- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@lemmy.world
The US Department of Justice and 16 state and district attorneys general accused Apple of operating an illegal monopoly in the smartphone market in a new antitrust lawsuit. The DOJ and states are accusing Apple of driving up prices for consumers and developers at the expense of making users more reliant on its iPhones.
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Now we just need the US to force carriers to automatically unlock phones after they are paid off.
They do actually. What you’re talking about is unlocking the bootloader.
I wanted to borrow a friend’s [old] phone to try out graphene but he got it from Verizon and they keep the bootloaders locked so it was worthless.
As soon as smartphones started becoming commonplace in like 2009 or so, I dropped Verizon because I wasn’t going to pay $500 for a smartphone that couldn’t have custom roms. Verizon can go fuck themselves.
A lot of carriers make you wait a certain period of time before unlocking. I’m hoping that I can get my phone unlocked so I can install graphene OS. I got a good deal on it so that’s why I bought it locked, I’m going to degoogle it as much as possible until I can get the bootloader unlocked.
Hang a phone carrier unlocked and unlocking the bootloader are very different things.
I am well aware but you can’t unlock the boot loader without having a phone carrier unlocked.
It’s been a while since I did it, but every single time I’ve unlocked a bootloader it’s been on a carrier-locked device. I’d usualy do it to remove carrier bloat.
Carrier Unlocking is required before a phone can be bootloader unlocked, at least on my Pixel 8.
Ahh - I think I see what you’re getting at.
I think the Pixel allows unlocking the bootloader, so it’s just the carrier in the way.
Most phones have to be hacked to unlock the bootloader because of the manufacturer locking it, so the carrier doesn’t really matter since you’re having to bypass locks anyway.
With Apple tipping over the ~50% market share in the US and with the current rulings in the EU, maybe the US DOJ smell blood in the water. Hopefully something unusually good for the consumer will come of this, but I won’t be shocked if it doesn’t.
I only recently found out about iPhones having 50% market share in the US and that’s insane to me. I think anyone who’s used both Android and iPhones a lot knows that iPhones are both a worse product and worse value for money, so in a fair market they would be the minority
They’re certainly a much worse value for the money and intentionally constrained in ways that maximize the profits of Apple services by making it inconvenient or impossible to use alternatives, but the UI is substantially better than Android. Aside from that and Apple device interoperability benefits, nearly any Android phone is a better choice for most people.
Agree to disagree I guess! I used an iPhone X as my daily driver for 3 years and was overjoyed to get the Android UI back when I switched back. The iPhone visuals are more consistent but the UX is significantly worse imo. There are a few things that I reckon are mainly just Apple being stubborn and refusing to admit they were wrong - e.g. the lack of a back button
I’m reminded that Macs did not have right buttons for decades because Steve Jobbs didn’t want them.
I have an iMac for work. Right-click is still disabled by default on macOS. One of the first things our company has us do is re-enable it. I was provided a third-party mouse, some others were provided a Magic Mouse which doesn’t have a right mouse button.
I find the UI to be so much worse lol
but the UI is substantially better than Android
For children and drunks, maybe.
but the UI is substantially better than Android.
Yeah, hard disagree
For one, you can make Android look/behave like anything you want.
In general, I agree. I’ll add two things:
- Android allows you to use third party launchers if you don’t like the one that comes with your phone. I use Nova Launcher, for instance. I’m not an Apple person, but to my knowledge that’s either not possible or a pain to do on an iPhone. It also lets me buy from different Android device manufacturers and keep a consistent UI across all of them.
- Android has some serious UX issues in a few places. The one that gets me the most is when you share something. The interface you get differs based on the source app, sometimes only has a handful of visible options with no sorting or recency options, and it hides the fact that’s you can scroll to see more, but never more than about four at a time.
Still, I’ll take it over an iPhone any day.
The IOS UI is so cumbersome
Hard disagree. iOS UI/UX is sub par compared to Android. Consistent visuals and fancier animations don’t mean that the UI is good.
The UI is terrible. Unintuitive and can’t be customized. What’s good about it?
Did EU bite US?
