
Smartphone sales fall for the first time, says Gartner - prostoalex
https://www.cnet.com/news/smartphone-sales-fell-for-the-first-time-ever-in-q4-apple-samsung-gartner/
======
userbinator
Or perhaps more positively, "e-waste production falls".

It's not surprising that the market would reach a saturation point;
manufacturers are running short of ideas to improve their products, and even
starting to resort to _removing_ features.

Especially in the low-end/unbranded smartphone segment, I've noticed newer
models aren't actually getting better. Several years ago they practically all
had removable batteries, microSD, dual SIM, and a full complement of sensors;
now it's nearly impossible to find such a complete combination anymore ---
they're all missing one or two things.

~~~
tachyoff
I’ve even considered ditching my smartphone entirely here and there. I’m not
convinced its utility outweighs its use as an ad-driven anxiety rectangle
constantly vying for my attention. Combined with the steady loss of features,
I’m wondering if this decide is really a tool or a burden. Something to
ponder, I suppose.

~~~
suprfnk
Turn off all notifications. Delete all non-tool apps; you know, the apps that
want you to spend time in them. Keep only the tool apps.

You won't spend 30 minutes scrolling through your navigation app, or your
music app, or through the pictures you made, or looking at the weather
forecast, or...

These are all very useful features. I wouldn't throw out the baby with the
bathwater.

~~~
enobrev
The Galaxy S8* has a "Do Not Disturb" mode which allows you to whitelist
contacts for incoming calls and messages, and apps that can create
notifications.

It's meant to be a temporary setting, like to turn on while in a meeting or
while sleeping, but I have it set to run 24 hours a day, only allowing people
in my "favorites" to call me, everyone in my contacts list to message me, and
only allowing notifications from a couple apps.

I just set it up a week ago, and I absolutely love how little I'm bothered by
my phone now, including no more calls from bots, which I was receiving around
4-6 times a day.

* I assume most recent Samsung equivalents have this feature as well. My S6 had it.

~~~
letientai299
I often see complains about mail or bots spamers. But I don't get why? I use
smart phone several years and rarely has a random phone call from an unknown
number, which real person on the other site. And I never got call from bots.

Could you share your experience about bot phone calls? What in it for them?

~~~
enobrev
You seem to have been down-voted. Wasn't me.

Just like email spam, I assume there's enough benefit to be worth the cost,
which is far less than it used to be now that, much like the transition from
physical mail to email, a computer can do the calling for very little cost or
effort.

I used to get a a few random spam calls from people a week, and still do from
time to time. They're generally trying to sell me something; trying to ask for
my vote; trying to convince me that I'm in trouble for one thing or another
and I should give them some personal information or money to get out of it.

As for being called by bots, if I answer and I don't hear a human voice within
a second or two, then I assume a computer just dialed me. It might play me a
recording; It might connect me with a human. Regardless, it was a bot that
called me to begin with, and I've no interest in speaking with or waiting for
the unsolicited demands of computer programs.

I used to be able to keep a list of numbers to block with whatever dialer app
I was using, but it's gotten incredibly easy for these spammers to spoof
numbers. The big trend in the past couple months seems to be to use numbers
that have the first six or seven numbers of my full ten-digit phone number. So
if my number was 444-555-6666, I'll get random calls throughout the day from
444-555-6777. It's obvious when I see the number - especially since my number
is from a city I haven't lived in since 2012 - but harder to block via
standard phone apps.

This is why the white-listing of a "Do Not Disturb" mode better suits me.

As for why I get so many spam calls, it's hard to say. I've had this number
for almost 20 years. I'm sure it's been sold and resold for pennies hundreds
of times. I'm sure it's also on plenty of database dumps from various hacks as
well. No matter, switching numbers seems to be more hassle than it's worth. I
assume whatever new number I get would be just as bad.

What I _really_ want is for phone numbers to become obsolete. Just a random
UUID that means "Call / Text / Message enobrev" in someone else's device,
where I can maintain a whitelist of who can connect to my devices to talk /
chat / etc.

------
michaelbuckbee
The overall rate of growth declined, but from the article: "For the full year,
smartphone sales increased 2.7 percent to 1.5 billion units"

This really seems like we're just hitting a saturation point in terms of
physically putting these in people's hands. From that stat, we're talking
about 20% of humans in the known universe getting a new smartphone in 2017.
Some significant chunk of them probably handed their phone down to someone
else (or sold it), some much smaller percentage went from a feature phone to a
smartphone and a big chunk of people just held onto their current phone
because it does what it needs to do and smartphones are becoming a mature
market.

