Anyone else remember then being the cool new thing instead of a mandatory one?
They’re still cool form factor minicomputers tho, and cameras, video players, game consoles… and also phones.
That’s how they get you every time, now, it seems! First release…
Them: hey look at this cool *cheap new thing that’s so amazing *soon you won’t be able to live without it!
Us: wow, shiny.
Little time later after you’re hooked… $$$$$$$
I want my jailbroken iPhone 6 back.
That thing was sick. Simpler, yet more customizable than iOS currently is.
And I realize everyone probably has a “things were better back then, shakes fist” opinion, but I have reason to believe my exact setup would blow kids’ minds, transported forward in time.
Other than the camera, I guess.
Where did it go?
Time to get an android and start tweaking it.
And I realize everyone probably has a “things were better back then, shakes fist” opinion
At some point, we have to start admitting that things were just better before. A lot of technology/software peaked ~15 years ago. Before it started sliding into the fucking mess we have these days.
Some yes, many no.
Linux drivers? Nowadays you can plug almost anything in and it just works. 15 years ago it may have not been possible to make it work.
The amount of self-hostable open-source software now beats everything from 15 years ago.
Yeah, the self-hosted and FOSS side of things will forever be improving, but corporate shit just gets worse in terms of UX. I mean even FOSS projects have awful UX sometimes as they try copying corpos and their web apps.
I am not using corpo software for about 6 years now, with Jira/Confluence being the only exception at work, but Windows was never very user friendly. People joke about Linux not being friendly, but it was mostly that those people were used to Windows. But even in Win95, while being better than anything before, and most things after, it wasn’t a bastion of UX.
People should find an old computer from 95/98 era and try it out. It’s not as great as many seen to remember. UX has improved a lot since those days, but so has the spyware.
Some things yes, some things no.
Setting a static IP on an interface is a nightmare now.
I just got a huge nostalgia blast of the days running Cydia on my iPod Touch 3rd gen. I’d customize Winterboard, install emulators, pirate games. The little, touchscreen computer in my pocket truly felt like it was mine! Then I got a Nexus tablet, hopped on early Android, and felt even more free to use my device how I wanted. Fast forward to today and I feel like some sort of criminal running Graphene and just hoping F-Droid repos exist after Google locks down Android. Tech is way less DIY and hella dystopian, as we move into a full surveillance state and compulsive identity verification. But I digress. Now I’m just rambling and depressed about the future of tech. Thanks OP. 🥲
I do what I can.
It’s weird to think of Android 4 as “early Android”. For me that was the peak.
Indeed. I was a little late to use Android. Jelly Bean was my first real experience with it.
I remember when only my dad could lift the 15" b&w TV.
When men were men and TVs were shit.
My first TV was one of those with the rule that I had to get it to my room myself to keep it and my first bedroom was in a basement and the when I moved it was to the attic. Fun times. Heavy fricking TV
We had one of those big green screen TVs. I remember when we threw it out so the kids gathered to hit it with a bat. It could not break! Even with a hammer that front part of the screen was intact. Crazy thick glass and all.
Yeah, I could not do anything to this thing either. The worst I ever managed to do was put a scent brick that came in a tin can directly on top of it and it melted a hole in part of the housing.
I miss putting your hand on those and feeling all your hair rise
I was probably one of the last to hold onto a dumbphone because all I then needed was text messaging. But then the phone was starting to fall apart due to age, and it wasn’t easy having it, a sketchy digital camera, and a beat-up Shuffle and my clients were inching up the tech tree.
15 years later I keep two separate personas: one for the smartphone because you have the fucking suits expecting the face of a compliant lemming, with nothing incriminating whatsoever; the other is only on my computer, the one having more freedom to express dissent. Neither device are to be connected together in any way.
And should to join any form of general civil disobedience, better carry a dumbphone and a digital camera.
It really cracked me up 15-20 years ago when there was a fair amount of panic about the government / world order microchiping people at more or less the same time that everyone was starting to pay to carry around GPS devices that listen to you.
50 years ago, everyone was afraid to be spied on by the soviets or the US, now its “Hey Wiretap, find me a recipie for pancakes”.
I’m pretty sure the US and the Soviets were spying on everyone they could, enemies, allies, and their own civilians.
The US, China, the UK and likely others are currently spying on everyone they can, enemies, allies, and their own civilians.
I missed using the Playstation Portable in college. It was a fun handheld device where we can play fighting games such as Tekken and Guilty Gear and action adventure games God of war, Medal of Honor and Dissidia: Final Fantasy
I think about the fact that the Nintendo DS let you animate, draw, message friends, work as a step counter and all kinds of stuff. The PSP had a Sim slot and could be used as a GPS. I used mine for media, music and comic reading on it was awesome.
Like the things you could do was important and not just the data that could be scraped from you. Like they made it a competition to make them something you would want to use instead if all reduced to the black brick you have to have.
Duuuuude.
