Cell Phones
I dislike using cell phones for many different reasons and for me, I can’t find one I can like to use.
Repairability
Companies that produce these devices intentionally make it more difficult to repair the device you purchased by implementing DRM and making exclusive deals for parts manufacturers to not provide them for anyone else. With this, the user is forced to go the company for any repairs and they are able to set the price to whatever they want. I’m not a lawyer but this sounds close to what a monopoly is. They can set to a very high amount too so the user is forced to purchase the new device instead.
If you attempt to repair your device, they say this voids your warranty but that isn’t true. The burden of proof is on the company to prove that the user’s actions while repairing damaged the phone. If they can’t do this, the warranty is still valid.
Updates
The updates provided on most phones range from one year to 5 years depending on who you go with. Once that time is up, you are using a phone that has known software vulnerabilities and the only thing you can do to avoid this is buy a new phone.
Restrictive OS
When trying to use these phones, they always have some kind of annoying limitation in the OS to prevent the user from doing what they want to. This can be not being able to remove adware pre-installed on the OS with some androids and not being able to install apps not approved by the company with iOS.
Can’t Install Your Own OS
Phones from companies like apple and huawei do not give the user the ability to install their own OS with ease. This means you are stuck with the OS given to you by this company and you cannot change it even if there are no longer any updates for the OS for your phone or you do not like some of the features of the OS.
What Phone I Use Currently
I’ve used a few phones over my life and I have always faced some trouble with them and it feels like I cannot do anything about it. I am currently using a Pixel 3a with GrapheneOS but there is still a lot of proprietary software needed to make this phone work. I sometimes use a Nokia 105 if I think I might be mugged but I don’t do that often.
I also currently own a Librem 5 but that device in it’s current state is not usable as a phone and even if it has not, it feels like development has decelerated. Even if you want to only make phone calls, the L5 has given me a lot of trouble. I’ve heard of the PinePhone too but that looks even worse than the L5. I’ve considered purchasing new pixels but they removed things like the headphone jack and the bezels are much smaller which I do not like. I don’t know what phone I will be moving to next. The laptop I am using isn’t too far off my age yet these phones can’t last half as long.
Data Collection
Most phones are on people almost all the time and the amount of data they collect is far too much for my liking. Being able to know almost exactly where someone is almost all of the time is too much power.
Who Owns The Phone?
I’ve asked myself this before and the answer from my view is simple. It is the company. When you are stripped from almost any kind of authority over what you purchased, it isn’t yours. You didn’t buy it. You licensed it.