A decade-long boom is ending as consumers hang on to devices for longer - <AUTHOR> https://www.economist.com/business/2019/01/12/apple-succumbs-to-the-smartphone-malaise <comment><USER2> I used to work for a mobile phone wholesaler that also owned a phone repair business and they noticed this trend as far back as 2013. The age of phones coming in for repair was rising year on year. They were coming under pressure from manufacturers and retailers to disincentivise customers from repairing older phones. One manufacturer even threatened to stop paying for in-warranty repairs if the company offered an out-of-warranty repair service.

The problem is that smartphones are way too expensive. Back in the old days of dumb phones a top end SIM free phone would cost no more than €400. Most people would opt for a cheaper model that allowed for a 12 months subsidy with the phone being free and monthly fees being fairly low by todays standards. In the UK it was common to find deals where you got a cheap phone for free, plus a game console or TV on a 12 month contract.

Now it has flipped. Top end phones are now nudging €1000, this means higher monthly fees plus 24-36 month contracts. That's a hell of a commitment, especially considering smart phones aren't as durable as dumb phones were. Of course people are repairing phones when they cost that much.

Plus, there is less of a feature incentive to upgrade. All I use my phone for is web browsing, email, social stuff and photo/video - it's three years old and does all that with no lag. New models don't offer me enough of an incentive to upgrade.

If manufacturers want people to upgrade more often they need to work on curbing the price of top end models. The more expensive they are, the longer people are going to want them to last. Also, a bit more innovation would be nice - must every smartphone follow the exact same black rectangle design template?

<comment><USER3> I bought a Motorola last year for €160, which isn't a great deal. It works perfectly well. It isn't slow. (Admittedly I am not glued to my phone 24-7 like some people).

I have no idea why people feel the need to spend 6 or 7 times more for the latest iPhone. What do you get for the extra money that is actually useful? I know it has a "better" screen but I never had a problem reading on the phone I have. Faster processor? Are people performing heavy computing on their phones, or just sending some whatsapp messages ans surfing the web?

<comment><USER4> Security. My phone is the root of trust for my life. It has my password manager (I never use a PM on a full computer) and is my only truly trusted device.

I wouldn't trust your Motorola's timely security updates or hardware trustzone implememtation.

<comment><USER5> Funny you say that. I'm the exact opposite. I consider my laptop to be much more likely to be secure than my phone.

<comment><USER6> Most laptop OSes, like Windows, macOS, and Linux, are a decade behind mobile OSes in terms of application sandboxing and also still lagging behind on restricting OS tampering and implementing reliable chains of trust from the system software to the hardware level, e.g. features like secure enclaves.

Unfortunately, those restrictions also make mobile OSes less useful for the sort of technical work that people use "real" OSes for. However, those restrictions make such devices much more compelling roots of trust for our digital lives.

An iOS app can't extract my contacts unless I grant permission, yet an application installed on Ubuntu via `apt` can casually start rummaging around my home directory which I won't know about unless I spend considerable time on mandatory access control profiles, isolation through containerisation or virtualisation, or something equally esoteric for the average user.

I suppose a phone does hold more sensitive information though, like location and mobile payments, making it a more lucrative target.

<comment><USER7> These desktop OSs don't, however, run a baseband known to be littered with bugs that listens for commands over the EM spectrum amd has low level access to the entire system. Even airplane mode just means it doesn't transmit.

<comment><USER6> Good point. The lack of visibility into today's blackbox commodity hardware is frightening, such as Intel ME. It's even worse when that hardware is listening to external commands via the EM spectrum and the like, as you point out.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> As a software developer, people tend to assume that I'm really into hardware as well. They're usually surprised when I tell them that I prefer to buy older hardware and keep it running for longer. I often skip multiple generations of devices.

I just bought a new TV with Roku built in. My last TV was a tube TV.

I'm writing this on a iPhone SE, which I upgraded to for $100 when my 5S stopped working. I kept the same phone case. I'll probably buy another iPhone when they release a new one with the same size screen. I might get a new phone case then, too.

I was playing Zelda on the original Wii earlier. It's the newest game console that I own.

Don't get me wrong, I think new stuff is cool, too. I'd just rather go on a trip than have the newest cool thing.

<comment><USER9> Honestly people who buy new hardware every year are not "into hardware", they are into wasting their money and finding a pretense to justifying it. Most of them are probably just bored or treat it like fashion.

<comment><USER10> This is roughly what I observe. With the exception of a subset of techies, the people I know who always have the latest and greatest also tend to make very minimal use of the latest and greatest features. I'm not convinced many of them are upgrading for any purpose other than retail therapy.

A secondary hypothesis is that there is a contingent of people who buy and install smart home devices just to annoy their non-tech-inclined spouses. That one's not mine, though, I got it from one such spouse.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> I would gladly buy a new phone if they stopped _taking away_ features. I currently use an iPhone SE, and I treat my phone as an extension of my brain - I use it 5 hours / day. For me, the pros/cons of an upgrade to an iPhone XS are:

Pros: better camera, faster processor, water resistant

Cons: no headphone jack, too large for my hands

It's not obvious that upgrading would make my life better - it's more likely to make things worse, actually. I'm not paying $1000 for that.

<comment><USER12> They're also making phones that are less comfortable to hold. But taking away the headphone jack is a non-starter for me. The FaceID "only" thing is a deal breaker for professional reasons. I also can't stand the notch. They clearly don't like the notch, either, since they hide it in all of their marketing. I'd rather they removed the selfie camera and relocate the speaker to the top of the phone.

Love my SE. The size is crazy portable. It's even a little too thin for my comfort. But it's so thin that a battery case isn't a problem.

<comment><USER13> > I also can't stand the notch....I'd rather they removed the selfie camera > and relocate the speaker to the top of the phone.

I agree, although note that on many phones the proximity sensory, ambient light sensors, and/or face-recognition sensors are also located in the notch. Moving those to the edges of the phone, or putting them below the display, introduces additional engineering headaches.

I'd rather they just cut off the display about 5 mm from the top of the phone and put whatever sensors they need in that narrow strip. Turning ~60% of that 5mm strip into display is pointless, ugly, and adds significant software complications. Hopefully it's just a fad like the rounded display edges.

<comment><USER12> I think that's what they will eventually do. I saw somewhere a paint had been patented that matches the black of the edge of the case but that lets the camera see out (or something like that). I do understand that there are legitimate uses for the front of the phone real estate. But I think they're already willing to experiment with removing features for design so a perfectly edge to edge display sans sensors and camera makes sense-if only as an option amongst a couple options.

<comment><USER13> > I saw somewhere a paint had been patented that matches the black of the edge > of the case but that lets the camera see out (or something like that)

Note that iPads already have some sensors behind the seemingly opaque white paint. (Purely for style reasons, I think.) And it's already pretty hard to see the front-facing camera on a black cell phone.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> When they cost as much as they do, is it really a surprise that a good portion of people don't want to replace them every other year? I would like to be one of the people replacing theirs every year or every other year and while I could afford it, I can't justify the expenditure. Add to that the fact that most phones purchased within the past couple of years remain performant enough for most people.

<comment><USER15> Seems easy to justify to me. You use it constantly, a small increase in joy or functionality multiplied by many hours = worth the cost of a speeding ticket.

<comment><USER16> 3% faster is just going to be 3% faster, and nowhere near bringing me actual joy.

Having to pay $100 a month for a difference barely measurable in real world performance however... That will cause me real-world dissatisfaction.

<comment><USER17> You're kidding about those numbers, right?

An optimistic _but realistic_ scenario is something like 40% faster and $20 a month, where the phone is used a lot and the speed translates into saving multiple hours a month. Definitely worth it there.

<comment><USER18> 40% faster _at what_? Games that you aren't going to play? The vast majority of users aren't going to notice a speed increase in their daily tasks. It's like claiming the latest Intel desktop processor is X% faster than last year's when the bottleneck outside of a few applications is not the processor.

<comment><USER17> You never wait for your phone's processor? I certainly do. It doesn't benefit all the time, but it definitely benefits outside of games.

I regret not elaborating on how X% processor benefit would only be Y% real life benefit, but I thought my point was clear enough. I would have been making a _much_ stronger claim about hours saved if I actually thought the total use of the phone would go 40% faster...

<comment><USER18> I run a 3 year old phone and no, I have never waited due to the phone's processor. Any lags have typically been the result of memory shuffling or lengthy app bootup times that have noting to do with processor speed. I'm fairly confident saying phone processors haven't been a bottleneck for most people since probably 2015.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Cellphones have reached the state of performance surplus that desktops have reached years ago. There's simply no reason to upgrade. I'm still using the desktop I built in 2013 w i7-3770 & 32GB RAM for $600. There's been no reason to get a new one.

