Tech you miss/ new tech trends you hate - ok boomers

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Dante Alighieri said:
Nah it's actually the best one if you want Graphene. It doesn't have bloat, and any apps that come pre-installed are from Google and removable.
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I've had my eye on the Pixel for at least a decade at this point precisely because of GrapheneOS and sandboxed, unprivileged Google Play services. Problem is that the Pixel series won't ever be the Nexus series, and I still maintain that Nexus was the pinnacle of flagship AOSP smartphone design, and it died the moment Nexus was discontinued wholesale in lieu of the Pixel series. Nexus was basically "affordable but not necessarily cheap flagship reference for AOSP to build on." Pixel is basically "we bought out HTC's talent specifically to compete with Apple in the overpriced flagship smartphone market... oh and uh, I guess this is now the reference platform for AOSP."

I'd consider myself something of an Android boomer. My first smartphone was an HTC Magic (T-Mobile myTouch 3G in the USA), eventually pivoting over to the HTC Vision (HTC Desire Z in Europe/Canada, T-Mobile G2 in the USA). This was back when Android phones had that strange chin at the bottom with either a trackball or an optical sensor to use as a cursor, physical buttons for menu, home, back, and power, and sometimes a fully featured QWERTY hardware keyboard. Yeah, the software UX was fucking awful with hindsight, but to that end? You were free to mod and tinker with your shit to your heart's content, complete with xda-developers forum guides on how to root your shit, back up your NAND to your SD card, and flash custom ROMs. Or maybe you can set up full fat Busybox and create a chroot for Debian on your smartphone not because it'll do anything truly useful but because you can.

A huge part of the G2's "marketing" is stock Android on it. That was back when every Android phone manufacturer had to create their own proprietary skin atop of AOSP. Samsung had (and still has) TouchWiz, Motorola had Motoblur, but HTC had far and away the best skin: HTC Sense. Yeah, it never looked quite as nice as the HTC HD2 with Windows Mobile 6.5 on it, but y'know what? That animated clock where it gave a minor weather animation on top of the time when you unlock the screen was just *chef's kiss.* HTC Sense also had tons of (questionable but still cool as crap) integration with Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr. Not to mention that their "app drawer" was aesthetically pleasing and not horribly ugly like in the Android 1.0-2.1 days. Yet here I was with a stock T-Mobile G2 with a (relatively) ugly AOSP 2.2 UX. Whatever was a man to do? Oh right: temproot your phone with the Visionary app, then run a script through adb while your phone's plugged in via USB that permaroots your phone with gfree, and then sets fastboot to S-OFF while installing Clockworkmod Recovery image. Then you could just flash the HTC Desire Z firmware onto your phone, no muss, no fuss, etc. If you wanna roll back to stock firmware? Just flash the stock firmware via Clockworkmod.

Modern Android phones have no fucking soul to them whatsoever anymore. It's all basically "AOSP with minor vendor bloat here and there, with Samsung clinging to an ever-enshittifying TouchWiz UX that's prettier to look at but somehow performs worse than the literal iPhone knock-off that the original Galaxy S shipped with." Yeah, you have LineageOS with some minor UI tweaks, maybe a custom launcher if you're lucky, but it ain't no CyanogenMod because Steve Kondik was a fucking moron who sold CyanogenMod to venture capital before the firm shut the project down circa 2015-2016. OG CyanogenMod up to and including CM6 that actually shipped with custom launchers, overclocking software, and even hilariously edgy and sometimes raunchy wallpapers was an experience that you just had to experience in real time.

I ended up on an iPhone 5 once my Android phone got damaged beyond repair in my freshman year of college, and I just stuck with Apple ever since through the iPhone 5, the 6S Plus, and now the iPhone 12. I'm never getting rid of the 12 until the battery is down to 50% wear, and even then, I'd still find some dodgy retailer to replace my battery once Apple stops offering battery replacements for the iPhone 12 full-stop before I give this thing up. The newest iPhones post-iPhone 13 are fucking awful, no physical SIM, and have tons of hardware AI bullshit I never wanted nor asked for. I'd sooner blow my own brains out before I ever accept an eSIM as my only option. Apple's a soulless husk of a company and was trending that way long before Steve Jobs died, but at least they pioneered "soulless but still usable smartphones" as a concept. Android nowadays has no heart, no soul, and variable functionality while still maintaining an iPhone premium unless you wanna roll the dice with a shitty Motorola or LG phone.
 
