Comment by napolux | Hacker News Reader

Comment by napolux | Hacker News Reader

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> They are unequal devices. Smartphones are unapologetically devices for consumption. In this regard they differ critically from PCs, because PCs are equal devices in the sense that the same device is used for creation and consumption.

False. I bet the vast majority of content available online is now (think of pics and short videos) created on smartphones.

> They are not real network clients. Smartphones have powerful CPUs and fast network connections, except that you aren't actually allowed to use these resources in any meaningful sense, because doing so consumes battery power, and people don't want the precious battery life of their phones drained unnecessarily.

Falsy (maybe truee in 2016 when the article was written)

...

> They have led to massive centralization. Part of the “cloud” movement is probably driven by the fact that while smartphones have substantial computational resources, you can't actually use them because of battery life. So instead the computation is done in the cloud, creating a dependency on a centralized entity.

Maybe true

> They have ruined web design.

Nope, poor "mobile first" (aka let's apply mobile ui patterns to every other devices) ruined webdesign

> There are no secure smartphones.

True, like there's no secure PC. Or mac.

If smartphones count as creation machines because they can take pictures and perform some basic editing, then my DSLR or Polaroid camera also counts. Even my pre-smartphone candybar from 2008 would count.

Unfortunately, smartphones, due to their form factor, don't actually allow precise editing or manipulation of content - which is what is usually meant by the idea that "smartphones are devices for consumption, and not creation".

The same applies to text, to some extent. Yes, you can author a novel on a smartphone, but it's gonna be an excruciating process if you want to do any fine text manipulation at all.

> don't actually allow precise editing or manipulation of content

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/procreate-pocket/id916366645

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/garageband/id408709785

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/imovie/id377298193

You can find full programming environments that run on phones and i amused myself for some time while waiting for a friend at a coffee shop by writing a simple C program in Vim with Hacker's Keyboard and Termux.

But just because something it is technically possible it doesn't mean it suited for it.

My washing machine or Minecraft redstone blocks may be Turing complete, but realistically they are the best interface to express what the mind intends to express.

These are mostly used as Ipad apps, and even then, they nowhere provide the tools that are available on a standard PC. Sure, you can use them to do cool things, but I can also create paintings with just ketchup and fries. That's not what 99% of people who have fries in their hands do/should do.

Are we really going to make the case that Garageband and iMovie allow for "precise editing or manipulation of content"? Last time I used either, they were like watered-down versions of real software that railroaded you through different pre-made templates.

Wanna make music? Press the chord buttons to play a tone on the synthesizer preset that you can't modify!

Wanna edit video? Drag your clips into this timeline with 3 transition effects and a half-dozen compositing themes!

Smartphones count as creation machines because people create content on them. If you take a look at Tiktok, Instagram or many of the other social networks, you'll see countless pieces of content that are created by smartphones each day.

I fail to see how you addressed any of what I said. The comment that I wrote this in reply to literally made the same point as your comment.

If you got that form that comment, I don't understand your first comment. It's clear to you that smartphones are being used to create content, but you still think they aren't content creation devices, because they lack precision?

If content creation devices aren't the devices that create content, then what are they?

> If content creation devices aren't the devices that create content, then what are they?

I think that's a very good question. It's clear that devices like that are useful for some form of content creation, but I'm don't know if the term to refer to them has been coined or not.

Intuitively, they don't seem to fit in the category we used to call "content creation", since that nearly always was synonymous with creation+precision, rather than "any kind of creation".

They can be used to create exactly three kinds of content: photos, audio recordings and videos. Yay.

Have fun writing a novel, designing a presentation, remixing a song or making a video game on a smartphone.

I hate to sound like a nostalgic fart, but remember when content creation meant making never seen before flash games and animations, or long video content instead of 5 seconds jokes and girls dancing half nakedly?

>Unfortunately, smartphones, due to their form factor, don't actually allow precise editing or manipulation of content

The precision of editing they do allow is "good enough" for the average Joe.

Good for the average Joe, but the average Joe also doesn't create long-form content for a living with any degree of precision.

Sources?

It's true about content creation. Tiktok, Youtube, Instagram, etc. are done using mainly smartphones. There's a ton of content created on smartphones than he realize. Heck, there are movies shot on the iPhone: https://www.cashify.in/12-movies-which-you-never-knew-were-s...

The media is often captured using a smartphone, but I don't think I would call unedited media "content". I reckon that the editing process is more likely to be done on a PC/Mac/Workstation than the phone itself.

OP's point was that basically smartphones did not allow you to "create" at all. I would consider that most content by that larger definition to be created on a phone (Instagram, Snapchat, Facebook, Twitter, etc.) and even if it was edited on a PC to be using media created on the phone first.

Only photographers, influencers, and etc. have the time or need to do a full pro-camera -> Editing Station -> Publish cycle for the majority of their content.

Professional stuff maybe. But for casual ones, you can edit in the phone and upload. I'm thinking there's a lot more of that going on than professional productions.

> False. I bet the vast majority of content available online is now (think of pics and short videos) created on smartphones.

The actual main point he was making is that you can't use the device to create things for the device, things that can make use of the device's capabilities. In effect the device is a console. And consoles are purely for consumption. Sure, consoles allow you to make recordings of your gaming sessions, etc., but they can't be used to create the games. And gaming recordings are not content, but a byproduct enabled by the actual content.

>False. I bet the vast majority of content available online is now (think of pics and short videos) created on smartphones.

Even if this isn't true, it's not a great point. Most people didn't use their home PCs to create content anyways, so the ability to create content more or less went to waste.

> False. I bet the vast majority of content available online is now (think of pics and short videos) created on smartphones.

I would say the content is not "pics and short videos", but rather TikTok / Instagram / Snapchat / etc.

Most such apps are developed on PCs and consumed on smart phones.

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