As phones are becoming commodities like computers, I wonder if Apple will meet the same fate in mobile as it did in computers: being marginalized as a niche player in the market it pioneered as most people flock to the mainstream choice (Windows for computer, Android for phone)

<comment><USER20> > I'm still using the desktop I built in 2013 w i7-3770 & 32GB RAM for $600

Did you steal half the hardware? I'm trying to do the math in my head and I'm pretty sure the RAM alone cost at least $600. I know I paid significantly more for my i7-2600k w/ 16GB in 2012.

<comment><USER19> I bought used CPU & RAM. And no discrete GPU.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> There's no point in upgrading anymore aside from ditching the feeling that your phone is slow (which is likely fixed with a factory reset).

Camera is infinitesimally better. Processor is better in a way you can't measure. Oh now you can push anywhere to use your fingerprint!

There's no more cash cow cuz phones aren't getting noticeably better. Get back to me when I can stop using my thumbs to type or when the world becomes my monitor. Maybe I sound entitled but some day the bullions these companies keep expecting has to be justified.

<comment><USER22> The thing that would get me excited about mobile devices is the ability to run my own programs and access a real file system like a general purpose computer. That would be a real improvement in capability along the lines of the first true smartphone with a touchscreen, browser, and GPS for turn-by-turn navigation.

<comment><USER23> Android is Linux: it has a real file system that you can access. You can run your own programs on it as well.

<comment><USER24> Running programs inside a sandbox is not what the OP is talking about. If you can't reinstall your own OS and get root permission* to talk to the hardware, you're not really in control of whats going on.

*Im of course aware you can root Android phones and jailbreak iPhones, again this isnt what OP is talking about - they void warranties and are challenging/time consuming even for tech people.

<comment><USER25> Why do you need root access to the hardware for it to be considered a general purpose computing device? If someone provides you an account on a server where you don't have root access, would you not describe that a general purpose computer device with a real filesystem where you can run your own programs?

<comment><USER16> > Why do you need root access to the hardware for it to be considered a > general purpose computing device?

Unless you have root access _someone else_ gets to define what "general purpose" is.

Someone else gets to tell you "no, that's off limits".

That's doesn't sound like being in control of your own device to me.

<comment><USER25> The manufacturer gets to decide if they're manufacturing a general purpose computing device or not, but they don't get to define what general purpose is. Either it executes arbitrary code or it doesn't, which my Android device does just fine without root access. So I would call it a general purpose computing device.

Root access is just a platform specific construct, and it doesn't necessarily have an important purpose on every platform. Furthermore there are lots of ways that a platform could take away your control even if you had root access, such as through binary firmware blobs (which I'm sure you're running dozens right now, as am I probably).

<comment><USER16> > Root access is just a platform specific construct

Root access is the machine _never_ being permitted to tell the human owner "no".

Nothing platform-specific about that what so ever.

On the contrary I'd rather say it's so detached from platform it's more like a fundamental principle than anything else, a technological ism of sorts.

<comment><USER25> But there are lots of situations where you can't do things even with root access on a unix-like machine. I gave one example already -- root access doesn't give you control over the operation of system firmware. But there are others, too. For example, root access doesn't let you write to kernel memory, it doesn't let you bypass SELinux policies, etc. The way you are defining root access here essentially doesn't apply to any modern computing system.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The Jobs-era strategy at Apple was pretty straightforward. From what I recall around 2000-2010 the Apple strategy was:

1) Decided on a minimum acceptable functionality for a device

2) Set up uncompromising logistics chains to support creating a device (eg, famously, touchscreens)

3) Price at a rate that was extremely competitive when considering the device components

4) Crush competitors who could only offer cheap goods that didn't really do what Apple's could, or expensive goods that could match functionality but not price - recall the iPad's original differentiation was it was cheaper than expected, given what it did. It looked very cheap compared to the preemptive tablet releases of the time trying to head its success off at the pass.

They've made a lot of money over the last few years, but that strategy doesn't seem to match the modern Apple's approach. The price gap between an iPod Touch and the cheapest iPhone is not something I'd have expected of 2010 Apple.

 _EDIT_ I looked for a source - [https://www.videogamesblogger.com/2010/03/29/ipod-touch- vs-i...](https://www.videogamesblogger.com/2010/03/29/ipod-touch-vs-iphone-vs- ipad-comparison.htm) \- initial iPhone was extremely comparable to an expensive iPod.

<comment><USER27> > The price gap between an iPod Touch and the cheapest iPhone is not something > I'd have expected of 2010 Apple.

Just to confirm, up until a couple of months ago, the difference between the low-end iPod Touch and the cheapest iPhone was $150, and today this is $250. I don't recall there ever being a time that this was significantly lower.

</comment></comment><comment><USER28> A proud owner of Nexus-5 for five years waves hi. It's still in top-notch condition; only had to replace the screen protector once, and did a small surgery to replace the "irreplaceable" battery. I keep telling my friends that I am planning to use this for 10 years.

/me hopes that the fine community of LineageOS provides at least security patches for Nexus-5 for the upcoming five years.

<comment><USER29> Nexus 5 is expected to be the flagship device for PostmarketOS, running on a mainline kernel, even. So, it will be in _very_ good shape for the foreseeable future, even after it's no longer able to run a supported version of Android.

(Besides, I don't buy the notion that current phones are more expensive than in the past. A good baseline-to-midrange device, costing around $300, can do everything that the N5 could and more. The Xiaomi A line is very good, or you can pick Asus or BQ if you're concerned about Xiaomi being from China. Really, just pick something that's trivially unlocked and has good support by the modding community, and you're good to go.)

<comment><USER28> Oh, very interesting information on "postmarketOS"; didn't come across it before. I'll need to do some research about what that community's goals are (although, the name implies some), how sustainable they are in the long-term, etc.

Apparently it's based on Alpine Linux. And from a quick reading, it sounds very promising:

"... postmarketOS is developed in the spirit of regular Linux distributions ... Furthermore postmarketOS will not impose arbitrary restrictions on you. Use the apps from any ecosystem you want (even desktop software). With Alpine's simple package format, you do not need more than a bit of Linux knowledge to package your favorite programs (assuming that they run on Linux already)."

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Are consumers rallying against the excess of the smartphone market or is this just a product of the quality of new devices? The yearly improvements feel more incremental than ever, so I'm inclined to think it's a little of both.

<comment><USER31> My old iphone6 does everything I want in a phone.

<comment><USER32> Still rocking an iPhone 6 here as well. I just can't lose the jack... :P

My battery life isn't what it used to be, but I can still make it a full day with slightly less usage (restricted to browser/text based mediums). Should have taken advantage of the battery upgrade. Meanwhile my sibling's 6S(?) Plus drains charge like someone is bloodletting it.

<comment><USER33> I have a 6s plus, and had the battery replaced, and still drains the battery like that. I've tried all the obvious tricks. I'm befuddled by this, it's the worst battery life of any phone I've had. I thought the bigger case would have helped, but maybe the bigger screen out weighs it.

What I find mystifying is why as an average user it's impossible to figure out why it happens, is it normal, is your phone broken?

Apple docs and support provide no insight into one of the primary usability issues.

Other than that, it's quite a nice phone. I picked it up cheap on Craigslist and it's going strong for two years.

<comment><USER27> Does the battery breakdown in Settings help? Try comparing your apps to the built-in ones.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I am happy to say that my desktop from 2004 is still alive and kicking. Some websites are a drag, but some on-board replacements have kept the old warrior running. I hope one day we can keep our smartphones on life support for a long time.

<comment><USER35> You still use a desktop? The portability of a laptop is something I couldn't do without.

<comment><USER31> It's impossible for me to write code on the weenie screen of a laptop. Plus I hate the laptop chicklet keyboards and the touchpad that my palm is always accidentally brushing against.

If I could, I'd have a 4x8 foot display with no decrease in pixel density. I.e. an incredible number of pixels.

Heck, why stop there. Give me a wall sized display! Phooey on laptops.

<comment><USER36> > If I could, I'd have a 4x8 foot display with no decrease in pixel density. > I.e. an incredible number of pixels.

i think you would find this setup to be really poor.

you need be within ~2ft viewing to appreciate the difference between 1080p and 4k at 24" diagonal display size.

sitting 2ft from an 8ft wide display will give you very poor viewing angles for the majority of the content. at greater distances than 2ft, the pixel density of a 4k 24" display become nothing more than waste of gpu, cpu and electricity.

<comment><USER31> Maybe. I know I could easily make use of one double (in both x and y) the size I currently have.

As for discerning pixels, I know that the retina display is distinctly easier to read than non-retina (both from Apple) even though I could not see the pixelation on the latter. Watching video does not make much difference, but reading text sure does.

<comment><USER37> PDF's are a good example of things that look terrible on non-Retina displays

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> The vendors have thrived for a decade just by improving specs. We went from NTSC to 1080p to 4K and TV sizes from 27 inches to 55 inches. But now peoples eyes aren't good enough and their houses aren't big enough to need anymore. Same thing with phones. It used to be that an old phone felt slow compared to a new one. But now they're fine for most uses.

