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Comment by rdtsc | Hacker News Reader

I look at it from another end - I feel there is a sort of an app fatigue. Maybe it is jut me. I used to be excited about Uber-like things, note taking apps, DropBox, coupon sites, review sites. Installed some of them, used them, then kind of stopped. Someone at work would say "you should try this new thing, totally cool" and I'd be inclined to do it, but now would pass it probably.

Extrapolating scientifically from the sample of 1, it would seem that a small loss of excitement over trying new services and apps over the larger population would be enough to prevent the fabled hockey stick growth. No hockey sticks -> no unicorns -> less VC money for new startup -> articles about the death of startups -> comments on HN about articles about the death of startups

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That might just be because you are getting older and value your time more.

I used to try every new app, every new service. I used to run Linux on my desktop. Doing those things was fun and challenging, but took time.

I have kids now. I value spending time with them over fiddling with the latest app or spending an hour tuning my kernel so I can run my window manager at max resolution. I use a Mac and it just does that for me now, albeit with far less customizability and fun, but that is the tradeoff I'm willing to make.

I'm not saying you're wrong, but I'm saying your sample group has an age bias. :)

You don't need to customize your software every month. I haven't customized my configs for over 3 years now. I am running linux and it is a one-time effort.

No offense, but that's kind of the fun of linux on the desktop.

Also, if you really haven't updated in three years, that means that you're still running kernel 3.16, which has 81 known vulnerabilities[0], 12 of which are critical. That's the kind of stuff I don't really want to worry about anymore.

[0] https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-33/p...

Long time (but not very religious about it) Linux user here.

What operating system allows you to "not worry about" OS security updates, and how is it different from Linux?

On a Mac, you get a popup that says there's a new OS update, hit the spacebar with your forehead, get a drink while your computer reboots, and when you get back, it's restarted and put all your application windows back the way you left them, including terminal contents.

In my experience, on Linux such installations are smooth for about a year and a half, and then start failing for cryptic reasons, even if you've done everything possible to pick a mainstream distro, ideal hardware, and keep the machine as vanilla as possible.

(And I say this as someone who's been using Linux since the 1990's.)

I use a rolling release distro(void-linux), like i mentioned i haven't had to do any such thing for about 3 years.

I also take care of my parents computer with ubuntu and i have done two major release upgrades and have experienced no errors.

> On a Mac, you get a popup that says there's a new OS upgrade, you hit the spacebar with your forehead, get a drink while your computer reboots, and when you get back, it's restarted and put all your application windows back the way you left them, including terminal contents.

The latest update introduced many problems, though

https://www.google.com/search?q=high+sierra+breaks&ie=utf-8&...

And it's major "man bites dog" news. When a major Linux distro does that, it doesn't even merit mentioning on Slashdot anymore.

No idea what's your definition of customization is but running package update command isn't what i consider as customization. And updating kernel/pkgs doesn't require you to customize them.

I get both sides of this. For 17 years I ran linux everywhere. FreeBSD as well but infrequently as a desktop. After two years of mac and seeing the breakage and perversion of the unix foundations apple inflicts I gave up on it (entirely) and work with macs only under protest.

So now? Linux and *bsd for paid work. Windows for the desktop. cygwin and mobaxterm ftw. All old is new again.

Installing Linux is takes no more time is in anyway more complicated than installing Windows. Even installing Ubuntu on my laptop was a simple affair (including having the wifi work right away, in the installer).

What you've said may have been true several years ago, but it isn't anymore.

Apps have also gotten much worse than in their heyday. They are all built in whatever the latest cross platform iframe-with-makeup framework which always feels clunky, and they all have to start out as free to get their foot in the door and then make it their life’s purpose to annoy you repeatedly until you cave and give them $.99 every month. The hardware space is now much more diverse so a developer doesn’t have the luxury of making pixel-perfect, detailed experiences because their app has to work on watches and refrigerators as well as phones (and now there’s even a phone screen with a forehead, thanks iPhone X).

Using phrases like 'all built with', 'all have to start out as free', and so on, is fairly inaccurate. There are plenty of apps that run native, cost money upfront, and are still viable, profitable businesses.

