• aaaaaaadjsf [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    Also when the mobile games weren't freeium nonsense and you had a to pay for them. They were actually decent back then. There was a need for speed hot pursuit one and a call of duty one I played religiously

  • TyMan210 [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Back when you had to install a flashlight app because there was no built-in flashlight feature. And all the app did was make the screen all white and turn the brightness up all the way

  • Phish [he/him, any]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Oh yeah, that lightsaber one was pretty sweet.

    I remember in like 2009 there was an app that was basically a huge directory of active security camera feeds. I found one on my college campus and found out I could even move the direction the camera pointed. I went and stood by it and could hear it moving inside the dome thing. It was wild. I'm guessing they don't let you do shit like that anymore.

    • mittens [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I think you can still google for unsecured camera feeds, like people keep setting these up

      • Phish [he/him, any]
        ·
        2 years ago

        That's awesome, I'm going to check it out. I got a very normal but weird thrill out of it lol.

        • mittens [he/him]
          ·
          2 years ago

          I just checked and you can't use the inurl operator for certain terms like "http" or "viewerframe" which was the sort of stuff that brought unsecured webcams on google, but you can still do it in duckduckgo, be aware that most results are shitty websites that were forcing SEO back in the day, because searching for unsecured webcams was a very popular hobby apparently. Also there's a sizeable number of webcams livestreams like this one , I dunno if searching for live webcams on youtube is as thrilling though

          • Phish [he/him, any]
            ·
            2 years ago

            Hell yeah. I don't know why I get enjoyment out of looking at random live feeds but it's just kinda cool to me. Thanks!

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I haven't looked in a while but for a long time if you knew the format for ip cameras you could load them more or less at random. idk if they've started securing cheapy ip cameras but for the longest time they basically just created a website you could access.

      • Phish [he/him, any]
        ·
        2 years ago

        I can't remember exactly but I think the app was literally called like 'ip camera' or something

  • mittens [he/him]
    ·
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    the height of technology was when a friend installed a java gameboy emulator on his sony ericsson and we played pokemon red at like 3 fps

    also all these apps were kinda like a tiny version of the dotcom boom. kids became literal millionaires by releasing beer drinking apps and whatnot, it was insane. the flappy bird guy became rich like overnight at the tail end of this era

    • solaranus
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      deleted by creator

      • mittens [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        I still blame farmville

        you're not wrong, what followed was complete domination of the mobile game market by zynga, essentially ruining what could've been a fantastic gaming platform. oh well, the adventure game renaissance happend on the DS instead of on the smartphone, so on that end at least, things weren't that bad.

        • LaGG_3 [he/him, comrade/them]
          ·
          2 years ago

          oh well, the adventure game renaissance happend on the DS instead of on the smartphone, so on that end at least, things weren’t that bad.

          And then Nintendo discontinued its line of handhelds that are cheap to produce for. :deeper-sadness:

          • Multihedra [he/him]
            ·
            edit-2
            2 years ago

            Yeah I was pretty shocked when they made it so you need a Switch to play the Pokémon main games. Hard to imagine, compared to the days when siblings could each have their own shit for something a little more reasonable. Now you’re looking at like $1000 to play Pokémon with someone you live with lol

        • solaranus
          ·
          edit-2
          1 year ago

          deleted by creator

  • PurrLure [she/her]
    ·
    edit-2
    2 years ago

    I remember those being a huge hit back when I was in high school.

    Jesus fucking Christ I'm ancient. :copium:

  • Weedian [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    I kinda miss my old ass pre smartphone with the slide out keyboard, way easier than typing on a touch screen

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I loathe touch screens. I will not even entertain arguments that they have any advantages whatsoever over keyboards.

      • EmmaGoldman [she/her, comrade/them]M
        ·
        2 years ago

        I invite you to learn about Chinese keyboards, and even more interesting, how Tibetan keyboards work.

        As far as I can tell, Chinese keyboards work based on you typing Latin characters and the computer guessing what you meant in pinyin, except apparently most things are just set up as shortcuts so many people find other people's keyboards to be unusable.

        Tibetan keyboards are apparently just entirely unlabeled and you just have to memorize it or buy stickers because the keyboard just has QWERTY or nothing on it and it's impossible to buy one that actually has the Tibetan language on it.

        • ssjmarx [he/him]
          ·
          2 years ago

          Windows by default has a feature to load alternate keyboard layouts which you can then switch between using Win+Spacebar, so anyone can try this out. I remember typing a lot of Japanese for school during COVID.

      • ssjmarx [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        I swear the current version of GBoard is worse at predicting the text I'm going for than Swype was. Like I remember Swype would figure out the words you liked to use and bias towards those over time, but I think GBoard instead biases towards the most common words that people in general use - which is why every time I try to type "Soviet" I get "Society" :joker-gaming:

    • Blep [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      The keypad was ideal for emulation gba games.having actual buttons meant you could get really precise inputs that you just cant do on a touchscreen

      • ssjmarx [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        I remember using my Droid 4 to play all of the classic DOS RPGs, like the Ultima series. Physical keyboards were the shit.

    • UlyssesT [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      When I was 6 years old I had a dream about drinking lemonade out of an app on my mom’s iphone

      crumbles to dust :chomsky-yes-honey:

  • Sasuke [comrade/them]
    ·
    2 years ago

    the height of technology was when i could play space impact on my moms nokia