We’re contagious, and we’re not sorry
Can you be more contagious? Virulently so? Pandemic level? I need some of that good EU user privacy law plague in my life.
Uuuh careful what you wish for, that’s how you get a Napoléon
As long as he destroys the HRE
We’ll stamp Europe with
spqrWith French empire
Good, don’t sorry, bite more.
Kinky! Are you on Recon?
👀
If you enjoy a good laugh, then head over to hackernews to see the meltdown apple bros are having: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39778999
Don’t piss off the small phone fans at the DOJ.
*Sees EU fining Apple*
Oh shit we can tell corporations what to do!
This. Smells like me too (the expression, not the movement) as opposed to a well thought out plan as to how they’ll tackle the monopoly.
Awhile back a non tech person at work got hoodwinked into a sales pitch by a no name “AI” vendor. They, of course, invited a distribution list of all the IT and IT adjacent people to this pitch, thinking their ingenuity was going to transform our workplace and they were going to get accolades.
During the pitch, the sales guy (or CEO?) talked about Google getting surprised by Open AI, and that they rushed to build Bard, so they “could have their own ‘Me Too’ moment.” (With an inflection to indicate the Me Too comment was a reference.)
While I was watching people unmute, stay silent, then mute again, multiple group chats lit up at once.
(And the guy either didn’t understand LLM’s, or was hoping we really didn’t. It was peak marketing speak. He got crushed in the Q&A, ultimately revealing that the extent of his offering was to resell access to an established LLM vendor.)
Hahahaha that’s awesome! All the while scary to see the snakeoil-ism in tech.
Biden appointed a bunch of pretty vehemently anti-monopoly people to power, this is just how long it actually takes them to conduct an investigation thorough enough to bring suit.
The investigation actually started in 2019 under Trump’s DoJ.
Right. Real Estate is a shit show and has been a shit show for decades with corporations buying out SFH homes and properties, driving up prices and making them unaffordable for the average American. If I was stack list of problems to tackle impacting Americans, that would be pretty high up the list instead of a tech company.
Of course, you can and should do both, but considering time and money are finite resources, it’s very on the nose to pick this fight instead of the one that impacts Americans the most.
I don’t think monopolies should exist, but also, we should be looking at regulations and law making instead of law suits.
Also, as everybody knows, governments can only do one thing at a time.
I don’t know how much of that falls under the DOJ’s purview. Based on what I’ve heard from various congressional staffers, a physical letter mailed to your congressional representative actually does mean something. You can also go to your city council meetings and tell the city council they should do something about housing.
Oh, I’m in the heart of a place well known for exorbitant property values, and there’s been plenty of talk of “fixing housing”. Literally everybody runs on the platform of lowering property values, so I’m sure the letting your congressional staffer know has been done to death.
In addition to that, countless articles, op-eds, research has been published in the last 4 years alone and the point I’m making is, that this DOJ move seems more political theater than anything, which is surprising coming from folks that are supposedly about consumer rights and protections.
We need actual problems to be solved, not grand gestures and showboating of supposed take downs of “monopolies” when the laws around monopolistic practices are about as ancient as the presidential candidates trying to win points with their voter base.
Passing this would destroy Apple’s entire business, where they spend their effort and money deeply integrating their products to work together.
Instead, they’ll have to spend their time and money creating an API to let random Joe make a watch for an ecosystem they did nothing to create, foster, or maintain.
Passing this would destroy Apple’s entire business
I think that is, indeed, the point.
You think you want this, but you really don’t. If Apple is gone then Android is all that exists and THAT IS A REAL MONOPOLY.
I never said I wanted Apple gone, nor does their exploitative and abusive business model being stopped requires them to cease to exists. Get a grip, straw men don’t look good on sidewalks, and you look like a fool when you bring one out to fight with it.
Boo fucking hoo, android has done it for years and is fine. Apple doesn’t want to do it because if they don’t they can charge as much as they want for things because you can only get it from them. If they put half as much into innovation as they do into walling everything off they might actually have new ideas instead of the exact same phone with minor hardware and software upgrades that makes it the exact same phone but with a heftier price tag each subsequent generation.
To be fair, the unwalled garden of Android hasn’t really come back with anything compelling in a decade, either. Just iterative hardware improvements.
Which is fine. The space has matured. There will be other frontiers.
But at least this might result in a decrease of friction between users with different platforms.
I mean, I’m using the fold 3 which I am really liking and is definitely something new. But it is true more could be being done.
You don’t need to buy an iPhone, and if you don’t have one then this doesn’t affect you and you’re baby raging about nothing. If you do have one and are still mad, then perhaps evaluate how little self control you have over your purchases.
Lol, try and lecture all you want little troll, you are just making yourself look like even more of a tool and a child. I couldn’t care less either way what your opinion is because you have literally no idea what anyone else’s circumstances are and you think you are better. Go study more and do a little more growing up next time you think you have any leg to stand on in judging what others situations are.
You mean, like the business model that Android has been using for years?
Or Windows / Linux have been using for decades?
What a weird thing to paint in a bad light.
Android is an ecosystem made up of OEMs under the lead of Google, and all these OEMs have different business models. Google’s however, is an ad-based monopoly. Totally different business model. You referring to Android as a single entity shows how clueless you are about this topic.
Mobile is a different environment compared to desktop, so you’re comparing Apples to oranges.
Maybe they shouldn’t have based their business on monopoly?
People don’t need to use an iPhone. A symptom of our declining society is expecting people or businesses to accommodate your personal interests instead of you making an adult decision.
A symptom of our declining society is expecting people or businesses to accommodate your personal interests instead of you making an adult decision.
A symptom of your declining society is expecting that the rules in place could be ignored.
It is true, nobody is forced to buy an iPhone but this not means that Apple could play in the game with a different set of rules from everyone else.
What existing rules? The rules designed for 19th/20th century oil companies that don’t apply to modern tech companies?
New rules are being written.
Apple could play in the game with a different set of rules
They’re playing a different game because they’re the ones who built the ballpark they’re playing in. Don’t like the game? Don’t go to the ballpark.
It’s so exhausting how you people simply can’t accept “don’t buy Apple” and leave it alone.
What existing rules? The rules designed for 19th/20th century oil companies that don’t apply to modern tech companies?
They can be old and technically it can be a stretch to apply them to a tech company, but they are still here.
New rules are being written.
That’s good
Apple could play in the game with a different set of rules
They’re playing a different game because they’re the ones who built the ballpark they’re playing in. Don’t like the game? Don’t go to the ballpark.
As long as the ballpark is not a problem for other people, ok. But if the ballpark is a problem for the people playing…
It’s so exhausting how you people simply can’t accept “don’t buy Apple” and leave it alone
“Don’t buy Apple” is not a giustification for Apple to do something that is illegal, at least from the DOJ point of view.
Man, can you fanboy any harder?
Apple has some aggressive “in-club” style marketing and exclusivity practices.
iMessage intentionally massively degrades user experience when a non-iMessage user is in the chat, to encourage their iPhone users to harass their friends into getting an iPhone too.
The cruelty is the point. They want their users to ostracize their friends into converting friends and family to their platform.
How is “cruelty the point” while you’re saying that expanding their market share is the point? That would make cruelty a means to an end, not an end itself.
I hate to say it man, but you are talking to a brick wall. That don’t understand, and more importantly they don’t want to understand.
And I’m speaking to a bunch of incel teenagers who are baby raging about a green bubble and how their parents won’t get them an iPhone.
That’s literally an argument in the DoJ’s case, btw. A case led by incels.
And that tells me everything I need to know about your opinions. Horray for the block feature
Thanks for being my first, I guess
green bubble and how their parents won’t get them an iPhone.
Tbh I agree with a lot of what you’re saying, but this take is embarrassing and doesn’t even make sense in the modern day. You realize plenty of Androids are the same price, if not more expensive, than iPhones right? What year do you think it is?
The apple watch thing is kinda interesting.
So you make a watch and it has super tight integrations with OS level software on the phone.