~~~
WorldMaker
Relatedly, a lot of carrier-based phone subsidy systems seem to have expired
in the last couple of years. At this point, consumers are (mostly) bearing the
full brunt of direct device cost, and a lot more consumers are taking market
costs into account with replacement timing.

The 1-2 year replacement era seems to be at its end, and I think we're likely
looking at a time where people replace phones more in line with desktop/laptop
purchase cycles.

------
arvinsim
Smartphones today are good enough for most use cases. New features are usually
gimmicks or luxuries that one can do without.

~~~
tempodox
That alone would already be a good reason to hold on to a phone until it
breaks. And after Apple removed the headphone jack, I'm also keen to keep a
phone that still has one.

~~~
tanilama
I think the phone maker will using software to make sure your phone is beyond
tolerant in 2-3 years.

~~~
tempodox
You still have the option to not install that software.

------
IkmoIkmo
This is definitely the first year where I have absolutely no interest in
getting a new phone. I used to be able to do without an upgrade, stretching
it. (I had an iPhone 4 about 6 years after release) But now I'm fine with an
S7.

Seems like only cameras are worth upgrading for nowadays.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
This is exactly where I'm at as well. I have a 6S (and a 6 for work) and, for
what I use them for, there are plenty fast enough. I really wish the camera
was better, and this will drive me to upgrade eventually, but there really
isn't a phone on the market that I see and think, wow, I want that.

------
wpasc
That's definitely pretty crazy. I wonder what this means for progress on
connecting the "next billion". Also, I hope it comes as a signal to VC money
to shift out of the era of low hanging "everyone has a smartphone" fruit.

The smartphone golden era may be coming to an end, pumped for whats next.

------
teekert
Just looking at myself, I have a OnePlus3, launched mid 2016. It still feels
like "my new phone", can't believe it is already 1.5 years old. Everything is
just good enough and the thing is still blazing fast in everything it does. I
got regular updates, it's on the latest android (for stock Rom users) and it
was among the first batch of phones to be supported by LineageOS 15.1. I see
no reason for a new phone in the near future. Before I always got the itch at
about 2 years (ok, I did use mostly budget phones before like the Moto G), now
I see myself easily on this phone for another 2-3 years.

~~~
ddalex
I'm still rocking the original Oneplus One, with a Jan 2018 LineageOS
installed.

I've been browsing stores to find a replacement phone since this one is
getting older. Amazingly, I couldn't find anything vastly better in terms of
screen, responsiveness and camera, even if I desperately wanted to justify a
new toy. There are no new hardware features that OPO doesn't have.

All the apps that I want to run perform flawlessly. The camera is nearly on
par with the OP5 camera, a phone specifically marketed on the camera quality
(my wife has one so I could test it).

I ended up replacing the aging battery about a year ago, and continue using
it.

~~~
teekert
I feel the same, will probably replace the battery at some point, feels good
to do. In the same vein, I know people putting ssds in 2011 iMacs, thoroughly
cleaning them and feeling like they have a new, modern computer again. It's a
big win for sustainability. It's too bad that in this age, where hardware can
live pretty long, repair-ability is at an all time low (not a coincidence no
doubt).

------
mcphage
> Uh-oh. Smartphones finally took a nosedive.

> ...down 5.6 percent from the same period a year ago

I don't think "nosedive" means what this author thinks it does.

~~~
tetrazine
Someone's never managed a supply chain before

~~~
Casseres
I would venture that most people here have never managed a supply chain
before. Could you please share why instead?

~~~
Wildgoose
There's an illustrative example in the UK right now.

A meat supplier called Russel Hume has just gone out of business and their
product pulled from major chains.

