Tech you miss/ new tech trends you hate - ok boomers

[Michael McDoesntexist]

Total """Smart""" Tech Death.

My TV does not need a fucking OS. My fridge damn sure doesn't. And my toothbrush? Jesus Christ...

The general trend of packaging the removal of features as "innovation." As you speds already know, the trend really got started 10 or so years ago when Apple jewed us out of the 3.5MM headphone jack so they could astroturf demand for airpods you have to replace every couple years. In the car world, we see it vith ze Germans removing the engine oil dipstick and replacing it with a level sensor that takes several minutes to tell you an oil level you used to be able to check in seconds. Automatic transmissions started getting rid of it earlier, back in the 90s. Ford was an early adopter of that with their awful 5R55 (also being one of the first to use a bottom fill design). Toyota was another one with their truck automatic transmissions in the 2000s.

Is the engine overheating? Do I really have 2/6th of a gas tank left? Why do the rpm counter needs a light show everytime it revs up and down? Why do I need to be reminded constantly that I'm driving a Renault? And good luck if the sun hits directly the cluster, now it got harder to read. And in the night it's uncomfortable to look at thanks to all the lights it has.

Old school gauges were the best. Digital readouts in clusters should be limited to LCD panels in between the 2 big gauge pods like in the 2000s, no using 1 giant screen. And yeah, those gauge readouts are ass. A lot of cars are even worse, going back to idiot lights like 80s cars. There is no good reason to omit the engine coolant temp gauge for an idiot light. And while this gauge hardly exists anymore, engine oil pressure gauges. Most of them are dummy gauges, they don't actually tell you how much oil pressure you have, just whether you have it nor not. This one will forever piss me off because an old Lincoln Navigator I bought as a tow pig a few years ago developed rod knock due to this. I just changed the oil 3 days before this happened. The gauge stops and goes limp on me and I initially stop, check the oil level, and crawl around underneath checking for leaks. I thought maybe the sensor was going bad,but the pickup tube was clogged. Has the gauge actually been a fucking gauge, I could've seen the drop in oil pressure and acted more quickly. My current SUV has a proper oil pressure gauge and I keep a close eye on it.

Coolant temp gauges are important for this same reason, but these actually show an approximate temperature value. At the beginning of the coof, I fixed up a Subaru Outback I bought for basically scrap value. It ran, but it had the old flat 6 with a stretched timing chain. I replaced that and redid the whole cooling system in the thing because Subarus are notoriously picky about that. Turns out I got an aftermarket thermostat which the car really hated. It started to run hot and because the gauge was an actual gauge, I saw that and nursed it back without letting the engine cook. Threw an OEM Subaru thermostat in and it held temp perfectly after that. The more accurate the info the driver has, the better they can react to mechanical failures.

Speaking of other car tech, physical shifters and parking brakes. For the first one, a lot of people think I mean only driving manual transmissions. While I am a stickshift supremacist, this is not what I mean. I mean the shift lever being physically connected to the tranny so it doesn't need battery power to be put in neutral in the event of an emergency. 99% of automatics prior to 2012 or so fit this description. Also automatics should have a shift lock bypass for emergencies near the shifter that can be actuated to put it in neutral without the key. Electric shifters lose this functionality and are a huge pain to move with no power or if you have a CANBUS fault which keeps it out of gear. I used to do roadside assistance professionally. I've seen it happen plenty of times, if I didn't keep a halfway decent scanner in my car due to me being a DIYer, I wouldn't have been able to help these people. Same with electric parking brakes. Voltage issues? Low battery? CANBUS codes? Looks like you're stuck.

 

[Critical Raxx Theory]

There is no good reason to omit the engine coolant temp gauge for an idiot light.

The -it's already fucked-light

 

[DavidS877]

Old school gauges were the best

One thing they've found in human factors for pilots is that it's far easier to look at a gauge and not have to "interpret" the reading. A digital tach that says "2207" vs a pointer somewhere above 2000. It's far faster to look at the pointer and go "yea, that's about right".