I can’t imagine they can force apple to write an Android app, which doesn’t even have the same system level access as their OS app and provide some sort of degraded service.
Maybe they could force them to let it function in some limited way but where do you draw the line on forcing them to write android apps?
They don’t have to make extra apps, just remove restrictions that make some functionality exclusive to iPhones or Apple Watches. So iPhones get the same access to Apple Watches as other phones, and Apple Watches get the same access to iPhones as other watches.
- You can use an Apple Watch without an iPhone.
- anyone can create and sell a Watch App - Apple maintains the store and basic functionality
- you can use another brand Watch with an iPhone - I see the apps
I think the point though is you might be able to connect a Garmin to your iPhone but only Apple Watches get special access to certain APIs because “security”.
They don’t have to force them to make an app. Instead they could make them provide an interface that an app can use. Instead of their current strategy of thwarting any attempt to make their ecosystem interoperable with competitor’s devices. I imagine them instantly killing Beeper’s connection to iMessage was a part of this move.
I can’t imagine they can force apple to write an Android app, which doesn’t even have the same system level access as their OS app and provide some sort of degraded service.
No, they can’t really force it. But it’s evidence in support of the accusation.
But I wanted to point out, Android is much, much more permissive in what peripherals and apps can do. And they’d likely be able to bake Android support in by utilizing the already available Wear OS API.
But I wanted to point out, Android is much, much more permissive in what peripherals and apps can do.
That’s kinda true, but not what I was getting at. Android has restrictive background processing limits and the APIs around it keep getting more restrictive and the OEMs like Samsung keep ignoring the rules of how things should work and break your apps when you do it right anyway… Ultimately it’s incredibly difficult to write an app and guarantee background work.
Apple, is even worse on its restrictions of background work, but Apple owns the OS and and can bypass it all for their watch.
Apple will never get to bypass the fuckery you have to deal with on Android, only the Android OEMs get that.
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What do you do though if Apple is telling the truth and allowing 3rd party wallets would degrade the security even for their own wallet?
It would not. It’s really as simple as that, saying as someone with two degrees in cyber security and 7 years of experience as a security consultant for various companies from small shops to multinational businesses, banks, and insurance companies.
I would love to see their threat modelling to justify what they’re saying to brainwash their acolytes… It’s a pure strawman to justify their bullshit.
I would ask them to prove that claim in court for starters.
I would ask them why they feel they’d be liable for users who installed and gave permission to an app that would use NFC readers for payments.
I would ask them why access to the NFC reader by a 3rd party app in any way allows access to Apple Pay’s stored, encrypted data (which it doesn’t need)
I would ask why permission settings and security validations couldn’t be made on API calls with the potential to be harmful. Even for third-party app stores, Apple could still require app reviews and code signing for any apps that want to conduct financial transactions; they just don’t want to because they’ll make less money from Apple Pay.
Apple often handholds user flows and restricts access to features because non-technical folks might be tricked into installing a malicious or insecure service, and Apple stuff is built for non/technical people. But, on the flipside, they often leverage this position to wall you into their garden. This is the problematic practice that needs to be addressed.
Perhaps they aren’t lying, but claims about security often involve theoretical weaknesses that aren’t practical to exploit in the real world. Apple is very skilled at making sure those claims align with their business interests.
Lol nice
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The US Department of Justice and 16 state and district attorneys general accused Apple of operating an illegal monopoly in the smartphone market in a new antitrust lawsuit.
It alleges that Apple “selectively” imposes contractual restrictions on developers and withholds critical ways of accessing the phone, according to a release.
“Apple exercises its monopoly power to extract more money from consumers, developers, content creators, artists, publishers, small businesses, and merchants, among others,” the DOJ wrote in a press release.
“For years, Apple responded to competitive threats by imposing a series of ‘Whac-A-Mole’ contractual rules and restrictions that have allowed Apple to extract higher prices from consumers, impose higher fees on developers and creators, and to throttle competitive alternatives from rival technologies,” DOJ antitrust division chief Jonathan Kanter said in a statement.
Apple is the second tech giant the DOJ has taken on in recent years after filing two separate antitrust suits against Google over the past two administrations.
