#@both SAMSUNG AND VERIZON. ROT

[toytulini]

really irritating that the avenue of communication i keep open bc i pay the phone bill keeps using it to inundate me with fucking Ads?

[deepbirdtriumph-blog]

Ars Festivus: We air our 2016 tech grievances Outstanding irritations, tech fuss, contraption protests, and other stuff we could live without.

Christmas Day has gone back and forth. The cards and exhibits have been opened, the meals have been eaten, the waste has been pulled, and now we subside into that abnormal post-Christmas week where a few people are back at work and others are as yet lazing around in the midst of a furlough until after New Year's. Which am I? Plainly, I'm here working—some individual must keep the lights on, all things considered.

Beside Christmas, however, one other real occasion that has gone back and forth is Festivus, the mainstream spoof occasion from the TV indicate Seinfeld. Customarily celebrated on December 23, Festivus calls for (in addition to other things) an airing of grievances—on the show, this typically just includes George's dad hollering at everybody, except here at Ars we likewise have some stuff we need to get off our aggregate trunk. Keeping our nose to the tech news throughout the entire year implies we see and manage a considerable measure of patterns in innovation that disturb us—from inept printers to imbecilic Android OEMs to pretty much whatever else. Despite the fact that Festivus is passed, we requested that the Ars staff record their grievances for airing in any case—since who doesn't love perusing about another person's tension?

Displayed beneath, in sequential request, is the Ars Technica staff's 2016 airing of techno-grievances.

Ron Amadeo: Groupthink makes Android OEMs all in all moronic

My issue this Festivus is, not surprisingly, with Android OEMs. With something like 1,300 organizations offering Android gadgets, you'd think there would be a considerable measure of really unique decisions out there. You'd likewise surmise that, since they are basically all stuck delivery indistinguishable SoCs and presentations, they'd be jumping at any separation they can make with regards to the plan and programming. Tragically, the Android OEMs—particularly the huge ones—all appear to effortlessly succumb to oblivious obedience.

An incredible case came for the current year when Apple dumped the earphone jack on the iPhone 7. The move was generally panned as hostile to purchaser, and Apple's legitimization for expelling the jack, "valor," turned into a moment spoof. The Android OEMs saw the shock on the web and said "What an extraordinary thought!" Rather than utilizing the nearness of an earphone jack as a key promoting point, OEMs started stripping it from their item guides to gorilla Apple.Chinese OEM LeEco was one of the first to bounce off the scaffold since Apple was doing it, as well, with the organization discharging a line of telephones sans-earphone jack. Motorola went with the same pattern with the measured Moto Z; then we saw HTC do it with the HTC Bolt. Presently the gossip factory is asserting Samsung will dump the earphone jack with the Galaxy S8. In the event that any of these organizations conversed with purchasers or read an online discussion, they'd understand this is an awful thought.

This reasoning pervades the Android scene. Everybody's "lead" cell phone is the same ultra quick, ultra thin piece telephone that has recently enough battery life to possibly most recent a day of light use. Nobody even endeavors to make a top of the line telephone that qualities battery life over slimness and speed to any important degree. Not everybody needs an "amusement support" cell phone that serves as a VR headset, yet that doesn't mean they need a deal container midrange telephone. Organizations make top of the line gaming portable PCs and top of the line business tablets, so what about if top of the line business cell phones with an additional long battery life turn into a general thing? You'll never observe it due to Android OEM groupthink.And recollect when telephones came in various frame variables? Would it murder anybody to offer a top notch telephone with an equipment console any longer? Does each gadget need to be a symmetrical chunk style iPhone clone? One of the main organizations to as of late go amiss from the "standard cell phone" recipe was BlackBerry, which—as a pariah to the universe of Android—discharged the Priv, a telephone with a slide-out console. Obviously the gadget was additionally low quality and overrated, so when nobody got it, Blackberry quit the market after one attempt. The main organization out there we feel is doing anything new of late is Xiaomi with the Mi Mix, which switched up the standard cell phone format with a more screen-driven outline.

There isn't much contrast in the product, either. Everybody takes Android and heaps however much poop on top of it as could reasonably be expected, with nobody endeavoring to advance a "spotless, quick, streamlined" programming assemble. Is there truly a significant contrast between Samsung's TouchWiz, Huawei's Emotion UI's, LG UX, or Xiaomi's MIUI? You aren't separating with a substantial Android skin when everybody makes an overwhelming Android skin.

Indeed, even Google succumbed to the Android OEM mindless obedience. It gambled a great deal and conceivably harmed its associations with OEMs when it made a move into self-marked cell phone equipment and afterward didn't do anything unique with that equipment. Why make equipment in case you're recently going to make a similar equipment every other person is making?

