How do you deal with getting around (public transit timing, driving directions/traffic, uber/lyft) without a smartphone?
I never used taxi services anyway; bus services are pretty good here, and I cycle.
A bigger issue is that a lot of services are "smartphone-only", and can't be done with a regular computer; sometimes this makes sense, sometimes less so. I partly get around this by running Android emulator on my computer when I really can't avoid it, which works "well enough". This will only get worse in the future.
I dislike telling people I don't have a smartphone; people look at you like you're some sort of freak. Recently someone told me that "I do not belong in modern society" shrug. I guess it's not inaccurate, as I dislike a lot of technology and feel it makes our lives worse in many ways (in spite of working as a programmer, but that's just for the money at this point; very hypocritical, yes).
Right now I have a "true" dumb phone (or at least, as dumb as you can get), which can just call and SMS and that's it. Oh, it also has snake, of course, and curiously it also has some other games you need to "buy" for €5 or so. IIRC the EU will switch off 2G in 2024 or so, so I guess I'll have to buy a slightly less "dumb phone" by then. We'll see.
It's so incredibly silly how owning a smartphone isn't even a matter of preference any more; people just expect everyone to have one. I don't really need one, despite loving train travel and independent exploration on holidays. Paper maps work fine, preparation using a normal computer too.
It's just like electricity, or having/not having a landline phone 40 years ago.
You can still use it with the Android Emulator though; there's a bunch of solutions for this but I just use the Android Studio one. It works, but you need to keep the emulator running and isn't especially convenient.
I feel like tying a lot of things to these proprietary platforms that are impossible to integrate with independently is essentially redoing the mistakes of the 90s and 00s that we had with Microsoft where you more or less had to have Microsoft Office or you'd have a hard time reading/editing those .doc files sent to you (eventually OpenOffice.org was kind-a okay at it, but still far from perfect).
I don't even mind non-free software as a matter of principle, I just want the freedom to use an "alternative" system like my Linux desktop or maybe some eclectic device like PinePhone or those modern PDA things or whatnot to participate in basic stuff, instead of being forced to shell out money to one of those huge tech giants with a bazillion dollars to purchase thingies I don't even like.
Oh no, this is on purpose. WhatsApp, Signal, etc. want to maintain control of the clients at all costs because of user tracking and monetization. If this wasn't the case, they would allow some form of non-smartphone access. As it is they keep their API's closed and ban anyone trying to use any form of third party tools.
In the case of Meta (WhatsApp) this is about keeping their silo-suite closed. People may hate Facebook, but if they can keep these users via the popular WhatsApp, they can keep up their numbers. What Signal really wants is anyone's guess. Something to do with that shifty cryptocoin I guess.
> I just want the freedom to use an "alternative" system like my Linux desktop or maybe some eclectic device like PinePhone or those modern PDA things or whatnot […]
Absolutely.
Getting all of this to work well with E2E requires extra thought (how do you make messages available on two devices?); Telegram hasn't nailed that either. I don't especially care about this, but a lot of people do.
Essentially, there are basically no practical upshots for them, and it's just more effort.
Every time you cave and use Facebook spyware, you make it harder for the next person.
Stop using tools that make the world worse. Tell your contacts to install Signal instead.
You must be unreachable on WhatsApp, so that the utility of the app is not increased for others.
If this means that I have to get WhatsApp just for those things, than I can hardly refuse without making my son a social recluse.
You don't make things better by making bad choices.
Go read the app privacy labels if you don't believe me.
If you only want some people to know you are there, you are screwed
Most of society has transitioned now to just being custodians of smartphones -- moving the smartphones around, feeding the smartphones their various diet of information and imagery, tending to their demands for attention and updates etc. Surely it will be an unfamiliar experience to have just a regular person walk among them.
Buses and trains have their times at the stops/stations, or for less trafficked routes I just check on my computer and remember when I need to go.
Uber/Lyft are vile and I don't use them.
The only thing I miss with navigation is real-time traffic. Which, all things considered, is just a "nice to have".
With say analog map navigation, your position moves (you trace with your finger/update it mentally) relative to fixed landmarks on the map, so you get a better sense of their spatial relation to one another.
You might have to give up uber. It's worth it though.