Thread

1. pelagicAustral · 1790426428 · focus · HN ↗

   I know this is a stupid question even before I ask it, but is there any chance at this point of seeing something out of the scope of Apple and Google for mobile?? Will the bank apps ever allow people out of these two players

   1. anal_reactor · 1790427248 · focus · HN ↗

      Motorola is planning to release phones with GrapheneOS. So far only expensive models have been confirmed, but I assume cheapos should follow.

      Of course they're not doing this out of good heart. My theory is that China wants to have a popular smartphone that is completely independent from US companies. But hey, once upon a time Google were "the good guys" too, so enjoy the party while it lasts.

      An interesting point is that it's important to have powerful China around because they're a capitalist competition to the US.

      1. philipallstar · 1790427623 · focus · HN ↗

         > An interesting point is that it's important to have powerful China around because they're a capitalist competition to the US.

         Semi-capitalist at best. They're good for cloning things invented in the West, but the problem is that that is much cheaper than inventing, so things get commoditised and the places that can do expensive R&D have to find other ways to make money all the time.

         1. anal_reactor · 1790434386 · focus · HN ↗

            1. That's not true. More and more segments of technology are being dominated by China. China sells lots and lots of everyday objects that are wholly desgined in China, with quality beating western products. They're just small improvements over existing designs of relatively simple things, so nothing makes the headlines.

            2. Lots of Chinese technology never leaves China for political reasons, rather than economic/technology ones.

            3. If you want to buy a semi-professional machine as an advanced hobbyist, often your only option is China.

            4. Apple is wildly known for taking existing designs and improving on them. Why is it good for Apple to do that, but bad for China to do that?

            1. philipallstar · 1790439189 · focus · HN ↗

               > Apple is wildly known for taking existing designs and improving on them. Why is it good for Apple to do that, but bad for China to do that?

               I'm not saying that's the case.

            2. hbd-investor · 1790603378 · focus · HN ↗

               The important thing is not the product, its the machine that makes the product.

               A lot of the tech in china in invisible, normal people don't buy machines the size of a pickup truck, runs on 3kv and has 500 hp motors, has a production run of 5 of these machines ever built, is custom designed by engineers and weighs as much as 4 pickup trucks.

               2 companies can build the same product that looks similar and operates the same.

               But they can end up with vastly different price points when you look at how the factory is designed, how these massive custom machines are engineered.

               You need to keep in mind to make one product you need to design and build like 10 machines, these machines are each the size and weight of 1->4 pickup trucks, BOM's with 10,000+ components, are filled with circuit boards, sensors, takes an army of engineers multiple years etc... and the company is going to build like 5 of these machines in the lifetime of the design.

               China's competitive advantage is basically this and why the products that can be made by hand aren't moving from china to 3rd world countries. They have a lot of engineers, with this type of experience and a lot of invisible tech that average consumers don't see.

               Their machines that make products are not only expertly designed, maintained, but they squeeze out as much efficiency as possible in things like electricity consumption, cooling, minimizing maintenance over millions of cycles of running these machines, and pass these to consumers as lower costs. China is very competitive, if your machine making widgets isn't well designed, a competitor will design their own widget making machine that consumes 40% electricity and requires half the maintenance and then will undercut your widgets.

      2. stephenr · 1790428932 · focus · HN ↗

         Isn't graphene completely dependent on what Google ships though? Ok they may be able to support Motorola devices longer than Googles releases facilitate supporting Google devices, but it's still ultimately android, which is still ultimately controlled by Google.

         I'm not saying it isn't an improvement but this feels like choosing centos because you don't like the direction fedora is taking.

         1. anal_reactor · 1790433663 · focus · HN ↗

            Writing a new OS from scratch simply ain't gonna work, because people rely on Android apps working on their phones.

            1. Rohansi · 1790478946 · focus · HN ↗

               Could have an Android compatibility layer but many things depending on Google services is a problem.
   2. phoronixrly · 1790427260 · focus · HN ↗

      If you are referring to banking apps, I just don't use banking apps that don't work on my degoogled phone thus granting them the low fraud risk they so strive for with forcing locked devices.

      1. pelagicAustral · 1790428474 · focus · HN ↗

         [dead]

   3. mitxela · 1790428464 · focus · HN ↗

      You're free to make one, and bank apps are often less locked down than you think - try them yourself instead of accepting possible FUD. Also your bank 100% has a checkbox on your account they can click to disable any phone hardware requirements on your account.

      1. fn-mote · 1790429739 · focus · HN ↗

         > your bank 100% has a checkbox on your account they can click to disable any phone hardware requirements

         I was going to thank you. I still thank you if this is true.

         How do you know about the bank checkbox?

         My bank is huge and I’m skeptical they give a crap about me any more than Google. Their app certainly doesn’t look like it.

         (I noticed your account has been posting a lot of what I consider to be “garbage comments” in this article, so I’d like some kind of claim to fact check.)

         1. mitxela · 1790433241 · focus · HN ↗

            I know that because of all the reports of people going to their bank and complaining the app won't work on their phone, then getting it fixed.
   4. WarmWash · 1790434604 · focus · HN ↗

      No, because it is near impossible to compete with "free" and totally impossible to compete with "free-and-you-can-use-ad-block."

      The truth is that these corps are so entrenched because people love love love the ad model. I mean, they hate the ads, but they are so sold on access being free that introducing a cost would come off like charging money to walk in a public park. Totally confusing.

      And frankly the other path wouldn't be all roses either. There would be a wealth divide in technology where poor people wouldn't be able to afford to use all the stuff available to them now for free.

   5. dd8601fn · 1790444705 · focus · HN ↗

      We can’t even get some of the largest banks to do competent 2 factor, after all these years. The idea that they’re going to produce feature parity on peculiar platforms does seem like a big stretch.
   6. singpolyma3 · 1790454901 · focus · HN ↗

      Why would you ever use a bank app? It's just going to end up storing financial information on your mobile which will then get stolen.

      1. pelagicAustral · 1790506812 · focus · HN ↗

         I dont have a comprehensive list but there are at least 5 to 10 actions that require me to have the app. No way around it.

         1. downloadram · 1790521066 · focus · HN ↗

            (not GP) i'd be interested in knowing. i dont have any banking apps as i havent needed them yet, but i'd be curious to know if any fraction of these actions are impossible without an app VS going into a branch of your bank and spending time with a rep

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.