HN user

callalex

5,077 karma
Posts0
Comments1,913
View on HN
No posts found.

Citizen is really enshittified, so any alternative would be better. I don’t object to them charging for their service, but they use all kinds of predatory editorial tactics and push notifications and marketing copy to instill primal fear that your neighborhood is imminently burning down and you will get shot if you don’t subscribe to a higher tier of service from them. Crime is way down in the US but you really don’t feel that way when you are a subscriber/user of Citizen.

Dart/Flutter was never a technical issue, but a political/monopolistic issue. The underlying monopoly has not changed, so I don't really see a path forward unless the chromium team magically changes leadership.

In the US, google maps is useless because it will give you stupid directions like “at the McDonalds, make a right turn.” Just so they can spew more ads at you. Half the time the location they are advertising is not right up against the street so you don’t see it and miss your turn.

Bop Spotter 2 years ago

The battery will live much longer if you run it from 80% down to 50%. There are some clever plugs you can get off the shelf if your phone doesn’t support setting this in software.

What about the dozens (at this point hundreds) of phone models that are both rainproof and have a replaceable battery without melting and scraping? They exist in real, observed reality.

What about the last 15 years of MacBook models that never claimed to be waterproof but still require heat guns and risk of catastrophic immolation to extend their life beyond 3-5 years?

But for some reason the internals of an iPhone 16 are still “gorgeous”…and merit a stage appearance and endorsement from Mother Earth herself!

The latest iPhones require the battery to be cryptographically paired to the phone and can only be done by Apple or a few approved vendors. You can’t just take them to a normal repair shop.

Even in the best case scenario is objectively worse in every way than a 10s at-home battery swap. Especially for the vast majority of human beings that don’t live within a reasonable distance of an Apple Store. Keep in mind that most older phones end up on secondary markets in less wealthy countries. They could live for years there except for the failed batteries.

There are many tools at their disposal, of which AI may be only a small one.

1) They could implement a “promotional” notification category the same way that they do “time sensitive” and let the user customize that the same way, or at least offer an opt-out.

2) Add a “report” button next to the disable notifications button.

3) Stop delivering notifications on behalf of apps that don’t correctly categorize promotional notifications.

4) Skip all this complexity and just ban developers that send spam. This is what their monopoly on app distribution is supposedly justified by: protecting users from malicious app developers.

I just went through that process at an Apple Store less than 50 miles from Apple HQ. It took 4 and a half hours from my appointment time to having my repaired phone back. (And of course I couldn’t get work done because I didn’t have my phone, and I couldn’t warn the people who were expecting me of my delay, because I didn’t have my phone.) That’s completely unacceptable when it should only take 5-10 seconds.

Edit: To head off any doubt, no my phone was not damaged, and the repair went smoothly. They were having an inventory tracking system outage with absolutely zero fallback/continuity plan and absolutely refused to give me my phone back, repaired or not.