And what happens when some bad actor actively monitors for that signal and seeks out the people who have it? And why does it require carrying my surveillance device to tell others I don't want to be surveilled?
This is something that Apple really got right. My kids can initiate any kind of purchase they want (At least, those that are allowed based on Screen Time controls) but every purchase stops and waits for approval from me or my wife. Even if the item is free. No faffing about with credits, or extra cards, or setting limits.
the author can ask the same question - why should I write something if you're just going to use a LLM to summarize it ?
This is an unnecessary argument both ways. Whether you use a LLM or write it yourself or read it yourself (and then comment on it), you're putting your signature beneath it. I don't care whether you use your natural brain or an artifical brain (LLM)
Because it's an asymmetric relationship? If you write something it can be consumed with value at many different levels, and an llm summary is valid. If we could trust llms to get the details right, creation of technical content would also be valid, but for now IME the editing and proof reading required outweighs any gains.
It's not a dumb question, but there isn't any single answer. It depends on what protections you have on your iCloud account. For most users, if you've lost your phone, but remember your iCloud password and have a new phone with the same number, you can get in. It's made even easier if you have another device already signed in, such as a laptop.
Luckily I do have a macbook, and try to put all my passwords in a "neutral" password manager, but this post has made me think about the edge cases of this sort of thing.
Ive always said, the number one reason I will stick with an iphone - despite any present for future dumb ux changes - is that I will always be able to physically go to an apple store and get someone to help me.
This space is where AI usage is most confounding to me. Regardless of your stance on AI, this work does not need to be done. So if you don't enjoy it enough to actually do it, why are you even here? If you do enjoy the work, why are you letting the AI do your hobby? Don't you miss it?
I think it's clear that Apple has recognized that their target markets don't care to have useful computers. Just look way back to when Steve Jobs was still alive and he was talking about how "PCs are going to be like trucks. Fewer people will need them. And this is going to make some people uneasy."
They could certainly add features to make them more like general purpose computers, but there's a bit of product development and engineering "tax" they'd have to pay over time to maintain that aspect. Much easier from a product development standpoint to create products that provide a walled-garden experience, especially if that's what most customers want.
The truck metaphor is actually incredibly apt, because if you want to do "truck stuff" with your PC, a lot of people think you can't do that on a phone, but 90% of what people need a beefy computer for could be done on a phone if we had that kind of culture around it.
Macbook pros for a lot of us are effectively like daily driving a lifted Ford Raptor with a snorkel. Most of what I do on my personal device I easily could do on a Chromebook or tablet, and pretty much all of the rest is entirely possible on a Chromebook with the Linux subsystem setup (which is what I did pre-Macbook). It's like if I'd setup an expensive truck for off-roading, but in the end it turned out to be aspirational and I only take it somewhere that can't handle a Subaru Outback once or twice a year.
Hah this is very true, though I'd argue the real Raptor with a snorkel is the gaming PC. I'm typing this on one right now and I mostly play Factorio which could run on any old potato, so yeah I'm that guy. The MBP is probably more akin to the BMW when you could be driving a Honda.
All that said, I'll take this hobby over the truck hobby. $3k for a pretty good machine is great vs. $80k for the snorkel truck.
I will admit that "you can barely buy a sedan in the US anymore" was a bit of hyperbole, but certainly they have declined precipitously, from 80% of the US new vehicle market 40 years ago to about 25% today [0]. You can still buy sedans in the US, but not from american car companies [1].
If that's the case, then why do we go to work on a computer instead of a phone? Oh, wait. A screen. A mouse, a keyboard. Really, if they wanted to, you could simply dock your phone and have that experience if the company was willing to put in the time.
Globally, mobile+tablet crossed 50% of web traffic in October 2016 (51.3% vs. desktop's 48.7%) [0]. For the world minus HN, we’re entering the second decade of phones being useful computers for the most common definition of useful.
“Useful computer” is subjective. It seems to be difficult for HN users to imagine a device that doesn’t have a terminal for example, but the overwhelming majority of users simply do not care. Many of them manage just fine with a smartphone as their primary (if not their only) computer, so clearly they are useful enough.
I had a Motorola Atrix and Lapdock years ago, and wished that concept had taken off. The phone was lacking in performance which made it difficult to use in "laptop" mode.
The modern phone I have is a "cheap" Xiaomi POCO F7 Ultra which has incredible performance, only hampered by the USB2 connectivity. If a dock existed for other phones, I would use this all day.
The Macbook neo has a Phone chip. And Android now integrates the Linux terminal (well, for compatible chips).
Valve is also trying to put gaming on ARM chips.
So I'd say we're starting to blur the lines between phones and PCs. Personally, owning a samsung phone, I'm looking for a neat option to leverage my powerful chip and work on it on trips, but so far I find the options to do so too expensive considering how much money I already put into my phone (VR glasses, Lapdocks, external monitor/keyboard...)
