We were all very excited to do so.
I literally remember this. I was living in the US in circa 2000. I remember standing outside my apartment with a mobile phone, a GPS system, an iPod, and a digital camera, and thinking ‘these should all be one thing’!
And here we are, 26 years later, and all of these things are deeply infected with unnecessary LLM bullshit. Progress!
And it was beautiful
That’s me, today. Different brands and models, but pretty much the same items. If I have the space (inner coat pockets, for example), I also add a small notepad and pencil, and a calculator. I ain’t gonna pay for a HP-12C calculator app, when I have the fully functional hardware.
I don’t remember having to deal with USB-C earbuds before the iPhone.
It was better and the price of the slight convenience now is that the next generation, and your aunt and uncle, are openly cheering on nazis and pedophiles with no idea what’s actually happening in the world.
Shut up and carry the cassette tape thin digital camera already.
That’s today if you’re looking for quality for any of them.
And a time where 3rd party companies had no access to any of them
us and our 735 partners care about your privacy
Only 735?
Well each of them and their 735 parters, so… 540,255 partners at most. 😀
What about their partners’ partners?
And some of us are returning to this simplicity and privacy
Serious question: What do you do about maps/navigation? I travel a bit and that’s the one thing I can’t find out of the big tech ecosystem.
You can buy a small gps (bunch on amazon) to stick to your windshield or dash. Its what i had before android, and they still apply.
We used to have bits of paper with lines representing geography
There’s still standalone GPS units.
Mapquest was how we used to do it. Essentially, you would have a list of directions. If you get lost, you go backwards a bit and then… ask someone where to go lol. You can even like, read a map and decide the directions yourself, I know this sounds crazy.
Paper maps and map books still exist, and they’re pretty useful for navigation. If you stay at hotels, they usually give you some simple maps of the area with the most important features highlighted.
If you still want to use online maps, OSM (Open Street Maps) is a great project that doesn’t depend on any big tech maps. It also works completely offline if your frontend allows downloading maps. CoMaps is a good client for phones. You can contribute to OSM yourself if you miss anything.
I second comaps. Sucks for public transport tbh but works great for walking/cycling/cars. For public transport I use Offi Directions, but it mostly just supports the APIs of German and Austrian public transport companies
Well, the headphones are still a separate thing. They are even more separate now, than they ever were (each one earphone is separate now)
I bet there are people drooling at the idea of making those headphones part of people’s heads
No if you just play music on your phone speaker loudly.
There’s our perp, boys! Move! Move!
I’m sure everyone enjoys a little bit of music in public places. And I’m sure everyone likes the type of music I’m listening to. Wat’s the problem?
Yes, your honor. This comment right here is why we’re seeking a conviction.
(I was kidding BTW)
I know this is a shitpost, but I honestly think that was better. In the past couple years I’ve bought an mp3 player, and dslr camera, and a pocket sized e-reader, and a retro gaming handheld, and it feels so much better swapping between them when I’m doing something than just staring at the little hell rectangle for 12 hours a day.
Well, yeah, if you do one thing good, that’s gonna be better than doing a million things halfass.
It’s almost like “a cheap, right tool is better than an expensive, wrong tool”.
I don’t think we’ll see phones that are as good of a camera as an actual (read: not toy-tier) digital camera. A lot just has to do with the quality of the optics you can pack into a small lens, and how much to expect out of that lens when it’s being touched and shoved into and out of a pocket all the time.
Portable audio players…the only leg up they really have are tactile interfaces and usually expandable storage…both of which increasingly uncommon on phones. But that’s largely because the phones have nailed that job, and physical media is pretty much dead (albeit at the hands of phones).
Watch? It depends what you want out of it… As a fashion item/jewelery, point goes to legacy tech. As a utilitarian gizmo? That also kinda depends on your needs…because both camps have merit.
It’s more like a Swiss army knife, really. The phone is now just technological EDC in and of itself.
The lack of expandable storage on my phone really hurts the audio player experience for me. I would really like to have all my music just on my phone.
And the lack of headphone jack is really annoying too. I’ve spent over 160€ on headphone DACs since I replaced my old LG G6 with Samsung S22. Before that I just had the phone, which had a really nice sound quality. Now I’ve lost some DACs and another one is starting to malfunction since I dropped it.
I’m really starting to consider an mp3 player rn.
It’s more like a Swiss army knife, really.
Any multi-tool will always be inferior to the single-use tools it replaces. That’s the cost you pay for being compact and convenient.
Sure, every multi-tool has a screwdriver on it somewhere … but it will never be as good as a real screwdriver for driving screws.
Then again, it would be a pain in the ass to carry around 30 different individual tools. So it really depends what your needs are.
Idk Technology Connections said that minivans are the swiss-army knife of cars and I wouldn’t disagree…and that many car buyers don’t really evaluate their needs when car shopping, it’s largely emotion-driven.
I miss my minivan.
And it was awesome.
Yes, please bring it back.
Young people today are increasingly choosing to have separate dedicated-purpose devices. And that’s probably a good thing. It decreases distractions, lets you focus on what you’re actually trying to do, and makes you less addicted to your phone, and avoids the always-connected evils that come with it
Plus, a single-purpose device is often better at that purpose than a combined device … especially when compared at the same price-for-price level.
A decent standalone digital camera will take far better pictures than any phone camera ever made … while still costing less than the best phone cameras.
A standalone mp3 player is smaller, cheaper, and has longer battery life than a phone, and it still plays music just as well.
And that’s was a good thing too.
