I've bought new a Google Pixel 7a two years ago, paid for it 400 euros. After 1 year I've dropped it, landed on a corner, screen completely broken, replacement costed screen costed me nearly 120 euros (and was not an original screen, otherwise I would have spent more). Just costs much money because of the fucking fingerprint reader under the screen that why couldn't put it in the back of the phone as they did for many years. Broken it again, fuck it I will not repair it again, with the cost of the repair I may as well buy a new phone.
Then I've decided that is worth either spending money on phones whose replacement parts doesn't cost half of the phone itself, or just buying the cheapest Xiaomi or similar chineese brand phone and when it breaks buy a new one or repair it (funny enough cheap phones are more repairable than expensive ones, so I usually repair them).
Nooo what you are saying communist. I also think so, but each time someone (typically the EU) does something in the direction (e.g. digital market act) the US government, companies and citizens accuse us to be communists, against progress, that we overregulate, that the "free market" regulates by itself, and similar bullshit.
Being a developer, I can say that working with Google is a pain. There is no possibility to talk with a human, all communication is answered by the same AI-generated response that links you to the same AI-generated documentation.
And if such AI does something wrong (which it does) no matter what they WILL REMOVE your app. Because they don't care about you. Sometimes the only way out is to publish the app again with another package identifier, because once they flagged it even if you remove all reference to the offending feature there is no way that they will accept it (it unfortunately happened, fortunately before releasing the app to the public so we could switch without affecting users).
In some sense I prefer Apple (and I say it as an Android user), you surely pay an annual fee to publish to the store, but if you have some issues you can open a ticket where a fucking real human will look into it and answer you, and explain what to to.
I have apps published to both the Play Store and App Store, and I agree. Despite the stereotype, Apple is much nicer to deal with. If you work within the Google ecosystem, you enjoy none of the benefits of the supposedly open Android system, but need to deal with more bureaucracy, more limitations, and worse support.
My experience was that my person got banned from ever submitting apps. I could try making a new account, but I'd have to provide ID so their AI might know to ban me again.
Maybe it was advanced for the time being created, to me it's just any other RFID card that is issued everywhere else in the world in the matter of read speed, from every public transit card that I find in every EU country I've visited (maybe for a US citizen not used to public transit it seems something special, I don't know), to skipasses, to even your gym card.
Having the option to also pay with credit card would be much more convenient to tourists, when I visited Japan I've had difficulties finding the right place to get a SUICA card (being that my Android phone didn't have Felica chip, as most phones sold outside Japan), and on top of that you almost everywhere need to charge it with only cash. And you can charge it only by 500 or 1000 yen at the time (depending on the machine), and of course tickets always have not round prices like 110 yen. And you have 500 yen of deposit for a card that probably costs to them 10 yen to manufacturer, unless you get the red SUICA card that you can get only in some special machines at the airport but with that you don't get back the unused credit when you leave (you can spend it at vending machine tough).
So the speed saving of a couple of ms of not having to pay by tapping your normal credit card is completely vanished by wasting time to charge that card.
BTW even if they don't want to put credit card POS on every station (I get it, it's expensive and they need to pay fees if someone uses a card, compared to cash) they could make a system that uses regular NFC (would be 100ms slower, who cares) at least for tourists so they can use it with a regular NFC card in their phone wallet that they can charge with an app without requiring a technology that only works in phone sold in Japan?
There is a perhaps a trend of local payment means being less accessible to tourists. I haven't experienced it first hand but WeChat/Alipay are in the same boat as I understand, and PromptPay in Indonesia can be somewhat be used but needs preparation before making the trip.
Now, if you're not a tourist passing by for 3 days, Suica has most of your gripes solved and is an incredibly useful general payment mean. I use the Felica version on my phone (so no card), charge it with 3 taps in the app from my credit card, could have it auto charge if I really wanted to and is my payment choice wherever QR codes or QuickPay won't cut it.
BTW you can now use your credit card to ride JR trains.
Could be part of it. Another angle is payment processors longing for stronger KYC.
Felica is bound to a phone with a carrier on a national network, which basically guarantees full traceability of the user. Same for WeChat. PromptPay also binds to a bank account, so again it can be tracked at a gov. level.
> I've had difficulties finding the right place to get a SUICA card
It's not that hard unless you fly into somewhere other than Narita/Haneda where Welcome Suica cards are readily available. They're not available to Japanese residents, their only purpose is to function for tourists, so they're made to be easy for tourists.
> And you can charge it only by 500 or 1000 yen at the time (depending on the machine), and of course tickets always have not round prices like 110 yen.
Whatever I have leftover I spend at Starbucks at the airport on my way out. They'll happily split your purchase up so you can drain your Suica card balance and pay the remainder on credit.
