The bulk would answer "Um, better sound quality? Maybe an address book?"
Eric just couldn't believe those responses. (Remember, this was in the 90's when a phone was just a phone.) He was always boiling over with ideas.
> Eric just couldn't believe those responses.
If only a phone could be invented that had sound quality as good as we had in the 90s. I can barely understand people anymore. I'm not losing my hearing in my old age. (much) In person is fine. Other recordings are fine. Even video conferences are fine. But phone calls sound unaccountably terrible.
On the phone-line side I wonder if that is a degradation due to digital switchovers & compression, a lack of allocated resources, or just pure rose tinted glasses.
EVS are very good at 16-32Kbps bitrate, possibly better than even Opus. But generally speaking Social Apps uses higher bitrate you get better quality. Although latency tends to suffer a bit.
Another idea is to make a walkie-talkie mode, where you could communicate with nearby cell phones without needing a cell tower.
When the very first phones had physical buttons, less sophisticated UIs and T9 text entry, I remember being able to send an SMS from my phone without ever taking it out of my pocket. All from muscle memory.
Turn it in to a cube maybe an octagon. I'm sick of rectangles.
less snark comment (but also true), just jaw dropping that these pocket PC's do so much. on the down sides, I think the main think that floors me, just stabs me in the heart, is that they are still almost totally trash at communicating with those around us. Google dropped Project Eddystone, that sucked; totally straightforward sensible way to broadcast a url to the world about you. Apple has their file sharing AirDrop, which Google continues to make floundering attempts at (Beam, then Fast Share/Nearby Share), & never via any open protocols or specs. amazing personal communicators... totally reliant on completely centralized infrastructure. The couple Bridgify/Open Garden alternatives, it all seems too stack specific & lacking the layering of protocols & extensibility that allows communication tech to grow over time, become of enduring value.
I forget what it is but someone was telling me the Bump competitor in Japan is still used, that you still have a physical little ritual with your devices that causes them to exchange contact info. That kind of real.world connectivity seems like it ought be just the start, for how tech can augment the real world, versus us needing to start & navigate the digital to connect. We're doing little favors, entrenching connectivity so reservedly in the digital all space.
I think Bump happened a year or two latter, which was also fun. But it felt far more intermediated, like it was pulling down much more data. Looking at who in the area also bumped at just that instant to triangulate who to put in contact with each other.
I remember back in the 90's wear(able)-comp(uting) world, PANs were going to be a thing. Personal Area Networks. Your skin itself would be a low-baud rate modem, so you could shake hands & transmit your contact information. Definitely pre-covid. ;)
I really think Project Eddystone has many of the answers for how we ought to make ourselves visible to the world. It was mainly focused on commercialized entities, and people are scared of the internet, but I think there's still great potential. Alternatively, it seems weird that NFC, which is much more tightly coupled, 1:1, "safe", is so under-utilized. I'm not sure if there are good open standards for data-exchange over it. Meanwhile proprietary AirDrop and FastShare/Nearby Sharing are some of the few, tightly controlled offerings for offering files. All these manners of tech needs some champions to drive good protocols, enable more interesting futures. Sorry, I think I'm repeating myself again. Thanks for the fun comments dcsan.
Probably because corps don’t want us communicating with each other in any way they can’t know about.
Plus easier-access hardware kill switches and a faster GPU and RAM: https://shop.puri.sm/shop/librem-5/
And how's the app store? When some random game goes viral and I want to play with my friends, am I going to be able to? Are the apps vetted for security and safety?
Does it integrate with my car? One of the primary uses of my phone is for navigation. Being able to plug it into my car and say "navigate to 123 main street" as I drive is pretty key.
Is their store only online? If they don't have their own retailers can I at least see them at a carrier store or BestBuy? Will Verizon activate the phone on their network? A decade ago they wouldn't approve the Nexus 7 tablet, so this is something I think about.
These phones are not for many people.
> How is it?
In development. The pinephone can take still shots. The Librem 5’s camera isn’t functional yet AFAIK.
> Can it compete with the current phones from Apple and Google?
No. It’s not playing the same game. I would pay money not to have one of those.
> Does it do all the standard things like include filters, portrait mode, night mode, etc...?
AFAIK, no.