Here's an example of a digital gauge, but it has analog presentations for almost all data so you can quickly go "Hmm, yea, cylinder #2 is running a bit cool" without reading the actual temp on each cylinder.

 

[Pepe Cortisona]

And while this gauge hardly exists anymore, engine oil pressure gauges.

The amperes gauge is also a rare sight nowadays. I only find it on old cars, and I remember it being handy to troubleshoot if a battery was going bad, if the alternator was busted or if something on the car was discharging the battery while being off.

 

[Critical Raxx Theory]

Useful when cars had generators instead of alternators and you had to choose heater fan, headlights, or wipers on a slow uphill in the rain at night.

Vacuum wipers also didn't like going uphill

 

[jeff7989]

I liked my aftermarket radio having voltage display, so I would know when my battery was starting to go bad, also useful for knowing if alternator can keep up with the amp.

 

[Michael McDoesntexist]

One thing they've found in human factors for pilots is that it's far easier to look at a gauge and not have to "interpret" the reading. A digital tach that says "2207" vs a pointer somewhere above 2000. It's far faster to look at the pointer and go "yea, that's about right".

Here's an example of a digital gauge, but it has analog presentations for almost all data so you can quickly go "Hmm, yea, cylinder #2 is running a bit cool" without reading the actual temp on each cylinder.

View attachment 6850203

I've been binging the fuck out of aviation documentaries and was looking into a series on human factors in WW2 aircraft by Greg's Automobiles and Aviation (who is himself a commercial pilot). He mentions this repeatedly with other gauges that give a good visual reference without having to think about it. His example was the old style drum heading indicators vs the modern compass dial ones as an example of this.

 

[DavidS877]

And to follow on to the death of the 3.5mm jack. Also, storage.

I have nearly 1TB of music in flac, yes I should prune it a bit. On my current phone, this is easy. 1.5TB MicroSD and $110.

The only flagship left with expandable storage(and a 3.5mm jack) is Sony and their new models aren't being sold in the US. So I'm off to Samsung/Google/etc land.

Best I can do there is upgrading from 256GB to 1TB for $350 more. And, of course my music plus all the other crap I keep on my phone won't fit in just 1TB, so I get to make a lossy copy to load to the phone.

All technology sucks, etc etc.

 

[Michael McDoesntexist]

And to follow on to the death of the 3.5mm jack. Also, storage.

I can't believe I forgot to mention the loss of microSD card slots and user serviceable batteries in phones. Also making them needlessly painful to service.

I had 2 Google Pixels, a 4A and a 5A, that I got to sideload GrapheneOS onto. Pixels are kinda fragile and notoriously a pain to fix. Lost 1 to the bastards at UBreakIFix when they """ repaired""" my busted screen and screwed up my sim card slot in the process, the other just bricked on me and nothing I did to fix it worked. Tried the battery, the PCB for the charge port, and something else I don't remember. Nothing worked, and I completely lost my data on both because neither had an SD card slot. I don't care about cloud storage being a "thing", I want to have a local backup I can just pop out and swap over to my new phone in 2 minutes. Thankfully my current used Samsung Galaxy S20 FE does have expandable storage and that will be a requirement for any future phone I buy going forward. I'm kinda tempted by the Fairphone with its modular design, but I don't know much about them.

 

[PixarsTedKennedy]

I'm kinda tempted by the Fairphone with its modular design, but I don't know much about them.

Same. I think they are a pain to use in the US but I haven't looked into it for a while. I'm not liberal by any means but as a parent a smartphone that doesn't have shit mined from child slaves is also a plus.

 

[Michael McDoesntexist]

Same. I think they are a pain to use in the US but I haven't looked into it for a while. I'm not liberal by any means but as a parent a smartphone that doesn't have shit mined from child slaves is also a plus.

The 4 and 5 were designed with the US market in mind. It's the older ones that were troublesome here.

 

[pylosurf]

Speaking of other car tech, physical shifters

Speaking of tech trends to hate... even if you buy a manual transmission, a lot of them now have an ignition cut-off switch, where you can't crank the engine unless the clutch is pushed in. I guess retards were trying to start their cars while in gear? Sounds great, except it makes it impossible to do a "push start" when your battery is dead. Get the car rolling in neutral, engage the ignition, pop the clutch and ....nothing. Used to work great.