Not sure about android, but first time I went to Japan I managed to install Suica app on my iPhone, that added Suica card to the wallet. So now I can pay with Suica and also top it up using apple pay. Only downside is that Suica app is all in Japanese, but there are guides online that explain what to press.
In Japan right now. I didn’t even have to install anything, just went to Apple Wallet, add card, selected Suica, and then could create and load up a card. Plus it gets set up as an express transit card so I can tap my locked phone to pay for transit or snacks (even when it’s dead). Super pleasant experience.
I think maybe no one has noted that as of 2026-03-25, Tokyo Metro now accepts open-loop contactless EMV tap to ride. I believe the result is similar to how in London you can use either Oyster or a CC (or OMNY or CC in New York City). But I haven't visited Japan since this development. Apparently, Osaka has run open-loop contactless EMV since 2024-10-29 - I didn't know that when I was there!
Of course, I still think you will want an IC if you travel outside Tokyo... IC is also very useful for payments (especially vending machines), though at shops/restaurants I normally have had little trouble using CC if IC is also accepted. (My thanks to another commenter who finally taught me how those Coke ON machines work!)
Others have noted that in Japan, where transit utilization is so high, 100ms does seem to count in terms of efficiently moving people through fare gates. Maybe I'm just a yokel but Tokyo Station at rush hour was pretty impressive to me. EMV contactless payments are notably slower where they are used elsewhere. I think that is one reason why some stations (Ginza) are experimenting with dedicated fare gates for EMV (and QR). In London, people have noticed the speed difference between Oyster and EMV contactless. I believe the difference is that EMV was not designed from the ground up for fare gates.
I do think it is fair to note that FeliCa seems to attract praise that Calypso does not, despite Calypso doing similar transaction times. Calypso underlies Paris's Navigo cards, as well as Milan's ATM cards (haven't used that system yet)...
As a tourist, I always am a bit charmed by learning the ins-and-outs of how local systems work, but maybe that is just my dorkiness.
Most transit systems have some hiccups, especially for travelers. Your criticisms of FeliCa/IC/SUICA are fair, but maybe one can view the system more charitably with context. In Paris, you could only use Navigo in your Apple wallet starting 2024-05-XX. A physical Navigo Easy cost 2 EUR (not refundable). If you wanted to buy weekly or monthly passes as a tourist, I believe you were expected to purchase a Navigo Découverte from a station agent and provide them with a pre-printed headshot! Card cost: 5 EUR. I just bought paper tickets in Paris (I haven't been there since carnets stopped being sold 2023).
My point is that this kind of stuff has historically been normal for travelers to navigate, whether in Europe or East Asia.
I agree that open-loop contactless EMV payment has begun to make transit more frictionless to the traveler, and the patience for local quirks/frictions is dropping. But contactless EMV is still rolling out across the world (not in the Paris Métro yet). For fun you can look up all the cards and apps in Copenhagen (DOT Tickets, Rejsekort, Rejsebillet, Basiskort...). I don't think you can just tap your CC there yet. And, as noted, Japanese metros are introducing open-loop contactless EMV.
Of your complaints about physical IC cards, I think that cash top-up is maybe the biggest bother. It would be nice to load value with a debit card. In truth, I never dealt with that because I have an iPhone and a digital IC card. Maybe it would have really bothered me if I couldn't top-up inside Apple Wallet. But in fairness, I remember ~10yrs ago Japan being a lot more cash based at shops and restaurants. You kind of needed to have cash. And one of the things that is very easy in Japan is withdrawing cash at ATMs. But that seems to have changed a lot in 10yrs, and maybe we just have more of an expectation of things being more digital and frictionless...
Just the two cents (yen?) of this unworldly US citizen not experienced in public transit.
Well you can get it only in some kind of machines, and you need to pay it cash. Also you need to use cash to charge it, and you can charge it minimum by 1000 or 500 yen at a time depending on the station, not less.
The digital version only works on iPhones, since Android phones sold outside Japan doesn't have the Felica chip, or if they have it (e.g. Google Pixel) is disabled in EU/US firmware because the manufacturer doesn't want to pay a fee for every phone to Sony for something 99.999% of people that will never travel to Japan would use.
> Well you can get it only in some kind of machines, and you need to pay it cash. Also you need to use cash to charge it
Totally forgot about that aspect, you are 100% correct.
I remember traveling with my friend who had a physical card, and more than once we had to reroute to a nearby kiosk and wait in line, so he could recharge the balance on the card. Apple Wallet felt more convenient, because recharging it was as simple as picking the amount to recharge and hitting "submit."
