HNHacker News
TopNewBestAskShowJobs

txr

396 karma · joined August 17, 2020

submissionscomments
txr··on Buried Apple feature turns an iPhone into the perfect kids' dumb phone
No, you can add any app you want. It’s just that the app will not change and has no simplified UI like the first-party apps.
txr··on Show HN: A game where you build a GPU
Steam discussions seem to imply there is still something happening https://steamcommunity.com/app/1444480/discussions/0/7674379... But communication is definitely subpar. I completed it a few years ago, was fun but having prior knowledge about digital circuits is a must have in my opinion.
txr··on Show HN: A game where you build a GPU
Anyone who likes this should also take a look at: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1444480/Turing_Complete/ At the end you have your own CPU with your own assembly language. Sadly stuck in early access since forever with some very rough edges
txr··on Valetudo: Cloud replacement for vacuum robots enabling local-only operation
Yeah, I’ve never seen a community more off-putting than this one. I’m thankful for it, it works on my robot, but I wouldn’t help or participate in any way. But it’s like they don’t want help or be a community like mentioned in their docs. In contrast, for example, https://github.com/Koenkk/zigbee2mqtt was such a welcoming community.
txr··on Why you should delete WhatsApp and install Signal
Yeah, no backup on iOS is such a huge turnoff. What you live in the real world and lost or damaged your phone? All your messages and pictures you not exported one by one are gone, backups in 2025 no way, who has every been using such a thing? Maybe in 2035.
txr··on Apple's Software Quality Crisis
It's just said that Apple seems to not care. Just to add to this long list:

Open a link from an email on an iPhone or iPad, then go back to Mail by tapping on the top left corner. If you now delete an email, this email gets deleted but the view does not update to move to the next email. If you now hit delete again, you are deleting the next email without noticing it.

txr··on Uninstall the NightOwl app
Oh right, got that mixed up
txr··on Uninstall the NightOwl app
Yes, the OS function works fine. Haven't used the app in a while, just had it still installed. I just found this by searching for "proxy-gw1-europe.squidyproxy.com" which seemed odd when I found it in my .ssh/known_hosts file.
txr··on AirTag leads to arrest of airline worker accused of stealing from luggage
The assumption from the forum discussions is that it has nothing to do with other AirTags as the battery goes back to normal when people remove their AirTag.

I had the tag on my bike which is the basement so 3 floors down. It just barely reached it from my bedroom, still very impressive. The assumption is that it has something to to with the tracking prevention where the iPhone is somehow telling the AirTag that it is still in the vicinity. If the AirTags is at the edge of the receiving/sending radius this might need a lot more power. Maybe due to retransmission, etc and therefor for causes my battery drain over night.

txr··on AirTag leads to arrest of airline worker accused of stealing from luggage
I also stopped using my AirTag because of this. The battery drain is just to big. Even with the latest Firmware the problem is still there. The is a still ongoing discussion and no fix from Apple. Sadly the only real solution is disabling Bluetooth or removing the AirTag https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/unusual-find-my-backgro...
txr··on GnuCash – Open-source personal and small-business accounting software
I tried GnuCash a long time ago but was not happy how convoluted the UI was, maybe have to give it another try.

After that I switched to MoneyMoney [1] which is just awesome to work with. It is mostly focused on the german market and directly supports import from most major german banks, sadly MacOS only.

[1] https://moneymoney-app.com/

txr··on Signal adds a payments feature with a privacy-focused cryptocurrency
I'm not sure this solves any problem users have. Due to the nature of Signal requiring the phone number of the counter part to be in the phone book this feature will mostly be usable with friends or people you know directly. A feature which some users might want is to easily send money to a friend. These transfers will therefor be inherently be based on the countries currency. I'm not sure people will accept a cryptocurrency which value fluctuates in relation to the normal currency.

For other uses cases they can use a cryptocurrency directly (even MobileCoin) from another app. I can understand that cryptocurrencies are very interesting from a technical and cryptographic point of view. But in their current state most of them a more for speculation and doing state of the art computer science.

Therefore I think this totally useless in the signal app.

txr··on Steam's login method is kinda interesting
This exact procedure is used for the pidgin plugin: https://github.com/EionRobb/pidgin-opensteamworks
txr··on Apple, Epic, and the App Store
I find the comparison that many people make to game consoles very short minded.

It should be clear to everyone that the smartphone will become more and more integrated into our lives to a point where at some point you cannot participate in society without a phone. Sure, many things have alternative options or are limited to tech enthusiasts but other options become less favorable more and more.

The alarm clock in the morning, communicating with friends and family, paying for things, doing your taxes, unlocking your door. Also unlocking your car is coming and there is even early talk of putting your driver’s license in your phone. Getting driving directions, some people use their phone as an artificial pancreas system. (https://androidaps.readthedocs.io/en/latest/)

The smartphone has become the personal computing device.

A gaming console is something completely different, there I'm perfectly fine if a company wants to control the environment. I would prefer an open system but Sony, Nintendo or Microsoft controlling the games I can play is not even close to the limitations apple creates with their ecosystems on society. Google allows for third-party stores on their Android system, I would be doable for Apple to allow the same.