‘The tyranny of apps’: those without smartphones are unfairly penalised, say campaigners
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also those who dont want to install that spyware shit on their phones. Even if you dont care about the data collection it still consumes battery faster as more and more data is being transferred
McDonald’s (in Germany at least) needs your location to “see when you arrive at the restaurant”. What the hell?! That doesn’t even work properly and they force it on me! I uninstalled the app and now I am actually happy, because without the promotion and discount stuff, I don’t eat McDanks that often anymore.
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apps allow user tracking and advertising though. Much more valuable to the corpos than a few lost customers.
Also mich More valuable to Google, as they are the biggest Advertising company. I looked it up and according to this source I has ~70% of the pay-per-click market.
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I am still on a flip phone. It is usually silent, and I don't spend much time with it at all. While I am missing out on discounts and such, I simply hate the idea of constantly using a phone. Email is my telecommunication of choice, but receptionists don't understand the idea, unfortunately.
My household bought a Rinnai water heater, and the bastard needed a phone to set the temperature. Thing is, it couldn't communicate with the two or three phones that were used on it. Fortunately, there was an old-school modification for a physical keypad, but that had to be bought separately.
Phones are just not my thing.
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Get out of the stone age.
this comment makes me wish for a Carrington Event in the 21st century
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especially if you don't have an iphone. I have seen so many accessories and apps that were made for use on iphones which would also be useful for android devices as well. my transplant clinic has a patient portal that has an app for iphones but nothing for android so you have to use their website.
I switched thermostats due to the old one failing, and getting a basic smart thermostat was required for a hefty rebate that basically made it free.. and the one I have now, the app thought my not-major-brand phone was a tablet. I couldn’t hit the button to turn down the heat, only up, because it was cut off due to scaling.
So yeah, requiring apps for interface is bad. Even if you are willing to use it there’s so freakin many various versions of android that it’s guaranteed to not work properly for a whole swath of people, mostly those on budget devices.
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I'm probably gonna get clowned for feeding the troll, but - this comment comes off a lot more harsh if you've ever experienced not having access to the Internet and a smartphone or computer.
I spent the better part of 16 years of my life with no TV, MP3 player, phone, Internet, or computer - and it has negatively impacted me in immeasurable ways.
I couldn't find work, because I couldn't apply for jobs but also I didn't know you could do that on the Internet - I also didn't know YouTube existed, so I missed out on learning the things I liked, and I didn't know I was being abused because I had no way of knowing that it wasn't normal until I got access to help, via the Internet.I wasn't in the stone age - if I'd had options to do any of the above without a phone or the Internet, I'd be a different person today. Shut up, mate - not everyone can afford or has the opportunity to own a smartphone and data plan (which are rare and expensive in abusive situations like my past). Making services available in places like libraries and community centers without requiring smartphones and Internet would help so many people who have no ability to use them - those people are humans too.
and by the way while we're at it: if we're effectively paywalling access to basic human rights behind an IP address and cellular radio, those should be enshrined as human rights too.
I was raised in the boondocks. You couldn't get reception there back in the 90's, and there weren't any kids or neighbors that I could visit without having to be driven. My parents didn't have any community at all, so I in turn never learned how to socialize properly. To say the least, I never became comfortable with phones, even after moving into civilization. It just wasn't part of me.
Isolation from people is a huge disadvantage in life, you don't get to make friends, network, or learn what it means to be part of society. Here's hoping that cellphones and whatnot become rights, as you have said.
However, some states might provide SSI recipients a LifeConnect program. You get a free smartphone and low-end plan.
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Yep, the homeless pay more!
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I use GraphineOS on my Pixel 7 and even I feel penalized for caring about my privacy. Its absolutely nonsense, not everything needs an app.
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Yep, the homeless pay more!
Remember the meltdown over “Obamaphones”?
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These useless apps make Linux phone adoption harder, fuck them!
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Even if I was willing to download all of those apps I don't have room for them. They chew up 50-300mb each (why!?) and if I installed all of them I'd run out of memory. Since most phones now don't support memory expansion I have to be picky about which ones I use.