It’s instituted new rules through the Digital Markets Act to place a check on the power of gatekeepers of large platforms, several of which are operated by Apple.
The original article contains 691 words, the summary contains 182 words. Saved 74%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
The crux of this suit seems to be that the DOJ believes that Apple needs to make its hardware fair to everyone that can develop on it, and make its software fair to all possible hardware that can run it, which is particularly interesting because Apple’s main product seems to be a pleasant and easy user experience that cuts through the physical barriers of the pieces of hardware it sells. And part of that user experience is the sense of security that is supposed to come with knowing that Apple is (more or less) able to decide who is allowed to access important, secure elements of their hardware.
On the software side of things, I don’t fully understand why or how the DOJ could force Apple to develop better integration support for cross-vendor hardware usage? Why do they need to go the extra mile to make an Apple Watch work well with an Android phone? Because the DOJ says so? I mean, sure I guess that would be better for everyone but it’s a weird thing to require.
Kick their asses DOJ!
I don’t hate Apple but I do hate their influence. They release some wireless earbuds and then suddenly all the manufacturers “don’t have enough room for a headphone jack”, …get the fuck out of here.
Deliberately degrading picture quality when the metadata says it’s from a competitor to push the narrative that they have the best cameras is also pretty low. Points for the sheer audacity, though.
Wait is there actually proof of this? That’s pretty damning.
The proof is the status quo. Video texts from Android users look bad on an iPhone. Apple could choose to fall back to RCS instead of SMS from iMessage. RCS would offer better video quality than SMS, which overall improves the interoperability of all phones. Because RCS is a standard and the natural successor to SMS, refusing to support the standard makes it less likely to succeed, with the intent of defending their dominant market share.
While I agree with you, this isn’t as outright as I though it would be though. Apple fan boys could very easily just handwave this away. Frankly I don’t live in the US so no one here uses iMessage anyways so I don’t really have any examples I have seen or could use to show people.
But that’s not illegal. Apple can’t force competitors to be influenced by them. If Samsung, Google and the like choose to be sheep, that’s on them. I don’t use Apple products. They’re not impacting my life.
If you own a phone, Apple impacts your life. Don’t be naive.
That’s silly. I own a Samsung phone. Checking email and the weather on it hardly “impacts” my life. Furthermore, you have the option to move to another platform if it bothers you that much. If people don’t leave, that indicates their users are willing to tolerate these issues.
Apple impacts your life, if indirectly, by shaping the market that they control over 50% of. I haven’t owned an Apple product since my 4th gen click wheel iPod, and I’d be a fool to suggest that their decisions don’t have an influence on my life.
Influence and impact are not interchangeable. I would agree they have some influence (indirect) as they affect their competitors and I purchase products from their competitors. They don’t impact (direct) me as I do not use any of their services or products. Apple and I do not have a direct relationship.
Lol ok semantics.
“Impact” doesn’t mean “direct” necessarily, that’s why the word is often used with the word “direct” or “indirect” as a modifier.
It’s probably safe to assume that’s not the basis for the monopoly claim
I should hope not. They have about 61% market share in the US. A large chunk to be sure, but hardly a monopoly. With plenty of Android OS manufacturers, there are plenty to choose from.
According to the article, the main points are:
Disrupting “super apps” that encompass many different programs and could degrade “iOS stickiness” by making it easier for iPhone users to switch to competing devices
Blocking cloud-streaming apps for things like video games that would lower the need for more expensive hardware
Suppressing the quality of messaging between the iPhone and competing platforms like Android
Limiting the functionality of third-party smartwatches with its iPhones and making it harder for Apple Watch users to switch from the iPhone due to compatibility issues
Blocking third-party developers from creating competing digital wallets with tap-to-pay functionality for the iPhone
The enforcers are asking the court to stop Apple from “using its control of app distribution to undermine cross-platform technologies such as super apps and cloud streaming apps,”
I’m somewhat conflicted. As much as I despise Apple, they have complete rights on their operating systems and thus can tell what they want or don’t want there, kinda like how videogame consoles work. Far from ideal for both consumers and developers, obviously, especially with how Apple hates both.