In Italy we are at 78% of addresses covered. That doesn't mean automatically that one gets fiber. First at all, if someone doesn't need to download heavy stuff and has a good coverage a 5G SIM with unlimited data (something you can get for 10/15 euros a month) is cheaper than a fiber connection (that starts from 25 euros).
Second a lot of people has still FTTC even if it has FTTH, mostly because FTTC offers a speed that is enough for most people (100Mbit/s) and upgrading may have costs (the installation of the fiber is at the expense of the ISP, but if you need to make modifications, such as put a pipe from your house to the street in which they will put the fiber, it's at your expense). In some cases even if fiber is present it's difficult/not possible to get it into your house (for example you live in a condo and the other tenants doesn't want to spend money to make the modifications that are needed to pass the wires).
In any case they have started to switch off copper (since it costs money to maintain an infrastructure that has decades), so either way customers will be forced to move to fiber or 5G network in the upcoming years. In any case a fault on a copper line is likely not to be repaired...
You can use any one of many MVNOs to get unlimited data for around that price, say less adjusted for household income, in the USA.
A favorite of mine is https://www.usmobile.com/ which is $25/mo list price (and less if you pay for the year, or if they're having a sale) which will give you Unlimited Data and 1GB a month of global roaming data
Only some places. Netherlands is €45-60 for 1 gbps (we don't make 4x-6x the money Spaniards do), unless you live in an area that actually sees multi-line competition.
We do have an interesting sidegrade: 5G Klik & Klaar from Odido (formerly T-Mobile / Deutsche Telekom) for €26. If you point it the right way out your window, you can get 700-1000 mbps down and 150 (capped) mbps up. Ping is around 35ms. Horrid modem firmware though, you get ping spikes up to 400-850ms (!!) under load due to bufferbloat, but you can of course solve that with your own router and SQM :+)
In the U.S. I perceive MVNOs to be a scam. Like Tracfone was OK in 2011 but somewhere afterwards it became normal to go around rural upstate NY and no service and go around NYC and no service and go to LA and no service.
This year I got a real phone with a real plan and I have coverage in many places now me I can finally see why people get excited about apps.
That's kind of a broad brush, Google Fi is great, especially the fact that they work mostly seamlessly for the same price in like every country, and they're an MVNO.
It proves that you can’t trust the claim that “it is the same network”, I mean it is the same network but you may find yourself riding the back of the bus and there is no independent way to check what service you are actually getting.
Well I never expected it to be treated exactly the same as their first party customers, did you? Especially if I’m paying a much lower rate. Just have to evaluate the actual results, and hop if you’re unhappy. I’ve been extremely happy with mine, so I’ve stuck with it. It’s a bad choice if you’re out and about a lot, since it’s not cheap when you go unlimited data, but working from home on WiFi, the metered option, I end up paying like $30-$40/mo, and there’s no need to go get a new sim when I travel. For a different lifestyle shape, I’d be shopping for one that fit that better.
I have both T-Mobile via a family plan and US Mobile (AT&T MVNO) via a yearly plan.
US Mobile serves as my data eSIM, where it gives me unlimited hotspot 20GB of roaming/month. Previously I bought eSIMs when traveling since T-Mobile is only 5GB/mo hotspot/roaming and earlier at 256 Kbps.
T-Mobile is better for calls and international texts, due to it being unlimited. I also prefer keeping a non-MVNO as my call/text number so I can go to a T-Mobile store and activate a spare phone if I lose mine (which I never did), or my phone fails. With US Mobile, I'm not sure how I'd recover a lost phone.
Since the Pixel 10 Pro lacks a SIM card slot, this is important. But hey, I used my Pixel 3 on Sprint with eSIM; I went T-Mobile 3 months before they merged.
US Mobile has done well with me, although anything not-T-Mobile is really slow nowadays.
I do use US Mobile, and I recently switched to it because T-mobile made it so difficult to pay a bill, it was nearly impossible to get them to accept money.
And a ~decade ago in SF I did have Sonic 1Gbps symmetric fiber for something like $40 or $50/month, but that too is twice the cost of Italy.
Can't speak for Italy, but there have been some consequences in many EU jurisdictions. The EU has been pushing HARD for competition, etc, but it has left many European telecoms in debt-heavy financial situations that has caused issues around future investment and in some countries the (mobile) coverage is good on paper, but the networks are themselves actually terrible (looking at you Germany).
But yeah, it's otherwise a problem with competition enforcement.
Because deploying fiber is so hard in NYC, I use Calyx Institute (https://calyxinstitute.org/membership) on a MikroTik Chateau 5G R16. Calyx uses T-Mobile towers. I use the internet via L2TP to a VPS to give me a static IPv4 and IPv6 /56 block. This is only for upload speeds. I get 45-80 Mbps uploads.