I've attempted practically every top of the line cell phone in the course of the most recent couple of years, and keeping in mind that there are maybe a couple exemptions to a portion of the oblivious obedience, it's truly a disgrace that I invest all my energy expounding on the 10 percent contrast between cell phones. There is a great deal more space to investigate with regards to planning a cell phone, however most OEMs are just open to taking the built up, safe alternative.

Jon Brodkin: Sign in with your TV supplier... over and over

As a fanatical games fan who takes after many groups and associations in both the US and Europe, I'm not surrendering customary TV at any point in the near future. In any case, I do like spilling applications, and I frequently utilize the ones that give me full access to substance when I sign in with my Verizon FiOS TV qualifications. That is fine, obviously—however what I despise is that about these applications compel me to enter my username and watchword practically every time I open them.Whenever I attempt to watch an amusement on the NBC Sports, Fox Sports Go, or NFL applications on my iPhone or iPad, it's just about a sureness that my Verizon username and secret word will have been overlooked by the application and I'll need to enter them once more. As I compose this, I simply checked every one of the three applications and each of the three need my Verizon username and secret key once more, despite the fact that I have marked into every one commonly some time recently. 1Password aides here, however these applications don't coordinate with it so I need to switch forward and backward between my watchword chief and every video application two or three circumstances to get signed in. What's more, whenever I need to utilize the application, most likely a long time from now, I'll more likely than not need to do it once more.

I comprehend that the applications need to confirm that regardless i'm subscribed to Verizon, however this appears like an issue that ought to be effortlessly settled by each application recollecting the secret key on the gadget. In my most recent testing, it appears the ESPN application can do this, yet NBC, FOX, and the NFL couldn't. On the Apple TV, applications make a superior showing with regards to keeping me marked in for a long time at any given moment. Why can't the telephone work this way?

Late OS refreshes for iPhones, iPads, and the Apple TV presented single sign-on so you can sign into all applications requiring TV supplier qualifications just once. Normally, Verizon FiOS doesn't bolster the single sign-on yet, and the vast majority of the video applications I utilize don't bolster it either. In any case, there's some advance: Single sign-on is upheld by CenturyLink, DirecTV, Dish, Sling TV, and a couple of other lesser-known TV suppliers. On the off chance that the real satellite TV organizations and software engineers get on board, there'll at long last be critical advance on a disturbance that has been permitted to rot for quite a while.

Andrew Cunningham: What's the arrangement with printers?

You can draw an immediate line between a desktop or portable workstation in 1996 and a desktop or tablet in 2016, however the innovation has enhanced unfathomably over the most recent 20 years. PCs are more slender and lighter and more power productive, and as a rule they're both all the more intense and less demanding to utilize.

Printers are somewhat extraordinary. That is not on the grounds that a printer in 1996 doesn't look all that not quite the same as a printer in 2016—the appearance of little purchaser in with no reservations ones and remote printing aside—additionally in light of the fact that a printer in 2016 can be required to be similarly as conflicting and chafing as your old HP LaserJet 4P.The setup prepare has by and large been improved—both Windows 10 and macOS will download and introduce the correct printer driver for you without client intercession now. Be that as it may, ruler help you if something turns out badly—erasing and re-including printers and going to the Windows 95-looking print line window are as yet your essential investigating devices. Ink gauges from drivers are as yet wrong, and paying for ink still has a craving for taking an interest in a terrific trick. On the off chance that anything, the present day time has made ink more chafing than some time recently. The shopper agreeable ponder that is DRM wanted our motion pictures and music in the first place, however now it has likewise sought our espresso units and outsider ink cartridges. Great.

In the event that loved ones have tech inquiries for me, I'm generally happy to try them. Be that as it may, if it's a printer issue, I'm more disposed to discover the closest gap in the ground and bounce straight into it.Sean Gallagher: Twitter's shocking two-calculate validation

I am worn out on attempting to disclose to everybody why they ought to utilize two-calculate confirmation (2FA), and I'm considerably more tired of organizations offering feeble ass adaptations of 2FA for shoppers. Indeed, even after all the poo John Podesta experienced with Wikileaks (which could all have been maintained a strategic distance from on the off chance that he'd utilized 2FA for his Gmail account) individuals still don't appear to get the message. What's more, I'm taking a gander at you when I say that, Twitter."2FA" implies requiring more than only a secret key when signing into an administration—typically the two "variables" are something you know (like a watchword) and something you have (like a cell phone). It would be better if the second part was an option that is other than the telephone itself, yet until further notice that is what we're screwed over thanks to. What's more, there are a lot of .