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
Yeah. I am a new-ish hobby photographer and at the moment I have a 50mm lens for my Canon R10 (I will buy a bigger lens soon). The camera with its current lens doesn’t zoom well but my smartphone could sometimes take a better photo zoomed in depending on how I play with the settings, angle and lighting.
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.
I don’t see how we would have smartphones without capitalism. We’d still all be farmers.
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.
What do you mean “is there anything good about smartphones at all”? It made a ton of money for Apple and its shareholders, that’s the only thing that matters. Who cares that it caused anxiety in a whole generation and ruined social life?
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.
How calls were expensive…
How music hobby was expensive and nowadays you got the world music collection for less than 10 euro per month…
How we had to pay a few euros per movie when going to the video club to get a movie. And that would imply moving there to get it, moving there to return it. Nowadays I pay less than 10 euro per HBO max…
How we had to get into a public library to get some info on something and always would come very short, specially on some themes…
How electronic equipment was way more expensive and did way way less.
And this… And that… And this… And that…
Unironically this. I wish I had just paid in dollars instead of my data. Looking back, it was too good to be true. It’s hard to deny we never should’ve let it get this engrained in our lives.
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.
The end result is that I don’t feel like I truly own my phone
You kinda/sorta don’t. Manufacturers saw an opportunity to create a closed environment around the tech, not unlike gaming consoles, and made sure it happened that way. It may also be a side-effect of smartphones emerging from the same manufacturers that made far less capable and less open devices in generations prior (think old flip phones and 1st gen cell phones). Just like with game consoles, DRM (coupled with DMCA advantages) and the attached walled-garden retail environment are the prime motivators there. Marketing and financing help make sure it stays this way.
At the same time, providing a watered down platform for the masses did accelerate all the things OP is talking about. Phone/tablet apps make user interaction insanely^1 easy to do without any understanding of the platform its on. In contrast, PC’s do a great job of requiring some amount of tech literacy before you start. So most people that would be stymied by the complexities^2 in a Windows system or Mac can easily do all kinds of internet-enabled things, for cheaper, on their phone. It’s not a root cause by any measure, but I really do think that the commodification of software services in this way, has thrown gasoline on whatever fires were already burning.
- Note: not “insanely great”.
- I know what you’re thinking, dear reader. You would be surprised.
So most people that would be stymied by the complexities^2 in a Windows system or Mac can easily do all kinds of internet-enabled things, for cheaper, on their phone
And this is what gets me. Just 40 years ago, you had to understand the whole system to use a computer, because your options were basically DOS or Unix. Apple came along w/ a GUI around then, but you still needed to understand things at a pretty deep level. And then there was Win 3 and later Win 95 and Win 98, and you still interacted w/ DOS a fair amount (I learned to launch DOS games from floppy).
And people largely seemed okay with that and adapted.
So when people get confused by our much simpler devices, I don’t think it’s because they’re complicated, but exactly the opposite. Everything is presented as “easy,” so anytime you need to do anything beyond the expected happy path of uses, it doesn’t fit and people give up. If people were used to interacting with the lower level bits periodically, they would probably just adapt.
And the net result is that power users lose and larger orgs win, because people end up getting an app to do something they could have solved another way, which gives the app store even more money and shoves ads in the user’s face. It’s incredibly frustrating. For example, if I want to debug my wifi signal, I download an app that shows the signal details. On my desktop, I’d just run a command-line app that lists available networks by signal strength and whatnot, no app needed. Or if I want to test latency, I need an app on my phone, whereas I can just use
pingon my desktop.
Can I jailbreak a Samsung Flip 6 like this? If I do will I still be able to use my job’s Microsoft 365 stuff and authenticator? I know I could Google it but I’d rather ask an expert.
I don’t know anything about Samsung’s phones, but you certainly can’t install GrapheneOS on it, since it only supports Pixeel phones, and I didn’t see a LineageOS build for it (and LineageOS is usually the best bet).
Here are a bunch of others though, just in case you wanted to shop around.
