Ugh, flashbacks to KDE 4…

I only really watch foss stuff, which should be exciting, but I get tired as it’s always much of the same news:

• a new private messenger (like we don’t have 500 of those already)
• a new app/program/distro that does the same thing as 10 other ones
• a “simple” app/program that doesn’t do much of anything, just like 10 other ones of the same kind, will get 3 updates and then die
• something for the terminal for terminal nerds that could really use a gui but shutup you dirty normie
• a library that sounds cool but nobody except maybe some corporation will ever use it
• announcement of a complete rewrite, which means we’ll never hear of the project again

So I’m not exactly thrilled about anything either, tho for every different reasons

I don’t think FairPhone customers are exactly regular consumer population, and there was a strong backlash against removing the jack in fp4 (and introducing ewaste wireless buds). So either the people we buying the phones anyway, or the company has so many customers they don’t give a shit.

You drank too much Apple koolaid

It’s even wilder that they didn’t learn the lesson after fp4. Did people really just complain and then buy it anyway? How many phones can they sell that they can afford to piss off their customers like this? I just don’t understand how is the smartphone market so borked.

In the sense that vegans want vegan food available in vegan stores? Cause that’s the equivalent of wanting a headphone jack in a phone from a company that sells their products on all these promises.

I’d say the change in Calculator from W7 to W8 was more than cosmetic. Never have I stared at my 27" 2.5k monitor so stupidly than when I first launched calculator on W8 and that thing blew up over the entire screen with no proper way to leave it on top of other windows.

I think that’s when it really had to be clear to everyone that MS has no idea how humans use computers.

I dunno. The way it works for my old phone, is that it listens for a while, then goes into “processing” and then outputs the text. Faster phones should work on the fly, but I really don’t know anything else.

In the app there’s a field to test, so try that I guess.

Launch the FUTO Voice Input app first. It’ll give you prompts you need to set it up.

I don’t know, isn’t TTS an AOSP feature in Android? As in, a foss part rather than a proprietary Google thing? Look into what alternatives like Graphene do about this.

Yea it’s totally dope, I re-found it just today. Sadly my old phone is hopelessly outgunned.

There’s a FUTO project, I think it’s this? https://github.com/abb128/LiveCaptions

There’s an Android version that became available recently https://voiceinput.futo.org/ I’m just not sure which repo is the Linux original

Wooo that is old Droid 2.x style adorable

standards increase, production gets cheaper and form factors get smaller?

Here we can be pretty sure, because Bluetooth 2.0 A2DP, allowing stereo sound, has been widely available since mid-00’s (I got my first phone with it in 2005), BT chips cost pennies even then and mono earphones of that size were old news too, so none of that was anything special. And it’s not like Apple were the ones to make it affordable anyway.

I’ll credit Apple for putting it together in a meaningful way, but of course they had to do it the asshole Apple way. Honestly, Apple designers should be charged with crimes against humanity for their popularisation of built-in batteries and other disposability features, and all the idiot designers who followed that example, with them. If not on principle, then for all the ewaste.

That’s just, like, your opinion, man.

Of course it is. But to be clear, I’m not against all wireless. So I’m not comparing ‘true wireless’ with classic cabled earphones, but with wireless earphones that have a cable connecting them and controls/battery somewhere between them. I wish designers would concentrate on improving this style rather than producing millions of buds people keep losing or discarding and then re-buying.

(Ed: I mean even TW can exist if people want, but the Apple effect makes everyone think that’s the only way to make earphones.)

I don’t disagree with you at all which is why I still make it a point to only buy phones exclusively with 3.5mm jacks still included.

👍

Try disabling the Device Health Service, I hear that’s still a thing in newer droids.

I’d kinda like one, I’m finding it harder to find a pocket big enough to fit a regular phone in. It’s either the big pockets on baggy trousers or a jacket pocket. I’d also be super weary to put a regular phone in other pockets where that huge exposed screen can be damaged easily.

But the foldable screen just replaces that problem with another one, so at this point it doesn’t seem like a reasonable trade for me. But for people who tend to throw the phone in a handbag with 50 other things, this may be preferred.

Indeed. But it also makes the USB being very unwieldily to use for anything.

Yea fuck him too, bit ol’ Steve was quite a fan of the whole “remove every slightly extra option and then sell it back to the user” way of doing business.

I’m pretty sure the rise of BT headphones is solely due to Apple removing the headphone jack.

Yes, I know BT headphones have existed before, I was an audio/technology editor, so yes I know. Which is why I also know how tough it was to get some half-decent BT audio adapter or earphones 10 years ago, even tho BT 2.0 was in every phone for close to a decade already. Then within few weeks to months after the jack removal and introduction of AP, the market got flooded with them. Don’t tell me it’s a coincidence.

It may sound like a good thing to have so many choices, except you’re losing the original choice of whether you want it in the first place. Combined with another lovely trend Apple has kickstarted - non-removable batteries - it just means yet more ewaste.

And I’m sorry, but the whole idea of “true wireless” is fucking terrible. I use sporty BT earphones I can hang around my neck or just put in a pocket when I’m not using them. Fiddling with 3 separate small things every time I want to take earphones in and out is madness. Of course you’ll loss something eventually.

Am I the only one who uses magnetic cables?