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0 pointsrunarberg3d ago0 comments

I remember GPS being something mountaineers had. People who would take their jeeps up to the glacier had them. Boats also had them. Coincidentally I was a fisherman back then and did observe my captain using a super fancy navigation device with an interactive map (and yes the map did come on a DVD); I also knew a couple of jeep men (or jeppakarlar as we call them in Icelandic) who had something similar (though more compact) in their jeeps; and to top it of, I would spend hours on google earth, just having fun looking at the map on my desktop.

I however did not see this technology coming to our phones, and becoming this commonplace.

It has been a day since I wrote the upthread post, and navigation is still the only novel capability of smartphones, which I think would have been a hard sell in 2007. I really can‘t think of another example.

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kelnos2d ago

> I however did not see this technology coming to our phones, and becoming this commonplace.

I didn't see a lot of things coming to phones. I never expected that I'd pay for things by hovering my phone over a payment terminal. Didn't think it would replace my iPod (or MP3 CD player, or Discman, or Walkman). Absolutely had no idea it would replace my camera.

And on the other side of the coin... my "phone" is barely a phone. The phone features are probably what I like least about it.

rjrjrjrj3d ago

Air travel has changed a lot.

Booking, boarding, change/gate notifications, rebooking options, customs and immigration is done via phone.

Transit to/from the airport via Uber or a transit pass stored in your smartphone wallet.

Baggage tracking via airtags

Yeah, there's vague precedents for this stuff from the desktop computer era, but it only _really_ works when you've got an internet-connected device in your pocket.

runarbergOP3d ago

Ahhh, payment via phones is also a new thing that I think very few people saw coming (including me). However it is also a very recent development and not really a part of the supposed smartphone revolution. In 2007 we did not have touchless payments (except in some public transit systems; gyms; etc. but it was limited to a special cards you couldn’t use for anything else) so this is definitely a new capability which was probably hard to sell in 2007.

The others you mentions, I would argue against. Yes it is convenient to order a taxi via an app on your phone, but in 2007 you could do so via SMS or a phone call, so not much has change really other then we now have one more interface to pick from.

I don’t see how smartphones have changed rebooking, nor customs, and especially not immigration which has become 100x more of a headache then it was in 2007. And finally, airtags are a separate technology from smartphones.

rjrjrjrj3d ago

Hand-waving away ride-sharing as not much of a change makes me wonder what you would actually consider to be significant. It completely upended the taxi business.

2007: arrive in a new city, figure out who to call (or maybe text) for that particular city, wait, hope someone will pick you up and understand enough of your language and the local geography to get you where you want to go, possibly some unpleasant haggling over the fare

2026: arrive in a new city/country, open Uber, specify in the app precisely where you want to go, choose a vehicle, when to get picked up, etc, track vehicle progress in real-time, up-front pricing

And that's the consumer side. The provider side was even more radically changed.

If you don't see how smartphones changed the experience of flying... maybe you don't fly anywhere?

Airtags are entirely dependent on the ubiquity of smartphones.

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0 pointsrunarberg3d ago0 comments

I however did not see this technology coming to our phones, and becoming this commonplace.

0 comments

kelnos2d ago

> I however did not see this technology coming to our phones, and becoming this commonplace.

And on the other side of the coin... my "phone" is barely a phone. The phone features are probably what I like least about it.

rjrjrjrj3d ago

Air travel has changed a lot.

Booking, boarding, change/gate notifications, rebooking options, customs and immigration is done via phone.

Transit to/from the airport via Uber or a transit pass stored in your smartphone wallet.

Baggage tracking via airtags

Yeah, there's vague precedents for this stuff from the desktop computer era, but it only _really_ works when you've got an internet-connected device in your pocket.

runarbergOP3d ago

rjrjrjrj3d ago

Hand-waving away ride-sharing as not much of a change makes me wonder what you would actually consider to be significant. It completely upended the taxi business.

2026: arrive in a new city/country, open Uber, specify in the app precisely where you want to go, choose a vehicle, when to get picked up, etc, track vehicle progress in real-time, up-front pricing

And that's the consumer side. The provider side was even more radically changed.

If you don't see how smartphones changed the experience of flying... maybe you don't fly anywhere?

Airtags are entirely dependent on the ubiquity of smartphones.

2 more replies

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse