[Torai]

I love how "techie" people needs nurturing to realize what makes sense and what not. So 2 years later, they realize what other people know the moment they hear about some product.

Something Silicon Valley engineers do. They invent silly things just cause they know how to code bluetooth communications. Like a water bottle that measures how much you are drinking during the day for example.

But hey, it's not their fault. It's hacker news fault. Didn't you spend years telling them "Ideas are worth zero. Execution is king". Now you have highly productive dumb people you helped creating.

I divide my officers into four groups. There are clever, diligent, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and diligent -- their place is the General Staff. The next lot are stupid and lazy -- they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the intellectual clarity and the composure necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is stupid and diligent -- he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always cause only mischief.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_von_Hammerstein-Equord

[Joeri]

A phone with a touch screen instead of physical buttons was a dumb idea until it was executed well.

Smart devices aren’t a bad idea, they just haven’t been executed well enough.

[pjc50]

They're still bad phones - you can't answer or dial them without looking. It's just that they're far more useful as tiny internet tablets and people have in many cases gradually moved to text chat over voice.

[Broken_Hippo]

"you can't answer or dial them without looking."

... How often did you dial something without looking before? You probably had a handful of numbers memorized. Otherwise, you needed to look up the number in a phone book or address book. Perhaps you memorized numbers for speed dial?

Now you can dial by talking to you phone if you'd like, so long as you have the person's number in your phone's computer. You can often dial a company directly from their page or from the phonebook... which is online.

And finally: Of course people have gradually moved to text. Voice is often not needed, and I would rather not stop everything to talk to most people.

[icebraining]

Now you can dial by talking to you phone if you'd like

The Nokia 3310, from 2000, already had voice dialing. And while the recognition may not have been as good (I frankly can't remember), it certainly didn't take the time that my current cheap Android takes to even start listening.

[Ma8ee]

It worked good enough. I pressed a button and said Pizza and it immediately called my local pizzeria. For some reason I’ve never got that to work smoothly with Siri.

[Broken_Hippo]

I was honestly thinking about landlines when I wrote this :)

Sidenote: I've never used the voice recognition myself, honestly.

[Torai]

I never said "all smart devices". I was obviously implying some smart devices for some use-cases. A bluetooth connected water bottle is well executed, but poorly ideated.