The "unicorn" in this statement is simple "build something people want" (to pay for)

You need to add value to others no matter what you do, that's the definition of "building"

Value is what is extracted from work.

"Buildings" are the expression of physical labor put into something OF value.

It's literally defined in our lexicon.

It's not about apps being worse, but about good apps are difficult to discover. Now, the conditions are that if you have larger budget, you are considered better for major platforms. That's the real problem.

Apps have never been that exciting to me, especially in the "on a smartphone" incarnation. Partly that's because I'm a h/w and s/w guy, but also because it's clear from a number of angles that only so much real wealth/happiness/etc can be had from just shuffling bits around without reference to the physical world. (And I say that as someone who worked in derivatives finance for the best part of 20 years!)

Mobile devices are very constrained. The OSes are locked down, the screens are small, high CPU apps are out, and input is slow and cumbersome.

After trying a lot of apps I have found that a smart phone has only a few functions:

1. Talking and texting.

2. Taking pictures and video.

3. Maps and directions.

4. Music, movies, ebooks.

5. Brief interactions with services like Uber, Lyft, AirBnB, Los Angeles metro, etc.

6. Casual web browsing. (I want a bigger screen and a keyboard for anything in depth.)

7. edit: Casual gaming.

Looking at how most other people use phones I don't think I am alone.

These devices are limited and I don't think it took us long to exhaust their potential. There just isn't much else a phone can do well (and that locked down vendor fiefdoms will allow).

The PC era on the other hand gave us a long, wide, and deep trench of innovation that is still not exhausted. PCs are more open, more extensible, and have a much wider IO path to the human in the chair. The breadth of what a PC can do is incredible.

(The main problem with PCs is antiquated, insecure, bloated operating systems. Fix that and I think you'd see even more innovation.)

Of course I have been a mobile skeptic since the iPhone. I just saw the next incarnation of the feature phone. Since it was still locked down by carriers and vendors and since its bandwidth to the user is poor I knew it would not deliver lasting innovation.

You forgot the biggest smartphone market:

7. Games

I guess I don't game much, but yes that can be added too. Still there is a huge gap between phone games and PC and console games.

There definitely is a gap but not in the way I think you meant; in case you were not aware, mobile games are now the biggest market segment of video games period (console, PC included)

Considering you missed the #1 market, maybe your research techniques might be lacking?

Also, for clarity, the browsing and gaming done on phones isn't casual.

Exactly. I always cringe when I hear "build mobile first" that's just stupid, "flappy-bird" era is dead, agreed! - but there are so much more potential for full blown websites (or "webapps") that require PC/laptop and larger screen.

Mobile could be more innovative if it were more open and modular. Think of all the hundreds of things that would never have happened on the PC if they were as closed as phones.

I suspect there is money to be made selling a "just a phone". That pretends to do only your list above and heavily optimised the the usability an reliability of that subset. Any user-visible changes to those apps would be done only very conservatively.

It would be a lie though. Since it really would be a Turing complete phone, with lots of programs on it. That was true even of the old Symbian phones, and items from 3-6 go well beyond what they did.

Nonetheless, I think there is benefit to be gained by trading flexibility for reliability. One business difficulty/opportunity is how do you pick out services like Uber, AirBVnB etc. I suspect the solution is profitable, but user hostile: lock them into a vendor when they buy their phone.

8. Mobile wifi hotspot.

I loathe using my phone for most things. Any opportunity I get it is hotspot + laptop.

> The main problem with PCs is antiquated, insecure, bloated operating systems. Fix that and I think you'd see even more innovation.

In a way, it's a feature, not a bug. The security of mobile devices is created by the very same thing that limits their usefulness - by OS being vendor-controlled, fully sandboxed and locked down, so that users (via programs acting on their behalf) can't break it. I'm not sure if it is even possible to have a secure system that allows you to do anything interesting on it.

I never really got the feature-phone for anything more than data and voice either. When you add in the downsides for those mobile features: MRC,1k for a decent phone, and the moving targets all the app providers put out it's easy to see through the facade to a bubble market based on peoples low tech IQ and attention deficit: both encouraged in/by other popular media.

