Big tech continues to be the giant arm of totalitarian government:
So for a small group of apps, they will have a special "Exposure Notifications" privilege that allows for a feature called "locationless scanning" meant ONLY for COVID purposes, or so they say.
Only your state "public health" governments have access to this feature. Yeah, whatever. I learned about these Exposure Notifications when T-Mobile stuffed the Android 11 update down my throat despite my continued resistance to updating from 10, which I was already happy with.
With the app, the app uses Bluetooth to "scan nearby" for other people with the app. The only problem is - even though this "scan nearby" tech has existed for years, you chose to opt into the tech at your discretion. This COVID program, however, while it's opt-in for now, you know governments will NOT hesitate to force you to enter this program if infection rates ever go up.
This "pick up data and swap with others" feature is something a few programs and even some games out there use (DS/3DS games I think did this before). The only thing is, you didn't mind that because game consoles had very limited info on you and at worst they'd mess with your game.
Considering how much stuff that's stored on our phones, and considering how Google is far more evil than boomer companies like Nintendo, this is something we should all be worried about. This just makes government more powerful and Big Tech is following it along for the ride.
They finally got around to adding it to whatever ancient version of iOS my ancient iphone uses as well.
I'm getting to the point where I'm starting to wonder if it's even worth having a cell phone vs. just getting landline service.
That's a... 350 EUR dumbphone. What the fuck dude, why not just get a normal one for a tenth of the price? And the rest of the store is just as bad:
This piece of shit that looks like something I could get for $12 on Aliexpress doesn't even have a price listed but I'm guessing it's at least 200.
Fucking hipsters, I swear to god. How the fuck does a normal alarm clock cause an "information overload"? Does this one gently caress my fucking face when it's time to wake me up instead of just making a sound? Does it wake me up with a blowjob?
There's always PinePhone for $150. It's been on my short list for a while, though it still needs development to become a daily user.
Holy shit it's a spiritual successor to my all-time favorite cell phone: the Motorola F3. However it's also 10x more expensive than my Motorola F3 was. Still might be worth it though; I loved that phone.
Yeah thing was sturdy too. I would have kept buying them except they stopped making new batteries for it, and by the time I needed a replacement the batteries were all dated 5 years prior.
If they had made it a bit thicker and had it take AAA batteries it would have been perfect, and I would have just stocked up on a lifetime supply of the things.
I've got an iphone 5, its great because it doesn't haven any iOS updates for forever, I don't have any of the wacky updates at all.
I have the 5S, and it took a long time for it to get that update. I didn't even think they were updating the software for it anymore, but one day it appeared.
I've just got a plain 5. Software is 10.3. I don't get any updates anymore, I believe that the 5S is the oldest model still currently supported.
Scary isn't it? They finally update your phone... and it's to add government-backed tracking to it. No new features, no optimizations, no nothing, just fucking COVID tracking.