I used Spectrum for four months but because of my L2TP setup, DOCSIS ACK suppression doesn't work; it's TCP inside L2TP UDP and then ACKs are then sent over the wire. This meant sluggish internet under load. Spectrum did install a high-split amp but it's still not turned on afaict.
Row townhouses in Brooklyn and Queens have Fios, but not in Manhattan. I wish I could just do a NYT ad but that'd force me to liquidate a decent chunk of my E*Trade and J.P. Morgan accounts.
I am right now visiting Belgium and I saw multiple towns, including historic neighborhoods with Proximus fiber splitters: Brussels, Antwerpe, Ghent and Bruges. The fiber and Telenet Coax is so well organized when compared to NYC's coax mess. However, where Fios is available, Verizon does an okay job with organizing fiber.
Verizon said killing line sharing would bring more fiber. Yet Proximus built fiber in historic cities more than Verizon did. I don't believe Orange France legally has to share fiber, but in return Orange can't block Free/SFR with payola deals.
It’s not uncommon for cities to be worse than rural areas now. In Ireland, nearly all rural premises have 10gbit-capable fibre available (will be literally all by early next year) but parts of central Dublin are stuck with VDSL. Retrofitting in cities can be quite slow and expensive.
The main issue with copper comes from the active infrastructure rather than the physical lines.
I work at an ISP that gets DSLAM equipment from Huawei, we run one of the few G.fast VDSL deployments in the world using this particular hardware. Huawei has stopped manufacturing this product line (the Swiss market is a rounding error ;), which will force us to fully migrate some neighborhoods, only for backup inventory.
Germany being 15 years late, I assume you can still buy similar hardware from AVM though.
I am in Italy right now, in fact, spent a lot of time here. I can safely say, the 5G sim coverage is extremely spotty, and when you can get internet from a physical line, it's generally pretty poor speeds. I am pretty sure a lot of that 78% includes 1 bar of LTE coverage, so it's "technically" true.
Several of the issues you point have been solved in France via regulations (on the ISP and on the tenants of condos). It tools several years, even decades, but we ended up with fiber regulations that are good (could have been better and faster).
It doesn't really matter, because x86 processors inside are almost similar to modern ARM processors, the instructions that most programs use are more or less the same, and more complex "legacy" instructions are just emulated by splitting them into simpler instructions inside the CPU.
To me people that say that x86 is slow etc. never used an x86 processor with anything other than Windows. Yes, Windows is shit and laptops that run Windows are for the same reason shit. I get it. But on an x86 system you can run other OS, and, for example, a Linux distro with well tweaked power consumption parameters can get you even 3 days of battery life, or even more.
The point is that Windows keeps almost always the CPU above the minimum frequency, because it's full of useless background services, because programs are not well optimized for the hardware (to maximize backward compatibility they don't compile target x86_64 v3 for example and thus don't leverage on features and instructions available on new CPU or fall in the emulation case I've mentioned initially), and other reasons.
With a Linux distro you can keep the CPU at 600Mhz while web browsing, you can even turn off cores that you don't need, and the battery with this configuration surely lasts ages (at that point it becomes more predominant the consumption of other peripherals such as the display).
Windows 11 isn’t full of vibe coded AI slop because that hasn’t existed long enough to affect it much. It is full of poor decisions and poor programming the old fashioned hand made way.
Apple wants to sell you a new system every couple of years, they don't want you to upgrade. They want you to throw it away the system completely and replace it (and they claim they are environmentally sustainable, btw) when in the PC world you would replace RAM, CPU, GPU, motherboard, maybe the SSD, but surely you can keep the power supply for decades, keep cooling fans, not talking about the chassis that could last 50 years because it's a just metal box.
They are a rip off these products, and I don't understand people that buys them.
BTW even when Apple did produce towers like Mac Pro they did so in a purposely non-standard way, such that you couldn't, for example, replace the PSU with a standard ATX one, the only standard components were really RAM, HDD, CD-ROM drive and in Intel models the CPU, and of course PCI expansion boards (sort of, because to work GPUs needed to have an Apple specific firmware in the old PowerPC models). You couldn't for example upgrade the motherboard, if you wanted to change the CPU to a new generation you also needed to buy a entirely new Mac with a new chassis, new PSU, etc even if what you had were perfectly fine.
Then I've decided that is worth either spending money on phones whose replacement parts doesn't cost half of the phone itself, or just buying the cheapest Xiaomi or similar chineese brand phone and when it breaks buy a new one or repair it (funny enough cheap phones are more repairable than expensive ones, so I usually repair them).
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