I don't like smartphones, despite having owned one since they were called PDA phones. I like dumb phones less.

However, I don't like smartphones because they are shiny baubles designed to increase your engagement with them past the point where you benefit and well into the realm where you suffer. That aspect comes only from a permanent connectedness to a world you aren't standing in, however, and has nothing to do with the hardware.

They are unequal devices. Smartphones are unapologetically devices for consumption.

It's folly to think that all those Windows desktops running AOL and IE were devices for creation. Smartphones simply pare away all the shit that nobody was using anyway.

They are not real network clients.

Tell that to Facebook. Yes, I know. This is a whinge about how everything lives behind a server. Well of course it does. iPhones are designed for Kardashians. Give them a peer-to-peer network and the world will crumble within hours.

They have ruined web design.

This is patently false. The drive within smartphones is entirely towards silos, wherein your data lives within your UI and your protocols. The only outfits reliant on wireless web are those that spit it out of a Wordpress plugin or similar.

There are no secure smartphones.

...and very few secure desktops. Lookin' at you, Heartbleed.

They are devices of unclear alignment, or of clear malevolence.

"I don't like them." Speaking as someone with a rooted Android, I can speak to every bank, every website and every server I want to, including the adblock ones that I normally turn off.

With Android devices there is a distinction between “rooted” and “unrooted” devices, which sounds suspiciously similar to “jailbroken” and “unjailbroken”.

Yeah, the rooted ones run more software, and require a little more tweaking. See previous "Kardashian" point.

“I've come up with a set of rules that describe our reactions to technologies:

1. Anything that is in the world when you’re born is normal and ordinary and is just a natural part of the way the world works.

2. Anything that's invented between when you’re fifteen and thirty-five is new and exciting and revolutionary and you can probably get a career in it.

3. Anything invented after you're thirty-five is against the natural order of things.”

-Douglas Adams

They have ruined web design. But I should probably write a whole article on that. Suffice to say however that I am very, very tired of the epidemic of (often massive) position: fixed headers on websites nowadays.

coming from the person who "designed" this site.... I'm not sure she/he has a leg to stand on.

They are unequal devices. Smartphones are unapologetically devices for consumption. In this regard they differ critically from PCs, because PCs are equal devices in the sense that the same device is used for creation and consumption. This means that anyone with a PC can create as well as consume, if they so wish. This cultural equality is diminished by an exodus to devices which can only really be used for consumption.

Smart phones can be used to create things just as much as a computer. I regularly do small photo edits, and make videos on my phone, if I wanted to I COULD program on my phone but nobody is suggesting I use my laptop to make regular phone calls. What a weird thing to harp on anyway since nearly anything can be considered created for consumption, or creation depending on whose hand it's in.

They are not real network clients. Smartphones have powerful CPUs and fast network connections, except that you aren't actually allowed to use these resources in any meaningful sense, because doing so consumes battery power, and people don't want the precious battery life of their phones drained unnecessarily.

So there's a massive amount of computer power and network connectivity that in practice you can't use. This leads to an even more unfortunate and ridiculous consequence: you can't implement many existing network protocols on a smartphone. Or at least, you can, but not without draining the battery; but in practice, this isn't done.

For example, a disproportionate number of IM (XMPP, etc.) clients for, say, Android, appear to rely on a central server operated by the software maker, with some proprietary protocol between the client and that server, rather than simply implementing the protocol directly. In other words, there appear to be enough issues with implementing such protocols on smartphones that it isn't done. This leads to the next issue:

This is a ridiculous argument. Are you against laptops too? How about Energy Saver televisions? Of course they are real network clients. Anything that connects to a network is a network client. What do you want something more than TCP/IP or UDP/IP? Here you can even have some Infiniband This argument is bad.

While I also sympathize with the plight of non-Free software being used more and more, I also use a lot MORE Free software. There are a lot of IRC and XMPP clients one can use both of which are run by volunteers. To say otherwise is disingenuous or just ignorant.

They have led to massive centralization. Part of the “cloud” movement is probably driven by the fact that while smartphones have substantial computational resources, you can't actually use them because of battery life. So instead the computation is done in the cloud, creating a dependency on a centralized entity.

