Beeper is pretty good. I don’t have it mirror Signal because it kind of defeats the purpose, but works really well to unite WhatsApp, Instagram Messages, FB messages and various other ways people keep in touch with me without having to open the spammy apps involved
Yes it was extremely annoying. Had to dial in and do some very hacky phone code entry. Then it would work for a few months until they tweaked something on back end and it would cut out again. It was a shame as I actually liked Samsung Messages; I know people criticized it as duplicative, but it was cool how it would sync across devices, fit in with native one UI style, etc.
It did have RCS on T-mobile, though it was a bit restricted, couldn’t run on unlocked phones without some dial code tinkering. I gave up on it after a couple years
They discuss in the article
I started with Raspberry Pi and Arduino for a scientific project that later became a published paper. https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0278752
Now I have a couple Pis and ESP32s around the house doing all sorts of jobs, and am managing Docker-hosted shiny dashboards at work
It has had trouble with some subtitles. That’s the biggest issue I’ve had
It is a little convoluted how it’s set up, but I have a debt of gratitude to the Calibre community for their various add-ons freeing my legally purchased books of their DRM! Which is what enabled me to have centralized library in the first place, since they were all on different services. But now I’ve quit Amazon and have everything accessible from KOreader on my Kobo, via Calibre-web
Syncthing so you never have to mail files to yourself again.
FreshRSS for RSS reading
Readeck for saving articles for later (or wallabag, many alternatives)
HomeAssistant
Calibre-web for ebooks
PiHole
Joplin for self hosted notes
Searxng is fun for self hosted metasearch but has sadly been having trouble with Google lately
It’s handy to share media with my family! The Roku app works OK
They list Jevon’s paradox under ‘see also’
The phone version of Jevon’s paradox
I think some people won’t be able to switch just because they’ve passed the point where learning new tech is possible. But I do think for those with the will to change over, it will increasingly actually be happening rather than being muttered a threat to Microsoft, especially because the main pain points of the past (software exclusivity) is starting to break down. Some games are now running better on Linux. MS Office is increasingly being superseded by alternatives like Gsuite, Libreoffice, or just learning to code in easy languages like Python/R. And unlike in the past when Microsoft overplayed its hand and changed course to regain users with Windows 7, 10, etc, this time it seems like they aren’t going to change. They are in too deep.
You can only abuse your customers so much before they move on. I have long enjoyed using Windows, but when they announced my perfectly usable laptop wouldn’t be able to get 11 thanks to no TPM, and I had to go through a complicated set of hoops to manually install it, that was my breaking point. I will keep Windows for some limited stuff on dual boot on one machine, but elsewhere I’m going Linux only
Mozilla promised to open-source Pocket and they closed it without doing so also. It’s common. Google did open-source Pebble stuff a decade later, so it’s never too late!
Enshittification. I have become certain that any app owned by a for-profit company has to follow this path. There is no way to sustain forever growth without harming the product. I have used Pocket Casts for a decade and have premium. I stick with it because I love the web features and feel fine paying for those but I suspect the deal will keep getting worse all the time, Vader style.
Well Obtainium already can access ADB from on device through the Shizuku framework. I use that to update APKs in the background for example. But it’s a super hacky solution and not going to be used by most people.
I considered setting up a Pi for WireGuard at my mom’s house (her router doesn’t support VPN), so we could share subscriptions still, but decided it wasn’t worth the hassle and risk that they would start VPN detecting from the client: could just imagine them sending her emails about it that would confuse her lol
Samsung had a little pressure sensitive area at the bottom of phone screens in the S9 era. It was handy and I had it set up like a hidden home button.
The S9 also had a variable aperture camera, which I feel like could have been developed a lot more.
I also miss notification LEDs. Sure, AOD mostly replaces it, but it was fun setting different colors for people, situations, etc
The Essential phone had a ceramic back that was very comfortable and cool in the hand. Though it was slippery. Another idea that could have been developed further.
The different back materials on the Moto X were very satisfying. The customization of that phone was unmatched!
Yes, I might figure that out if/when Beeper starts to enshittify