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Dread First said:
Modern Android phones have no fucking soul to them whatsoever anymore. It's all basically "AOSP with minor vendor bloat here and there, with Samsung clinging to an ever-enshittifying TouchWiz UX that's prettier to look at but somehow performs worse than the literal iPhone knock-off that the original Galaxy S shipped with." Yeah, you have LineageOS with some minor UI tweaks, maybe a custom launcher if you're lucky, but it ain't no CyanogenMod because Steve Kondik was a fucking moron who sold CyanogenMod to venture capital before the firm shut the project down circa 2015-2016. OG CyanogenMod up to and including CM6 that actually shipped with custom launchers, overclocking software, and even hilariously edgy and sometimes raunchy wallpapers was an experience that you just had to experience in real time.
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Preach, brother. The problem is that the rooting/custom rom community became obsessed with the 'stock' experience and trying to pass Google's SafetyNet checks. Lineage is just AOSP with root in-box, then there's the Pixel experience ROMs, and it's obvious what they do. These people have jobs and kids and have become totally boring, and the ROMs show it. The only benefit to this is, for the increasing number of people who will never have root, there's more tools for them. Shizuku allows a lot to happen, like installing non-Play Store applications automatically, some equalizers, disabling some bloatware, etc etc. Custom ROMs used to have tons more flair and customizing and now it's all just "here's basic Android! isn't this fun?!" when it's not fun at all.
Dread First said:
Yeah, you have LineageOS with some minor UI tweaks, maybe a custom launcher if you're lucky, but it ain't no CyanogenMod because Steve Kondik was a fucking moron who sold CyanogenMod to venture capital before the firm shut the project down circa 2015-2016.
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Speaking of moron, did you know he actually trooned out? He's now Stefanie Kondik!

https://www.crunchbase.com/person/steve-kondik (I love how the link still says steve, based from CrunchBase)

So yeah, probably a good thing, actually, that he sank Cyanogen before a troon infestation could take root.
 
Green Man said:
But I suppose that one wouldn't even need to purchase said software if the built-in backup scheme for Windows wasn't so God-awful. Seriously, how in the fuck is it 2026 and if you want to set retention policies for backups, you still have to rig up .bat files and use task scheduler instead of simply having a built-in option?
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I'm not surprised. I've had similarly ridiculous experiences.

The few times I've had to setup Window 11 for someone the clocks are backwards. The time does not automatically set correctly and is always a day a head. Then you go to the new settings app and if you set the correct time zone it give you the exact opposite time on the other side of the planet. I know what happened. Some idiot implemented the model wrong so the drop down menu options have the inverse values of the displayed names. Every time I have to put the date and time in manually. This isn't some free ISO you downloaded this is paid software. It should be an embarrassment that the clocks aren't even accurate, but Microjeet has no lost conditions as a company. Jeet will start blabbering incomprehensible gibberish and try to upsell you if you bring it up with them. The retards who still trust and love MS Windows don't comprehend how hopelessly broken and Poojeet infested MS Windows is. If you don't fight with it and get it right, the end user will always blame the technician because in their ignorance they assume some Poojeet with shit smeared all over his keyboard is more competent the the person they've known for years and has always done good work for them.
 
Green Man said:
But I suppose that one wouldn't even need to purchase said software if the built-in backup scheme for Windows wasn't so God-awful. Seriously, how in the fuck is it 2026 and if you want to set retention policies for backups, you still have to rig up .bat files and use task scheduler instead of simply having a built-in option?
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Microslop has more or less entirely stopped working on local backup options. They exist but within the OS still but they're so hidden because they want you to back everything up to OneDrive. I'm not entirely against the notion of cloud backups but the way it's implemented is such intrusive ass that I'd rather not bother.

I tried to use the "Windows Backup" app features in Windows 11 to make getting up and running after an SSD swap a bit easier and it it's pretty much useless unless you've got your whole ecosystem already set up with OneDrive, which I don't because I like to specifically pick and choose what goes into the cloud and I don't want or need my two computers to mirror each other. To my knowledge there's no way to keep two separate backups of two computers without having two accounts when I could absolutely do that with File History. Also when you delete anything on OneDrive it deletes from your synced devices, so it's not really even a backup.

As much as I loathe using Apple products most of the time, their built-in backup solutions are at least functional the way you expect and actually make a proper backup of your shit.
 
Kiwifarmsname said:
I hate new TVs so much. They all look and feel flimsy and have Google TV built into them.
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Look into projectors. I ended up getting an old one for a couple hundred on ebay. It'll be troublesome getting bulbs for it since it's so old, but for now that's a later issue. Some of the new "business rated" laser projectors don't have all the spyware in them and still have great specs (1080p, 4000-5000 lumens, good throw, etc) however, they are expensive.
 