This is actually something I am concerned about, but only a bit. I mean if you want to there are open source compilers and programming languages out there, you could make your own private phone cloud theoretically decentralize it if you want.

They have ruined web design. But I should probably write a whole article on that. Suffice to say however that I am very, very tired of the epidemic of (often massive) position: fixed headers on websites nowadays.

Or web design evolved to fit the small form factor. I don't buy that smart phones have ruined web design, even if I do not like some of the responses web designers have made to the form factor. Once again, the author seems to miss the forest from the trees.

There are no secure smartphones. See this article.

Richard Stallman uses wget to download web pages and then reads them later. I have basically come to the conclusion that if two computers are talking to each other it is insecure. You have to either a. accept that as a part of being an internet user b. don't use the internet or computers in general.

They are devices of unclear alignment, or of clear malevolence. We can of course first rule out all iOS devices. This leaves Android. Supposedly, with Android you are free to install software from arbitrary sources and replace the OS. Except that these capabilities are all too often restricted by device manufacturers or carriers.

Except that if you look closely this doesn't quite add up. With Android devices there is a distinction between “rooted” and “unrooted” devices, which sounds suspiciously similar to “jailbroken” and “unjailbroken”. With a PC, I don't have to perform some arcane operation to actually have control of the device. Moreover, it seems to be common to discriminate against people who have the gall to “root” their device, or to disable some functionality of the device if such “rooting” is performed.

I believe there are even online banking applications which reserve the right, in their terms, to detect if a device is “rooted” and refuse to operate on them. In other words, discrimination against people who exercise control over their devices is common, and even sandboxed applications are permitted to detect this.

There is thus a prevailing expectation that people will not exercise control over their device, to the point where those who do are in a sufficient minority to be discriminated against, and have the functionality of their devices reduced for doing so. I suppose the PC equivalent would be a PC where, if you ever ran “sudo”, certain functionality would be permanently disabled and many applications would refuse to run forever after.They are devices of unclear alignment, or of clear malevolence. We can of course first rule out all iOS devices. This leaves Android. Supposedly, with Android you are free to install software from arbitrary sources and replace the OS. Except that these capabilities are all too often restricted by device manufacturers or carriers.

Except that if you look closely this doesn't quite add up. With Android devices there is a distinction between “rooted” and “unrooted” devices, which sounds suspiciously similar to “jailbroken” and “unjailbroken”. With a PC, I don't have to perform some arcane operation to actually have control of the device. Moreover, it seems to be common to discriminate against people who have the gall to “root” their device, or to disable some functionality of the device if such “rooting” is performed.

I believe there are even online banking applications which reserve the right, in their terms, to detect if a device is “rooted” and refuse to operate on them. In other words, discrimination against people who exercise control over their devices is common, and even sandboxed applications are permitted to detect this.

There is thus a prevailing expectation that people will not exercise control over their device, to the point where those who do are in a sufficient minority to be discriminated against, and have the functionality of their devices reduced for doing so. I suppose the PC equivalent would be a PC where, if you ever ran “sudo”, certain functionality would be permanently disabled and many applications would refuse to run forever after.

First you say that they are unsecure then you complain about them being sandboxed. Here is some cake, would you like that cake again?

Software does not bend to your will unless YOU have created it. A bank doesn't support your rooted device? Maybe don't use that bank! Also the reason they do that is to PROTECT you from a malicious 3rd party who may have gained root through another process.

These aren't reasons to hate smartphones. These are reasons to fall into a deep coma.

Here are some real reasons to hate smartphones:

1. Durability. Some are better than others but mostly, if that screen hits ceramic you're off to get it replaced!

2. Boot times. Nobody ever reboots their phone (aside from me) but it takes like 3 minutes to boot! What are ya doin phone!

3. Support for multiple languages. From my understanding Android is mostly a house of Java, where you can sometimes use python, or in the case of the NDK c or c

4. Worldwide Unlimited LTE coverage with a single sim card does not exist (a man can dream!)

5. Someone always comes up with a reason to be cynical about them.