Technology
This is the official technology community of Lemmy.ml for all news related to creation and use of technology, and to facilitate civil, meaningful discussion around it.
Ask in DM before posting product reviews or ads. All such posts otherwise are subject to removal.
Rules:
1: All Lemmy rules apply
2: Do not post low effort posts
3: NEVER post naziped*gore stuff
4: Always post article URLs or their archived version URLs as sources, NOT screenshots. Help the blind users.
5: personal rants of Big Tech CEOs like Elon Musk are unwelcome (does not include posts about their companies affecting wide range of people)
6: no advertisement posts unless verified as legitimate and non-exploitative/non-consumerist
7: crypto related posts, unless essential, are disallowed
view the rest of the comments
Nothing important actually ¯_(ツ)_/¯
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Mobile yeah the iPhone wasn't actually as revolutionary as people say it was.
Having better ux than windows mobile doesn't mean that it makes history. It is just a bit better version of a cell phone. The main goal of this device was to ease content (mostly paid garbage or hidden ads) consumption.
If you exclude everything that is not needed to you specifically, you will find that there is just gps + maps, cell-phone, mp3 player and camera. And all of these features working worse than the same via dedicated devices.
Is it a revolution we deserve to combine good features and make them work worse?
It is a revolution but one that was happening anyways, for example in windows mobile devices.
The thing is that combining those dedicated devices makes for a device that you can carry in your pocket all the time. It's simply not feasible to carry a dedicated camera, web browser, GPS/Maps unit, cell phone, music player, and so on. But when they're all packed into one unit, they can be easily carried. The different pieces of functionality can also compliment each other so much more easily as apps.
All this would require a purpose built device otherwise. By making it an app, it's just a few bytes on the internal storage.
Sounds like a petty bourgeoisie pleasures, ie nothing really important for life
and as for combining things in one device, I agree, it happened, but all this works worse than dedicated devices. If you really need gps for real stuff you would better use professional device, if you need camera not just for fun, you would prefer to use normal camera etc...
But that's the thing, smartphones make them less of a "petty bourgeoisie pleasure". It's not uncommon for a person of quite modest means to have a smartphone. That opens up all sorts of possibilities: payments, formal banking, messaging, job connections.
Also, smartphones can provide a benefit that dedicated devices don't: they are there all the time. We never would have seen justice for George Floyd if bystanders hadn't provided multiple videos, and the same with Ahmed Avery. The often shocking police tactics in putting down protests would have gone undocumented. This extends into professional journalism as well, with the non-photographer reporters getting some training on how to use their smartphones to get quick photos of moments that would have been lost before because there wasn't a photographer available. And despite what you say, the camera can often produce a perfectly acceptable result.
Wait... real stuff like... getting somewhere??? Turns out phones are plenty good at that.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt6849786/