Comment by llbbdd
1 day ago
Is it just a matter of not trusting the OS? I'm trying to figure out why "smart phone" is the discriminator here.
1 day ago
Is it just a matter of not trusting the OS? I'm trying to figure out why "smart phone" is the discriminator here.
A smart phone _could_ be legitimate and free and open, but in practice it's not. This is a constraint based on the reality of the market, not really based on what is strictly possible with the technology. I don't get too deep into this, but at a very high level, this is what I dislike about smartphones.
- Touchscreen user interface is objectively worse than a mouse and keyboard. Portability is the the only benefit to this interface, but this also works strongly to attack impulse control. It's always on you, just a moment away.
- Smartphones are significantly worse for privacy. In a LOT of ways. We can discuss this if you're interested.
- Many smartphone apps exist solely because a website would be less addicting and would also not be able to collect as much data as an app. ie, it's a choice that's worse for you and better for the company.
- They're significantly less open. Yes, grapheneOS and other alternatives exist, however it's not like a computer where I can just install whatever I want without asking the provider permission to unlock the device.
- I touched on this in two other bullets, but it's worth highlighting here: they're built intentionally to be addictive.
- The operating system and hardware are effectively interlocked. (yes, I know grapheneOS exists) but for any modern thing you might actually require a smartphone for (banking app, OTP app, etc) you must be using Apple or Google.
- Providers don't produce security updates well enough; Apple is "better" here, but my 10-15 year old computer can run modern Linux. People brag about 7 years of support on an iPhone. I'm under the impression that Android is better than it used to be, but in the old days any random vendor would give you about 1 year of update support and then you'd be hosed running old Android until you bought a new phone.
- Nobody cares if I own a desktop computer or not, but it's getting to the point that businesses will not work with me unless I have a modern smartphone.
I could probably go on, but I really hate these things.
> Touchscreen user interface is objectively worse than a mouse and keyboard
au contraire, touch screen is objectively better, and i dont buy laptops where the screen isnt a touch screen. cursors and mice and focus on laptop+mouse UXs is just horrible, and for keyboard only even worse.
the touch screen is much simpler, in that you touch or swipe on the thing, and it makes the motion in direct response to what you touched. the input is physically linked into the interaction, rather than some changing relative position.
Yeah I'm aware of all of this, it's just the framing that confused me. A lot of these boil down to "nobody should own or use a smart phone to do anything" which is a bit of a different and less specific pitch than "nobody should browse the web on a smart phone".