I absolutely adored hatena flipnote. There were so many crazy good animations, especially stickman fights. Now the servers are down, and only a couple were mirrored somewhere :/Okay I have been wanting to get an mp3 player for my bike (to leave attached) but now I want to use that psp you mentioned. I don’t $150 want one, but maybe if I have a profitable summer
Just so you know the knockoff iPods can be flashed with custom firmware these days for pretty cheap.
While I love my PSP I will not suggest you get into it now unless you can actually just get a great deal especially with the memory sticks being outdated.
In part I get what you’re saying and it still sucks that these games are under represented on the switch (haters say: get a steam deck!) but you can also still use the psp, or also play them on ps vita.
I have to say it’s a shame Sony scrapped the sleek higher end mobile gaming device concept.
This is exactly what Orwell feared TVs would become when he envisioned telescreens. Took a little longer for it to come to fruition. What’s fascinating about the novel that people over look is that the older generation in 1984 tend not to own them because they’re resistant to new technology just like today. So they aren’t really mandatory. Like smartphones.
I think the Party members were required to have telescreens, but the proles were not because they were seen as unimportant and incapable of organizing a rebellion.
Correctly assumed by my recollection.
This is exactly what Orwell feared TVs would become when he envisioned telescreens.
Especially considering how some smartphones already have under-display cameras.
I would buy my Xperia Play again in a heart beat if it had even midrange modern specs.
You can’t exist without a smart phone now. I went to a baseball game and refused to install their app for the ticket (which couldn’t be purchased with cash). They said they can text a link to a QR code. Printing it wasn’t an option.
I should have asked what I could do if I didn’t have a phone but I suspect their head would explode.
Yeah, I essentially can’t go to most concerts anymore because of the “mobile only” ticketing.
I was actually able to buy paper concert tix last November at a major arena. I wanted them for a gift. I had to go to the box office during a sporting event. He told me to keep it on the down-low because they are only supposed to print them if there is a very good reason like equipment failure or something. And he still said I had to give him my phone number. Not sure whose number I gave him though.
Yeah I can’t do tickets cause my Ticketmaster account broke and won’t send me emails anymore. I can’t get into the venue any other way or I have to spin up all new accounts for the monopoly machine
At Costco, you can’t get in line unless you use a phone camera to shoot the QR camera. I hate that: for most of my life, I was phoneless, and now I am obligated to pay for a service and device that I don’t care for.
Really? I haven’t personally run into anything at Costco that needed a smartphone, though I admittedly haven’t used their optical center.
Yup. Went there to get some new glasses a couple days back, had to figure out my smartphone’s camera feature on the spot. An old lady also had to be taught by someone how to do the QR thing.
I don’t like it. The haves and have nots of the world will be determined by smartphone status.
Welp, I guess I can never use their optical services then.
Hopefully, I will someday be able to buy a Linux smartphone that is truly controlled by me.
GrapheneOS with no Google play services/sim is the best experience currently available
I’m building a cyberdeck
The year of the linux phone.
I wish it could actually happen. But corporate has learned a lot from the 90s and early 00s. They are lock in experts that won’t let that happen easily.
postmarketOS has been making strides ever since Google announced they’d kill
sideloadinginstalling 3rd party apps.The list of phones is growing, I hope they get something high end up there. Current gOS is best because I want a phone with a good camera.
When the subject comes up I have often said that cell phones are what we avoided in the PC space when the IBM BIOS was reverse engineered.
It has been a disappointment to me that so many smart otherwise tech literate people have seemed to not be able to see the tech industry, and others, putting the digital noose around out necks with smart phones.
We are not too far away from entire brick and mortar businesses being off limits to someone whose only smart phone is not an iPhone and does not pass Googles Play Services Safetynet checks for an app and the only method to pay they have being cash or a physical credit card. That is wild, and something that should worry nearly everyone that has a vested interest in being able to live their lives without being under the thumbs of private corporate interests if they so choose.
And that is before even getting into the even more concerning parts of modern phones which take all of the above and make it scary by replacing private corporate interests with governments.
Nothing good ever comes from getting in a position where you have to interact with, or obey, another party and they get to set all of the terms.
Cash and card payments are perfectly fine for all of my in-person shopping needs. I don’t use a phone for banking or paying
not my fault your phone isnt cool
I would be happy with a Nokia 3310 with Signal and Matrix support.
deleted by creator
On Symbian?
And shit form factor, huge and bulky but very flat only. Because all customers demand it.
Same thing’s happened to cars: They all look like SUVs because people want to feel rugged.
No, that’w because the larger vehicles have more lax emissions standards.
Yeah. Got a loaner car from Volvo and even as a “compact” it’s bigger than my 10 year old car in my garage.
There’s a stupid EPA rule that needs to go away like the chicken tax.
Chicken tax?
AKA why America never got the Hilux
Dammit I’m supposed to be a tax expert. I knew about the protectionism but I didn’t know it was called the Chicken Tax. Pretend I told you that fact it’ll be good for my ego.
What fact?