As a court case, this sounds dumb and likely to go nowhere. If it was a law proposal that would force them and any future wannabes to open up like PCs, however, I’d be fully behind it.
I seldom argue against capitalism, but this is a good example of runaway capitalism. Apple has been causing a lot of problems and grief. If this isn’t the solution, what is? People are too stupid en mass to make the change we need here.
As I said in my comment, a better solution would be a law instead of a court case. Even if it sets a precedent, it still leaves all the legal wiggle room needed for Apple, or anyone else, to fuck around in a different manner and get back in the same spot again.
Agreed. I have no love for the company, but this is government overreach. If Apple users/developers have a problem with any of these items, they have the option to choose another platform.
Now, if Apple was literally the only game in town, I would probably feel differently.
Did you read the article? Their concerns are a number of anticompetiive behaviours from Apple,. Not the lack of competition. But that said, “Android” is not a competitor, Android is an OS. Samsung is a competitor and they’re nowhere near Apples size in the US
The Android OS is a competitor to iOS. Yes, Android is produced by several different manufacturers.
It’s not a competitor in the sense of a being a company that can monopolise, which is the context of the discsussion
Actually it coincided with IPX rating for smartphones. The last headphone jack smartphones did not have water resistance, but the newer models did. People voted for a more sealed phone with their wallets.
These days you can get both, but my phone has a 3.5mm jack and NO ipx rating that I could find
Then why can they waterproof the usb plug-in but not the headphone jack?
Actually it coincided with IPX rating for smartphones. The last headphone jack smartphones did not have water resistance, but the newer models did. People voted for a more sealed phone with their wallets.
My rugged phone is IP68 but it has Usb C connector and SIM/SD tray, so adding a headphone jack while having an IPX rating seems not impossible.
My phone has IP68 with an usb-c and headphone jack, and the SIM/SD tray. Not a rugged phone though.
It’s not impossible, they just didn’t do it back then so we ended up in the situation we are in now. By the way, the DAC in my phone is low quality, so I hear popping and distortion when I play
http://plasticity.szynalski.com/
at the same time, my phone doesn’t do output to a DAC through USB because it already has a 3.5mm port, so I can’t use something higher quality
I don’t think DAC is reason behind popping and distortion. Probably shit power circuit or amplifier.
It’s both, because I hear little bells in the background even at low volume. An IEM is very sensitive so needs very little power, the amplifier will perform worse as it needs to output more power.
In fact when I use over ears, it sounds better because I increase the device volume which increases the input voltage
Anyway, the $9 Apple dongle blows my phone’s 3.5mm jack out of the water. My tablet and desktop have the same issue, but when I connect the same devices to my ancient laptop they sound perfect.
The point is the 3.5mm jack actually gets me worse sound quality because my phone doesn’t output audio to usb, so I only use it with my TWS. Which, by the way, also sound like crap in the same game, but it might just be Bluetooth issues
People voted for a more sealed phone with their wallets.
LOL imagine if capitalism actually worked this way…
Edit: People seem to be missing the point. I am aware that phones with 3.5mm jacks exist. I also just understand that capitalism and “free markets” don’t actually work the way people seem to think they do. Maybe if the headphone jack was the most important feature to people, it would do better. Or maybe if it was an mp3 player and not a phone. Or maybe, simply, if it was manufactured by a brand people have heard of. Sometimes it’s literally that simple.
But that isn’t the case, is it?
There are literally phones still around with 3.5 jacks. You just don’t want one.
There are still phones with 3.5mm jacks and they are not the best selling models
Maybe people aren’t spending $500-$1200 on a device just because it has a headphone jack. Like that’s anyone’s top concern.
Zen phone 10 has everything you need and a 3.5mm jack
Why isn’t it outselling the rest of them?
Are you asking me to explain microeconomics to you? Ask 100 people in the US if they’ve ever heard of Zen Phone, and 99 will tell you no.
And, again, that’s nobody’s top concern. Maybe if it was an mp3 player, rather than a phone, whether or not it has a headphone jack would be higher up on the priority list.
