For measurement I found Apple's app disappointing, even on the Pro models it isn't accurate to the scales I typically work with (centimeters.)
For the image search, i use this https://github.com/mazzzystar/Queryable
You don’t use the camera for QR codes? Fine you don’t want to scan things for information. You don’t use the image recognition in the camera app to select people and copy them out of the background? That’s fine you don’t participate selfies and party photos. To do OCR on text in photos? It’s fine that you never want it. To select e.g. plants and search for what they are on Google? It’s fine that you know what everything is/don’t care/don’t photograph plants. To search your photo library by text for things and people recognised in the pictures? Fine that you know where all your pictures are. To describe photos by voice? Fine that you have good eyesight.
You don’t use the builtin daily steps tracker, or any third party running or cycling or exercise mapping / route trackers, or any Garmin style route planners? Fine that you don’t have other devices for that kind of thing or don’t go out.
You don’t use the weather app, or a third party one? Fine that you don’t want to.
You don’t use any remote terminal, Remote Desktop, programming, Jupyter, anything? Fine that you have a laptop which does everything you need.
Kindle, any ebook reader, any podcast app? Fine that you have paper and don’t listen to posts.
Any music player? Fine that you don’t listen to music.
Any Netflix style video or TV show app, BBC iPlayer? Fine that you don’t even own a TV.
Any third party camera app such as night eyes or webcam stacking, or use the phone as a wireless webcam on another computer? Fine that you aren’t interested in photo novelties.
No Evernote or OneNote cloud synced notebooks or todo lists? Calendar? Email? Fine that you only ever write plain text in a plain text file and you don’t have meetings or appointments.
No local train, tram, bus, library, cinema, schedule app? Fine that you drive everywhere or go nowhere.
No educational apps? Fine that you learn things in other ways. No Chatgpt? Fine that you don’t ask LLMs things. No Google or phind or kagi search? Also fine.
Look, 25 years in tech, am I really writing out a list of “things people do on phones” as if I genuinely believe that you’ve never heard of any of this stuff while also adding how it’s fine because I’m totally expecting you to do the “too cool for school” dismissal of everything?
Has your 25 years in tech been Bronze Age tech? You must be 40 ish, and lived through the era of dumb phones being new and everyone talking about nothing but what contract texts and minutes they had, the time when everyone had Blackberries, the time when features were things like a compass, clock, snake game, custom ringtones, FM radio, and people were doing endless comparisons of their new phone to their old one, the first camera phones, when data went from WAP to GPRS to 2G and web browsers, when “location based services” were called out on TV adverts, and all through the smartphone years nobody ever showed you the cool app they just found, when translating foreign signs was coded in assembly on a 3GS to being just a built in thing in Google camera, when Evernote was a tech darling as people realised the cloud sync convenience, when “no Wi-Fi less space than a nomad” gave way to “all previous gadgets are now one” and the rise of smart tv and smart homes and appliances with their own apps and streaming, every app launched on “show HN” or linked,
you missed everything for fifteen years and “don’t really know what people do with phones anyway?”
That’s got to be a troll comment where you know very well what people do and are pretending not to because you look cooler if you’re disaffected and uninvolved… Right?
Why else would you have no interest in phones but be in an iPhone 16 launch thread? and think your comment on how you don’t even use a phone anyway is a good comment worth posting?
Or you have main character syndrome and think the only things which exist should be for you to use need nothing else matters?
Assume good faith… are you … hoping someone can share a list of “things phones can do?” then here is another partial one.
Of course I use a few other things, just very rarely. I do my programming on a laptop, I watch my tv on a tv, I read my books on my kindle, and use my car's nav for maps.
I hope you realize the irony of your "main character syndrome" accusation whilst writing a massive diatribe denouncing a random post on the internet. You could have just disagreed and moved on.
>You don’t use maps for looking around? For navigation while driving? You’re allowed to have in-car satnav or not drive.
I do indeed use Waze, with the occasional PoC/location check in Google Maps in the browser.
>You don’t use the camera for QR codes? Fine you don’t want to scan things for information. You don’t use the image recognition in the camera app to select people and copy them out of the background? That’s fine you don’t participate selfies and party photos. To do OCR on text in photos? It’s fine that you never want it. To select e.g. plants and search for what they are on Google? It’s fine that you know what everything is/don’t care/don’t photograph plants. To search your photo library by text for things and people recognised in the pictures? Fine that you know where all your pictures are. To describe photos by voice? Fine that you have good eyesight.
Google Lens and Assistant serve these tasks for me. Especially useful when I need to find something on the Chinese web.
>You don’t use the builtin daily steps tracker, or any third party running or cycling or exercise mapping / route trackers, or any Garmin style route planners? Fine that you don’t have other devices for that kind of thing or don’t go out.
My watch does that and I sync it every other month with its app (which is complete useless bloat, but oh well).
>You don’t use the weather app, or a third party one? Fine that you don’t want to.
I do that in the browser.
>You don’t use any remote terminal, Remote Desktop, programming, Jupyter, anything? Fine that you have a laptop which does everything you need.
I occasionally do use RDP to check on my server, although it's so rare that I usually don't even have the RDP app installed. Wish there was some client for RDP that could run in the browser instead, similarly to qBitTorrent's GUI (not neccessarily hosted locally, it might as well be a web app that connects to the local network - IF that's possible, that is).
>Kindle, any ebook reader, any podcast app? Fine that you have paper and don’t listen to posts.
Nope, not in the target demographic for any of these...
>Any music player? Fine that you don’t listen to music.
Spotify, YouTube and Tidal. Occasionally, I also use Telegram and Poweramp for FLAC playback, although I don't have Poweramp installed at this moment and Telegram is not something I often think about when it comes to audio playback.
>Any Netflix style video or TV show app, BBC iPlayer? Fine that you don’t even own a TV.
YouTube exclusively. If I want to watch some show I do it via shady, but legal (in Poland) websites in the browser. Android can handle HTML5 players just fine, although I slightly prefer iOS' unified player, especially when it comes to hiDPI.
>Any third party camera app such as night eyes or webcam stacking, or use the phone as a wireless webcam on another computer? Fine that you aren’t interested in photo novelties.
A Google Camera modification is my single camera app. Does almost everything - good night shots, way better day shots than the default Xiaomi camera etc. - remote webcam is the only thing I don't have, but I have an old phone that sometimes serves this purpose.
>No Evernote or OneNote cloud synced notebooks or todo lists? Calendar? Email? Fine that you only ever write plain text in a plain text file and you don’t have meetings or appointments.
Nope - I only have an e-mail client out of those. Calendar - well, I do have the built-in one, but I exclusively use it to check which day of the week is day X going to be. I don't really have appointments, and when I do I fixate on them so much it's hard to forget them.
>No local train, tram, bus, library, cinema, schedule app? Fine that you drive everywhere or go nowhere.
IF I rarely need to check the schedule (public transport/cinema) for anything I do it via the browser. No need for Yet Another App (TM) that doubles the web app they release regardless.
>No educational apps? Fine that you learn things in other ways. No Chatgpt? Fine that you don’t ask LLMs things. No Google or phind or kagi search? Also fine.
I ask the LLM questions... in the browser! The ChatGPT mobile site is absolutely sufficient for all of my needs. Google - I do have the app but I do searches exclusively in browser as well.