Recently downloaded a “cast” app because Miracast doesn’t work on GrapheneOS. On first launch, I got 3 consecutive full screen video ads followed by a popup to “subscribe” to their paid service. Next, another popup to rate them 5* in google play store. Note that at this point, I haven’t even reached the main screen of the app… You know, to actually try it and see if it works.
Uninstalled that garbage and gave it the 1* rating it deserves.
Seriously, I’m so sick and tired of these “modern” apps which don’t even have the decency to offer a good quality paid version. $8/mo for a stupid utility I use maybe a few times a year? Who tf do you think you are?
Using apps on GrapheneOS, I also get notified when they use the play integrity API… I find it insulting when apps like Reddit attempt to access that… Seriously, you’re just an online forum. Why tf would you care about whether my phone is rooted or not?
Look into fcast (its Foss)
Immediate disable of notifications and one star review for abusing notifications. I do the same thong when legitimatel services text me for marketing or surveys. Texts are meant for more urgent communication that needs almost immediate attention and it’s an abuse of trust to test people like that.
I do the same thong when legitimatel services text me for marketing or surveys.
It’s fun that I can’t decide if that’s a deeply insightful yet misplaced shot at mattel for having a small role in developing a fairly common sex toy material or a series of spelling errors.
‘Attorney Barbie wearing a G-String’ would be make a fun ai prompt though
It makes me a bit sad that there are people getting around that don’t know how to declaw their smartphone with disabled notifications, permissions and such. It’s not their fault, these things are a fucking nightmare when left to go feral.
The thing is, at least on iPhone, is when you first install an app it’ll ask some of these questions and you can say, and should, say no for the most part:
- This app wants to track you. Allow?
- This app wants to send you notifications. Allow?
- This app wants access to your photos? Allow?
- This app wants to see your contacts. Allow?
Etc.
I appreciate that you stuck to the analogy
Heh, I like the “I kill you now” human mode in this. The developers don’t realise we have our own antibullshit software. Evolution playing out in app survival.
Too much fuckery? Off at the wall !
Put your foot on the power switch down till it stops whirring.
Modern apps out here with the confidence of a CEO and the usefulness of a broken pencil.
Modern apps out here with the confidence of a CEO and the usefulness of a CEO
Why would someone use grocery list app instead of a text editor
Presumably the app would provide some additional functionality that is relevant to grocery lists. Like price tracking or coupons or something. IDK though I just use a text editor.
A charitable interpretation is because a list-making app can provide richer functionality than a basic text document by allowing you to check things off as you pick them up.
A grocery-specific list app could be even more tailored. It could, for example, automatically group items you add by produce type (fresh, tinned, frozen) or allow you to define a template for common items you want to purchase on every shop.
A less charitable interpretation is that some people don’t tend to think “what tool is appropriate to solve this problem?” and look at what they already have installed, but instead present the problem and expect a solution will be delivered. So people go on the app store and type “grocery list” and just install whatever comes up. The same happens for every other life problem they want to solve, which is why these people have 200 hyper-specific apps on their phones.
Some people will fall into group A, and some into group B.
Personally I use Joplin for all my note-taking and listing needs. It’s a pretty basic markdown editor but is cross-platform and has custom backends for storage, so my notes can be stored privately and synced to all my devices. Markdown is obviously less featureful than a proprietary app format but is portable, and you can easily export all your data without being tied forever to Joplin if circumstances change. I would recommend it if you need a notes app.
Obsidian is on my phone and all my computers. It is sync’d between them. I keep all my shopping lists, todos, recipes, and so on in it. It never notifies me about shit. It opens instantly. Its very easy to find and edit anything I need.
It would truly be a miracle for an app to be better at keeping lists than I am with a markdown file. And it also keeps track of a bunch of other things for me. I even had an encrypted file in it with my passwords stored, but I’ve sanely moved on to Keepass for that, a rare case of an app actually offering enough additional security and functionality to be worth it.
A list with check boxes is way better than a text only list. Though genetic to-do list apps are good enough for that, assuming it’s a decent to-do list app in the first place.
i personally prefer simplicity. “TODO.txt” is all i need
Do you edit it while you’re grocery shopping? Mine aren’t usually sorted so I’m picking off things from all over the list as I shop and it’s a lot easier to see what’s still outstanding if there’s an empty/ticked box beside each item.
- You can
- Have “Checkboxes” ✅️
- Without it actually being ❌️
- Part of the program ✅️
Yeah but then it’s more steps to update the list as you go. With a dedicated check list, it’s just scroll to item and tap (plus the occasional close edit box if I fat fingered it lol).
Not that I’m defending the behavior in the OP. The second an app gives a “please use me” notification, it’s either getting its notification settings changed or replaced with an app that doesn’t do that shit (and with minimal permissions to do what I want it to do, eg a todo list app shouldn’t need network access permissions).
I don’t even have a text editor on my phone. 🤷♂️
I have a self hosted recipe book (Tandoor) and it has a built in grocery list. Its really nice cause I can just click a button and it adds everything I need to my grocery list.
Paprika recipe manager seems like an equivalent, and it’s not subscription based. Just a one time purchase per OS
Yeah but it’s not self-hosted which was a big thing for me.
I suppose, but what’s the worth of self hosting when the functionality is locked behind a subscription fee. If the company goes down you still lose the software.
Self hosted tandoor is free. And it’s open source.
Oh, I see.
