a capitalist society?? but im assuming you’re not saying something that ridiculous. or are you one of those freaks that thinks communism will solve all existential woes, even aging and mortality lol i hope not. because life is gonna have shit in it no matter what and being pampered to death is absolutely a thing. that’s essentially the smart phone problem. thousands of potential dating partners a swipe away, hundreds of memes and videos constantly being uploaded to the brain, yeah it’s going to impact you. this is bigger than economics.
none of those items listed are impossible communism. Its smartphones that suck. The difference is, with capitalism you have a choice not to use them.
Smartphones are a tool. They are inherently not bad nor good.
Social media ruined it by using algorithms to keep you glued to your phone as much as possible.
Ah yes in communism you have no choice and must use smartphone or else!
Ruined photography?
Professionals or hobbyists can still use a proper camera but the old maxim “sometimes the best camera is the one you have with you” often applies and cellphones do fairly well in that regard
I think is more about how the smartphone and apps like instagram uses a bunch of filters and things like that.
That part I can agree with. Plus the “AI editing” bullshit.
The auto editing bullshit that you don’t even know that is active
I hate that people have taken to filming/taking pictures vertically
We were so close to everyone knowing not to do that
The problem isn’t smartphones, it’s capitalism.
All of those things would have happened anyway in a different form factor because capitalism is just a race to the bottom.
Except maybe UI design. That has been special in its enshittification.
bad UI design is also because of capitalism, because the software companies can’t stand just having a working software, they must make some changes in some way and UI is a low hanging fruit.
Maps/gps navigation and being able to talk to someone across the world for free (provided you have an internet connection). Genz and younger millennials don’t know how expensive long-distance calls were back then.
Proved the underpaid math teacher wrong when they said we wouldn’t always have a calculator in our pocket.
I can watch porn on the go?
Like… On a bus?
> ruined masturbating to complete strangers on a bus
Yeah definitely the smartphone is why I still don’t have a girlfriend yup yup
I honestly hate smartphones as well, not because of any of what OP posted. On my PC, I can install whatever I want, including swapping out the OS. Most smartphones are locked down, and the few that allow alternative ROMs have huge incompatibilities w/ FOSS OSes (i.e. getting SMS to work is a bit spotty).
My phone runs GrapheneOS. I would much rather use something else (e.g. PostmarketOS), but it’s the least bad option that supports all the features I need. I am still limited to Android-compatible apps, and developing for my phone is a lot more painful than any other ARM-based device because I’m stuck w/ the Android ecosystem.
The end result is that I don’t feel like I truly own my phone, whereas I definitely feel that way about my PC. Yeah, my phone is convenient, and I don’t use most of the nonsense Anon is complaining about (I mostly use websites on my phone instead of apps), but I still generally dislike having a thing in my pocket that I don’t actually control.
I like having maps and gps with me
GPS, music, and I disagree about the camera. I’d love a dumb phone that could do GPS music and a camera and nothing else besides text and calls.
The flashlight to.
Ehh… I hate anal-locked phones. They are turing machines. They are mathematically proven to be as capable as any other turing machines.
anal-locked
new kind of biometrics?
Insert authentication dildo to continue.
Or anal-guarded. Yes. Translation of анально-огороженные.
Is this how Russians call the iPhone gay?
ruined privacy
Ruined that too
Ruined pointless but enjoyable arguments with mates in the pub. In the old days you could get a good 15 minutes of entertainment out of ‘Was it Matt Damon or Mark Wahlberg in that Three Kings movie?’
Now some asshat with a phone will kill that argument in 5 seconds.
There’s plenty of pub topics Google can’t kill. For example Would you rather have hands made of chocolate cake or an armpit that squirts cream?
That’s a complete no-starter though. Cream squirting armpits every day of the week. After all, I’d have usable hands to be able to harvest the free cream, therefore profit. Whereas hands made of chocolate cake wouldn’t be very usable and once they’d been eaten (and with my wife and daughter around they soon would be) I’m just left with the stumps. You’ve not thought this through. So. Armpits that squirt cream. Definitively.
They ruined clubs, too. The flip phone cameras were shitty enough to make it a non-issue.
Before modern smartphones existed, I dreamed that they would one day exist and we could use computers and the Internet whereever we are, not just from home/work/school.
There are bad things about them too, but overall I would not want to do without them.