The reason they're so huge is
- They're generally not well optimized by the creators.
- They all contain their own dependencies
- There's a LOT of stuff in them (both code and dependencies). Which is kind of an optimization problem, but potato potato.
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This affects me a lot day to day. I have a phone, but it runs postmarketOS, not iOS or Android. It really shows me the importance of open standards. I feel that every business should be required to support open standards for each of the services they offer.
For me, buying train tickets used to be ok, but is getting harder now. Some train operators are really pushing you to use their app now, and getting rid of the option to download a PDF. It really frustrates me: it's not like it costs them more to offer PDF download - if anything, it's much cheaper to offer that functionality than to build and maintain an app for iOS and Android.
Back when I had an Android phone, I used Monzo, and it was so easy to send money to friends, set up standing orders etc. I wish they offered a proper web interface. Now, I use Natwest's online banking, and it's a real pain - I use the card reader to authenticate, then the website logs me out seemingly every 2 mins of inactivity. Some features, like pre-notifying that you'll be travelling abroad, are only available on the app. I only see this trend continuing.
The concert tickets example in the article is insane to me. I can't think of a use case that is better suited for PDFs, and that's what we've been doing for the last 10+ years without any issues. It really is user hostile and excludes people on the edges of society who don't fit, for whatever reason, with what the 80-90% do.
The reason venues don't allow PDFs is so that you're forced to use their own platform for resale where they take a commission.
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How about this:
At the apartments I recently moved out of, there were no quarter slots on the washing machines. They were an app that required a bluetooth connection to pay.
So if you lived there and didn't have a smartphone? Go fuck yourself, you don't get to do laundry.
Unless you bothered to check the laundry room when you were looking at the apartment, you wouldn't know. No warnings.
That...
Is that not illegal where you live?
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The reason they're so huge is
- They're generally not well optimized by the creators.
- They all contain their own dependencies
- There's a LOT of stuff in them (both code and dependencies). Which is kind of an optimization problem, but potato potato.
Mobile apps are also loaded with third party ad and spyware frameworks which bloats up the size.
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Mobile apps are also loaded with third party ad and spyware frameworks which bloats up the size.
Same thing with rendering/layout/functionality frameworks. And each app has their own.
My favorite Android app, Trail Sense, which has the ability to know when sunrise and sunset are without Internet, is like 10MB
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I literally had to switch bank accounts because I couldn't reset my password "on the web" and required me to use Virgin Money's app.
Customer service agent(s) on the phone after prolonged discussions why their app wouldn't work on three Android phones right in front of me surfaced, and I shit you not
Well sir, I have my iPhone here and can login just fine maybe you should buy one of those instead
That day I found out about this
I also had to switch accounts because after an update, the banking app didn't work any longer on my rooted phone and I couldn't log in. Thankfully, I've been keeping two accounts since forever, with the main motivation being that banks really like changing their TOS and introducing all sorts of fees, which I don't want.
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also those who dont want to install that spyware shit on their phones. Even if you dont care about the data collection it still consumes battery faster as more and more data is being transferred
Yeah, I couldn't be arsed to install that shit. I'm also not taking out my phone for this kind of bullshit. I'm sick and tired of smartphones.
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McDonald’s (in Germany at least) needs your location to “see when you arrive at the restaurant”. What the hell?! That doesn’t even work properly and they force it on me! I uninstalled the app and now I am actually happy, because without the promotion and discount stuff, I don’t eat McDanks that often anymore.
I use an app for OTR (petrol chain in Aus) and they've removed the requirement for location which is... Unexpected, to say the least. Anything except using the pumps on the app no longer needs it when all orders previously needed it.
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they make older phones become useless after ditching their support
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I literally had to switch bank accounts because I couldn't reset my password "on the web" and required me to use Virgin Money's app.
Customer service agent(s) on the phone after prolonged discussions why their app wouldn't work on three Android phones right in front of me surfaced, and I shit you not
Well sir, I have my iPhone here and can login just fine maybe you should buy one of those instead
That day I found out about this
Everything by Virgin is shit. I don't understand why they're so big
