Perhaps it depends on what you use them for. I'm in Affinity Designer, Affinity Publisher, ChatGPT and Safari most of the day (recently anyway). In short, I tend to create on my computing device. I need the screen real estate for graphics work, the keyboard for writing work.
iPads don't interest me either. I could add a keyboard … but then why not stick with my laptop.
I really hope smart glasses will put an end to the smartphone era and we'll realize how much smartphones sucked.. I want to be able to type in the air just like I'm typing on a keyboard right now, similar thing with with a mouse - like a laptop but you can use it everywhere.
Google Glass didn't make it, but maybe Meta can make it this time.
I think when phones started morphing into computing devices(aka "smartphones"), functionality was being shoved into them that didn't quite fit. Things started to change when the UI/UX process for mobile software was re-considered and the builders walked away from the desktop UI/UX but on phones to what we have today.
"Hate" is a strong word though. I tend to use separate devices for separate functions and stopped trying to find an all-in-one device. That made it OK but I tend to use only a few apps on my phone or tablet compared to others.
I personally prefer reading on the phone: set a big font and there you go. Some books are terrible on it,but text only is great.
I read often in the gym between exercises and in the washroom. In both those cases I only have the phone with me,surely not a paper book
Looking around, the younger generation doesn't do any reading on their phone. I see a lot of scrolling so probably social media or tiktok. The older generation doesn't do any reading on their phone as I see them carrying paperbacks. That's for the people who are still reading books(physical or digital) which seems to be diminishing every passing year.
Photography, is a different area. The more capable cameras on today's phones have sort of killed the mid-range market of cameras. As an amateur photographer, I haven't used my mid-range DSLR in a long time now and keep it for when quality of the image matters.
I read plenty of books over my phone, though. Never been a problem. Also great being able to read on the bus while standing, which you can't do comfortably on a tablet.
As for paper books, I had to go back to reading a paperbook for something that's not sold in digital form and I found insane how bad the experience is. I like reading on the side and every even (or odd) page is a bad experience depending at which point of the book you are in, with being half-way affecting both sides.
Granted all the books I read are usually thick, so there's that.
I think the general idea of a smart phone isn’t too bad, but I hate what they’ve become. The idea of a general purpose, hand-held, computer packed with sensors is great. That these amazing tools are hampered by restrictive software, have no general purpose OS, and are generally used to generate addictive behavior and drain people of time and money… not so great.
I had high hopes for the PinePhone but the one I got can't even reliably make or receive calls so it sits in my desk drawer.
Will someone please sell me a simple phone that works without any smart crap?
The prevalence of enshitification is very much a product of a broad historical arc that began with the deregulation of various US regulated monopolies (phone, airlines, health care) and which ended with the rise of even more powerful unregulated monopolies (Google, Amazon, etc).
Not sure what the solution is here, though.
How about now
But that's pretty much expected, those apps are simplified counterparts of the "traditional" software because they have to work with big fingers and low precision / fast speed requirement.
I think the vast majority of software actually doesn't have much point in its "mobile" form, it's even discutable why most of it was ever proposed as a valid endeavor.
But it's mostly a market driven thing because of the app stores. Devs wanted to make money from the mobile craze and thus spent a lot of time inventing/reproducing software for mobile. In practice when you look at app stores statistics, there is little use of "real" software. Most of the successful apps are about consuming content or focus on supporting real world utility.
I have tried hundreds of mobile apps and as far as I'm concerned, most of them are a major waste of time. I think the uses cases for the smartphone haven't changed much since the start: quick messaging (sms, emails, etc), navigation (GPS), quick fact gathering (web browsing) and good enough photography. But since it has become a marker of social status, and has captured a ton of money, many have tried to bolt on more stuff to it.
If think that if your task requires more than 10 min on the phone, it's probably not something that you should be doing on the phone.
turtleyacht•4mo ago