https://www.theverge.com/2022/7/5/23195827/lockscreen-content-apple-ios-16-glance
Unlocking your phone and opening an app is too much work, apparently
Your phone's lock screen is the hottest new real estate in tech. Apple made the iPhone's lock screen a centerpiece of iOS 16, giving users more control over how theirs looks and works. But while Apple talked about pretty clock fonts and nifty color-matched wallpapers, it also showed off a world in which your lock screen is more than just a security measure; it's becoming another surface on which companies can put information, apps, and even ads. Apple's far from the only company thinking about this, too. TechCrunch reports that Glance, a lock screen content company (which apparently is a thing!), is already in talks with US carriers and plans to launch on some Android phones in the US in the next two months.
The competition for your eyeballs and attention has already come out of apps and onto your homescreen through widgets and notifications. Now, it looks like it's headed one step further: onto the first thing you see when you turn on your phone before you even pick it up or unlock it. That might be at least one step too far.
[Ed's Comment: AC Friendly withdrawn. You can blame you-know-who for the spamming]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 07 2022, @05:43AM
Not as exhausting as hearing Apple toadies whine about a purchase they decided to make.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 07 2022, @05:47AM
It means you never loved Linux and the philosophy behind it to begin with.
Traitors! Enjoy the high chair and corner they place you in.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Thursday July 07 2022, @06:13AM (4 children)
Rather a competition for brain share.
Advertisement companies are in the business of crowding your limited brain space with pointless information. I really resent that: it feels like a violation of my mental integrity. It really does.
Case in point: I'm old enough to remember radio and TV adverts for products that have disappeared decades ago. The fucking adverts were cleverly enough made that the damn jingles are stuck in my mind, and resurface on a regular basis. That's memories I don't need. That's brain space I could have perhaps put to better use when I when through college, to remember a larger number of more important things, and struggle less to study for my exams maybe. And the products don't even exist no more! What a waste...
I loathe advertisers for that. How dare they invade my brain? I never gave them permission!
Advertisers are one of a rare few subsets of humanity that I would have zero moral problems physically exterminating if it was legal to do so. Whoever chooses a career in mental manipulation, deception and trickery and manages to sleep at night deserves to be shot.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by DannyB on Thursday July 07 2022, @02:12PM (2 children)
Almost without exception, advertising is deceptive. Claims are, at best, um, exaggerated. If not outright lies. Any claims are cancelled out by the fine print. Especially that any representations of performance, usability, suitability for purpose in the ad are overridden by reading or not reading this notice included in ultra fine print.
The whole principle of advertising does not scale. Every advertiser on the planet cannot show their ad to me as an individual -- yet they try.
The way it should work is that when I am in the market for something, I go looking for it, and companies selling this item are easy to find and present their wares to me. Remember the yellowed pages?
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 2) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Thursday July 07 2022, @04:02PM
Yeah. That was the white pages my 3 year old had peed on that year. But maybe you mean something else?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Reziac on Friday July 08 2022, @12:20AM
We are not the target for advertising. We're just collateral damage.
The target is the company that is convinced to pay for advertising.
The principle goal is keeping marketing departments employed.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Thursday July 07 2022, @07:15PM
"That's brain space I could have perhaps put to better use..."
You mean like Homer, your brain can only hold so much information and anything you put into pushes something out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MNeWZwUn3x0 [youtube.com]
"It is easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they have been fooled" Mark Twain
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 07 2022, @06:19AM
"John Reston: Television can control public opinion more effectively than armies of secret police, because television is entirely voluntary. The American government forces our children to attend school, but nobody forces them to watch T.V. Americans of all ages *submit* to television. Television is the American ideal. Persuasion without coercion. Nobody makes us watch. Who could have predicted that a *free* people would voluntarily spend one fifth of their lives sitting in front of a *box* with pictures? Fifteen years sitting in prison is punishment. But 15 years sitting in front of a television set is entertainment. And the average American now spends more than one and a half years of his life just watching television commercials. Fifty minutes, every day of his life, watching commercials. Now, that's power."
- Memorable quotes for Looker (1981)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082677/quotes [imdb.com]
(()()())
"You do a commercial, you're off the artistic roll call forever. End of story, OK? You're another corporate shill, you're another whore at the capitalist gang bang."
