This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
As I've been making an effort to replace apps with the browser version of the service. It's so abundantly clear that companies don't want you using their website.
Even if they don't outright cripple functionality, they'll hound you endlessly to install the app.
It's infuriating to say the least.
Even if they don’t outright cripple functionality, they’ll hound you endlessly to install the app.
Still don't understand the logic of doing that.
It's like saying,
"Our website is nigh unusable, please install our app instead. We pinky promise our app works".
If you don't have a smart phone in the US, even temporally, your almost a second class citizen.
Then if you don't install corporate apps on your phone, there are even more problems for you.
You can still live in the US without apps... For now
I use GraphineOS on my Pixel 7 and even I feel penalized for caring about my privacy. Its absolutely nonsense, not everything needs an app.
Yeah. My bank is one of the few UK banks whose app won't work with Graphene, which is irritating. Also, the lack of Wallet access for payment cards is annoying.
But all in all everything else works fine.
Lloyds? they're closing my local branch as well really need to go in and close the accounts tbh.
Yep, Lloyds.
They were absolute bellends when I tried to get it sorted to transfer the money to another bank as well, sat there insisting my "phone had been hacked/had a virus" and only actually moved my bloody money after I threatened a official complaint.
Not having a phone really sucks in this day and age. Imagine getting out of jail for something stupid like marijuana possession and then a parole violation due to a missed appointment. No one will hire you with your rap sheet. You live in a halfway house with a bunch of petty BS every day. And you can't keep up with your parole demands because of how much your lack of a phone gets in your way. At the end of the day, there IS a way to succeed if you make the right choices, but shit, it's just so much harder for some people to make the right choices when every day is crisis mode. And all because of WHAT?
There should be a warning label on any establishment or product that requires a smartphone to use.
How about this:
At the apartments I recently moved out of, there were no quarter slots on the washing machines. They were an app that required a bluetooth connection to pay.
So if you lived there and didn't have a smartphone? Go fuck yourself, you don't get to do laundry.
Unless you bothered to check the laundry room when you were looking at the apartment, you wouldn't know. No warnings.
These useless apps make Linux phone adoption harder, fuck them!
that is your takeaway? You're part of a cult if that's really how you think.
Part of a cult for wanting more options...
Ill be part of that cult
Not more options, you want your option to win.
You're an idiot or you're trolling, I honestly can't tell.
I'm never trolling about Linux. On Lemmy there are so many cultists that you can say the most innocuous things and it will be downvoted to oblivion or deleted for "trolling". Maybe you don't like calling it a cult but I get more downvoted for negative comments about Linux than other people do when they literally say Nazi things.
And then you get people like this....I mean what kind of broken prejudiced brain do you have to have to think this comparison is ok?
"You're a cultist!" screamed the cultist, angry at people for using something other than what the cultist prefers.
innocuous
Calling people "cultists" doesn't sound very "innocuous".
We want other options to be allowed to exist. This is "you just want everyone to be gay/trans/whatever" all over again.
Oof you're comparing government suppression of entire classes of people to linux' failure to attract developers to the platform...... How do you not realize you're in a cult???
And? Apple and Google are too big and influential as they’re. Why go attacking the little guys?
Linux is awesome, what are you crying about?
everyone wants to force you to use apps instead of websites, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of apps are just websites..in a app wrapper, because normal websites and normal browsers have inbuilt protections for you.
Apps don't.
Idiots install apps, give them the 400,000 permissions they ask for, then go on their merry way..ignorant to the fact that they just installed a data vacuum on their phone thats siphoning everything off of it to be used and sold and resold for marketing purposes.. Even the phone itself its not safe, cause its sitting there, listening to your conversations, even when not on a call, to more "Accurately" spam you with bullshit.
Phones are not listening and if you have proof post it. No security researcher has ever posted this.
A mobile app requirement is an easy excuse for me to nope the fuck out.
My old apartment had gates that could only be opened with an app. They took out the card reader and made it app only. Should have gotten out of there much earlier than I did.
the gates that slide over using a chain, they often have a removable link at the end. If you unhook the chain on the opener side, it will open one more time, then spit all the chain out trying to close it. I used to take that link out when living in complexes with those gates. Made life easier for most. Would take months for it to get fixed. They are just standard 1/2in x1/8in bike chain.
I don't live there anymore, but if I did this would be useful information.
I think I forgot to mention that they had cameras pointed at the gates, and I have an extremely identifiable appearance.
I am still on a flip phone. It is usually silent, and I don't spend much time with it at all. While I am missing out on discounts and such, I simply hate the idea of constantly using a phone. Email is my telecommunication of choice, but receptionists don't understand the idea, unfortunately.
My household bought a Rinnai water heater, and the bastard needed a phone to set the temperature. Thing is, it couldn't communicate with the two or three phones that were used on it. Fortunately, there was an old-school modification for a physical keypad, but that had to be bought separately.
Phones are just not my thing.
Smartphones are objectively better than flip phones.
The flip phone praise comes from useful idiots looking up to children who lack self-control.
It's all bass-ackwards, but that's how far we've strayed from the truth.
The powers that be are happy, though. We're just not one of them.
they make older phones become useless after ditching their support
My S21 is on the verge of losing regular security updates, and I hate it. The battery is fine, the camera is more than adequate, I do not want to upgrade.
So would you not recommend me getting a refurbished s20? That's the most recent model that still has microSD slots and I've seen them for 200. But I'm not sure about security...
How about you get some courage and drop your brand loyalty?
That's what you get, honestly.
Hopefully you can learn from this and not waste your money on garbage.
I flat-out refuse to do business with any that requires I use an app. I won't even scan a QR code for a restaurant menu; that's my cue to go eat elsewhere.
I don't mind the whole online menu thing. It's probably an environmental net positive, but it's bs if they don't have ANY physical copies for those who can't or don't want to for whatever reason.
If they wanted me to install something, though, that'd be a 100% instant nope.
An online menu requires power to be used (on people's phones and the server). Is that really a minor contribution in comparison to printing paper and maybe laminating it?
Considering your average printer is a piece of shit that needs to be replaced quite often, yes, using a website is probably more energy efficient.
This person has never seen the power bill for running a high-availability server with several failovers once in their lives.
I for one cheer and root for my flip phone friends.
I'd never do it, but we have one at work and he's singlehandedly causing so much grief at work. Because none of the engineers wanna use a security app for login. They want a fob.
IT refuses to pay for fobs and wants us to use an app, but they also don't want to pay for a phone for anyone in engineering just to use the security app because it opens a floodgate of people with company phones.
It's just wonderful to watch this fight from the sidelines sipping tea.
I for one cheer and root for my flip phone friends.
Why are you cheering for a lack of self-control?
Smartphones are great. You just need to be smart enough to not let them use you.
It should put into perspective who is a useful idiot, and who is not.
Perhaps his friends do not have smart phones, because they do not want smart phones.
Yes, but why don't they want smartphones?
Get out of the stone age.