If companies want to sell devices they need new shit to sell. VR, AR is one possible avenue. Smart Home is another. But don't expect me to just volunteer $1K for a slightly better version of what I already have.

<comment><USER39> In the 90's phone manufacturers tried doubling down on one of the main selling features: size. I saw phones almost as small as a Zippo lighter on the market before the industry regained its sanity. Today we're similarly going to the extremes of screen size + thinness.

I believe once the industry once again regains its sanity, we might see a new form factor:

1\. Smaller, egg-shaped 'pods' that fit more comfortably in your palm and pocket, something along the lines of: [http://www.yankodesign.com/2008/05/05/mobile-phone-shaped- li...](http://www.yankodesign.com/2008/05/05/mobile-phone-shaped-like-and-egg- sorta/)

2\. Thicker, but less dense and more durable (think Nokia 3310)

3\. Some form of innovative physical scroll/click control on the edges of the device to alleviate thumb-scrolling (perhaps a pressure sensor with no moving parts)

4\. Perhaps even a control on the rear side of the device, that can be activated with the index finger (for single handed operation)

<comment><USER40> Agree.

I'm considering a 3310 class device plus a high end pad with a pen (one in the same price range as a reasonable phone) for when my current phone breaks.

(Currently I'm on a Nokia 6.1 AndroidOne and except the camera it is really good and costed literally a fraction of other new phones. Considering the fact that my job pays my phone and it tells something about what I think about current flagship phones and prices.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> > Optimists (and phonemakers) argue that a new wave of innovation could > rejuvenate demand.

Hopefully that innovation is the return of the headphone jack :P

<comment><USER35> I switched to wireless headphones (AirPods) and don't miss the headphone jack at all. Good riddance to tangled wires.

<comment><USER42> I have wireless headphones and a Pixel 2 and still wish I had a jack. Sometimes you just want to get in a friend's car and be able to play music or use a nice pair of open-backed headphones when you won't bother someone. I'd still have the choice of whether or not to say good riddance to tangled wires if my phone had a headphone jack.

<comment><USER35> You still have the choice via an adapter.

<comment><USER43> Which you probably won't have with you at the right moment.

<comment><USER44> I just keep mine attached to my keys with a "dongle dangler" and this has never been a problem.

People love to complain about how inconvenient losing the headphone jack is (especially people with phones that still have it!) but that's just because this is the internet, where everybody complains about everything.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> had a samsung galaxy S4 until start of this year. I made a bet with myself and put it in a drawer where it remains until 2020. Then I'll decide if I really must have a mobile phone or not.

I have reduced usage and removed all apps last year then started to leave it at home when going out since past Fall. This way it wasn't a total ice-bucket challenge. I haven't missed it for a moment yet. When I go out and wait for the bus or tram to arrive I look at other people, the clouds and my general environment. I am more calm again and it feels like everyone else glued to their screen is part of some matrix. They almost obsessively dig around their pockets quickly to find their phone as soon as they get on the bus in order to avoid eye-contact with everyone else at all cost. I remember how it was when I too did this it was like some kind of insecurity that my phone allowed me to escape. e.g. I pretend that I'm busy on my phone ... because there is a pretty girl on the other side and the last thing I want is to look at her ... if she'd notice me she would think I am a weirdo because I'm just sitting their without doing anything and even get the impression that I stare ... Or I get an uncomfortable vibe from somebody else on the bus and so quickly get my phone because the pretend-world in there feels just so much safer. It also shows the world that I do have a life and am not just a weirdo. Or does it?

I remember going out w/out a phone last year and I was in a different city (and country). Asking a passerby on the road was the only option and he actually said to me why you don't just check google maps yourself. I told him sorry my battery is flat which seemed the only correct response without looking like a total weirdo.

But these are outliers, in general I do just fine. The reason why I became militant about not having a phone was when I see my gf who is a hell of a lot younger than me and was pushed into using it by her own parents. They would freak out if she wasn't reachable for even a short time and so she always had one on her since the age of twelve. When I was 12 mobile phones didn't even exist and I owned my first phone when I was 22 (it was a Motorola brick phone and my employer gave it to me to stay in touch). I see a lot of the anxiety people complain about every day being rooted in phones and their capability to distract and steal our time (life's too short for this shit ... but then I'm just an old man shouting at the cloud).

</comment><comment><USER46> Longer lasting devices are strategic for Apple.

It means a larger installed base for the delivery of software, services, and adjunct devices which otherwise wouldn't be possible when competing against cheap android devices.

A lower TCO is a selling point. Analysts are just failing to understand the evolution of the business model.

<comment><USER47> This doesn't make any sense and isn't backed by any evidence. Software purchased for either phone platform is entirely device independent. Why would longer hardware purchase cycles impact software sales either way? I don't think there is any correlation here at all.

Analysts aren't making this up. Apple's financials have been stagnant because they can't get people excited about new devices. It's not unique to Apple either, new smartphones just aren't that interesting anymore.

<comment><USER33> Apple devices do have relatively long useful life. My main workstation is a 2009 Mac Pro that I've maxed out, and it remains a highly performant machine.

Our household has a long tail of Apple products, that get passed down, or put to different uses.

This is hugely important for Apple business strategy. Not only does it please the customer to have well made, long lasting hardware, it cements the "ecosystem" into a much more embedded place in the lives of users.

Apple has competive advantages and disadvantages, but it absolutely must maintain customer loyalty. To even break out service revenue is a little uniformative, because the feedback loops they get from having a tightly integrated system are huge.

Apple has struggled with the online platform aspect of its business, compared to Google, Amazon, etc...but even if it's not a market leader, if they can get a "good enough " product that prevents users from leaving the ecosystem that is huge.

A paradigm example is Apple Maps which was a source of embarrassment for a while. Going up against Google in this space seems insane.

But they finally got it good enough that my guess is vast majority of iPhone users use Apple Maps, not Google. Ideally, Apple wants to prevent as many people as possible from having to get a google account as they can!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Is the lenghtening replacement cycle on mobile phones identical to the lengthening replacement cycle on PC's from a generation ago?

I recall in the early days of PCs software drove(compelled?) PC hardware upgrades every 2 or so years.

Then hardware upgrades became unnecessary unless you were a hardcore gamer.

Wouldn't the same hardware/software relationship apply with mobile phone hardware?

What's the next compelling value proposition?

Will a next generation AI/ML Assistant compel a hardware upgrade in terms of an AI focused chipset or additional sensors for data collection?

Is there anything in the Chinese WeChat ecosystem that compels mobile hardware upgrades?

How else can human vanity in terms of mobile hardware/software be exploited?

</comment><comment><USER49> I'm surprised that the comments don't focus much on security patches. Manufacturers are trying very hard to have built-in obsolescence: [https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/05/31/dutch_court_says_sa...](https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/05/31/dutch_court_says_samsung_has_no_obligation_to_keep_old_phones_patched/) Unless this fundamentally changes, most non-techy users will have to needlessly upgrade perfectly good devices, run insecure software or become much more savvy about which manufacturers are better in this regard.

<comment><USER50> I wonder if there's viable market in keeping old phones up to date, maybe as some kind of add-on to battery replacement services and such like. I'd guess it's probably too low value given the work involved, which is a shame.

<comment><USER51> There was - cyanogenmod. Then they got greedy, screwed most of their open source contributors, and were dumb enough to actually claim they were going to take out Android.

End results was Google pulling more and more out of the base OS to prevent anyone from ever really forking android again, as well as cyanogenmod leadership screwing several OEM partners (oneplus in India), and they're basically dead now.

The community is still there but it seems like it took a massive hit after that debacle.

<comment><USER29> These days, PostmarketOS is trying to support those older devices, and in a way that _actually_ takes out Android! ...out of the device I mean, haha. But IIRC, most devices that CM used to run on, only had 512MB of RAM-- and that's honestly not enough to even browse the web on nowadays. (Many of them are also on earlier flavors of ARM that would be a bit harder to support natively, with e.g. Alpine having dropped support for anything earlier than ARM7.)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> Repost from a month ago;

Very true, I'd say a downgrade is the trend. I saw like 10+ people deciding to switch from "superphones" down to mid-range models, and even dumbphones for their new phones. People who had ultrabooks, often try Atom based notebooks and sufraces. The key deciding factor for such people, I think, is having a good screen and bearable ergonomics (no microscopic keyboards, or batteries.) The data I have access to tell that the "big screen, small CPU," is the category with the biggest year on year growth. Atom based 14 and 15 inchers are selling like hot cookies.

As a person working in the industry, I can say that's a very visible trend. People switch their devices more due to battery and physical wear than actual need for more features.

In that respect, things got very "Japanised" in respect that Japanese cellphone makers are often making new models every season with no real changes other than cosmetic.

Japan is also the only developed market where "dumbphones" ever saw few upwards trends in last 5 years.