- "Artistic Roll Call," Bill Hicks Rant in E-Minor (1997)
(()()())
"The United States has it's own propaganda, but it's very effective because people don't realize that it's propaganda. And it's subtle, but it's actually a much stronger propaganda machine than the Nazis had but it's funded in a different way. With the Nazis it was funded by the government, but in the United States, it's funded by corporations and corporations they only want things to happen that will make people want to buy stuff. So whatever that is, then that is considered okay and good, but that doesn't necessarily mean it really serves people's thinking - it can stupify and make not very good things happen."
- Crispin Glover
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 07 2022, @06:23AM (7 children)
So, you ban ACs from commenting, but then allow them to comment on such obvious clickbait such as this? Fuck you, SoylentNews, and the Apple and Microsoft horses you rode in on! I want actual news, tech news, not more goddamed advertising. And, I wanted to say something about the comet.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by janrinok on Thursday July 07 2022, @06:56AM (6 children)
There are only a few stories in the queue. Why do'nt you submit some 'actual, tech news' or do you demand to be spoon-fed by volunteers all of the time? Don't just take from the site, contribute to it too. There are six submissions in the queue that are not submitted by the community - but have actually been written by one of the editors, and they will be processed by different editors to get them on the front page! And, in addition, he is also responsible for processing around half of the stories that you read each day. That is how you make a contribution to the site.
Well, do what everybody else usually does - create an account and make your comment in the correct place. Or is your identity so secret that we have to create a special site just for you?
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 07 2022, @07:16AM (5 children)
I did submit stories about interesting tech topics, they were all rejected. I got the idea that the eds only approve their own submissions, though I could be wrong about that. Why would I try again, though?
(Score: 4, Informative) by janrinok on Thursday July 07 2022, @07:27AM
Well I will have to take your word for it - as an AC I cannot of course verify your claim. Would you like to identify some of them so that we can explain why you were unsuccessful please? Did they comply with our submission guidelines [soylentnews.org]?
(Score: 3, Touché) by DannyB on Thursday July 07 2022, @02:14PM (1 child)
I submit mostly tech stories and get an 84% approval rate. I am not an editor.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 3, Informative) by hubie on Friday July 08 2022, @12:45AM
I have about a 75% approval rate and I am an editor! :)
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Freeman on Thursday July 07 2022, @03:29PM (1 child)
My Submissions from April 15th to July 5th:
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Informative) by janrinok on Thursday July 07 2022, @03:39PM
Thanks, and the reasons for rejection might have nothing to do with your submission. If we already have a story queued up to cover that or a closely related topic then we might just leave yours out. We try to publish a variety of topics; it is not always easy to do, but variation is important. I think that most editors chose a username over a bot when looking for a good story to go with. We are usually prepared to spend more time on such a story than we might on, say, a single link with all the work to do. As is says somewhere - rejection happens, don't take it personally. Some stories don't make it through no fault of their own.
There are some submitters that prepare stories so well that they are ready to go and we recognise them immediately - human nature says that we will often pick them over a more difficult story if we have to fill a story slot quickly.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 07 2022, @07:21AM (11 children)
And now, the subs queue counter is missing in action? Perhaps to hide the fact that SoylentNews is dying, and no one submits stories, because, what is the point, when there can be none but approved by admin comments? We are less than 20 in the queue. No alert, no warning, no nothing. All part of janrinok's master plan to kill off SoylentNews.
(Score: 3, Informative) by janrinok on Thursday July 07 2022, @07:29AM (3 children)
It disappears when we have MORE than 20 submissions to chose from - you have got it all back to front.
(Score: 2) by captain normal on Thursday July 07 2022, @06:51PM (2 children)
What...? I count 32 stories in Subs Cueue plus 10 "Pending". All perfectly in view.
"It is easier to fool someone than it is to convince them that they have been fooled" Mark Twain
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Thursday July 07 2022, @06:58PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday July 08 2022, @12:24AM
Thank you. We do get a good variety. It's a rare day I don't find one or two that I want to skim, and I know that interesting people will post useful comments in topics that otherwise I might not read.
And of course I need to spend those mod points. :D
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 07 2022, @07:29AM (4 children)
There is no notice at the top of pages to submit stories because there are exactly 20 stories in the queue right now. If you had actually counted the stories instead of rushing to post a troll comment, you might have noticed this. But that would require acting in good faith, which is something you don't do, Ahab-istarchus.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 07 2022, @07:39AM (1 child)
Again, lies. Not correct. Wrong. We have always had a submission counter, and even one that could show the cubbyholes editors threw the ones they did not like into. Now it has been removed. Gone. Was there, now it is not. Does anyone there have any idea how the code your are running works? Is this a July 6th thing? Just the beginning? I did count, I did check, and I know how it used to be. Trolls on SN are now anyone who tells the truth, and remembers the past. Interesting parallels there. Orwell agrees. Bending in the loop, to help you unremember. Chumbawamba.
