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.
There’s still standalone GPS units.
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
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.
We used to have bits of paper with lines representing geography
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.
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.
Yes, please bring it back.
I feel like this is a shitpost because they’re all weird or anachronistic in some way
That’s today if you’re looking for quality for any of them.
My 2012 DLSR still takes better photos than the phone does. Admittedly, I don’t use it as often given its cumbersome nature.
The time is now. Fuck relying on a tech giant for all my cloud storage and “convenience”
Do it! Selfhosting is a great hobby
And that’s was a good thing too.
I’m always surprised I these conversations that almost no one mentions always having a useful, generally charged, decent close range flashlight.
I’m old enough to ha e experienced that having a zippo was the most reliable way to see close range stuff. Flashlights were basically dead battery containers.
I carry with me a small rechargeable flashlight everywhere and use it almost every day. I do not think I could have spent that money better.
It has a low light mode so I can see at night in the bedroom without waking up my partner and it’s really powerful at the same time. It even has a magnet and baseball cap clip so the hands can be free to do other stuff.
Having a flashlight in the phone is really nice, but I don’t think I will use it again.
How do you clip a flashlight to your baseball cap? It must not dangle at all?
The clip is design to clip it that way. It’s very handy
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. 😀
guys the headphones aren’t supposed to be “headphones built into a phone”. they are more representative of speakers. cassette players, cd players, and MP3 players didn’t have built in speakers, you had to have headphones to listen to music. in no way am i advocating that anyone should listen to music or their shitty social media short videos, or have a phone call on speaker in public. im just saying you don’t need headphones anymore because phones have a built in speaker
(big boomboxes had big speakers yes but those were very cumbersome to carry around, i’m talking more Walkman’s)
but also i still have all those separate. i have a cell phone, a separate MP3/FLACC player, bluetooth headphones (which connect to both my phone and mp3 player), a smartwatch, an actual wallet, and a mirrorless camera.
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.
I’m surprised American smartphones are not also firearms.
Shut UP!
Gdi… this is definitely coming
Down with GDI!
One vision, one purpose!
Insufficient funds.
Low power.
I’m honestly surprised that isn’t more of a thing already.
Especially for high magnification scopes, it would have some big advantages. No parallax. No more worries about the size of the eye relief box. The scope can be mounted lower, closer to the bore (or really anywhere on the gun you want) without having to worry about messing up your ergonomics or cheek weld. Could potentially include software aids to adjust point of aim to compensate for distance … or even wind and other factors.
Of course, it would only really be good for hunting or target/sport shooting. Because in any tactical situation, none of that makes up for the downsides: it relies on a fragile screen and fragile electronics, the scope (and perhaps the entire gun) becomes useless if the batteries run out, and the glow from the screen could give away your position to enemies – especially in the dark. Also, unless you fit it with some really fancy night vision camera system, it’s not going to work well in low light or darkness.
I still prefer this and carry almost all these kinds of separate use items, with the exception that I only carry a camera under certain circumstances. Otherwise, my phone doubles as a quick use camera.
Don’t you remember the joy of carrying around a dozen proprietary cables. Oh dads cable drawer was great.
Now you need to carry around a dozen USB-C cables that all look identical, but can do different things.
This one can do video, this one can do fast charging but no data at all, this one has fast data transfer…
Are you aware you can buy a 240W/40Gps cable?
Honestly, the idea of pushing 240W through a USB-C cable kind of terrifies me. That’s a lot of power for such little wires…
Huh what? Is this a thing with USB-C cables? I always used the same cable for everything and I’m fine
Same. That’s the whole point of USB C. You buy one good cable and use it for everything.
They do not all behave the same. I have many of them that are supplied as a charging cable in small electronic devices. These ubiquitous USB-C cables will not perform a data connection with your phone. At all. I have to search for that one cable that I know works for data since it moves around the house.