</comment><comment><USER53> I keep seeing article after article talking about to slow down of buying phones, but I've never seen any mention of the main reason I stopped buying phones every year:

They stopped subsidizing them.

For a while, most carriers (at least AT&T with iPhones) would include a phone with a two year contract as part of your monthly bill. But about 3 or 4 years ago, they stopped doing this. And so people had no incentive to renew every time they were eligible.

Everybody I'm close to stopped for this reason. Now they only renew now when they have to, or when there's a really compelling reason to. And any more, both of these are becoming less and less of a need.

Why has nobody talked about this?

<comment><USER54> I don't think "subsidizing" is the right word as the customer still had to pay for the full price of the phone. The carrier would just spread out the cost of half of the phone across a 2 year period.

Nowadays (at least for Verizon) you can get a phone for nothing upfront and have the entire cost spread out over a 2 year period. Basically the same as before except it requires nothing down instead of half the phone value. If anything I feel this method is more likely to get people to sign up as it requires nothing upfront.

<comment><USER53> If I remember correctly, the "fee" they charged for the phone was charged regardless of whether or not you renewed. I remember doing the math multiple times each year, and there was never a reason to _not_ renew, unless you planned on changing carriers.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER55> One factor I haven't seen mentioned is that moving everything to a new phone is a bit of a risk and a pain. Reinstalling apps, reestablishing connections and credentials, manually moving the stuff that inevitably got missed, getting a new case. Bleh. If I have to spend my money _and_ my time, there has to be more than a sliver of payback, but a sliver is usually all that's offered. Forget it. In another few months my work phone will be up for replacement, and TBH I'm not looking forward to it. Just another damn forced "upgrade" to steal away my time for no real gain.

</comment><comment><USER56> Smartphones are so refined these days that upgrading yearly or even every two years just doesn't seem worth it to me if I'm paying full retail price for it.

However, if the carrier companies still offered subsidized phones I'd be more than happy to upgrade for the subsidized price. It wasn't until NEXT and all the similar "pay the full price over N months" plans came along that I stopped upgrading regularly.

Seems like the burden of not upgrading has fallen back on the smartphone manufacturer, no? If I'm paying full price I'm either going to buy less often or look for a cheaper option.

<comment><USER57> This was also one of the major reasons for apple getting such a large market share in the US. As people were not required to pay full price for the phones buying a $100 iphone or $50 android phone with contract didn't affect many people but paying $1000 or $500 will.

</comment></comment><comment><USER58> Same thing happened with desktop PC's around when the Core 2 Duo came out and 1080p lcd displays became standard. The machines can do most of the stuff we want them to do.

</comment><comment><USER59> There's no next big thing in the pipeline. And everybody already has a smartphone.

<comment><USER60> Now is the time for the cloud I think. Phones are pretty much laptops and laptops have replaced desktops, heavy tasks are more often outsourced. When the hardware is interchangeable (and that includes the next version of the iPhone) that's when the demand for the cloud will be heard. Before it was a convenience, now it's an exigent matter of not being able to keep things apart.

Up until now, devices have been objects of treasure and identification. When what your machine does is taken for granted, something else will have to replace it as your personal hearth keeping you warm at night.

I agree that there is no next big thing. But there _is_ a next big "thing".

<comment><USER61> Umm, huh? No offense but this looks like a game of buzzword bingo. "Now is the time for the cloud I think." How does "the cloud" have anything to do with the rest of what you've written?

<comment><USER59> Also, Amazon AWS opened in 2006. The first iPhone shipped in 2007. "The Cloud" has been around for a while.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> I've had my Nexus 6p for close to 3.5 years. The battery has started dying early recently, so I considered replacing the phone. But it's still plenty fast for me, and there's nothing I'd possibly get from an upgrade besides a better camera, so I just replaced the battery for $20. Works like new again, and hopefully lasts a couple more years.

</comment><comment><USER63> The rate of perceivable changes has decreased over recent years while the price of flagships has increased substantially. I have a Galaxy S7 and it still works perfectly well for everything I need. The only issue with it is that I know Samsung won't be releasing Android Pie for this model, so I'll be forced into an upgrade if I want to stay on a current version.

<comment><USER64> Do you not find everything gets slower with each software update? This is the principal reason I dumped Samsung.

Everything was working fine, then update, then brick.

</comment></comment><comment><USER65> I owned a samsung s8 for a while, purchased it for about $700 brand new just when it came out. Since it followed the new trend of having everything be glass, and I am a clumsy person, it ended up breaking.

Repairing it would have cost be about $400, and second hand s8s go for around that rate. It simply didn't make sense to repair it and sell it, or even to repair it at all really.

I ended up purchasing a second hand Pixel XL (1st version) for $180. It has lasted me incredibly well, and I've had hardly any problems. The phone is durable, has a headphone jack, and a fantastic camera.

It seems that most phone hardware now has reached the point of being more than good enough. The only real bottle neck for many devices is software. My Samsung phones, with their bloated skins, always seemed to age quite quickly. When the software experience is finely tuned and bloat removed, then phones seem to last indefinitely.

</comment><comment><USER66> Maybe they should offer more variety in design, usability, features and colours?

There are no small new smartphones, there are no QWERTY phones, soon there will be no phones with headphone jacks...I'd love to have a QWERTY for business + small phone with nice camera and durable battery for travel combo.

<comment><USER67> The Blackberry KEY2 sounds like exactly what you're looking for!

</comment></comment><comment><USER68> They don't offer any new features that are desirable.

The voice assistants are a flop, not nearly good enogh. I miss my headphone jack a little. I wish I could get a blackberry style physical keyboard.

As much as the iPhone vs Android debate continues to rage, they basically do the same things.

</comment><comment><USER69> Cycles go up and down. Good luck trying to prevent that. Best to plan for downturns and upturns.

</comment><comment><USER70> TBH i m surprised it lasted that long. The diminishing returns started long time ago, and practically it is the OS upgrades slowing down old phones, and drained batteries that drive the upgrades. Apart from the tech crowd, ppl don't care if their phone makes marginally better photos , as long as it makes them good enough to post to facebook. Same thing with laptops. I ve been wanting to give myself a new thinkpad as christmas gift , but i just couldnt justify upgrading from an i7-5600 .

Which means, a lot of people are setting aside money that they would spend for their yearly phone upgrade, for the next seductive product. This could be a good opportunity for novel stuff.

</comment><comment><USER71> I'm not surprised.

Until I'm gonna a get a new model that is compact and has a headphone jack, fingerprint reader and SD card slot I'm not planning to ever change my device.

The whole market went crazy in completely opposite direction than what the consumers want.

<comment><USER72> > The whole market went crazy in completely opposite direction than what the > consumers want.

Did they? HN and other tech related comment boards are not representative of the general market. The people happy about the direction the market has moved aren't going to post threads about their satisfaction, they'll just gone on with their day.

</comment></comment><comment><USER73> Been using Nexus 5x. $210. It does everything. Plays all videos. Charges fast.

Id buy new phone if did one of the followings...

A) had a battery that lasted a month.

B) had free unlimited data.

C) can 3d scan objects

I'll not buy it if it has

A) NSA 2.0 Alexa or ok Google always turned on

B) reliance on Bluetooth. I've concerns about radiation effects.

C) battery lasts one day

<comment><USER74> Can you explain the not buy (B)? You're not worried on radiation from the device mobile network but from the bluetooth?

</comment></comment><comment><USER75> Got a Xiaomi Redmi Note 5 a few months ago for around $180 and couldn't be happier. Big screen, crazy battery that lasts 2 days on heavy use, fingerprint unlock, fast and quite sleek look. I've even dropped it quite a bit (not cover, no screen protector) and not a scratch on the screen.

What do people actually get for getting something at 5x the price? Notchless design, maybe better camera, and can't really think of anything else.

Phones IMO are transitioning from a functional item to a status item (maybe similar to watches). At least that's the angle I'd be taking if I was a high end phone manufacturer...

</comment><comment><USER76> Call me a conspiracy theorist, but is this the reason for the huge push towards non-user-servicable phones?

My phone (LG V20) is one of the last made with an easily removable battery.

</comment><comment><USER77> I'd love to update my 2012 MacBook Air as it is getting a little slow on some of the scripts I'd like to run. Unfortunately the 2018 MacBook Air is only 1/3rd faster for CPU (it dropped a power category), so there's little point just yet. Maybe Apple will use their own CPUs in the near future which should give a nice boost, but for the time being I've just been hand-optimising the scripts instead.

<comment><USER78> I had the same issue, but decided I'm not waiting on Apple, since the last few years have been a complete disappointment. Went with a dell xps and pretty happy with it. In fact, I've found myself moving away from Apple's ecosystem and once my iphone 6s needs to be replaced, I will probably move over android and be done with apple once and for all.

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> My company pays for my phone. I can upgrade every 18 months. My latest upgrade date has come and gone, but I haven't bothered to do it since my current phone (iPhone 7 plus) still works as well as it did the first day I got it. The only reason I can foresee getting a new phone is if next year's iPhone includes a headphone jack. Now that would be an improvement worth getting.

