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Comment by throwaway211 | Hacker News Reader

Modern phones offer no net productivity gain.

They just make you busy.

Edge case solutions already have edge case solutions.

They are also sort of a requirement in a lot of places. I need several apps. A drivers license app. A social security ID app. A digital identity verification app. A couple of digital healthcare apps since a lot of functionality has been split into different apps. A banking app. An investment app. A localized payment app because it’s very integrated in our society. Either Apple or Google pay. An app for my children’s institutions. An app for my digital mail (not email, but we’ve mostly replaced physical mail with digital in a closed system). Various ticket purchase apps.

You can sort of get around it, but your life will suck. I’m not sure these can run on the Nokia, if they can, that is great, but often our systems have married themselves with Apple and Google.

>I need several apps. A drivers license app. A social security ID app. A digital identity verification app.

Do you actually need them? Who is forcing you to? In my country those are options but nobody forces you to use them. You can use your physical IDs and licenses everywhere and do your paperwork physically in person at government offices so you can definitely live without a smartphone. I don't know any essential service that mandates a smartphone. It can all be done either in person, or via phone, or fax or snail mail when companies don't have physical offices.

Very much depends. Never lived in a place where driver license app is required, but many other apps are kinda essential, e.g. either you install banking app (and it approves your device) or walk by foot to nearest bank branch for every minor action. Some banks allow web access, many don't. Also something as simple as whatsapp requires a phone, you can't really communicate without it, and some countries use it almost exclusively.

> Some banks allow web access, many don't.

That's actually true where you live? WTF

I think some online-only banks like Revolut or N26 or Monzo are app exclusive.

N26 requires an app for some rare account management tasks, but you can still use it from the web.

Many banks have Web UI, but very shitty one, with fraction of functionality and still asking confirmation SMS on every action (so you need a phone anyway)

> so you need a phone anyway

Yes, that's the point of a second factor

> but very shitty one, with fraction of functionality

If I have to do high-risk or complex tasks, I want to do that on a real computer, not a toy.

Parent is right and the fact they are being downvoted is incredibly self-absorbed.

People have different experiences than you do, and I have the same as they do.

In Sweden there's BankID on your mobile device. It also exists as an external system but that functionality and those devices are very clearly deprecated, many methods of logging in with BankID require scanning a QR code from the smartphone app or following a link that launches the app.

Kivra; a digital alternative to physical mail, has a strict requirement on BankID, and without it our companies charge for invoices to be sent to your mailbox. -- and even then, how do you pay your invoices? Internet banking is based on BankID- in fact it was invented for that purpose.

A former employer required us to use a mobile app to get our payslips, I declined (citing that my personal device may not exist and cannot be a requirement for my employment) which caused a serious internal kerfuffle and I ended up being the only person to get a physical payslip in a studio of 800 people.

A smartphone has slowly become a necessary thing to have in Sweden, as a person who grew up in the 90's-00's I am aware of how it was before smartphones, and that universe has been closed off, it's harder now to do things without a smartphone, it's not the case that it's just become more convenient to have one, it's clearly harder than it used to be to avoid owning one.

To continue talking "banks"; my bank no longer has branches available to me for doing bank transfers, they seem to only exist for helping people talk through mortgages.

You call out people being self absorbed for having different opinions, then proceed to generalize by giving Sweden as an example as if everyone in the world has the issues of Sweden's BankID. Have you considered that maybe Sweden is the outlier here, and not the norm, before calling others self absorbed? No, of course you haven't.

I don't say that everyone has it like me, just that this is how it can be, and you should keep it in mind before dismissing people who say that smartphones have become required.

I would expect the hackernews audience to have the capacity to differentiate an argument against generalisation from a generalisation itself.

For better or worse, the barriers to create an account here are low and the gate isn't very well kept. I would expect anyone with an account here to recognize that (and don't feed the trolls).

>you should keep it in mind before dismissing people who say that smartphones have become required.

I never dismissed anyone, read my Original comment again. I asked the user devjab if smartphones are really a necessity for survival where he lives, as in if there's actually no way to do banking in person or use physical IDs in government offices, because I found that hard to believe from my experience of living in 3 different EU countries where physical acces for non smartphone users was always available and smartphone ID apps were only optional for those who want extra convenience of not going in person to offices. If

If you can't differentiate between a question and a dismissal and feel the need immediately jump to accusations and victimizations, then I'm gonna have to stop the conversation here.

> You can sort of get around it, but your life will suck.

I can elaborate on that part. If you want to ride public transportation you can’t buy a ticket without an app. On some stations they have ticket machines which accept credit cards, but the one at my station hasn’t worked for half a year. If you know in advance that you want to use it you can of course buy a ticket and print it.

If you want physical mail you have to get permission for it, or go through a tedious process of becoming a “non-digital-citizen”. Which is going to also give your our national digital ID in a different form, which you will have to renew after X uses by physically going to the city hall and waiting in a 2-3 hour line. Note that you’ll need this ID for every online purchase you make. My bank doesn’t accept the non-app version, but as far as public services it does work.

I can’t use my doctor without the national health app because things like digital visits have to be done through what is considered a secure channel and my doctor doesn’t want to pay extra for an external system. I think there may be a single doctors house in my city which has a web solution but they are solely for people above 70.

The place where I have my children’s investments, which is sort of the only “easy” option requires an app to log into their website. You could go through a bank, but none of the banks which allow you to buy stock on behalf of your children work without the digital ID app.

Note, I’m not actually angry about it. Having every family members social security barcode in a single app is amazing. In fact most of these apps are great. They do require a smartphone though. Now if the app providers (or their contracts) didn’t suck, many of these apps would be available outside the Apple and Google stores.

That's pretty horrifying. In which country is that? Of course just because your country fucked it up and went all digital for the lulz while dismentaling traditional Infrastrukture, making life impossible without a phone, doesn't mean all counties are doing it so I can't really see this as a threat where I lived before or where I do now or where I'm planning to move to.

And to be fair, buying stocks for your kids is a pretty niche case in terms of "surviving on society without a phone". Even in person, the bank will want some ID for that. So if you want to do it on your phone of course they'll want some app they control.

Where do you live and whic places do you think smartphones are a requirement for?

Where I live in the UK that’s all just optional and can be replaced with a couple of plastic cards.

In fact my phone ran out of data for the last 2 days while I was away on business (issue with the phone company).

It was a small pain but life absolutely didn’t suck.

I needed an app recently to interact with the UK govt.

The alternative was to send them my passport in the post (which obviously I'm not doing.)

>Where do you live and whic places do you think smartphones are a requirement for?

Try getting anywhere in China without a smartphone to run WeChat/Alipay. There's a reason they have phone charging stations everywhere.

Maybe 0.2% of the country will accept your credit card directly (hotels that cater to westerners). Nobody uses cash, but not quite everyone will outright refuse it if you try to pay with it. They won't have change and you'll give them the logistical hassle of having to turn that into digital money.

Ride hailing*, stores, and most restaurants and attractions will take payment through WeChat/Alipay exclusively.

Without your phone you'll be stuck in your hotel, unable to explore the country at all. Get used to doing everything from booking domestic flights to buying a bottle of water with your phone. Lots of places don't have physical tickets. Just some app within WeChat. Stores don't have a cash register. They have a QR code.

* Regular cabs will be happy to take cash, but absolutely DO NOT use them if you can at all avoid it. Use the ride hailing apps in WeChat/Alipay.

Definitely, that is why I only get new phones when mine dies, Symbian already did most of what I cared about, specially Belle edition was quite nice, no FOMO.

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