Basically, they ordered meat according to their expected needs only to suffer
a downturn in expected sales. So they cut future orders but had a glut of
stock which they tried to use over an extended period. Meat has a lifetime
associated with it. (Although it can be extended slightly if you pay for
bacterial analysis to re-certificate it).

It appears Russel Hume pushed the margin too far.

That's what even a small downturn in your supply pipeline can do.

------
stuntkite
I'm at "peak phone". I can't go to a dumb phone and I'm locked into apple and
google's ecosystems, but I am underserved by them and actively working on
moving away from them. I've been buying small computing platforms and testing
out PCIe LTE modems as well as playing around with the LimeSDR LTE[1]
networking getting ready for 5G mesh networking with the next model.

I want to carry a brick that I control in my backpack or pocket and use my own
input and display devices[2][3]. I don't need another $1000 light up rectangle
/ digital leash. I haven't played a mobile game in years, none of the apps on
my phone are increasing my enjoyment of the tool. Basically it's there for
banking and so I can check Slack if if I'm running errands and something else
happens.

I made the decision to start working on the DIY phone project when I found out
the iPhoneX used the primesense depth camera on the front. It's 100% for more
tracking and advertising stuff without any of the cool AR/Depth stuff that I
want. Also potentially SUPER creepy social control when you have thousands of
high detail copies of everyone's face because they posted them with goofy
masks on them. As if the instagram to Deepfakes pipeline was too complicated.
Then google mothballed Tango a couple weeks after I got a ZenPhoneAR.

The emperor has no clothes at this point. We don't need their phones and they
don't want us to know it yet. I have a $300 Firefly[4] board that dual boots
Ubuntu and Android and has HDMI in. I'm working on automating my control of an
external iphone through HDMI and a hacked together capacitive touch overlay so
I can control it with a mouse like stylus so I won't have to deal with the
communication gap from iMessage being so wired up to my life. I'm pretty sure
I can virtualize iOS or OSX with a bit of work to solve that problem too then
just work on migrating out. There are starting to be very appealing X86_64
tiny computers like the LattePanda[5].

The walled media messaging garden between iOS and Android bugs the crap out of
me. If I send someone a phone vid from iOS to android they get a thumbnail
that looks like a 1996 RealPlayer DVD Rip.

I want an Ono Sendai but cooler, the tools are here now. Fuck the adslabs.

[1] [https://www.crowdsupply.com/lime-
micro/limenet](https://www.crowdsupply.com/lime-micro/limenet)

[2] [https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/5/16966530/intel-vaunt-
smart...](https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/5/16966530/intel-vaunt-smart-
glasses-announced-ar-video)

[3] [http://www.bosch-presse.de/pressportal/de/en/mobile-world-
co...](http://www.bosch-presse.de/pressportal/de/en/mobile-world-
congress-2017-new-bosch-microscanner-bml050-for-interactive-laser-
projection-90624.html)

[4]
[http://shop.t-firefly.com/goods.php?id=64](http://shop.t-firefly.com/goods.php?id=64)