 

[Michael McDoesntexist]

Speaking of tech trends to hate... even if you buy a manual transmission, a lot of them now have an ignition cut-off switch, where you can't crank the engine unless the clutch is pushed in. I guess retards were trying to start their cars while in gear? Sounds great, except it makes it impossible to do a "push start" when your battery is dead. Get the car rolling in neutral, engage the ignition, pop the clutch and ....nothing. Used to work great.

I did this with my truck this morning, and it has a clutch safety switch. Although my starter only cuts out intermittently and the jolt from the bump throwing it back in gear probably knocked some sense back into it. And worst case, you could always run a bypass switch like Toyota did with a lot of their 90s and 2000s trucks

 

[Sharpeteer]

I can't believe I forgot to mention the loss of microSD card slots and user serviceable batteries in phones. Also making them needlessly painful to service.

I had 2 Google Pixels, a 4A and a 5A, that I got to sideload GrapheneOS onto. Pixels are kinda fragile and notoriously a pain to fix. Lost 1 to the bastards at UBreakIFix when they """ repaired""" my busted screen and screwed up my sim card slot in the process, the other just bricked on me and nothing I did to fix it worked. Tried the battery, the PCB for the charge port, and something else I don't remember. Nothing worked, and I completely lost my data on both because neither had an SD card slot. I don't care about cloud storage being a "thing", I want to have a local backup I can just pop out and swap over to my new phone in 2 minutes. Thankfully my current used Samsung Galaxy S20 FE does have expandable storage and that will be a requirement for any future phone I buy going forward. I'm kinda tempted by the Fairphone with its modular design, but I don't know much about them.

These days I basically only buy Pixels. Even if I wanted to use LineageOS instead of GrapheneOS (Graphene is Pixel only), far too many other phone makers make it either impossible, or a complete pain in the dick to flash something other than their garbage user experience onto the device you paid for. Fairphone is an option, but to get one in the US you basically have to buy it from a reseller who marks it up by an amount I cannot justify paying someone for simply having the advantage of living in the right country.

OnePlus *technically* still lets you do whatever you want with the phone, and you can unlock the bootloader relatively easily, but the big problem with them after the OnePlus 9 lineup (and really the Oppo buyout), they decided to no longer make the flashing tool available to restore a device from a brick. I've bricked a OnePlus 8 Pro before, and this tool saved me (I cannot remember the name), so you cannot repair the phone yourself if an installation goes wrong, which is a big part of why custom ROM development on OnePlus phones after the 9 is basically dead.

Samsung lets you unlock the bootloader outside of the USA, so if you want to do that in the US, you have to import from Europe. So once again, having to pay someone a premium just because they live in the right place at the right time.

This is just a personal thing, but I don't find Pixel phones to be too difficult to repair - once you get the screen/backplate off, the rest of it is pretty straight forward, and I was able to replace a broken screen on a Pixel 4A 5G without much difficulty recently. If Fairphones were readily available for US-based customers, I would definitely give them a try, but the ability to take a Pixel out of the box and immediately do whatever I want with it is just the way more convenient option for me.

 

[Michael McDoesntexist]

This is just a personal thing, but I don't find Pixel phones to be too difficult to repair - once you get the screen/backplate off, the rest of it is pretty straight forward, and I was able to replace a broken screen on a Pixel 4A 5G without much difficulty recently. If Fairphones were readily available for US-based customers, I would definitely give them a try, but the ability to take a Pixel out of the box and immediately do whatever I want with it is just the way more convenient option for me.

I'd buy another if they had expandable storage. Like I said, when my last 2 died, my data died with them. At this point, I'd rather pay a bit extra for the Fairphone with its repair being super easy and it not gypping you on expandable storage for "the cloud." Although their stance on the 3.5mm headphone jack is downright baffling given everything else they do.

 

[Clobber3]

Everything is so concentrated and centralized, at least in the west.