The ATF Disliked That said:
Look into projectors. I ended up getting an old one for a couple hundred on ebay. It'll be troublesome getting bulbs for it since it's so old, but for now that's a later issue. Some of the new "business rated" laser projectors don't have all the spyware in them and still have great specs (1080p, 4000-5000 lumens, good throw, etc) however, they are expensive.
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I looked into them and they all seem kind of pointless over a TV.
 
jray4559 said:
Preach, brother. The problem is that the rooting/custom rom community became obsessed with the 'stock' experience and trying to pass Google's SafetyNet checks. Lineage is just AOSP with root in-box, then there's the Pixel experience ROMs, and it's obvious what they do. These people have jobs and kids and have become totally boring, and the ROMs show it. The only benefit to this is, for the increasing number of people who will never have root, there's more tools for them. Shizuku allows a lot to happen, like installing non-Play Store applications automatically, some equalizers, disabling some bloatware, etc etc. Custom ROMs used to have tons more flair and customizing and now it's all just "here's basic Android! isn't this fun?!" when it's not fun at all.
Click to expand...

I will forever maintain that the biggest travesty of Android as an ecosystem was Google getting away with buying out HTC's entire mobile division to work on the Pixel series after sunsetting the Nexus. Beyond what I already stated about the Nexus, it also served as a vital tool to prove that Google was willing to work with OEMs for "correct" reference implementations. HTC didn't have a monopoly on the Nexus after the Nexus One. Samsung, LG, even Huawei had their shot at making Nexus phones too. Once Google controlled both the hardware and software stacks, it gave them free reign to say "yeah here's the software, do what you want with it, also we're gonna have the "correct" implementation with our own in-house Tensor chips that perform worse than a bog-standard Qualcomm SoC, and we'll continue focusing on the Pixel instead of teaching you guys how to make shit work on your own implementations."

The biggest issue I have with modern Android is that you either "buy into"

a) the Pixel ecosystem wholesale. Even if you opt for GrapheneOS, that's still Pixel exclusive due to all the stuff it does with the Tensor chips.
b) the Samsung ecosystem, which has piss-poor software support and ain't anywhere near as easy to root/jailbreak/flash custom ROMs onto as it was during the Galaxy S through Galaxy S5 days.
c) Some dodgy budget-to-midrange phone from Motorola or LG, maybe shell out money on a bonehurt luxury brand like Sony Xperia or OnePlus. At least you have LineageOS to fall back on... maybe... kinda... okay maybe not.

HTC wasn't perfect; I hated how they deliberately gatekept HTC Sense from the US market until the HTC One M8 came out. Even then, they still made quality hardware at a reasonable price point, and you could freely patch up the software side officially or unofficially. Samsung is hideous, ugly, and enshittified to the nth degree. Motorola makes great budget phones, but I'm not trying to live off a G-series "Play" variant that's barely more powerful than my iPhone 6S Plus. OnePlus was absolutely fantastic when they still focused on midrange, but now they're pushing upward to pseudo luxury. It's like they're trying to be the Hyundai Genesis of smartphones while failing to realise that a base model iPhone costs just as much new and has better software support. The Xperia XZ2 was something an old coworker of mine had, it was a beautiful device with actual top-end guts... in 2018. I doubt Xperia's got anything comparable anymore.

I'm not gonna lie, I've experimented with Xiaomi phones I bought off GearBest pre-COVID like the Mi A2 and the Pocofone, they were beautiful and functional devices... but an utter lack of VoLTE meant that it was bloody useless in America despite correctly supporting the bands that American carriers use! They're great for international phones, but how often am I gonna leave the USA to visit the motherland with these airfare prices? You can't even get LineageOS on them because (at least when I tried at the time), there was no known way to unlock the bootloader, let alone to flash a custom ROM. Root was possible, but not a custom ROM despite having ample amounts of SD card storage support.

Y'know, I still give Apple tons of shit for basically killing off jailbreaks, backing up your SHSH blobs, rolling back to older firmware, etc etc. Yet it must be said: the only reason why I ever jailbroke my phone and installed shit through Cydia was to run emulators on my shit, the webOS style multitasking, and to have SBSettings with full gestures. SBSettings is obsolete with current iOS control panels, the webOS style actually did win out so that's obsolete, and AltStore's hideously inconsistent to keep actively running, but at least I'm covered on the emulator front... and then I realise how shit playing GBA emulators on an iPhone is so that's why I stopped in the first place. Whatever, at least the option's there.

With Android? You have "options" but it's all the illusion of choice when everyone's chasing after SafetyNet, trying to stay as close to AOSP as possible, and when software root is fucking meaningless if Google's already flirting with taking away your ability to sideload apps. Who knows? Maybe you can do adb shenanigans to sideload apps without having Developer Options physically available to you in Android Settings... but relying on adb to sideload apps is such a monumental regression that I say is even more predatory than whatever Apple gives you. At least Apple's honest in execution and reputation about being predatory. Google wasn't Apple; their claim to fame with Android was the open ecosystem, actually working with hardware OEMs, actively working with the community to import changes into mainline AOSP that custom ROMs made, and so on and so forth. They certainly aren't the company that would "Do No Evil" as they once claimed... they haven't been for at least 10 years now. Even so, this is like a slap to the face with a white glove before you give into the ye olde duelling analogy and proclaim that you demand satisfaction.
 
