[mattnewton]

Is this really a driving factor for people? If I anticipate tasks that I can't wait to get back to a good work environment to do, I'll bring my laptop and tether on my phone. It's a fantastically more productive setup than trying to ssh in via a phone keyboard or even write a long email. 1 inch extra on the phone screen diagonal won't move the needle there for me.

[raw_anon_1111]

Yes and even though you haven’t watched TV in 20 years ((c) Slashdot) people still watch TV.

The feigned ignorance on HN that most normal people don’t pull their laptops out to do everything in 2026 is amazing

[quesera]

It's not feigned. I'm astonished to learn how hard people will work for the (seemingly to me) false convenience of doing things on their phone which would be (to me) much more straightforward to do on a more suitable device.

So I tend to assume that these stories are often the outliers, and that my personal experience is more common. I recognize the fallacy, and I suspect we're both wrong and we're both right. I just honestly don't know which one of us is more of which.

It probably devolves to a question of what kind of work we're talking about. The work that I do (or the way I do it), I do not believe could be done effectively on a phone or tablet, most of the time. I work with people whose work can be done there. And there are probably more of them that there are of me. But that does not mean I could become one of them.

(addressing your comment on another subthread): if music, camera, and web are a person's "work", then sure. But that does not resemble "work" for me in any way.

[raw_anon_1111]

So it’s not feigned ignorance…

Again, you can look at the worldwide penetration of cell phones vs laptops, where most web traffic comes from, the amount of resources spent on mobile development vs desktop, the amount of revenue globally of phone sales vs PC sales, etc

I also don’t spend all day working and I definitely don’t take out my laptop when I’m not working

[quesera]

Worldwide is not relevant, and mobile-vs-desktop dev is not relevant.

Mobile-vs-web dev is probably a better metric. And developed, mature markets only. Anything else introduces the second- and third-generation tech gap inconsistencies.

[raw_anon_1111]

Yes Japan and S. Korea who led in mobile penetration for decades are poor countries..

Are you really arguing in 2026 about time spent on mobile vs PCs?

[quesera]

This is non-responsive to my comments.

Also, you're being unnecessarily unpleasant in these threads; I wish I had read down further before replying initially, but I'm done now.

[brookst]

Only about 70% of Americans even own a laptop[1]. Factor in many of those being ancient with 15 minute battery life, plus user preferences… it’s hard to see how that could be the majority use case.

1. https://www.statista.com/statistics/228589/notebook-or-lapto...

[realityking]

It‘s also generational. My 18yo sister in law is now applying for colleges and the word “application” immediately made her look for an app. That the whole process happened on a (not mobile friendly) website was rather surprising to her.

(English is her 3rd language)

[raw_anon_1111]

I am 51. The amount of Ludditism on HN shouldn’t come as a surprise to me. But it does. Most older 70+ year old people I know don’t own a computer at all and would never use one. But they do know how to get to things they need on their phones.

[array_key_first]

It's not feigned ignorance, it's disbelief that people are comfortable working in such an inefficient and frankly unpleasant way.

Can I file my taxes on my phone? Probably. But I could also set myself on fire, and I think that might be more fun. Why would I not want to use a tool that is 100x faster and 1000x easier to use for any task more complex than writing a sentence?

I'm a developer. I've heard of developers SSH'ing from their phone and developing that way. It's impressive, in the same way removing all your fingernails is impressive.

[raw_anon_1111]

Really? I did file my taxes by phone. It took me all of five minutes.

90% of taxpayers claim the deduction - meaning their taxes are really simple.

I launched TurboTax, it offered to download my and my wife’s W2s, I clicked through a few buttons on a wizard and I was done. It had all of my information from the prior year so it already knew my employer.

As far as speed, have you compared the speed of the fastest iPhone to a low to midrange x86 PC? The latest A series chips in the iPhone are faster in single core performance than an M1 MacBook Air which is no slouch. But all that is besides the point. How fast of a computer do you think you need to file taxes? There was tax filing software for the 1Mhz Apple //e in 1986. You just had to print it out.

I entered maybe one number?

I live in a state without state taxes so I didn’t even have to file states.

FWIW, I also shopped for, did all of the paperwork before closing, for the house we had built in 2016 from my phone.