[tazjin]

I've been trying to wean myself off phones completely since the demise of the SE, but life in Moscow without a phone is basically impossible (taxis, deliveries, electric scooters, bikes etc. all become pretty much unavailable).

As a compromise I've been using the Palm Phone[0] for a while now (before that the Unihertz Atom, which is quite the chonker, albeit with a small screen). It's the size of a credit card and has terrible battery life, but it can do all the things I need so I've just learned how to deal with it.

I don't really have a solution for music on the go yet, as you can't connect normal headphones to modern phones without adapters (and those adapters actually draw a surprising amount of power if they have a DAC!) and Bluetooth is completely useless in large and densely populated cities. Maybe some iPod-like devices are still around ...

[0]: https://palm.com/pages/product

[zzzbra]

> but life in Moscow without a phone is basically impossible (taxis, deliveries, electric scooters, bikes etc. all become pretty much unavailable).

am I the only one who finds this horrifying

[tazjin]

No, but the thing is that for the majority of people nowadays this is normal and unsurprising. If you don't have a phone, a lot of things become unavailable and 99% of people (maybe even more!) don't consider that strange.

You can sometimes work around parts of it. For example there are still taxi dispatchers you can call (but with what? Maybe if you have at least a dumb phone ...) but drivers might be more hesitant to accept those jobs (less precise pickup locations, more ambiguity about destinations etc.). You can rent some of the public bikes using a public transport card, but none of the scooters - and those are much more available.

In highly modernised places there is simply a baseline assumption about the tech that everyone has available to them ...

[gigglesupstairs]

People find it strange when I tell them I leave my phone at home most of the times when I go for walking, so I can relate. 99% have absolutely normalised phones in their lives as an essential commodity like refrigerator or a house key.

[pdimitar]

I don't find it horrifying at all, I remember the times when I had to sit in phone calls to organize a plethora of small things I shouldn't have wasted time on the phone for. To me the modern age where you open an app and do things there has been infinitely better. Ordering pizza, calling a taxi, paying for delivered groceries, paying bills etc. -- all through phone.

The fact that there are entities out there that want to steal every drop of your attention when you are on your phone does not nullify the usefulness of modern technology. Nor does it guarantee them success.

I'd say that many people happily use technology to improve their lives and dodge all the other crap. For that group the modern age is absolutely great.

[danwee]

Not only that. Many banks and government services nowadays require a phone (and/or phone number) as well. Their excuse? MFA. So idiotic. I can understand that they want to improve auth for the vast majority of their customers, but don't make it mandatory FFS!

[ThunderSizzle]

Too many people, even here, praise MFA when they reveal how weak their passwords are.

I've never had an auto generated password get broken into. Password databases should've been the solution everyone pushed, not 2FA.

Also, it's really an attempt for these services to cut down on fakes and bots. Its easy to make new emails, but hard to get new numbers that aren't already black/brown listed.

[Gud]

What do you think is wrong with 2FA?

[ThunderSizzle]

As a user, it's not fast, user-friendly, or fail-tolerant. And all three of those vary heavily depending on the company implementing the 2FA.

A username/email and password is pretty simple and straight-forward. If I lose a password, I can reset it via my email. Therefore, the only account that should even consider MFA should be my email, since it's a gateway to everything else. But that also means my email shouldn't have to be connected to 20 other services.

[tkiolp4]

2FA is fine. Being forced to use a mobile phone for 2FA is wrong.

[greenie_beans]

same. i'm really feeling it now after adopting a dumb phone.

recently had an idea: what if we installed small, public computers on city blocks, much in the same way that we did phone booths

[tazjin]

You think the fraud tech on ATMs is bad already? Wait until you see what people would do with those computers :)

[greenie_beans]

i'm sure, but no different than what people already do with private computers

[dale_glass]

It's just the progression of things. Things first shifted online. Some are now going with apps because apps are a better fit.

Eg, if you're calling a taxi, what are you going to call one from, if not a phone? A phone is the best tool for the job because if they come and can't find you, then can call you back.

[PostOnce]

"Life is impossible without e-scooter rentals and fast food delivery."

-Socrates

[scrollaway]

"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize."

So, it's safe to assume GP meant modern life with modern comforts, rather than "my oxygen is only available with an iCloud subscription".

[PostOnce]

I joke in order to suggest someone reconsider what they may have overlooked.

I personally have never booked anything on a smartphone, and I'm content and perfectly well connected in 2022 in a first world country.

I book things in a browser when I need to book something online, and that is generally on a laptop. It's no less convenient.

In fact, I don't even have a mobile data plan, I just use WiFi. I prepay $10 every 6mo for voice calls, everything else can wait til I have WiFi.

I'm not a surgeon and taking calls while I'm driving isn't going to help anyone in any way that can't wait half an hour.

Phones are overrated, full of ads and casinos, and not as revolutionary as we often suggest.

The average person loses more time and money than they gain by having a mobile phone, I bet.

[tazjin]

I suppose you own a car and solve all your personal logistics by driving (presumably in the US). That's a compromise I would not want to make just to get rid of the phone (a car seems much more annoying to deal with!)

[PostOnce]

I lived in the US years ago, I live in NZ now.

I do own a car, and it can go anywhere, carrying many people and goods very quickly and cheaply with no reservation or app required. It's also available in the event of natural disaster when all the rentals vanish. My family woke up to an earthquake that led to a tsunami warning at midnight in 2016, and there are fires and other problems one can foresee...

