duck off you trend-fixated piece or spit. You may want to throw away superior tools in favor of fresh ones, but I don't want to spend $1000 on a toy that does nothing more than signal the correct brand loyalty.
## GPS
you know why people put up with google's tracking? because for as much dumb bullshit as waze is laden with, for as wrong as apple is, and for as much as google maps is a thinly veiled excuse for google to catalog your gps position down to the meter and second... those 3 are the only apps that offer driving directions and understand the concept of a road.
## notifications
the vast majority of apps do not need to give notifications. Honestly the vast majority of mobile apps don't need to exist at all, but I can only argue that case-by-case.
## automation
question: how do you automate your phone? if you try and do some research online, both sides of the walled gardens have a *plethora* of stupid ways to decrease your productivity of automating *other* stuff *from* your phone. But since your phone is the nexus of your security and identity, you can't let anything go poking around in it. And therefore you'll have to pull up DAVx and hit refresh, manually, several times a day. You're begrudgingly allowed to install apps without google's blessing through 3rd party app stores, but you may not automatically update them.
## files
there's a joke that millenials (and gen-z-ers) have to teach boomers what a file beyond a word doc is. But I point out those 2 groups because apple-loyalty is most rampant among them - I dare you to try this exercise. Bring up your preferred communications-with-strangers app (e.g., X). [xkcd about how apps tell you about their updates] Dismiss the patch notes. Find an image you'd like to interact with later. Maybe you want to draw on it. maybe you just want to send it as is. Download it.
where is it? fuck knows. For the sake of privacy, much work has been done to ensure apps aren't allowed to share files. In exchange for the twin downsides of "virtually every app is pointless" and "a truly useful app is prevented from existing", we have accomplished nothing in the way of privacy.
[pitch meeting] "oh, whoops!" "whoopsie!"
Ogg Vorbis *continues* to be superior to mp3. More fidelity. More efficient compression. But apple says mp3 is fine, so, rest in peace OGG. you were the OG. ...G.
Don't worry, there's a million billion music player apps. The only problem is that none of them matter.
You know what *would* be great? if you could download an audio codec on the play store.
## web
you know why people put up with google dictating your experience to maximize your diet of ads? because here's the alternative.
Firefox on the desktop is the last web browser that was a Great Thing. largely, for the most part, they're trying to preserve at least part of that.
Firefox on mobile is absolutely not making any such attempt. It does what all the other mobile apps are doing: once a day it abuses its notification privileges to advertise to you; "hey come back and run the app again". It frequently updates its UI (progress addiction), it collects user data. Worst of all, they *had* and then **removed** plugin support. If an adblocker is necessary to web browsing, it's even more necessary on mobile. We should all think less of the mozilla foundation for the 2020 change. (fortunately they were sufficiently pressured to walk back their mistake.)
# fix
[ted talk stage]
Let me share with you my UX design manifesto.
ready? Are you all prepared to take notes?
**Get out of the user's fucking way.**
Thank you for attending my ted talk.
There was a through-line in all that complaining up there: There is, or could be, technology that exists to be a means to an end. Instead, mobile development in Current Year is entirely an exercise in being a new obstacle.
You know that joke about how microsoft shoved windows 11 (and also 10) down everyone's throats, then popped up a window in their way to ask if they would recommend windows to a friend? the joke for socially well-adjusted normal people is: "I need you to understand that people don't recommend each other operating systems." That applies, for them. But for nerds who are currently staring at several screens running several different flavors of linux... People do. But the people who do understand how terrible windows 11 is, and how it's only getting worse. (Speaking of, stay tuned for a video recommending you try out ubuntu or something).
You know what finally tipped me over the edge to give up on windows, even if that meant PC gaming went with it?
I was playing warframe, and then windows 10 popped up a full screen ad - on a monitor I couldn't see at the time - that told me "you said you'd sign up for a trial of our cloud bullshit now." I couldn't figure out why the game had ostensibly frozen until I walked around my apartment to sit back at my desk and read this ad, and as ever communicate one of the microsoft-sanctioned responses of "yes I would love to right now" or "yes I would love to but not right now".
No flavor of linux has ever pulled a stunt like that.
I bring that up to demonstrate: no one likes ads. Obviously. Most of everything doesn't even work. Ads are less effective in the modern era. [//TODO: fact-check - I'm pretty sure I heard they're decreasing in effectiveness? if I'm wrong, it's still safe to say everyone hates ads.]
because no one likes ads, if you're a professional Marketer, you market *yourself* on the grounds that you can make a stronger impression. Which means making your ads more intrusive.
Everyone hates ads. Everyone hates pop-up ads **much** more, because they pop-up.
No one has ever googled something, read a random blog's page, and signed up for its newsletter.
No one has ever opened their phone's music player or GPS app and read the patch notes - and I say that as someone who kept up to date with the patch notes for skullgirls, and always reads EULAs.
These apps don't think they are a means to an end. They think they're an ℯ𝓍𝓅ℯ𝓇𝒾ℯ𝓃𝒸ℯ.
[crash different video: you're taking part in the apple experience, etc]
They want to *increase* the time spent in an app. I assume this is favorable for ad revenue metrics.
surely the same app is better when it *decreases* the time it takes to get shit done.
take for example, Discord. They have all kinds of fancy shit to take my money over, and I do not nor will i ever give a fuck.