<comment><USER80> Anecdotal, but I'm in the same position when it comes to my laptop update. I'm eligible to update my corporate MacBook every two years, but so far I'm still sticking with my 5-year-old MacBook Pro Retina (13") because none of the current options provide a clear benefit for me and the downside is potentially huge (no native Linux, unreliable keyboard, dongle-life). As long as the battery doesn't die on me I'll keep using this thing.

<comment><USER39> Similar anecdote: still sticking to my 3 year old MacBook Pro despite being offered the new one because newer "innovations" actually subtract from my experience: no physical function keys or escape key, no regular USB or HDMI, insufficient haptic feedback from keyboard etc.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER81> Yup my latest upgrade from a SAMSUNG S5 (Great phone) was a ~$200 Xiaomi Redmi 5 Plus. Which i plan to keep for another 5 years or so.

<comment><USER82> I'm looking for a new phone, since I still use 5s, and I'm thinking of switching to Android. Xiaomi really caught my eye, good specs for great price. What's your experience been with it so far?

<comment><USER83> Not the op I but got a Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite for ~180€ (64GB/4GB RAM) after my 4 years old Moto G had strange issues with the battery that even replacing the battery didn't solve:

Could not be happier. Android One get's monthly updates from Google for the next 3 years, Feature Updates for 2 years. Clean and stable experience. I've read there are better cameras out there, however it's way better than the Moto G. Build quality is fine for me. I hope it will last 5 years.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER84> The Original telephone company bell telephone, didn't sell phones they rented them. Wiki says it was crucial to their survival in the early days. Not saying I want to lease my phone but it seems a lot of people are willing to lease cars and shop at rent to own stores. Include service as an mvno and might be viable as a business.

</comment><comment><USER85> Agreed, bought mine 2 years ago, top of the line, extended warranty, etc. instead I've been thinking about replacing my iPad...

</comment><comment><USER86> Well this is great news for the environment!

</comment><comment><USER87> I could use a windows phone that could Remote Desktop into my PC and be an extension of my PC experience. Could probably give me a mini tablet sized screen, just enough to fit in my jeans pocket but large enough to not require a new UI operating system, just a tweak to make icons and fonts larger.

</comment><comment><USER88> Not surprising at all. The same happened to PCs and laptops. At some point its good enough, only gamers need the latest Intel processor or nvidia GPU. So people stopped buying new computers until the old one broke.

</comment><comment><USER89> Bought a Moto G4 in 2016, cracked the screen that early 2017, use it despite worsening screen burn-in. Finally decided to get a new phone (Motorola One), which is scheduled to arrive tomorrow. Will probably use that _at least_ three years as well.

I always wondered why I would buy an expensive "flagship" phone other than showing off? A "mid-range" one is entirely enough...

\- good camera for the few occasions I use that \- Watching videos/streaming \- Looking up stuff while on-the-go (when a laptop/tablet isn't available) \- listening to music on inexpensive "conventional" headphones (F wireless headphones) which I can get new for cheap at almost any supermarket \- If I wanted to I could use the dual-SIM-capability that both my current and my new phone have

</comment><comment><USER90> Which they'll do until software picks up the slack and demonstrates a real need for advancement or integration of new features. Phones are so underutilized today it is painful.

</comment><comment><USER91> Well Apple's pricing has increased dramatically while the devices haven't really gained any new game changer innovation.

Thought I'd get a iphone X to replace my 7 but meh

<comment><USER92> They did add Dongle Hell though, to an extent as yet unseen in the Appleverse.

</comment></comment><comment><USER93> So fewer incremental spec improvements, plus major incremental price increases and major UX regressions is a losing recipe. Who woulda thunk it!

</comment><comment><USER94> I think 5G will cause a big bump if data plans are cheap enough to drop your home internet plan and just hotspot to your phone.

<comment><USER95> I can barely get full speed 4G as I travel around the UK. Unless 5G is full- speed everywhere out of the gate, I can't see the point in upgrading just yet.

<comment><USER89> Since 5G reportedly has a rather small range, the cities/countryside probably would have to be littered with "hotspots"/"towers".

<comment><USER95> I saw a thing, can't remember where, that some telecos are planning on turning 'manhole' covers into antennas and running the cables through sewers.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER96> iPhone is getting pricer with no good reason besides greed. It is time to tell Tim Cook enough is enough

<comment><USER97> > iPhone is getting pricer with no good reason besides greed.

Except margins have remained the same. So while the iPhone prices have increased Apple is not making more money (given the increase in service revenue which is high margin it could be argued Apple is making even less margin on iPhones now). If there is any argument it is that Apple got too far out over their skis on things like the t2 chip and A12x.

<comment><USER96> One simple fact is that when margin remains, and the price goes up, Apple's absolute revenue also goes up. They are charging more money from their user.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER98> Oh no! Now you're giving companies the green light to produce shittier products so they need to be replaced sooner!

I hope this marks the end of an era where people feel compelled to buy the 'latest and greatest' just because it's going to make them stand out in front of their _friends_.</comment>


Remote Work Terminology – what you should know - <AUTHOR> http://blog.davidtate.org/2016/12/remote-work-terminology/ <comment><USER2> I think Zach Holman's post on 'Remote first' vs. 'Remote friendly' does a good job of explaining the distinction:

[https://zachholman.com/posts/remote- first/](https://zachholman.com/posts/remote-first/)

</comment><comment><USER3> Reminds me of the term Euphemism Treadmill: [http://www.odlt.org/ballast/euphemism_treadmill.html](http://www.odlt.org/ballast/euphemism_treadmill.html)

</comment><comment><USER4> This was helpful if for nothing else than to illustrate how nuanced the remote work conversation can be. I've also seen companies with a publicly strict on- site policies that are "remote friendly" (remote tolerant?). I agree completely with the author that these are jobs to be careful of.

</comment><comment><USER5> I was working remote for almost two years and can say it cam get really hard. The best advise I can give to anyone is: get yourself a shared office space or hot-desk somewhere. There are absolutely fab shared offices around and its really worth the money. After three months working from my living room i almost became a sociopath and a complete workaholic. But even if you not tend to such behavior its nice to have people around to talk to and have coffee with. We spent a lot of time working, we should have some peps around us.

</comment><comment><USER6> I find the "Digital Nomad" new trend confusing, most of the times they are just offering relocation help in exchange for cheap work

</comment><comment><USER7> This feels incomplete without the entry for "Remote, Oregon".

</comment><comment><USER8> Ah crap - a popup!

I'm writing a personal guidebook to working from home - if this sounds interesting please fill out the form over the right.

If it doesn't, hit Escape, close this window, restart your computer, and flee to Mexico.

<comment><USER9> There was no X and hitting Escape as instructed didn't do anything either. Was able to click outside to make it go away but still..

<comment><USER10> The X is way up in the upper right. Not a great design.</comment></comment></comment>


Making It Easier for Immigrants to Start Companies in the US - The White House - <AUTHOR> http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/08/02/making-it-easier-immigrants-start-companies-united-states <comment><USER2> Can't wait for these discussions to bear fruit. I heard someone mention to me that there were talks about issuing green cards to graduates holding advanced masters degrees from the US. Any idea if this is true?</comment>


Powered by nature - <AUTHOR> http://www.mvmagazine.com/article.php?23146

<comment><AUTHOR> "A new building on Anna Edey's West Tisbury farm sounds more like a spa with its pool and sauna, but she calls it a lab for sustainable design as it integrates many of her environmentally friendly innovations, including solar panels for heat, hot water, and electricity – and chickens for eggs, meat, and heat."</comment>


Show HN: my small open source web app written entirely in Clojure - <AUTHOR>

I've implemented a small web app — (a hassle-free hosting for markdown pages) entirely in Clojure and here is what I think: http://notehub.org/2012/6/16/how-notehub-is-built<p>The app itself: http://notehub.org GitHub: http://github.com/chmllr/NoteHub <comment><AUTHOR> Clickable:

Here is what I think: <http://notehub.org/2012/6/16/how-notehub-is-built>

The app itself: <http://notehub.org>

GitHub: <http://github.com/chmllr/NoteHub>

</comment><comment><USER2> Nice idea, and nice implementation, did you find using only Clojure freeing or limiting? Would you recommend anyone to do the same? Or was it just an experiment?

<comment><AUTHOR> Using Clojure was a bliss. And I'm the person, who didn't want to deal with Lisp at all before (however I always loved FP).

Using pure ClojureScript was for the first a bit limiting because there is no simple way to browse the DOM, e.g. However, with the jayq lib (a jQuery wrapper) it got really simple. You also have to adapt to the fact, that objects like String and Integer (obviously) have another API on the JS platform. Everything else was as beautiful as Clojure — no need for Underscore.js anymore!