99% of people have the same damn apps on their Home Screen, using Google and all the bullshit. You know what I mean. I think I’m just a Amistic. I like the tech I like and all of you are a bunch of npcs!

 

[Sharpeteer]

I'd buy another if they had expandable storage. Like I said, when my last 2 died, my data died with them. At this point, I'd rather pay a bit extra for the Fairphone with its repair being super easy and it not gypping you on expandable storage for "the cloud." Although their stance on the 3.5mm headphone jack is downright baffling given everything else they do.

I agree with you regarding their removal of the headphone jack. Their excuse made absolutely no sense to me, and in my mind was clearly just a way for them to sell their earbuds.

So when I saw that, I completely wrote them off. But when Louis Rossmann did a video showing that they were willing to provide schematics, it made me question that stance on what their intentions truly are at the end of the day. Because as far as I'm aware, no other phone company is willing to provide this.

So in my book, Fairphone is okay. I just wish they would actually ship to people in America.

 

[DavidS877]

Personally I don't want the storage for on-phone generated content, just content I want with me. So I don't much mind that it's not removable, just the rip-off price and limited storage.

Backups are limited to Photos and Videos created which NextCloud syncs to my home server and my TOTP app file which also syncs to NextCloud. Everything else is already cloudshit like my email, my email, my other email. We'll see what I've forgotten to move over, luckily the old phone isn't dead.

 

[Chuck McGill]

Jumping on the smart tech hate bandwagon, my TV begging me for a fucking update every single fucking time I turn it on. I don't know what's worse, that the manufacturers had the gall to make the TV do this or the fact that they actually kinda have a point because these retarded smart devices do present security vulnerabilities you need constant patching to prevent. I unironically predict within the next 5 years they'll loop back to 'dumb' devices. Brand a 90s Nokia as an 'unhackable' device because it's literally just too simple, watch the niggercattle tech-illiterate zoomie-zooms eat it up with a goddamn spoon.

Actually, this started as a joke but the more I think, they should totally do that. Anyone else remember those indestructible bricks?

 

[Blas de Kiwi]

Can say I agree with most what has been said during the last two pages regarding consumer electronics and how they are designed currently. It's all so tiring. If you want to find a decently working device you are going to pay a premium... and you don't even get what you used to if we compare quality and features against cost. Sometimes you can't get those devices in your region even, so it's all chance.

I personally miss netbooks terribly. They filled a niche of very portable and very low power computers that came in really handy back in the day. They felt like the next logical step as we kept improving miniaturization (and seeing current day smartphones it's not like we stoped with that except with screen sizes).

They were the perfect student and writer device, and we saw a little glimpse of some with a decent, dedicated GPU around the 2010's, but everyone jumped the iPad bandwagon and suddenly netbooks weren't in vogue anymore. They were very serviceable too, as while limited you could upgrade ram and storage, and weren't too complicated to disassemble for a thermal compound repaste or replacing something like the screen or keyboard.

Experience may vary, but I believe that despite the size they weren't that bad to type on. You could write essays, chat on messenger or just browse the internet on a library, or install Age of Empires and play a quick game or whatever. It would run those apps and games just fine for devices that used to cost around $300 new, $500 if they were "high-end". The worst would be the shitty screen resolution and that you had to get an external mouse for sure, but I'm pretty sure almost all laptop users have at least one spare mouse around.

Honestly there aren't any machines that fill that role anymore, and it's a shame given how powerful processors and graphics cards are nowadays. The smallest computers (that the average consumer will ever see) are 14 inch laptops that often are Chromebooks that lock you out of general use apps and OS's that most people are familiar with unless you know what you are doing. If you want 11 inch or smaller you either get a chinese, overpriced "gaming potable laptop" of some sort or get a tablet + keyboard combo... that often is way more expensive than what a netbook would've cost.

There is a case with some Panasonic 12 inch laptops from japan that fit the form factor, but good luck paying for one between import fees and such. They are often business-class devices that don't come cheap unless you buy an old one, and you won't find many keyboard replacements for other languages that aren't japanese or american english, so good luck with that.