[amirmc]

> "A smartphone is useful even without internet."

In principle, I agree but that's not the way things are going. How many apps do you have that have to talk to (someone else's) backend service to be at all useful? For me I can think of Google Maps, Citymapper, Whatsapp and the weather app (just off the top of my head). All these are useless to me without a data connection.

[ama729]

Notes taking, GPS, music, to-do lists, calls(!), etc.

To me it's especially the "don't make sense without the cloud" bit that I find egregious.

[amirmc]

I didn't specify phone calls because you don't need a smartphone for that (just a phone). I'm not sure you need a smartphone for GPS either, but I don't actually know.

I'm trying to argue that we're heading toward a system where services that we use daily don't function well without some form of data connection, even if that's only for the purpose of synchronisation (e.g. your notes being available when you get to your tablet/laptop). I agree that smartphones can work perfectly well without the internet but that's not quite the way we use them now.

We might think we'd be fine offline but try turning the wifi and data off on your smartphone and see how frustrating you find it.

[turingbook]

Your notes should use the cloud to persist, or they will disappear when the devices are out of work.

Where did you get music? Scrape from CD?

As for GPS and calls, their infrastructures are also part of the Cloud.

[geon]

GPS is part of the cloud? Seriously?

[rdtsc]

Music, many games.