I did that a few times with a 10 inches Samsung tablet and a Bluetooth keyboard, using the DeX UI. It had Linux on DeX with some Ubuntu version. 16.04?
I can't think about a good way to do it with a phone screen, unless you know that you can find a TV set to connect to. But hotel rooms usually place their TV sets very inconveniently and if you stay at a friend's home, their TV sets will be not so well placed too to be used as a monitor. So maybe a costly large foldable as your next phone?
There have been a few posts from people who have used these XREAL or other AR glasses with an Android and foldable keyboard.
Also, IIRC there was reporting that Apple considered doing the compute for Vision Pro on a device at the hip. Instead of what they ended up with which was just a battery.
I could see this coming back around again where a future iPhone is all of the brains or a lot of the brains for AR glasses.
Apple has had a patent[1] for like a decade at this point which involved placing an iPhone into a slot on a laptop so it could be used in a laptop form, with the phone itself serving as the touchpad.
This company https://nexphone.com/ has been doing something like that since 2016 but of course in a different way, by attaching the phone to a laptop shell or more simply to a USB hub.
That seems to be entirely the purpose of this device. Instead of just a larger display, it's meant to provide a "second monitor" for multitasking or more context.
With terminal emulators, tailscale, local and remote agents, there's never been so much computing capability accessible from your pocket before.
I would love it if I could use it as a second monitor when working in a coffee shop or library. Unfortunately universal control was pretty solid at launch and then just completely left to die
I have a Chromebook with an ~11 inch screen. It’s basically the minimum size where a keyboard is still useable. I like it a lot, but it’s actually too big when I want to use it as a tablet.
I think this is the tension. Or maybe we just need to master one handed keyboards.
At least some of the time, when people refer to using their phone as a computer, I think they're talking about plugging into an external monitor through USB-C, and using the phone as a desktop with a keyboard and mouse.
I've tried every so often, and while I think all the hardware is there, the software wasn't. Perhaps Android has improved on this recently? I know there have been niche attempts in the past, like Samsung DeX or Ubuntu Touch, which may have been more solid. I've never tried out any of those.
Almost all of these big phone companies are also the ones selling tablets and some of them laptops, so if they did do that they would start eating into their other business units.
Android Desktop mode looks so promising, it just needs to support higher resolutions/refresh rates but this is probably a side effect of at least the Pixel having weaker performance versus other flagships.
Although I can’t wait for the more powerful Motorolas with GOS to release. Maybe that’d be enough to make a phone my sole computing device.
Lots of computers have external keyboards, mice, and displays. Why not a powerful computer like the iPhone? Who cares if it's small? Lots of SBCs are small and are quite useful. This one even has a built in UPS.
Apple's lack of vision and fear of innovation. Jobs is gone. We're back to 90s Apple. Dumb ideas become dumb products, and no one has the balls to say, No.
Will they though? They would capture more windows users. They already have the Neo actually. iPad still has another job mainly around simpler tasks. I’ve not yet got to love the Macosy windows management.
Have you ever connected an iPad to an external display, mouse, and keyboard? I agree with you that laptop sales would continue, but I bet they would decline. Apple could do the MS Surface much better than MS did.
I’m not so sure personally. A MacBook Air is not that much less portable than an iPad, but is far more useful for work when not docked than an iPad because it still has a keyboard and a precision pointing device. And it can still be docked when you need a bigger screen.
The areas where the iPad beats the MacBook are still (imo) the same as the day it launched: web browsing, watching video, and reading. Workloads that are heavy on the Apple Pencil too, but that’s a fairly narrow slice compared to anything else you might do on a computer.
I mean my iPad Pro + Magic Keyboard case has fully replaced my Mac for everything. I haven’t touched my Mac in months. I literally do all of my work via GitHub Codespaces (soon to be self-hosted Coder). Yes it’s not all on device but it works (for me).
I don’t see anything in my use case that I’d gain from a MacBook over this setup.
Yeah I used a Magic Keyboard myself for a while but I found it significantly impacted what I liked about the iPad. It doubled the weight, and removed the ability to hold it in my hand or in portrait (still the most common orientation I use mine). Sure you can take it out any time, but I found it just added a lot of extra friction to a device that previously had very little (iPadOS aside). Glad it’s working well for you though.
I certainly don't. You simply cannot get actual work done on a phone anywhere near as easily as on a real computer. There's a reason that companies issue laptops (or have desktops even) instead of giving employees a phone.
This is the biggest disappointment, imagine running a full blown "Ubuntu Touch" that gives you the freedom of Linux with full root access. This is the biggest failure of legislation in the 21st century so far that has enabled a strict Android/iOS duopoly.
I sincerely hope one day we can free these hardware devices from the shakles of their software and run anything that's possible.
Until such a time iOS devices are strictly off limits until at least a grapheneOS can run iOS at a minimum.
The iOS app iSH [0] allows you to do this, it’s a full blown Alpine environment running through x86 emulation in the app. I’ve been using it for a while, as far as I can tell almost all of the Alpine packages run without any issues.
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