> Can I search for "dog" and get all my dog photos or search for a city and get all the photos taken there?
I don’t know of any apps for them that do that at the moment.
> And how's the app store? When some random game goes viral and I want to play with my friends, am I going to be able to?
Probably not. It probably has about 6 orders of magnitude fewer users, and 5–6 orders fewer devs. You can virtualize Android, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was a much worse experience than Proton on desktop (it doesn’t have Valve behind it. Anti-cheat might get you banned).
> Are the apps vetted for security and safety?
Yes, in some repos. Most of the distros will let you use Debian’s, which IIUC have had z-e-r-o zero malware (not counting systemd ;)) in their decades-long history.
> Does it integrate with my car? One of the primary uses of my phone is for navigation. Being able to plug it into my car and say "navigate to 123 main street" as I drive is pretty key.
I’m confused why it needs to integrate with you car to give directions. Do you mean connect with Bluetooth to use your speakers?
> Is their store only online?
Yep.
> If they don't have their own retailers can I at least see them at a carrier store or BestBuy?
Nope.
> Will Verizon activate the phone on their network? A decade ago they wouldn't approve the Nexus 7 tablet, so this is something I think about.
Nope, not as far as my crystal ball can see. The pine wiki says you can activate a SIM on a burner phone and swap it into the pinephone, and Verizon shouldn’t care.
That would work. Integrating like CarPlay or Android Auto would be better, but bluetooth or aux out works too although it's a little primitive.
As long as I can do something like say "hey pinephone, navigate to 123 main street" and it does the obvious thing.
If you have two candidates equal in technical aspects, then a point of difference is in problem solving and dealing with the unexpected.
Possible answers, all valid, all tell you absolutely nothing
* I'd change nothing, it works "AS A PHONE' just fine. There are better things to to work on
* I'd attach it to the side of a rocket so you could use it as a handle. I'd much rather ride a rocket than use the phone
* I'd double the speakers and mic and offset them at 45 degrees so two people could hug cheeks while talking to the same person
* I'd give it a display, add a computer, and have it pocket size and it would annoy you all day long with notifications and distract you from getting anything done. People would stop using it as a phone and mostly only write text messages to each other which would be way less efficient than voice. Oh wait, you said "improve". Yea, ok, bad suggestion
For example, possible takeaways from your answers:
* Lacks critical thinking, takes things for granted, doesn't show initiative or not comfortable with it.
* Elevated smartassness, possibly as a defense mechanism or due to inability to read between the lines. Maybe just nervous at the moment.
* Better. At least this solves some specific problem based on one's personal experience. It's possible to discuss that and see what else surfaces.
* Also good. Miraculous even if you'd managed to produce all that in the early 90s. Again, this also opens things up for further discussion.
See the point? It's a meta question.
On the assumption that not many people being interviewed by Microsoft in the 90s had an iPhone style plan or a desire to revolutionize cell phones, "leave it alone" is the most realistic, objectively useful answer a candidate might give. Sure, it demonstrates zero creativity, but it's totally unfair to say that person lacks critical thinking skills as their answer is the most rational.
To pass that question, you need to know the interviewer is looking for creativity and be able to make something up on the spot. That's obvious to many of us, but depending on the role I wouldn't fault someone for not being in tune to that question or ready for it.
The job interview gets debated endlessly, week after week, on HN. There isn't one interview method or question that numerous people would consider unfair, irrelevant, broken, etc.
Eric was interviewing people for very high paying jobs. A decision has to be made about the candidate based on something. A person who wants such a job should go in eager and ready to convince the employer that they're a great fit for the job, and do what it takes.
And yeah, Eric's question was pretty obvious. It's open ended, and you can interpret it as you like, which is part of the point. But being a smartass and/or complaining about the question isn't likely to leave a favorable impression. A "faster horse" answer isn't likely to, either.
As an aside, IMO smartphones are not an improvement on phones. They are an improvement on PDAs. As phones they've utterly failed. People called each other (as in use a phone) way more before smartphones. So smartphones are not better "phones". They're worse phones and better something else.
That can be helpful in hiring.
If you’re looking to hire someone for a technical role on some big hairy project that might not work or seems crazy, it’s helpful to select for people who won’t say “this idea is dumb”.