I just saw the subscription costs and the free tier as limited to 10 recipes. I didn’t realise the self hosted version was fully functional
I used one to manage inventory at a bar. More cost effective, single developer instead of a big corporation so I could have features added. It also never harassed me to use other products, and didn’t spam me beyond letting me know when there were updates to apply.
My girlfriend and I share lists on ours, she can add things and I can see them for when I go to the store. In theory cause she usually has to tell me.about it first so I remember to look at it. Makes Xmas food shopping much simpler. I suppose there is a text sharing one but so far ‘ourgroceries’ ( think that’s right) only bugs me to buy the full app when I use it, but otherwise no biggie. Plus you can disable notifications from apps anyways, least I thought so, cause I probably had one from there and said nope, don’t care. Maybe it tells you when someone else put something there if they are on, oh well if I’m missing them too cause we talk still heh.
I hate that for a lot of these apps there’s no way to turn off these kinds of ad notifications without stopping the real notifications you want from the app.
Do it then. Replace the app with pen and paper. I think the app is calling your bluff.
I just use nano for taking notes
the correct answer was vim, but I’ll allow it
🙂
“I have been a good bing” is engraved into my mind forever
Duolingo! Screw that app. Has anyone ever learned to speak a language by just using duolingo?
My streak is the only thing keeping me going
Send help, the owl has my family
So as someone who used the app daily for 5,09315068 years, do you feel you learned a new skills or has it only given you the feeling of not wasting all your time in unproductive apps?
I’m doing the Japanese course, and it’s… Mixed. I definitely know more than before I started, but duo really isn’t the best app for Japanese
I used lingodeer for a while and it was a lot better, but they jacked up the price massively, after which I stopped
As someone that used to use it, I feel like it lost it’s utility massively after learning hiragana and katakana. After that it’s much better to use things with more kanji if you actually want to be able to read. I did see they tried to add kanji though, but don’t know if it’s enough.
I’ve been using it for years, but only for ~10 minutes a day. Obviously it can’t teach you to speak it, but to read and write? Absolutely. The secret is to NEVER install the app. My philosophy is that if it has a website then everything should be doable via the website, and I won’t install the app.
NOTHING should urge you to install their app, unless it actually cannot function properly on a, say, desktop PC. In case of a trekking and hiking app, I understand it only works properly knowing your location (I would still be terribly paranoid about what else it does with my location info, apart from recommending paths and whatnot). But other than that, I always assume that when something could be perfectly done via a website and they still push their app, they just want to sell your data.
And believe me, using Duolingo via the website is definitely less frustrating than having the app.
I will never forgive Apple for fucking over the open web. When the iPhone launched it was web-only. You could ‘install’ web apps, and any device APIs - accelerated graphics, hardware sensors, location, offline storage, intents, contacts lists, push notifications - were user-selected and presented as standard JavaScript interfaces. One app, literally every platform, and iPhone was there first. It was in a period where every platform was rushing to support web applications with high-performance browser engines and Apple looked like they were going to do for websites-as-applications what they had done for USB ten years earlier: recognise it as the best way forward and push it hard, compatibility be damned.
Then the iPhone started selling well and they got fucking dollar signs in their eyes, realising how much money there was to be made forcing everyone to develop on their platform, in their language, for thier devices. Apps, distribution channels, operating system, services, devices, development, all of it on their terms and on thier platforms. The second they became mainstream they started locking everyone into their vertical ecosystem and wringing as much cash out as they could, exposing their hipocracy and showing that they were as anti-competetive and destructive as Microsoft at their 1990s worst.
In 1980, a large number of experts in business and general tech predicted that by 1990 most written communications would be fully electronic, something akin to email. What they didn’t predict was the appearance of the fax machine, which was novel enough to be exciting but simple enough to be understood, and people flocked to it. As a result, electronic communication was stalled for about twenty years. I have no doubt that at some point in the future, Apps will be seen the same way but I think it will take a lot longer to get there.
The content on duolingo is pretty bad, in general. There are much better apps out there like Language Drops and Rosetta Stone - but they aren’t free.
Drops is free if you get the kids version. No ads and you can reset your allowance for free just by pressing the timer. It has less vocab though. Also be careful because their translations aren’t always accurate (it gave the word for a stuffed animal, as in taxidermy, for cuddly toy in European Portuguese. I reported it several years ago and it’s still not fixed) and they translate “how much” differently in different languages (eg in Arabic it translates to how much quantity, but in Portuguese and French, how much price). So I had a lot of fun thinking I was asking how much I need to pay for a bag of potatoes and the man kept telling me 500g.
I haven’t used duolingo since they brought in that stupid crown system years ago. I got my 600 day streak and then stopped using it. I heard it’s even worse now. It was a good starting point, but you’ll quickly have to supplement. Pre-crowns, duolingo was pretty good. Memrise was much better, but they’ve overhauled that now too. Also I dislike that duolingo has time for fictional languages, but refuses to do real languages like European PT, British English, etc.
I’ve been using Busuu and it’s really good. Its really aggressive about asking you to buy the premium version but it has all the functionality you need in the free version so you just gotta ignore it.
Ja. Ich habe Deutsch gelernt. Kaffee mit Milch, bitte.
This is what you get when you download an app that can be completely replaced by any scrap of paper.
Same vibes but serious. I give a 1 star and uninstall if an ad-supported application sends useless notifications.
“A new generation of Sirius Cybernetics Corporation robots and computers with the new GPP feature”
“GPP, what’s that?”
“It says ‘Genuine People Personalities’.”
“Sounds ghastly”
tape measuring app trying to charge my poor dad TEN DOLLARS PER WEEK. To measure with his phone camera.