[5] [http://www.lattepanda.com/](http://www.lattepanda.com/)

~~~
dredmorbius
You are my spirit animal.

I think I've outlined a similar set of preferences myself, and this has been
the on-the-road computing experience I've wanted to see for .... years? It's
absolutely stubbornly resistant to happening.

I've been using an Android tablet for the past 2.5 years, and have absolutely
hated it pretty much from the start. The best thing about it was Termux, but
something (Memory management? App model? Hardware limitations? OS bugs?) keeps
trashing that.

The apps ecosystem is abysmal. Arguably moreso on Android than iOS, for
reasons I've iterated on G+.

The _hardware_ ecosystem, most especially for peripherals, is similarly
abysmal. Apple, at least, having a small number of specified form-factors _has
a set of offerings, specifically of folio-type keyboard-case systems, that
work._ For Android, I find that such products _are specific to specific
versions of a product_ \-- say, the Samsung Tab of a given size -- the folio
keyboard case that fits one will _not_ fit others. This is beyond frustrating.

The _quality_ of those products is also exceedingly limited. Logitech have
failed me and failed me badly.

(I _strongly_ discourage use of _either_ Samsung _or_ Logitech products based
on my direct experience with products, support, and quality. Across multiple
cases for both.)

Given (theoretically) wireless connectivity options, the notion of being able
to carry:

1\. A vox handset.

2\. A mobile-capable display. Something that will fit into a backpack,
messenger bag, or bike bag -- this does _not_ have to be pocketable and
actually preferably isn't. Women (or men who carry them) may substitute a
purse.

3\. Additional _locally managed_ storage. Multi-terrabyte storage is available
in card-deck-sized form factors (or smaller). This fits somewhere within the
bag above.

4\. A folio-style case (see illustration on link below).

5\. An integrated _full feature_ keyboard.

6\. Ideally some sort of trackpad / mouse interface as well. Touch-interface
is too constrained. See click-vs-drag ambiguity mentioned here:
[https://redd.it/5x2sfx](https://redd.it/5x2sfx)

7\. The ability to share work with a "real" system as well. I'm actually
partial to Git-based, file-based synch, _not via some "cloud" system_. Problem
of course being that several major applications, most notably browsers, handle
this poorly.

8\. A full and real userland and Linux environment. I've tried the rest. This
is the best.

I'm sure there's a global market for about five of these systems, but that's
how IBM started in the 1950s.

One of my previous rants on this:
[https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/lqgtwy_rhsfbdh5cdxb1rq](https://ello.co/dredmorbius/post/lqgtwy_rhsfbdh5cdxb1rq)

And for the general problem of poor-quality mass-market products, the Tyranny
of the Minimum Viable User:

[https://redd.it/69wk8y](https://redd.it/69wk8y)

------
sevensor
> buying nicer feature phones

That's a thing? I grudgingly switched to a persistent surveillance device two
years ago when the buttons fell off of my last feature phone and the new
feature phones were enough worse that they were basically unusable.

~~~
JBReefer
I would love a feature phone with Facebook Messenger, rudimentary Google Maps,
and no other features.

Honestly, if there's one that works I'd buy it tonight.

~~~
mrweasel
Google Authenticator is the only app I actually need, it's required to
authenticate for a whole bunch of services at work. My employer paid my
iPhone, and future upgrades, so it's their call, but I'd be just as happy with
something like Nokia 104. Assuming that I could get an Google Authenticator
app for it, my employer could save $1000+ every 18 to 24 month.

~~~
erfgh
You can write a Google Authenticator script that works on your PC you know.
It's about 20 lines of code. Also there are many freeware apps available for
PCs.

~~~
lorenzhs
Or you could use a Yubikey to store the secrets, and
[https://github.com/Yubico/yubioath-
desktop](https://github.com/Yubico/yubioath-desktop) on your desktop. That way
you would still have a portable second factor, and it would be very very hard
to extract the secrets.

------
tyu100
The new camera technologies are, for me at least, a reason to upgrade to the
current generation. I'm going to grab an IPhone X along with some telephoto
lenses for my wife so she can stop taking both her phone and DLSR camera on
trips.

I agree that, in general, the reasons for upgrading your phone are less and
less. I don't know how new that actually is though, I was using my first
generation ipad until a couple of years ago; Apple kit tends to last forever
and a lot of new features came in software upgrades. Same with the Nexus/Pixel
series in Android world.

------
doctorRetro
Speaking for myself, I'm due to upgrade my phone - my contract is up, I have
no balance owed - but I just don't see a need to. My phone is two and a half
years old and it's hanging in there. It still calls, texts, browses and reads
just fine. And the typically weakest link of all, the battery, is still
holding a decent charge. I don't see any advantage to replacing it right now.
I lost the comment, but someone else posted that they're at "peak phone" and
I'm inclined to agree.

Edit: -redundancy

------
nkkollaw
Phones are feature-complete now.

The second iPhone was 10 times better than the first ones, but now you can
hardly tell the difference.

------
holri
My Nokia N900 from 2009 still does all I want. Phone, xmpp, camera, video,
calendar with CalDAV, web, email, sms, rss, ssh, emacs. Just ordered a new
battery for 10 € instead of a new phone, because I had no idea why I should
get a new device.

------
themoat
Why on earth does CNET have autoplay videos?

~~~
hedning
Firefox has `media.autoplay.enabled` in about:config, so it's easy to turn it
off globally.