If it was that important, people would have heard about it
But how is that Apple’s fault? Weird argument.
OC isn’t claiming that the shift in the industry is solely Apple’s fault:
I don’t hate Apple but I do hate their influence
The reality is that what OC said is exactly what happened. Apple removed the headphone jack to coerce people into buying AirPods. Everyone else released their own wireless earbuds to compete, and also removes their headphone jacks for the same reason.
Vote with your wallet.
I’m one of the few people that use my headphone jack with Grado headphones and have had Motorola phones so I can listen to music the way I want.
Don’t even get me started on the light green bubble shit.
Fuck Apple.
That’s not Apple, that’s the free market. Samsung touted wired headphones and a headphone jack and the market still showed they wanted wireless.
But we had wireless headphones already. The choice to have both was nice. Not being able to charge and use headphones sucks. Also tiny e waste pods with tiny non recyclable batteries are terrible for the environment compared to a wired pair when thrown in a landfill.
and the market still showed they wanted wireless
Or maybe people just need phones and there are only like 3 actual options.
That’s simply not true. Have you been in a mobile phone store recently? There’s far more than 3 brands of phone let alone 3 models per brand.
No it’s definitely Apple.
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And “no physical keyboards”
Ehh, that’s ok. Slide out keyboards aside, having an on-display keyboard is a better idea by and large.
Yeah, but I like physical keyboards because they’re cool, and non-physical keyboards are lame. They reduce my hardware experience to a joyless, abstracted, sterile experience, where I don’t have the ability to click any buttons, turn any knobs, flip any hinges. Then, on top of that, the software experience also ends up being standardized and sterile.
It is more practically efficient, sure. But I like the inefficiency. It’s like driving a stick-shift, it’s less convenient, but the tactility and inconvenience, the physicality, makes the object more real, less confined to cyberspace. I am forced to become a more conscious driver, I can’t drink a drink while I drive, or drive one-handed. Old phones are like portable games consoles. New phones are magic mirrors that steal your soul.
There’s also probably something to be said that there’s a sort of two-way causal relationship, where the phones becoming more practical devices enables more reliance upon them, and phones becoming more practical devices is driven by a need from private interests to make these devices more reliable and frictionless. More joyless. Cars used to be a simple toy and a fool’s replacement for the horse and buggy. In many ways, I would’ve much preferred if they had remained confined to that use case, rather than evolving to take over american civic infrastructure and life.
It’s sort of like, dwarf fortress has an appeal, not just in playing the “game”, right, not just in doing the things in the game, but also in memorizing the layouts and how to interface with the horrible UI, where it makes you feel smart for understanding how to parse it, even if in reality it’s a fairly useless skill, and it’s not actually that complicated.
Are you ok?
no, why do you ask?
For whom?
A keyboard without tactile feedback is objectively worse than a keyboard with tactile feedback, excluding other factors.
I’ve never had a physical keyboard lag out then send an entirely different keystroke because it thought I held a button, or send a single keystroke because I was typing too quickly.
I’ve never had to wait a moment for a physical keyboard to show up after selecting a text box.
I’ve never had the entire layout of a page shift to make room for a physical keyboard whenever I select or deselect a text box.
I’ve never had a physical keyboard prevent me from using the number pad and force me to use the full keyboard (or worse, vice versa) because of an improperly configured input box.
The way I see it there are exactly two real benefits to integrating a software keyboard into a touchscreen: reduced physical complexity (the entire device is essentially just one screen), and easier access to emoji. A touchscreen keyboard performs far worse as a keyboard. It’s a valid trade-off for a small mobile device, but it’s not objectively better.
I’ve never had a physical keyboard prevent me from using the number pad and force me to use the full keyboard (or worse, vice versa) because of an improperly configured input box.
It’s all I can do not to contact the web admin when this happens! Two days ago I used a form where the first box was set correctly and the second wasn’t. (Also how about when a site tells your password manager to input the p/w in the email field, uhg.)
I’ve never had the entire layout of a page shift to make room for a physical keyboard whenever I select or deselect a text box.
