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   anna (navi@social.vlhl.dev)'s status on Tuesday, 01-Jul-2025 23:58:08 JST anna
   @hipsterelectron i don't think the form factor of phones is dumb or whatever, but i do think that current smartphones as dumb by nature
   
   they're locked down devices that prohibit tinkering and experimentation, and if you try, google says "no, fuck you, play integrity / safety net fail for you"
   
   i love my phone, though i use it in a manner that is different than most, my phone is used for quick, at-a-glance checks (calendar, bank account, todos), simple media (videos in bed, music on the go), for actual comms it's only slightly useful, just for quick chatting with friends
   
   anything longer than a couple short messages, i do prefer to use a laptop or my desktop, as a proper keyboard is a lot better to type on, and the screen doesn't feel claustrophobic, phones for me are amazing as a side-device, as my hud and quick-action screen
   
   i would hate to use a shared family computer honestly, since i would not be able to tinker with it, and i know because from 4 to 12 all i had access was the shared family computer (wow i've been tinkering with computers since forever huh)
   
   i also come from a poor country, where even though most houses have a few cheap samsung or moto phones (don't get me started on how those people get fucked over by being forced to run android 6 or android 8, since corpos are quick to drop device updates for anything but their flagship devices), some households, there's only a *single* phone for the whole family is all they had, a shared, phone.
   
   oh i wish the smartphone as a platform were open, so many people would then have the opportunity to learn about tech and explore it in their own devices... and some folks who only have a phone do learn with it, termux is amazing, and i do admire those folks persistence, but it's not enough, it's highly limited
   
   sadly you can only step outside of the corpo box by getting a proper computer
   • Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: likes this.
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     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: (lanodan@queer.hacktivis.me)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Jul-2025 00:05:21 JST Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell:

     in reply to
     @navi @hipsterelectron Well even if smartphones were open platforms, they're the combination of a bunch of "difficult to write drivers for" hardware in a device that needs to *not* fail (at least on telephony side of things) where you usually can't workaround anything.
     
     Like on a laptop if the wifi chip doesn't works you can use ethernet or a wifi dongle (which for a laptop can be small enough), same idea for audio and maybe even video now.
     While if you have to carry adapters with your phone, then it's not easily pocketable anymore.
     
     I wish PDAs wouldn't have died, so we could have kept the annoying telephony stuff to feature phones.
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     Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell: (lanodan@queer.hacktivis.me)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Jul-2025 00:14:54 JST Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell:

     in reply to
     @navi @hipsterelectron Personally I would consider WhatsApp as telephony if it's being used for everything including public services, doctors, or oh dear emergency services.
     
     Specially because well, phone network that dropped 2G/3G, are also just mobile data + VoIP due to VoLTE.
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     anna (navi@social.vlhl.dev)'s status on Wednesday, 02-Jul-2025 00:14:55 JST anna

     in reply to

     • Haelwenn /элвэн/ :triskell:
     @lanodan @hipsterelectron
     
     i am thinking of phones as PDAs lol, in brazil, people will call you via whatsapp before ever thinking of using the telephony side of things, the other day my mom got mad that i didn't pick up her call, when she never called me proper, she called on whatsapp which i didn't transfer to my new phone yet
     
     people there only get mobile plans for mobile data and nothing else, it is common for those poor households i mentioned, to never get a mobile plan, they can't afford it, so their phones only really work while at the range of their home wifi (or, some other families, only have mobile plans for mobile data, and no wifi at home at all, meaning carrier data limits are an actual danger to them)