WebOS really was so hard ahead of its time. A card based interface, gesture-based navigation, unified and always online email and account systems. There were many things WebOS did that we take for granted now, yet they did it no less than 5 years before Android or iOS. Really it was just the Palm Pre’s hardware (I had a Palm Pre Plus) that held it back. Some aspects of it were already a bit dated, even in 2010.
Really it was just the Palm Pre’s hardware that held it back
I'd argue it was just purely the rat race of "the most apps" where all other vendors lost out to iOS and Android. It didn't matter that it had all the essential applications, as well as having plenty of the fads/gimmicks of the time (Angry Birds, Pandora, et al) natively supported, it still boiled down to the normie logic of "BUT I WANNA RUN ALL THE APPS!" There was also the whole culture sentiment of "if you make a niche Android/iOS app and sell it, you could become like a millionaire overnight" that people seemed to clamor around, as another gimmick economy (as The Next Big Thing(TM) after the dot-com bubble).
There was also the tidbit that most of the operating system (outside of Linux kernel and standard utils) was proprietary. It's only when it was pretty much given up on, that they started to open it up as various open source projects. Comparatively Android was far more open source than webOS at the time.
@arcanicanis@southernwolf@boredsquirrel >There was also the whole culture sentiment of "if you make a niche Android/iOS app and sell it, you could become like a millionaire overnight" that people seemed to clamor around, as another gimmick economy (as The Next Big Thing(TM) after the dot-com bubble).
Oh I remember this so vividly, this was the mindset among the tech illiterate because they read about Steve Jobs or Mark Zuckerberg and saw they were rich. Or they'd hear a news story about how RANDOM KID GETS RICH FROM MAKING APP without knowing the how and why he did it, just that he can get rich from making an app. They're like the guys in college I saw taking sysadmin classes thinking that maybe they could make video games or some shit, before all but the shittiest community colleges added gamedev courses.
I also remember during this timeframe that the niche mobile OSes with users would notably attract the same kind of developers as unpopular microcomputers did (Linus Torvalds and his Sinclair QL come to mind): random guys making up for how said platform was being abandoned by the world. Windows Phone 7/8/10 had a lot of these developers who would write third party clients for websites or chat platforms (one of the NZ shooting victims was one such dev) and back in the day everyone pretty much had to use one if they didn't want to struggle with IE. Some of these types of devs still exist in the tiny KaiOS sphere.
Something else about the Pre I vividly remember was that the Pre was not only carrier locked, but it was carrier locked to one of the CDMA companies. There was unusually no unlocked GSM version for sale in the USA. This was a big sour spot during this timeframe, anyone who remembers this era also remembers the years of Verizon users asking for a CDMA iPhone or Geohot making a name for himself by unlocking a iPhone 2G to work on T-Mobile. This hurt a phone trying to be mass market when you could only buy the big name phone on Sprint of all places.
Stateside here, and I agree that price is insane. Also, I like to root my phones , and Samsung makes that hard. that said, I am writing this on my tab s8 with a stylus. people forget that Saving for real needs takes priority! retirement is not free, after all.
Just out of curiosity, if you could recommend a phone to a relative. Let’s say young enough to be on all the socials, but old enough to not need the newest flagship, what would you recommend? I’m guessing the 7 or 7a?
I hammer on a phone. Run an FTP server at home to copy files sometimes, have multiple sync tools running, always manually copying files to/from network devices, run RDP/SSH sessions often. The screen is rarely off.
I do fine with phones that cost $100 used. 2 year old flagships are a great value. If they work for me, the average user would have no trouble with one.
Switch to Graphene/Lineage/Divest, and people think it’s a new flagship.
I’m still on my iPhone 7 and still haven’t found a good enough reason to upgrade. All my productivity work is done on my PC since I work from home. And I have a camera for photos. I’d rather use that money to buy Apple shares.
Found the phone interesting, but my S22 is working just too perfectly the last 2 years to buy a new one now. Maybe I’ll get the S26, if it’s time to change
18 Million subscribers, Billions of views, has had Kobe Bryant and the US president as guests on his channel. If that’s “semi-succesful”, what on earth is your yard-stick for successful?
I don’t always agree with his takes, but I honestly can’t think of a better or better-known tech reviewer.
I have a Pixel 4a, and while not getting any more updates can be a dealbreaker, I think it’s theoretically still fine for me. It does everything I need. Write text messages to friends, surf the web, connect to online services, take pictures at events. It has a nice screen and I have access to custom roms for privacy. What would be a reason for me to spend $1200 and upgrade except for ‘it has better specs’? I think I’d rather use the $1200 to upgrade my computer and there’s still enough money left to buy a VR headset or other random stuff. I think that’s a valid reason to just spend $400 for a new phone or not get a new phone at all until the old one breaks.
Idk. You mean effectly getting them on a credit that is tied into the contract? Most electronics stores around here also offer expensive products like computers and laptops on a loan. There sometimes is a price tag 1200€ or 60€ a month (with their partner company that hands out loans.) You can even rent a Roomba, pay monthly and get the newer model after 2 years.
Yeah, but with a Roomba, it’s not tied to a utility. You’re never going to NEED it, whereas with a phone, you need it to live these days, for better or worse.
Well, I’d argue you need some means to clean your house, or it’ll be very gross after a few months. And while you don’t need a $1200 vacuum robot for that, you also don’t need a $1200 phone. It’s kind if a similar situation.
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