Pretty rare, no?
I’ve never had a physical keyboard lag out then send an entirely different keystroke because it thought I held a button, or send a single keystroke because I was typing too quickly.
Might’ve seen that twice in the past year.
I’ve never had to wait a moment for a physical keyboard to show up after selecting a text box.
Interesting, just checked and I suppose I kind of wait a millisecond but it’s essentially imperceptible. (Have a pretty new flagship phone.)
Gotta check reviews on the Clicks now that I think it’s been out a couple months:
A keyboard is not just to enter text It can do a multitude of things like emojis. Good luck remembering all the mappings on a physical one, or you end up with having them eat screen space. Might not be your use case, but a vast majority of the world uses it.
Additionally, this increases the overall screen real estate. Aside for sliding keyboards (which I did add a caveat for in my original comment), a physical keyboard would be in the way for most of the usage an average person makes on the phone, like watching videos, looking at pictures.
A physical keyboard would probably weight more as well (this is just a guess, based on the idea the membrane, and additional circuitry required for a keyboard would be more than the weight of a glass panel).
A physical keyboard adds an additional point of failure on your device as well.
I’m not saying virtual keyboards are perfect. Like any other thing, there are trade offs to make. But in the form factor phones work in, a virtual keyboard makes more sense according to me. The best of both worlds would probably be a sliding keyboard, but that does add more weight to the device.
There’s room for both in my opinion. Keyboards are good for accuracy. Touchscreens are good for custom inputs and slightly faster to type on. In an ideal world, we’d have both.
To be frank, I find touchscreens so abhorrently useless that I just use my phone less than I’d like to - for example, I’m much more likely to just flat out ignore messages because of how tedious input is on phones. I don’t know if a keyboard would make a huge difference for me since I think mobile devices are garbage in more ways than one, but the lack of a keyboard is by far the biggest issue.
A physical keyboard adds an additional point of failure on your device as well.
A hercon keyboard, like in old military stuff, will last far longer than any touchscreen. Its feedback is weaker than for most keyboards, but still better than any touchscreen.
If we are choosing between a touchscreen alone and a touchscreen plus keyboard, then yeah, only this isn’t a fair comparison.
A fair one would be keyboard vs touchscreen.
To add, I personally have had all of the complaints of digital keyboards happen to physical ones. Just not the removal of the numpad. The others, wordt of which is lag, Ive had plenty. Input lag IS THE WORST.
Might not be your use case, but a vast majority of the world uses it.
The breakthrough in ergonomics caused by mass production of stuff for people of different metrics and problems and everything during WWII was entirely about this sentence being wrong.
A good interface is not for “the majority” or for “the average user”, it’s customizable for all the extremes, so for every user with just a bit of initial effort.
Not all phones have gone to the dark side - https://www.fxtec.com
What’s a headphone jack?
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Oh, that thing is garbage. I prefer the 6.35mm RGA jacks for superior hi fidelity quality. It’s a shame they don’t make phones with those.
Hey guys look, I found a troll! Please don’t feed them.
How dare. 6.35mm is superior and I for one want it on my phone. The larger jack size provides a greater surface area for conductance. Why is this important? Glad you asked, more surface area translates to less resistance at the junction, thus allowing more electrons to flow freely from your device to your ocular cavity, where sound is processed from compression waves into electromagnetic waves. The 6.35mm jack is the best option for hi-fi 256 bit color. As you can see, it’s all basic science. Source: I’m a stientist
What’s a computer?
An iPad Pro, specifically
Their propaganda you mean.
heard this on radio first
What? Unbelievable. I’m shocked. Shocked, I say. This really comes as a surprise. I would’ve never expected this. No one would have seen this coming. This is really outrageous. They are innocent. I can’t comprehend this. No way! It’s not acceptable! /i
– Apple Fan, probably (without the irony flag then)
I mean I’m an Apple user, although not exclusively, and I am very surprised, not because Apple doesn’t deserve it, they absolutely need to be reigned in like all big tech companies. I’m surprised as hell that the US government in 2024 is attempting to crack down an extremely profitable business. You love to see it