I do appreciate subway systems and find them very convenient for moving myself around, but dislike the idea of hiring someone else's machine every time I need to purchase groceries for a family or take 3 boxes of hardware to some place...

I think we may in some respects be regressing.

[doctor_eval]

I know this was a joke, but...

The walled city of Athens when Socrates lived measured about 1.5 km (0.93 mi) in diameter.¹

Moscow is among the world's largest cities; the city covers an area of 2,511 square kilometers.²

Access to personal transport is an essential part of modern daily life, without which it is difficult to work, live, and even, sometimes, eat.

¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_Athens

² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moscow

[PostOnce]

And yet enormous Moscow somehow functioned before we invented iPhones less than 20 years ago...

[mikrl]

Akchually the Russian economy was in the toilet until the mid 00s which is also when the iPhone was invented.

I’m kidding of course, but those systems that kept the city running are probably obsolete and forgotten about in the 2020s.

[freefaler]

It did function "somehow", but not as well as it functions now. Hailing a cab (or an unlicensed one) when it's cold or rains was a struggle. No food delivery. No bus notifications and maps routing. Heck, it worked somehow before the Metro was dug by Stalin in the 1930s, but not as well as now.

So you're correct if you don't mind the quality of life.

[dublin]

I really don't get the food delivery thing. It's expensive as hell, slow, and mostly delivers a bunch of highly processed food you'd be better off not eating anyway, unless you're really starving. I've got far better things to do with my money than pay too much for bad, cold food.

Even during the entire 2020 Covid lockdown craziness (which was quite properly never really taken seriously here in Texas - even Austin!), we ordered food delivered exactly twice. All other food was either bought at the grocery store and cooked at home, or from restaurants (I actually miss being able to walk into any restaurant that was open and be instantly seated and served!)

[tazjin]

> It's expensive as hell, slow, and mostly delivers a bunch of highly processed food you'd be better off not eating anyway

This depends on where you are! In Moscow, food delivery can be a 25 minute affair delivering you something from your favourite (vetted by you!) restaurant.

In Stockholm for example (at least when I used to live there), the number of restaurants that sign up for delivery is very low and you mostly just get shitty "Swedish pizza" (curry banana shrimp pizza, anyone?)

London is somewhere in between. Maybe it's just a function of city size, something something economies of scale.

[fragmede]

At least be honest about having a car to get around

[nicolaslem]

> those adapters actually draw a surprising amount of power if they have a DAC!

Do they? Intuitively I would imagine that they do not consume much more than the same DAC inside the phone. I use such adapters a lot and never really noticed anything out of the ordinary related to battery life nor the part with the DAC getting warmer.

On the other hand, the sound quality of these adapters is surprisingly good, in the same league as dedicated audio interfaces[0].

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0P8-TUDJ4Q

[tazjin]

Maybe it's more noticeable because this phone has a really tiny battery, but yeah.

I actually went through a few adapters to find one that worked, because some of them (e.g. the one Apple makes) actually only wire up a DAC inside the phone to the physical 3.5mm connector. The Palm phone doesn't have a DAC though ...

Maybe the one I have (by a company called Baseus, which I've never heard of before) just sucks and it shouldn't be drawing as much power as it does. Thanks for the link to that video, might be some good alternative in there!

[Kirby64]

The 3.5mm adapters that Apple makes absolutely include a DAC themselves. Not sure where you get the idea that they don't.

Both the USB-C and the Lightning versions are all digital on the port side.

There are very few USB-C analog -> 3.5mm adapters, strictly because there is so many compatible issues (i.e., you need to support the alternate mode, AND you need to map the pins correctly).

[danieleggert]

There’s a real DAC inside the Apple one: https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Apple+Lightning+to+Headphone...

[tazjin]

I got an official Apple one and couldn't get it to work with any of my devices (I don't have any other Apple devices, so maybe they do have a DAC but it only works with their devices?). It exhibited the same behaviour as the DAC-less adapters (i.e. just, well, nothing).

[ihatepython]

If you don't care about streaming or bluetooth... I use an iPod nano 2nd gen. It could just be my imagination, but I feel like the audio quality is better than anything more 'modern'.

[egberts1]

What’s more, I can upload/download music with my Apple iPod over WiFi.

iPod, extremely light and long playing.

And none of that Bluetooth cutout while traversing through many AirPods zones.

[davnn]

„… Bluetooth is completely useless in large and densely populated cities.“

What problems do you experience in day to day life?

[tazjin]

Just the usual issues with it not connecting, randomly disconnecting, audio buffering issues and so on. These usually get worse when you go into really busy places (the metro, train stations, shopping streets etc.)

When I lived in London I used to take Bluetooth-enthusiasts to a specific spot in Victoria station that is a complete Bluetooth-killer for some reason. Cables just don't have these problems ...

[jareklupinski]

not OP, but in NYC, I cannot use my Airpods on the subway or while crossing an intersection. I tried commuting with them for a couple weeks, and as soon as I got into the subway my music would cut out.

Then out on the street, I would have no problems in the middle of a block, but on every intersection, the connection would cut out again until I got far enough from the corner.

Back to wired IEM's with a little dongle in the lightning slot :)

[b20000]

nice but it runs android, the worst garbage OS in the world. someone needs to find a way to create a linux phone capable of running android apps but without having to have a google account and dealing with this bullshit company.