I would definitely recommend to anyone to try this stack out. The only concerns I have is the ClojureScript's performance. Due to functional programming approach and laziness it might happen, that a lot more implicit objects will be created, that any GC-strategy of the JS engine might assume. So I have really no idea how the performance of ClojureScript will be in really heavy computational client applications.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Cool idea...it seems pastebin (et al) have been used for this sort of thing a lot lately...</comment>


Goldman Sachs asks: 'Is curing patients a sustainable business model?' - <AUTHOR> https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/11/goldman-asks-is-curing-patients-a-sustainable-business-model.html <comment><USER2> If companies are in fact amoral and are not compelled to be moral, and the only good is profit, then it is rational to conclude given the choice they would prefer development of a pill you have to take every day for the rest of your life, than a cure.

</comment><comment><USER3> This is important: Goldman Sachs ask who is financing medical innovation and what should be financed for best returns. They do not say the FDA is bad for business, it's the medical field itself that has problems delivering returns.</comment>


OpenBenchmarking.org – A Platform for Benchmarking and Performance Analysis - <AUTHOR> http://openbenchmarking.org/ <comment><USER2> It just doesn't do it for me, for my general benchmarking purposes. You really have to dig down to do comparisons, and they felt unfulfilling.

Serverbear.com, despite having not been updated for years, still feels like the best UI, and best quick snapshot for performance, and makes it easy to compare performance. It's not perfect, by a long shot, but it's the closest to meeting my needs until I'm presented with something better.

<comment><USER3> ditto. I would love an easy answer to the question: what CPU has the best performance as a compile-server. That answer has to be somewhere inside openbenchmarking.org, but I'll be darned if I can get it to tell me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> This site is a pile of confusion. Of all the benchmarks I'm interested, the HPC Challenge, the results are buried. No overview, and when you finally get into the results, the performances are all terrible. (Should be closer to 500GFLOPS per node, not 100!)

This also appears geared towards consumer use, which is akin to adding throttle body spacers and tall spoilers to your car... not practical applications.

</comment><comment><USER5> Never understood why Valve didn't leverage Steam to build a database of performance benchmarks, especially to change the awful System Requirements system.

<comment><USER6> What do you reckon the right way for them do that that would be (in a practical sense)?

Thinking about that a bit, it would probably be possible, but there would be downsides that might not make it worth it. For example, supporting people on the low side of hardware specs complaining that X game/software/etc isn't working well enough. Conversely, other people on the same hardware might not have an issue with it. (different levels of "acceptable" for different people)

Not sure it'd be worth the effort (any time soon). There are other much simpler things Valve needs to fix first in order to increase sales. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> I like this. It could certainly use some focus on getting me from a question I need answered to the data I really care about. Still, the site looks nice, runs well, and seems to have a lot of useful information.</comment>


Santander launches the first end-to-end blockchain bond - <AUTHOR> https://www.santander.com/csgs/Satellite/CFWCSancomQP01/en_GB/Corporate/Press-room/2019/09/12/Santander-launches-the-first-end-to-end-blockchain-bond.html?linkId=100000007936755 <comment><AUTHOR> Can this transaction be found on [https://etherscan.io/](https://etherscan.io/) ?</comment>


Court rules drug dog barely more accurate than a coin flip is good enough - <AUTHOR> https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2015/08/04/federal-appeals-court-drug-dog-thats-barely-more-accurate-than-a-coin-flip-is-good-enough/ <comment><USER2> This article, and in particular the title, is horrible and shows no understanding of the math in play. The facts do not indicate that the dog "is barely more accurate than a coinflip" if 59% of the indications in question turn out to actually have drugs.

Out of 1000 samples the dog is positively indicating for 930 of the (93% of the time) of which 549 are true positives and 381 are false positives. Let's be generous and say that all 70 remaining are true negatives.

If the dog was subbed out for a coin flip we would have a positive indicator 500 times of which 274 would be true positives and 226 would be false positives. We would then have 275 false negatives and 225 true negatives.

So subbing in the dog for a coin catches 275 drug carriers at the expense of an extra 155 false positives. We can argue about whether that is good enough but comparing it to a coinflip makes no sense.

<comment><USER3> The article's whole analysis is fucked up because it ignores the prior probability.

> In U.S. v. Bentley, we see just how damaging the Harris decision really was. > Lex, the drug dog that searched Bentley's car, had a 93 percent alert rate. > That is, when Lex was called to search a car, he alerted 93 percent of the > time. He was basically a probable cause generator. His success rate was much > lower, at 59 percent.

In other words, drugs were found in _55%_ of cars in which he was brought in.[1] The base rate for drug possession in a car is almost certainly a tiny fraction of that. So between the human judgment to bring in Lex, and Lex's sniffing, the police are able to find drugs at probabilities that are multiples of the base rate. In contrast, if you searched cars based on a coin flip (i.e. randomly), you'd expect to find drugs exactly at the base rate.

[1] Being successful > 50% of the time is pretty much the definition of probable cause.

<comment><USER4> Not really. You have conflated a couple things here:

There is some aggregate base rate, which is the percent of a random sample of motorists that are carrying drugs.

Then there is the rate of those who are actually carrying drugs within the a group that the police have pulled over, and suspect are carrying drugs, and have _also_ presumably asserted their rights and refused a consensual search by the police and _also_ do not have some other attribute (such as smell, items visible in plain view) that would provide probable cause.

You argue that "the base rate for drug possession in a car is almost certainly a tiny fraction of that" but in fact the base rate within this much narrower second group should be extremely high in comparison to the general population. And the problem is that searching that group, regardless of what you think of them, is illegal.

In order to make it legal you have to be able to show that you're going to do something specific that will provide probable cause.

Showing that the dog is anything short of a clearly reliable and accurate means of determining that a law is being violated means that the dog is not providing probable cause. A dog that alerts to drugs more 90% of the time when only 60% or so of the population in question has the drugs, has shown results that aren't sufficiently correlated to the data it is supposed to discern.

When that is true it is just a tool for violating laws that prohibit searches.

<comment><USER3> > Then there is the rate of those who are actually carrying drugs within the a > group that the police have pulled over, and suspect are carrying drugs, and > have also presumably asserted their rights and refused a consensual search > by the police and also do not have some other attribute (such as smell, > items visible in plain view) that would provide probable cause.

Yes, but that hurts your argument rather than helping it. The drug dog does not, _by itself_ have to clear the probable cause hurdle. Rather, the totality of the circumstances has to yield probable cause: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois_v._Gates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illinois_v._Gates).

So say the base rate for carrying drugs is 10% in the population. The police, based on their suspicions, pull over a population of people where 40% are carrying illegal drugs. Then, the drug dog comes in, and he's barely better than a coin flip--60% correct. Out of 100 people stopped, he'll correctly identify 24 of the 40 carrying drugs, and incorrectly flag 24 of the 60 not carrying drugs. But overall the process will be right 50% of the time, versus only a 10% probability if you stopped drivers at random. That's probable cause.

<comment><USER5> But I thought PC couldn't count a officer's inarticulable hunch towards that "totality of the circumstances".

For example, let's say that the dog is not sufficient probable cause. Consider the cases:

1) drug dog indicates + suspect driving erratically

2) drug dog indicates + "I just have a feeling"

Am I correct that 1) might be PC but 2) could not be, no matter how accurate that officer turns out to be in practice?

(In case 2, the dog's finding more drugs than the base rate would not validate its accuracy, as the results are being pre-filtered to have a very different distribution.)

<comment><USER3> If they're finding drugs at several times the base rate, the officer's suspicions probably aren't an "inarticulate hunch."

<comment><USER5> The term I used was inarticul _able_ , and if you are unable to articulate something (like to a judge), then that makes it inarticulable -- irrespective of how otherwise grounded it was.

So rationally, the cop's "spidey sense" is indeed evidence. The question I posed to you (and whoever's reading) was whether it counts as _legal_ evidence. And it's my understanding that, no matter how good your spidey sense is, it does not become PC in a legal sense until it is articulable. As Thomas Moore said in _A Man for All Seasons_ :

"The world must construe according to its wits; this court, according to the law."

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> Dogs are a 100% proof way to always let the cops search your car. If the court takes that way, they'll have to invent some other legal loophole.

Handler trains their dog to alert on cues such as saying "Good boy" or "Find..." and so on. The dog understands what to do. Alerts and gets a treat or patted on the back.

I am wondering what are statistics of "dog alerted, search performed, but no drugs found", does anyone keep that? It would be interesting as it would reveal the scheme pretty well. (They can of course say, well at some point in the past the car had drugs in it...)

</comment><comment><USER7> The dog isn't even "as accurate as a coin flip". Given a 93% alert rate, regardless of the subsequent true positive rate, information gain from an alert is approximately zero.

Edit: "accurate as a coin flip" is a bad construction, but I wouldn't exactly expect better from a newspaper. The information gain from a device that activates randomly 50% of the time, 0% of the time, and 100% of the time are all the same, which is to say zero.

