Comment by dash2

11 hours ago

The Adam Smith Institute once added up all the govt spending demands made in a single news program and it came to like 10% of GDP.

Similarly the comments here: if only it could do all this and

* On/off button round the back

* More LTE bands

* An open bootloader (note to normies this is like saying "have a quantum multiplexer")

* Different screen ratio

* Different keyboard layouts

* Eink screen

* Bigger battery

* Be easier to use for someone with long fingernails (hello Nosferatu https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49751114)

* Be lighter

* Be smaller

* Have a website without javascript (really)

* Be cheaper (this one is satire) (no it's not)

Sure guys, why can't someone just build you your personal phone at the same price as the iPhone whose development costs are amortized over seval billions consumers :-/

Yeah, all of that would be great. Good ideas all round, and thank you for gathering all these sensible requests into one centralized list.

Slight problem, and it's not clear whether you've realised this: everybody else in the world knows that we can't have everything! Still, it's good to have goals, even if they can't be met, and it'd be monstrous to mock the ambition on display - which I do declare we should in fact salute. Good on you sir/madam, for not being a cynical jaded asshole like the rest of us.

* Headphone jack for special music

* SD card slot to store that special music

* Multiple physical SIMs because eSIMs can't be trusted

* Multiple eSIMs because physical SIMs are dumb

* LoRa for meshtastic because the network can't be trusted

* Drug scale for weighing drugs

(Actually, just put the drug scale on there and great teaming throngs of people will immediately forget that they ever owned an iPhone.)

> Be easier to use for someone with long fingernails (hello Nosferatu)

Long nails are somewhat common as an aesthetic/cosmetic choice usually for women (ime). No need to make a joke around accessible design.

>note to normies this is like saying "have a quantum multiplexer"

I don’t think you helped the normies out.

  • "note: to normies, this is like..."

    • What's the point of complaining about use of jargonisms in a specialist-leaning spaces?

      Anyone with a resemblance of a functioning brain (that is, any "normie" included) can understand "ability to install and run custom aftermarket operating system, or modify pre-installed one", assuming they know what an "operating system" is. And if they don't know what it is, that can - and should (!) - be explained too.

      This ability matters to people who don't know any much about any computer programming, because it affects their ability to use the devices they own. They may not know how it all works, but they do express regrets when something doesn't work the way they expect or want it to work. And we all know and hate enshittification here, don't we? Personally, I'm tired of saying "no, because Apple/Google decided only they can control this, and neither you or me can change this on this device" to "can this work so-and-so" questions.

      And "open bootloader" is a jargon shorthand for that. Crude, because it should be actually more like "bootloader that can be configured to validate software integrity with user-provided key material", but most people familiar with the space and lingo get the right idea anyway, and shorthand needs to be short. And this is Hacker News, not a Wendy's, so jargon is more than expected.

      If someone (a "normie") reads something and don't understand it, we should all be encouraging them to ask questions and try to give them accessible answers. Not shield them from this knowledge, not fetishize mindless consumerism, not behave like snobs, and especially not dismiss something important only because it's not commonly understood.

      For marketing materials that target "normie" audiences, it should be just phrased in "normie"-accessible way (look how Valve does that with their hardware), but when we're compiling a HN wishlist from HN comments, complaining about jargon is silly.

      /rant

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