• 0 Posts
  • 10 Comments
Joined 10 months ago
Cake day: August 24th, 2024
  • qupada@fedia.iotoMicroblog Memes@lemmy.world•smart bed
    20·
    2 days ago

    I clicked on this, and it’s immediately asking for my email. No big surprises there.

    This however is the copy:

    EXCLUSIVE
    Unlock your surprise
    Sign up to receive your surprise and start sleeping better today

    With the big glowing confirm button labelled “Get my surprise” and the dark pattern barely visible skip link “I don’t want a surprise”.

    I was aware of the existence of these things but had never paid them the slightest mind, this is just… ick.

  • qupada@fedia.iotoNo Stupid Questions@lemmy.world•Are foldable phones as good/bad as they say?
    5·
    6 days ago

    In my extended circle of acquaintences and colleagues I know around eight people with folding phones. I have seen ONE of them ever use it open - even in situations where you’d think it’d be great, like sitting at the tables in the office kitchen at lunchtime browsing, almost never used unfolded.

    It seems like it should be a great idea, but for the majority of people the majority of the time, it appears to be an otherwise normal phone that’s just twice as thick as it needed to be. One of the owners of these devices - who had it bought for them rather than choosing it themself - made that exact complaint to me, in fact.

    That said, don’t let this put you off. If it’s a thing you think you would like, the technology has definitely progressed to the point where the more glaring issues (of reliability, mostly) have been worked out. But definitely spend some time playing with one in a store before committing if you can.

  • qupada@fedia.iotoAndroid@lemmy.world•It appears Google has stopped publishing device-specific source code for Pixel phones
    12·
    8 days ago

    Sony mostly pass the camera quality test†, the “fit and finish” test, and ship a relatively clean Android OS.

    You also get options to have otherwise-long-forgotten features like 3.5mm headphone jacks and MicroSD slots, and Sony’s waterproofing is second to none for phones that you wouldn’t naturally describe as “ruggedised”.

    There are unavoidable issues around pricing (high) and availability (low), but by most of the metrics people would choose to measure phones’ quality, features, performance, etc, they are actually doing a great job with their products (at least now that they also offer a respectable duration of OS updates and support).

    If you are looking for it too, they tend to be at the upper end of manufacturers for open-source code and documentation availability: https://developerworld.wpp.developer.sony.com/open-source/aosp-on-xperia-open-devices, though with that said due to the relatively small audience for their products, availability of other people’s custom ROMs will not necessarily be extensive.

    I’m on my fourth of their phones (Z2 2014, XZ Premium 2017, 1ii 2020, 1vii 2025), every upgrade time I’ve looked around, and every time I’ve failed to find something I want to own more than another one.

    † The caveat here is they’re highly skewed toward operator control; you’re very much expected to participate in the photo-taking process and I’m painfully aware that’s not what most people want these days. Low assistance provided, basically zero “AI” processing, just lots of rope with which to hang yourself. It’ll take beautiful pictures once you get accustomed to it though, whaddaya gonna do?