The only upside is it's easy to track you with these devices by those who care about you the most: big $$ and big brother.

I've almost given up on the Play Store. It's overblown with all sorts of useless garbage. Want an alarm clock app? There are hundreds, if not thousands. I couldn't even find what I was looking for. Paid apps., Ads, in-app. purchases. It's an alarm clock for heaven's sake.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.urbandroid...

Paid.

Used it for years. Just works.

Integrates with my Hue lights.

All kinds of settings including one that refuses to turn off the alarm if I don't use the NFC code in the bathroom (you can use QR codes as well as plain barcodes as well, just hide them away from reach from your bed.

That's the ONE paid Android App that i have been using for 5 years now. The only other paid "App" i use is Action Launcher 2 (3 didn't click for me).

Happy Tasker user here. Well worth the little money I paid for it.

If someone is still visiting this thread I'm still looking for a notebook app. Something to replace my paper notebook (because that can neither be backed up nor properly encrypted).

Keep is almost there with a combination of text and drawings. Missing: - links to other notes - checkboxes in between text (currently notes in Keep are either all checkboxes or no checkboxes) - tapping on tags should show all notes with that tag

OneNote is also almost there.

Samsung notes is also almost there.

Maybe what I wish most is some way to link from my calendar to Keep and back etc etc.

However, seeing how I still cannot even link to a mail in desktop Outlook I'm afraid this is only a dream.

Doesn't everyone on Android use Timely?

To answer your question, no.

I do now, thanks!

I thought everyone used Sleep as Android, but I guess I haven't been following the news.

And that's just me, who tries to stay somewhat up to date with the ecosystem and generally understands tech. How my mother is going to discover which alarm clock app is useful, performant, and doesn't mine bitcoin or exfiltrate her photos to the cloud? I have no idea.

What's wrong with Google's offering?

TBH I'm fine with Google's Clock app.

Honestly, this is a simple problem with a simple answer. If you look at the real life, Play Store is like a state-owned bazaar where you can find all great high quality products next to useless crap that breaks minutes after you have bought it. Google is the state.

In order to fix it Google should open up "Play Store" to other providers. You could then end up with equivalent of both high-end stores & corner shops, selling products of quality that matches their brand, rather than mishmash of everything.

If you think about it, Apple suffers from a similar problem. In their case they allow in only high quality, impeccable software and there's no place for corner shops. Still - "the app economy" is state-owned.

There is a problem with apps, but we should look at it from another angle. We all know that in the app store and play market popular apps become more popular over time and it is difficult for smaller companies to promote their products even if their solution is better.

App market is now a market of couple dozens of apps that make up the most amount of revenue. For small developers, there is a too little chance to be seen at all.

Actually, the whole article makes sense. Nowadays, we all see that it's difficult for small startups to promote themselves. The privilege on major platforms is given to those who pay more(ex: Google). Even if one company gains enough traction and begins to become successful, another larger corporation buys it (in best case) or makes everything to not let small competitor get larger market share. That'a a very big problem that if not solved will result in a slower progress rate.

Dude you're just growing up that's all. You'll find the sandbox is also not as fun as it used to be.

Playing in the dirt is still more fun than tapping out Beets in Dirt Farm Island Saga-TM powered by interstitial ads-after-every-beet or add Nitrogen for only $0.99

I agree with you, I just install the basics these days when I get a new phone.

Objectively speaking there are numbers to prove we are not in the minority.

https://www.recode.net/2016/9/16/12933780/average-app-downlo...

Quick facts from that article:

- 50% of users download zero apps per month

- 13% of users account for more than 50% of the downloads

A.k.a. reality 101: there's no hockey stick growth that lasts forever.

>>I look at it from another end - I feel there is a sort of an app fatigue.

For all practical purposes, the early start up riches are now gone. And there is also a degree of low hanging fruit value, that gets taken early in the stage of any industry. First movers have had that advantage. After that you can have a lot of small companies providing value to small niche places, but the big money value is now taken.

Every once in a while you will have some nice idea that comes along and will get big, but those will exception rather being the rule.

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