(Score: 5, Informative) by inertnet on Thursday July 07 2022, @08:16AM
The code is all here [github.com], check for yourself. Just try to be less of a bully and learn to appreciate others. Nerds don't like to be bullied so you really have no business around here.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 07 2022, @07:46AM (1 child)
Khallow has more than enough bad faith for everyone here. But it really peeves me when people get their Melville wrong. It would be Mobystarchus, the White Whale, that is the object of obsession of Capt Jan(rinok) Ahab. The one with the missing leg. Aristarchus, as far as I know, has all his appendages, and the eats seamen for breakfast. Now, back to the issue at hand, while our vessel is slowly sinking due to the madness of our Captain, what happened to the submission counter? Sabotage, or incompetence? And does it really matter, any more.
Who's got Queequeg's coffin? Asking for a shipmate.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 07 2022, @08:12AM
One of the things that makes SN toxic is that lack of literary references, especially to American Literature, Whitman, Lawrence, and Melville in particular. We could learn from him?
Make of it what you will. But beware the coiled harpoon rode, lest ye be taken for a ride?
(Score: 5, Touché) by janrinok on Thursday July 07 2022, @01:50PM
Oh look - it is back again. It is a miracle! Thanks be to Anonymous Coward for correcting the code by power of a single comment!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 07 2022, @04:16PM
says the guy who has publicly stated his goal is to kill it
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 07 2022, @09:10AM (5 children)
That's why I don't have... sorry, I'm not owned by a smartphone. Even if you open source everything you can and adapt everything that can be modified, the ecosystem is still extremely toxic for the user.
It's time to say it, the ads are pollution, like chemicals, particles or noise. And smartphone ecosystem is polluted too much. If you customize your own smartphone software, the apps are still polluted or polluting by leaking the data. And if you find apps that do not leak, their scale effect is too small and almost nobody uses it, so forget about communicating with friends, publishing or using application in the way useful in your area as it is not included there. Did I say "almost nobody"? So well, let's wait a few days and this will be literally nobody.
So for me it was better to use PDA, but it is extremely wasteful in terms of energy consumption - charging every 1-2 days is unbearable for me, especially that I'm using a cell phone (it is so sophisticated that the most advanced feature is the alarm clock) that has to be charged every month. Fortunately in my location there is still industrial-grade energy-saving 2G network which does not shift energy expenses to the customer like >3G do.
However, the whole mobile ecosystem is negating everything which has been worked in the Internet in the past 30 years. There are almost no open communication standards or protocols. Instead of browser-agnostic services there must be an app for everything to get all data from the device. And the creativity has been locked by "advertisers-friendly" model, showing that smartphone users are not customers, but the advertising companies are the real customers. Instead of giving the space for own creating, like in the Web with its long-forgotten ISP hosting, it shoves you fields in a enrollment form for the data to be sold. So thank you, I'm not going into it.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by PiMuNu on Thursday July 07 2022, @01:09PM (1 child)
Not just internet access. As a user I do not have access to the file system on android without rooting my phone. WTF? I have to download a malware filled pile of junk just to back up my contact list? Or upload everything onto some spying organisation's server (google).
(Score: 3, Informative) by inertnet on Thursday July 07 2022, @01:17PM
Try Ghost Commander, download it from F-Droid. For network access you need the SFTP plugin. UI takes some getting used to, but it does the job. Without rooting you still don't get access to system files though.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by inertnet on Thursday July 07 2022, @01:28PM (2 children)
For almost about as long as smartphones exist, I was convinced that they would eventually become personal assistants. This could still happen, but the driving forces are indeed too commercial for them to become anything good. As I envisioned it, a phone would eventually get to know its owner and be really smart in its assistance. Simple example: "go start your exercises in 15 minutes, because it will start raining in 2 hours". Or "you can't have breakfast because of a doctor's appointment in an hour. I have already ordered a train ticket, bring your umbrella". In a few decades people would forget how to arrange their own lives and the world would be run by smartphones, micromanaging their owners. Not the best route for humanity in my opinion, but that's how I see the near future.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 07 2022, @08:17PM (1 child)
I was using the PDA as a digital assistant over a decade and I stopped because it fell apart. It was powered by whatever (two AAs. Or AAAs and tinfoil. Or 12V DC. Or anything, the built-in converter handles the car battery too) and could last weeks on it. It came with over 400 pages of manual describing every possible application of built-in software, as well as the separate manual for spreadsheet (yes, 1-2-3). It was programmed in the funny form of x86 assembly in which when you stuff the data to the interrupt handler which would crash an ordinary PC, it will put a nice graphics you wanted on screen instead. I decided what it does and when. When I connected it to my Linux box, I ran my script to synchronize data I wanted. I had a complex Perl script to do what You write about - connect events in the calendar and generate prompts and summaries.