<comment><USER8> This isn't being fair. I don't really think the post title is fair either. That 93% isn't comparable to the 50% you're probably thinking for the coin flip, or even the 0/100% mentioned in your edit.

\---

93% alert rate means:

93% = false positive + true positive

7% = true negative + false negative

\---

We're given "His success rate was much lower, at 59 percent." Assuming that means that 59% are true positives, we know the false positive rate is 34%.

Without data on how many passengers are carrying drugs, we can't say anything about the rest of that result. A plausible world where the drug dog may be valuable is when he unquestionably rules out that 7% of the population that he doesn't alert on, as in false negative = 0.

I believe the reason this number is so high (59%) is that the officer has already used his suspicion to determine filter out most people. This makes the value of the "ruling out" plausibility even more valuable: the drug dog reduces searches compared to trusting the cop.

Ideally, they'd provide the receiver operating characteristics curve [0] or the confusion matrix [1].

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Receiver_operating_characteris...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Receiver_operating_characteristic) [1] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confusion_matrix](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confusion_matrix)

<comment><USER9> The real question is whether the dog is better than the officer at guessing who has drugs. If the dog is much better than the officer, it would suggest that a dog 'alert' should be given more weight than the officer's guess. If the dog is no better than the officer, the dog is useless.

I say this because it is possible (and indeed likely) that the officer is also better at guessing who has drugs than a coin toss.

Full Disclosure: I have never used or trafficked contraband, but I do not support random searches or the use of drug dogs in public without a warrant, regardless of their effectiveness.

<comment><USER10> _If the dog is much better than the officer, it would suggest that a dog 'alert' should be given more weight than the officer's guess. If the dog is no better than the officer, the dog is useless._

A very big problem is that drug dogs will alert when the handler gives it subtle clues. This is done to get probable cause for a search when there is nothing more than an officer's hunch or just a desire to hassle a particular individual.

<comment><USER11> This is something I see claimed a lot. I'd be very interested in any information you have about this. I find it very unlikely this kind of training is part of the official training, so I'm imagining it's some kind of unintentional conditioning? Or is it done on purpose by the officers?

<comment><USER12> This is covered in the article, and it's quite straightforward. The handler was giving the dog treats for alerting, rather than giving treats for finding drugs.

The primary trouble I see is that there is no penalty for re-training dogs like this.

<comment><USER11> The article only discusses that the handler gives the dog treats for alerting, it doesn't go into the motivations about that, whether they're because the officers aren't considering the Pavlovian conditioning involved and are accidentally reinforcing such behavior or if it's intentional.

<comment><USER13> Does the motivation matter when we're talking about whether it establishes sufficient justification for searching someone's car? After a clear flaw is pointed out, a response of "We didn't _mean to_ ruin the statistical power of this test" wouldn't do much to restore my confidence in its results.

<comment><USER11> I was specifically responding to this comment

>This is done to get probable cause for a search when there is nothing more than an officer's hunch or just a desire to hassle a particular individual.

that claims that this is done purposefully. That's what I was wondering about, not the overall efficacy of drug dogs.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> I am not a professional dog trainer, meaning I do not have a CPDT certification nor do people pay me. However, I have extensive experience training dogs at a local dog shelter (minimum two hours/week) in a specific training atmosphere, and I have a fair amount of experience with "nose works" which is somewhat related to "drug sniffing dogs" (nose works is where a drug dog might start, for instance). In other words, if software didn't pay so darned well I could go jump through the hoops and hang out my dog trainer shingle. I also hang out with a lot of trainers who are certified and paid for their work.

With my (albeit weak) credentials out of the way, my quasi-professional opinion is that drug dogs are the polygraph test of the drug war. I've watched bomb and drug dogs at work, and much like a polygraph, I think you can read anything you want into the dog's actions. And unless you're 100% consistent (and even pros aren't), the dog might mis-read the handler. There are retired women who devote way too much time to the "nose works" sport with their dog(s), and in competition even those dogs get it wrong a fair percentage of the time.

For bomb sniffing and sniffing for bodies after a disaster, that's fine. Dog says there's explosives, turns out Fido was wrong, no biggie. A few folks got unnecessarily riled up, but no other harm done. Dog said it found a body, but there's nothing but rubble? Meh, did some digging we didn't have to do, but otherwise little harm done (though we could have been digging for a real person).

Sniffing for drugs? False positives have a greater impact. And just because the dog hit, and there were drugs, doesn't mean the dog was _right_. Correlation and causation and all that, I suppose. Anyway, I'm explaining this poorly, but I hope the gist gets across.

TLDR: I spend a lot of time around dogs trying to teach them things. They might be more reliable than a polygraph, but I'm not willing to ruin people's day or lives over the word of a dog.

</comment><comment><USER15> The article says:

> In 2013, the Supreme Court made things worse in Florida v. Harris. In that > case, the court unanimously ruled that mere certification of a drug dog was > enough to establish a presumption that a drug dog is reliable, regardless of > the reputation of the certifying organization, regardless of whether that > organization understands and appreciates the importance of training dogs to > ignore their handlers' suspicions, and regardless of the dog's performance > in the real world.

But the decision in Florida v. Harris says:

> A defendant, however, must have an opportunity to challenge such evidence of > a dog's reliability, whether by cross-examining the testifying officer or by > introducing his own fact or expert witnesses. The defendant, for example, > may contest the adequacy of a certification or training program, perhaps > asserting that its standards are too lax or its methods faulty.

...

> In short, a probable-cause hearing focusing on a dog's alert should proceed > much like any other. The court should allow the parties to make their best > case, consistent with the usual rules of criminal procedure. And the court > should then evaluate the proffered evidence to decide what all the > circumstances demonstrate. If the State has produced proof from controlled [ > __ _7] settings that a dog performs reliably in detecting drugs, and the > defendant has not contested that showing, then the court should find > probable cause. If, in contrast, the defendant has challenged the State 's > case (by disputing the reliability of the dog overall or of a particular > alert), then the court should weigh the competing evidence.

...

> Harris, as also noted above, declined to challenge in the trial court any > aspect of Aldo's training. See supra, at 3. To be sure, Harris's briefs in > this Court raise questions about that training's adequacy — for example, > whether the programs simulated sufficiently diverse environments and whether > they used enough blind testing (in which the handler does not know the > location of drugs and so cannot cue the dog). See Brief for Respondent > 57-58. Similarly, Harris here queries just how well Aldo performed in > controlled testing. See id., at 58. But Harris never voiced those doubts in > the trial court, and cannot do so for the first time here.

So what that supreme court case _actually* says is that the validity of a drug-sniffing dog as probable cause for a search can be challenged in court, but the challenge must be made in trial court rather than on appeal.

<comment><USER16> The article says that certification establishes a _presumption_ of reliability. That means that certification can shift the burden of proof to the defendant. In that case, Bentley would have to prove to the jury that the dog is unreliable. It's correct.

It seems Bentley's trial counsel erred by not presenting evidence that the dog was unreliable, and hence did not meet Bentley's burden.

[Edit: clarity]

</comment></comment><comment><USER17> Not the first time, nor is this the worst offense perpetuated by drug dogs. A town in New Mexico used one drug dog with an expired certification, "Leo", in order to justify invasive anal probes on two men--neither of whom had drugs. To add insult to injury, both men were later billed by the hospitals for this non-consenting search.

Timothy Young, 2012: [http://krqe.com/2014/07/28/nm-driver-tells-story-of- sheriffs...](http://krqe.com/2014/07/28/nm-driver-tells-story-of-sheriffs- invasive-body-search/)

David Eckert, 2013: [http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/05/1253274/-Absolutely...](http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/05/1253274/-Absolutely- unimaginable-this-could-happen-in-America)

Both cases were eventually settled, leading to Young receiving a $900,000 settlement and Eckert receiving $1.6 million: [http://articles.latimes.com/2014/jan/16/nation/la-na-nn- new-...](http://articles.latimes.com/2014/jan/16/nation/la-na-nn-new-mexico- police-search-20140116)

These two cases are an absolutely horrifying violation of human rights and I'm really glad to see drug dogs being taken to task as part of what led to both of these men being violated.

</comment><comment><USER18> This is hardly news. Until we put in real consequences for both police and judges who intentionally misbehave or oftentimes fail at their job, none of this will change.

Here's an idea: penalize the cop for every false positive. Docking pay seems to be the best idea here. I guarantee drug dogs' accuracies will go up nationwide within weeks (or however long it takes to retrain dogs and their masters). Every 5 or 10 false positives, dock the cop extra pay or reprimand him. Problem solved.

Here's another idea: hold judges accountable for police actions in the courtroom. If the police lie on the stand, and it's shown that the judge had "probable cause" the judge should be fired. The collusion problem between police and judges, what the article is referring to tough maybe not explicitly, will go away as well. Problem solved.

tl;dr: The only way to keep the police in check is to make them suffer real consequences for fucking up. This will never happen in the US because the citizens here have no idea about the atrocities the police are comitting and the police prefer to keep it that way.

