Musings

Let's talk specifics. Extrapolate later.

I have a Google Pixel. It was my main phone for a time. Before the ball dropped on that last night of 2020, I deleted my Google account.

Maps and YouTube stopped working. No account, no service.

This made me wonder— When purchasing a $1,000 phone, is my money or my data the currency for an application?

I moved on.

Imagine trying to call an emergency line (e.g. 911 in US).

Imagine it not going through.

Should it matter what software is or is not installed on a phone?

Should it matter whether any application is “logged in”?

Well, there is currently a bug, where if you have the Microsoft Teams app installed on your Android phone and it is not logged in, 911 emergency calls will not go through.

This isn't software malice, but it is software malpractice. Sadly, that is not a valid reason the doctor can leave under “cause of death”.

When is a phone a phone?