skuzz

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skuzz ,

If done correctly, it also forces devs to write smaller more maintainable packages.

Big if though. I've seen many a terrible containerized monolithic app.

skuzz ,

I think I respect this comment the most.

skuzz ,

Motorola released the Skip tag line around 2013, including a keychain battery that could charge your phone, and had Bluetooth and could use that service to locate whatever it was attached to.

...in 2013.

skuzz ,

Ouch, no band 71 at all. That'll hurt T-Mobile extended range and indoors as it is their largest low frequency band. The EU version at least supports one T-Mobile 5G band, and their largest at that (41).

Band 12 and 13 will help low band scenarios with AT&T and Verizon respectively. No band 14 means no AT&T service in rural areas like (my always go to example) western Nebraska where it is AT&T's only low band frequency.

Definitely not the worst band support, but not great either.

Too bad the US is such a toxic environment for cool phones with all the carrier-induced "certification" they put in the way to prevent low-volume and niche manufacturers from bothering.

skuzz ,

Without band 71 (used for both LTE and 5G depending on parts of the country) you'll likely see more no service scenarios while rural, but if you're primarily metro, those will be exceedingly rare.

skuzz ,

Check out @catsofyore.bsky.social

skuzz ,

Web sites like that are so annoying, they couldn't even be bothered to find an image or video of LineageOS running on a Switch?

skuzz ,

This and many others are reasons a switch to Linux has been so joyful. No more Windows trying to guilt me, nag me, push me, trick me, abuse me to use shit the way they want. It's so much more....quiet.

skuzz ,

There are some that do power negotiation on the input side, and then power negotiation on the output side so you can have your cake and firewall it too.

skuzz ,

Funny thing is, the CEOs are exactly the ones to be replaced with AI. Mediocre talent that is sometimes wrong. Perfect place for an AI, and the AI could come to the next decision much faster at a fraction of the cost.

skuzz ,

Reimagined

Ftfy (/s)

skuzz ,

Yeah, apologies, I was being a bit glib there. Honestly, I kinda subscribe to the Star Trek: Insurrection Ba'ku people's philosophy. "We believe that when you create a machine to do the work of a man, you take something away from the man."

While it makes sense to replace some tasks like dangerous mining or assembly line work away from humans, interaction roles and decision making roles both seem like they should remain very human.

In the same way that nuclear missile launches during the Cold War always had real humans as the last line before a missile would actually be fired.

I see AI as being something that becomes specialized tools for each job. You are repairing a lawn mower, you have an AI multimeter type device that you connect to some test points and you converse with in some fashion to troubleshoot. All offline, and very limited in capabilities. The tech bros, meanwhile, think they created digital Jesus, and they are desperate to figure out what Bible to jam him into. Meanwhile, corps across the planet are in a rush to get rid of their customer service roles en masse. Can you imagine 911 dispatch being replaced with AI? The human component is 100% needed there. (Albeit, an extreme comparison.)

skuzz ,

I did not realize they were one and the same!

skuzz ,

So more an iterative family member, which I suppose was more what I'd expect with how Microsoft hisorically handled programming languages. Still interesting! Thanks for the fact-check!

skuzz ,

I want a metal back phone

Steve Jobs did too, they still needed a plastic window for some antennae on the OG iPhone, then went to full plastic. It has become worse now, the back isn't just for wireless charging. It is also for NFC, UWB, and often cellular/gps/wifi/bluetooth may share antenna connections through the back.

Right there with you though. NFC could probably be packed in a band at the top of a phone. UWB seems of dubious value thus far.

skuzz ,

I miss the Nexus concept. There were some whiffs, but then wins like the Nexus 6. Having a vendor juggle was always fascinating, and they mostly used good modems.

skuzz ,

Sounds like they may have set it up to wipe for security paranoia, and maybe not to be jerks?

4 months durability for an $800 phone!

My old $200 Motorola G9 Power phone lasted almost 4 years with only very minor scratches. Obviously in that period I have dropped it a few times getting out of the car, where the phone sometimes work itself out of my pant pocket while I drive, and then it slips out when I get out of the car. But no problem on my previous phones,...

skuzz ,

It's also partly because phones now require 60,000 antennae and radio waves don't go through metal. Wireless charging, NFC, wifi (x2), bluetooth, cellular (x4), UWB..... There's some ability to reuse the antennas via TDM and other tricks but they just "need" so many these days. Also also, plastic is kinda evil from a pollution standpoint, although one could also argue that it could just be recycled with the rest of the phone.

skuzz ,

I switched to a garlic shampoo.

skuzz ,

Health Connect "beta" is a battery hog. Until they fix those issues, it's a non-starter for anyone caring about battery life.

skuzz ,

That's fascinating software! Thanks for the share!

skuzz ,

That OG Moto X with rubberized back was delicious. First phone in a long time that felt worse with a case, and fit so deftly in the hand. Camera was pretty amazing too for the time.

skuzz ,

To be fair, most of their technological advances come through intellectual property theft from companies from other countries that did the design and problem solving leg work and were dumb enough to exploit cheap Chinese labor. China could then easily copy their products. The workmanship and safety/quality of a Chinese product should be highly scrutinized.

skuzz ,

Treasure these times.

skuzz ,

5G covers the same area as 4G on a given frequency. They're ostensibly the same technology on the air interface. The original name of 5G was "LTE2" in fact. Carriers are moving to 5G standalone where all voice, text, data are on 5G. In the US, T-Mobile has 5G on their band 71, which is 600MHz, likewise AT&T runs 5G on their 850MHz band. These bands can reach many miles away from a cell site. I regularly have seen a 5G connection to a site 8 miles away from me, for example.

The coverage will be practically the same as 4G, but slightly worse than 3G. (Which was also true for 4G.)

Carriers will likely do a slow roll over the next 5-10 years migrating 4G bands to 5G until only one or two are left on 4G for legacy devices. Not really an if, as much as a when.

skuzz ,

It's actually a bit more subtle than consumers not buying them.

When LTE came out, it was inefficient and used lower frequencies than cell phones used before. So they needed big phones that they could stick big batteries and antennas in.

Smaller phones existed, but often lacked features of big phones, and battery life was terrible due to the aforementioned power consumption problem. Likewise, reception suffered.

Now, the power problem has been solved and LTE uses less power than CDMA techs did. Antenna and radio design has improved to mitigate reception issues so smaller antennae don't hurt as much as they once did. However, now phones have giant camera modules in them and antennae for a plethora of services and features they think people want like UWB, NFC, wireless charging. (They all have their place, just stating this because they aren't "essential".)

People stopped buying small phones because they were "terrible" by comparison. Then manufacturers claimed people didn't want small phones, so they stopped making them. Now we are stuck because all the junk they throw in phones need all that space.

Tl;dr: the wireless industry killed small phones and blamed consumers.

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