Generally, the user had a complete control over what the device is doing - if I wanted to format its flash, I formatted its flash and landed in pure application launcher from ROM. When I wanted to replace in-ROM software with in-RAM, I could do it by doing it as written in the manual, because authors predicted that user may need it. If I wanted it to support mathematical symbols in upper ASCII, I patched this reading the comments in keymap/character generator file. Users were literally encouraged to customize their hardware for the best productivity! Today it is considered as malicious. Probably because the only application elements which should bring attention have to be ads.
So currently if user has no control over it, who has? This is the important question.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 08 2022, @12:48AM
Palm Pilot? I had one and used to synch it to my VA Linux computer with the serial cable. I do remember getting it in a box with a manual (like how my RPN calculator used to come). I had the original box and manual for it sitting around on a shelf long after I stopped using the Palm.
(Score: 4, Informative) by DannyB on Thursday July 07 2022, @02:30PM
Advertising is deceptive and does not scale. (See my post above.)
Advertising destroys every medium it ever touches. [soylentnews.org]
And also see this. [soylentnews.org]
and this [soylentnews.org]
Marketing always destroys the meaning of terms that have a specific technical meaning. [soylentnews.org]
DannyB's Law, DannyB's Observation, and Anonymous Cowherds [soylentnews.org]
Every new form of communication has two major points of interest. [soylentnews.org] The first is when that new form of communication is used for pr0n. This propels that form of communication to popularity. The second is when it gets advertising, which signals its eventual destruction.
Finally, as I've said before, advertisers won't quit until they can put ads on the inside of your eyelids. And even then they won't quit.
Putting ads on the phone lock screen is just another step along the way.
How often should I have my memory checked? I used to know but...
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 07 2022, @03:06PM (1 child)
There is a reason that flip phones still exist, and some are going back to them. Youtube can show me the same insurance company ad before every video, but I won't be buying their insurance because of it. It just gets annoying after a while.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Friday July 08 2022, @12:29AM
My main cellphone is still a flip phone. I call it my retard phone, because about all it can do is make calls and store contacts. This is exactly what I require from it, so everybody happy.
It still doesn't get to follow me around.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 07 2022, @05:56PM (1 child)
A small part of me is relieved that I can escape this by running an aftermarket operating system on my phone (LineageOS in my case) and continuing to refuse proprietary software apps.
But that's not enough. Advertising pollutes the culture at large. Most of my friends are techies, and pretty smart. But, they still run stock phone operating systems, and have to deal with lots of shitware. They download and install apps that are basically spyware. When I see their computer screens, I'm shocked at the lack of ad blockers, and the amount of ads that they put up with when web browsing.
It pollutes their minds, and diffuses into my mind, polluting my mind as well. If I refused to talk to anyone who tolerates excessive advertising, I'd be pretty lonely. How can we convince more people not to accept this?
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 07 2022, @08:48PM
Take out an ad?
(Score: 3, Informative) by MostCynical on Thursday July 07 2022, @08:17PM (1 child)
LineageOS.
Control your device.
Not just old phones..I am running Lineage on a 2021 Motorola Edge. Works perfectly
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 4, Informative) by Reziac on Friday July 08 2022, @12:33AM
If I were wealthy, I'd consider a Librem USA, for the same reason.
https://puri.sm/products/librem-5-usa/ [puri.sm]
Not being wealthy, a Pinephone (running Manjaro) was more within my budget.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 07 2022, @08:51PM
Yes advertising sucks, is that what we're here to talk about?
What about the changes to the phone OS? Putting widgets onto lock screens isn't new - so what is new here? Now apps can put themselves there? no user interaction required? That's beyond dumb, but clearly malicious.
Or is there no such change, YET, and the article is just prepping the war drums and boiling up the rage?