So short answer is no, but maybe there’s a longer answer. :)
How does everyone everywhere having a really decent camera ruin photography? One of the things we had to do in photography class was use a disposable to take well composed shots (but also we developed the film ourselves). A phone camera would make those look way better.
Photographic art is drowned in a world of snapshots. That which we obtain too cheaply we esteem too lightly. Of course, there are a lot of awesome upsides and people can still do photography as a hobby, but there’s a real “you can’t go home again” feeling. You probably would have had to been into the hobby prior to the smartphone to appreciate the loss.
Snapshots can also have artistic value. Something that was also taught to me in my photography classes that I took before smartphones were a thing.
Well this is the cold hotdog water of hot takes. Ill guess anon wasn’t alive before smart phones.
Ruined cell phone keyboards
Ruined cell phone batteries
If you teach yourself to use swype typing on Gboard it can be almost as fast as a keyboard to type. Of course that’s a Google product though blah blah blah.
It’s good and better than typing on a dumb screen, but it still sucks compared to a real keyboard, especially when I want or need to type non-words. PTBR also has many words that use “ss” or “rr”, with similar words with only a single s or r, so I often have to manually type anyway.
Good for porn?
Like sure, but it’s no VR masturbatorium.
Shitty for porn. Tiny screen.
Do you want to take a 32inch screen to the bathroom?
More importantly why would you even need a screen in the bathroom? Literally ruins the most basic act of our existence.
No but if I’m going to watch porn in the bathroom I’m going to use a laptop or tablet not a little postage stamp phone screen
Challenge accepted.
Yes, the option to just throw it in the corner and not charge it anymore.
Or to uninstall all your shitty apps.
Add in ruined music to that. Shitty speakers, super lossy codecs to preserve cellular bandwidth, even shittier Bluetooth compression, listening to music on a phone is convenient but it sounds like shit. And we’ve got generations of people who think that’s what music is supposed to sound like.
And we’ve got generations of people who think that’s what music is supposed to sound like.
There was an article on Hacker News a little ways back, about this very phenomenon in China. Basically there’s now a generation that has profound nostalgia for the absolutely awful and dirt-cheap playback tech available over a 30 years ago. To the point that “music doesn’t sound right” on newer tech, and may well be outright un-listenable without crappy hardware in play. By this, I think we can predict that “Bluetooth audio emulation” on newer and better devices, is absolutely going to be a thing eventually.
Unless you have a Sony phone or an LG V series phone. The DACs on those are incredible (for phones at least)
You don’t hate smartphones; you hate capitalism.
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.
Ah yes in communism you have no choice and must use smartphone or else!
But rampant and unchecked capitalism is still what ruined all of those things, whether or not it’s possible in other systems. The constant drive for line go up drives tons of shitty behaviors that directly lead to enshitification.
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.
good luck getting a job without having a smartphone
For your mental health, block tankies on sight
Spotted a dipshit. Blocking…
Ruined these things for you maybe. I still enjoy them. And don’t use my phone for most. One of the things I live about the phone is being able to communicate with my friends and family I want. I also enjoy having the majority of the worlds information available to me. Ooooo and music. Soooo much music at my fingertips.
There’s no way you are having a good time with digital dating, there just isn’t.
Well, not anymore no. Living with my bae. But I dipped my toe in that scene some years back, it was kinda fun. Setting up my own blind dates, occasionally meeting someone as thirsty as me. I’m sure it’s changed. I meant more that the mobile versions of those things doent ruin the regular versions. Im sure the affect each other, but Normal dating is still a thing.
I’m not very confident in person in the sense I would never randomly start talking to a cute girl. Online dating is great for me as a way to start conversations.
Even if your goal is to hit it and quit it like dating apps encourage, it’s still not a good time.
NO! You are not allowed to enjoy things, you must be sad, capitalism bad, communism is solution to all our problems. enshitification. enshitification. enshitification. 😡
Gotta respect the rules. Enjoyment canceled.
Capitalism is demonstrably bad. Very few people are claiming communism fixes everything, and you might as well take a flying fuck at a rolling donut if you think we can pull off communism right now. And yeah we’re surrounded by enshittification. What’s got you mad?