Seems dependence on the "smartphone" is exponentially rising. I was recently at an event where I saw that if you wanted to check the lost and found, you had to "scan a QR code" to complete an online form. Can you imagine losing something, not having a "smartphone", and you cannot even check the lost and found because the form moved from IRL to a website? And speaking of, more and more websites are having this bullshit of "send code to a text message" in order to "verify" you.

Don't care if this makes me sound "boomer", it still sucks ass.
 
ToroidalBoat said:
Don't care if this makes me sound "boomer", it still sucks ass.
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Oh. You're totally not coming across as a boomer at all. If anything what you said it's completely valid and I agree. I barely even take my mobile out with me now days unless I'm in a situation where I'd likely need it or if I'm traveling far but that's also because I'm a paranoid faggot due to my field of work. But even now if it be going to a cafe, or a large bar, a lot of these places want you to specifically order using a QR code on the table then getting pissy at me like I'm interrupting their entire work day when I come up to order in person because I simply don't have my mobile on me. It's all very ludicrous, let alone the privacy nightmares that mobile phones are as a whole now days. After all I could sit in a cafe in a relatively popular area with a DIY sniffer running in my bag off of a powerbank and harvest all sorts of interesting data. Bettercap goes a long way if you know what you're doing.
 
Dread First said:
I've had my eye on the Pixel for at least a decade at this point precisely because of GrapheneOS and sandboxed, unprivileged Google Play services
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Dread First said:
temproot your phone with the Visionary app, then run a script through adb while your phone's plugged in via USB
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A word to the wise. If you ever do want to go with graphene, there is no way to have a working rooted graphene OS. It's incompatible. It sucked to find that out the hard way.
 
ToroidalBoat said:
Seems dependence on the "smartphone" is exponentially rising. I was recently at an event where I saw that if you wanted to check the lost and found, you had to "scan a QR code" to complete an online form. Can you imagine losing something, not having a "smartphone", and you cannot even check the lost and found because the form moved from IRL to a website? And speaking of, more and more websites are having this bullshit of "send code to a text message" in order to "verify" you.

Don't care if this makes me sound "boomer", it still sucks ass.
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Yea I went to one of those "QR menu restaurant" (mind you they also had printed panflets, just with offers) and ordered something from the menu.

"Oh we don't have that!". Mind you, this was a website menu, not a 10yo paper menu.

I want the 5g to crash and starlink to burn and internet to not be reliable outside of cable, and internet to be separated by continents.
 
Sperg_rancher said:
A word to the wise. If you ever do want to go with graphene, there is no way to have a working rooted graphene OS. It's incompatible. It sucked to find that out the hard way.
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Well then what's the frickin point of GrapheneOS if I can't have a functional root?! Yeah yeah yeah, I get the rhetoric of safety and root access being a fundamental risk... but it's my (hypothetical) phone that I'm going through the trouble of flashing GrapheneOS onto! What's the point of having a custom ROM if I can't friggin root the damn thing to set up FOSS apps. Just give me the damn warning that says I'm on the hook for borking my phone with root and call it a day.
 
I miss when I could just have access to everything on my system.

I'm locked out of certain parts of Steam because I cannot authenticate my account with the app. I want to move the app to my newer phone, which won't activate there because I forgot to change my old discontinued phone number that it wants to send messages to, so I have to wait for fucking tech support to enable the change.

I remember Xbox 360 starting this shit, forcing me to pay for Xbox Live in order to pay for Netflix. I remember just using Netflix on my Wii because of this bullshit.
 
ToroidalBoat said:
Things could improve by a lot if India used their own separate telecommunications.

Far less scam calls, no call centers outsourcing, and less Indians in American IT.
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Calls to/from India should have a required $50 connection fee.
Each call, $50. Non negotiable. US dollars. Payable to the US Govt.

They money should be pooled and reimbursed to each phone number in the US.
God knows we all get those calls 5x a day.
 
Passwords are becoming more and more useless these days. A few weeks ago I tried out a phone emulator and used one of my burner google accounts on google play to download apps (which was retarded of me, I know). They demanded a phone number to "verify" even though no phone number were attached to the account itself. I obliged (yes yes). I later uninstalled the emulator but forgot to log out. A few days later I tried logging in on another device and they told me to get a code from a device the account is signed in for "security". The only device is that emulated phone which I no longer have access to. There is litterally no other way. So now I lost the account even though I know the password.
 
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