</comment><comment><USER16> To be clear, what this _appellate court_ and the _trial court_ were asked to consider are different questions.

Trial courts find facts. For example, "this guy shot that guy". Mostly these are considered by a jury, but in preliminary things such as Bentley's probable cause hearing, the trial court judge can act as a fact-finder.

Appellate courts interpret laws. For example, strip searching a middle school student for pain medication is an "unreasonble" search under the Fourth Amendment.

Lex is demonstrably inaccurate. Bentley argued in _appellate court_ that Lex's alert is insufficient to support probable cause under any circumstances--i.e., a "matter of law". Bentley did not argue in _trial court_ that Lex's alert was unreliable in his situation--i.e., a "matter of fact".

The ruling simply reject's Bentley's argument, but preserves future defendant's rights to make the latter argument.

</comment><comment><USER19> AdaBoost is an algorithm for taking weak classifiers (performing only slightly better than random chance) and boosting/weighing them such that together they are a strong classifier. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AdaBoost](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AdaBoost)

To play the devil's advocate, if the dog alerting to drugs is only one of the classifiers in play (others being the suspects look/act under the influence), and if it's weighed correctly in an officer's mind, it is a key part of the strong classifier.

<comment><USER20> But if you are going to use that reasoning, then you need to remove the dog from the equation and only judge the officers on their actual success rate, utilizing any method at their disposal. What should this rate be? 50%? Any officer who falls below that rate should be forced to get approval from another officer with a higher success rate? They can then choose to use dogs to supplement certain officer's accuracy without giving them incentive to train the dogs to be "probable cause generators".

Using a weak classifier to serve as the basis for getting around a constitutional right is pretty messed up.

<comment><USER19> > Using a weak classifier to serve as the basis for getting around a > constitutional right is pretty messed up.

I was playing the devil's advocate, in case you missed that part, and my point was that a classifier being weak does not necessarily make it bad, as evidenced by AdaBoost.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> At that point why not just have officers approach a suspects car with a box with a button and two lights, press the button and if the light turns green, there is "reasonable suspicion"? Just have the light turn green everytime and they can always search you and F the 4th Amendment.

</comment><comment><USER22> [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Base_rate_fallacy)

</comment><comment><USER23> I wonder if we could use bees instead then, as there seemed to be some interesting research on training them to detect drugs and presumably they wouldn't be biased by human behaviour especially.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hymenoptera_training](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hymenoptera_training)

Alternatively are there any portable mass spectrometers now?

<comment><USER24> Another thing Bees were being used to detect was explosive, but researchers discovered that bees detected the impurities in explosives. If you gave the bees pure samples of explosive they didn't do very well.

Professor Jackie Akhavan (Professor of Explosive Chemistry) mentioned this on the BBC programme "The Life Scientific", where a scientist talks to other scientists about their work. It's for a general audience so nothing particularly technical, but still interesting.

<comment><USER23> Cheers, I'll see if I can grab that.

<comment><USER24> Sorry! I forget to include the link. Here's that specific episode: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04jk360](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04jk360)

> Jackie Akhavan, Professor of Explosive Chemistry, tells Jim al-Khalili all > about the science of explosives. She explains exactly what explosives are > and how to make them safer to handle.

> She started by working on how to make fireworks safer and has been involved > in research with bees to see whether they can be used smell different types > of explosives. Her current project involves testing the rocket fuel that > will be used in Bloodhound, the British designed and built supersonic car > that aims to reach a speed of 1,000mph.

> Her work involves finding out how to best detect explosives in airports and > elsewhere, teaching security professionals how to differentiate between > false alarms and the real thing. She also works on explosives used in > warfare and discusses the ethical issues involved.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> All this doesn't matter until the root cause is fixed. Police will find a way. The root cause* is mentioned in the article, property seizure laws. As long as there is monetary incentive Police will be __compelled __to violate the constitution.

* The real root cause is the criminalization of recreational drugs. But ending Prohibition is basically a non-starter.

</comment><comment><USER26> Hm. What would be the probable cause level required for a search of a politician's records, phone calls, and bank accounts for evidence of bribery. We could probably use big data to establish patterns which are indicative of bribe-taking that would be demonstrably more reliable than 50%.

</comment><comment><USER20> This headline is pretty terrible.

Keep in mind when looking at these statics that the number for this dog is not based on a random sample. Therefor it is impossible to actually gage the dog's accuracy from these numbers, since we don't know the ration of false:true negatives, only the number of false:true positives. The ratios could be identical, which would make the dog's alerting behavior random. There could even be a higher ratio of false:true negatives, which would make the dog worse than random.

The only meaningful number is the 93% ratio which basically means that the dog is very close to being a 'probably cause generator' as mentioned in the article.

</comment><comment><USER27> So drug dogs become a kind of police "search anything" power totem.

(This as opposed to the "kill anything" power totem that is the cops brain and tongue via _I thought he had a gun_ or _I thought my life was in danger_ ; or the "break into people's home and terrorize them" power totem of the knock- less warrant; or the "track anyone, listen to anyone" power totem of the Patriot Act, etc. at the federal level.)

<comment><USER28> Before the US revolutionary war they were called "General Warrants" and allowed British soldiers to search and seize as they pleased.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> Merits and repercussions of drug prohibition aside, the fact that the dogs can signal a false positive on command seems unsettling.

</comment><comment><USER30> Not only is this an important civil rights issue, but it's a safety issue too. If the dog is used as a proxy for the bias/hunch of the officer, rather than objectively, then adversaries can use that to their advantage, e.g. to divert resources away from a real threat.

</comment><comment><USER31> Here's the full text of the case for those interested: [https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v- bentley-13](https://casetext.com/case/united-states-v-bentley-13)

</comment><comment><USER32> Statistics should be a high school course.

</comment><comment><USER33> Upvoted because drugs are good.</comment>


Soccermetrics.com - will the name stunt their growth to just the US market? - <AUTHOR> http://howtowriteabusinessplan.com/2012/11/soccermetrics/ <comment><USER2> No the name won't affect them.

There are literally zero useful soccer/football websites out there. The world will jump on one that does a good job, regardless of the name.</comment>


CBSD – FreeBSD Jail Management Tools - <AUTHOR> http://www.bsdstore.ru/html/about_en.html <comment><USER2> This project seems great, but I feel there's something wrong with the submitted article title, it sounds weird (plus, there's no mention of Docker on the linked page). Sure, you can draw parallels between Docker and what FreeBSD jails and tools built on top do, but it would be fairer to say Docker is a Linux based alternative to jails, and not as powerful (as far as I understand Linux kernel infrastructure that Docker uses). The crucial difference is that jails are really a security feature in FreeBSD (and if you're not using them in production you're probably doing it wrong), whereas Docker is primarily deployment oriented (please correct me if I'm wrong about Docker here). Various jail management tools give you a nice, easy to use, set of deployment features on top.

<comment><AUTHOR> The thing is that it is Docker that 'seems' to be leading the container movement right now, being a mainstream tool, even though Jails were available earlier and as of now seem to be more powerful than LXC. Also, Jails are not only security feature, but can be as good deployment feature, as Docker, if not better - it all depends what you want to do with them, and you can do a lot. I called CBSD an alternative to Docker, because Docker is more widely known, and Jails/FreeBSD/CBSD might interest someone as an viable and mature alternative to Docker/Linux.

<comment><USER2> Well, I had a hunch it was for this reason. I usually get grumpy when an arguably superior solution is presented as an 'alternative' to something that's just more popular because it's easier that way for people to grok what it's all about. But on the other hand, I've never been good at marketing, so who am I to complain. :)

<comment><USER3> Docker and Jails are not directly comparable, the same way Docker and raw lxc are not directly comparable. Docker operates at a higher level of abstraction, and uses lxc as a low-level sandboxing tool. It could (and soon will) offer a choice of multiple sandboxing backends beyond lxc, for example simple chroot (for older linux kernels), openvz, libvirt, etc.

There are also people experimenting with using Jails and Solaris zones as a backend to docker.

From what I'm reading, this project cbsd sounds like a more direct competitor of docker + a future jails backend.

<comment><USER2> Yeah, don't get me wrong, I think Docker is great. I remember when I first heard about it thinking "Finally, something approaching jails functionality in Linux." Of course, I know it's a different level of abstraction and all that. My comments were more directed at the underlying Linux infrastructure Docker uses. Granted, I may well be wrong, it's been a long time since I was _seriously_ in Linux land (i.e. not just a mindless day-to-day user), I'm not current with hard technicalities so it's totally possible that I'm being unjust to LXC.

I'm happy to hear about plans for different backends, the jails one would be awesome if it comes to fruition.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> From the website, main features are (with my comments):

* a ready repository for kernels and the worlds that takes buildworld/installworld steps not the obligatory.

* when steps of buildworld/installworld are undertaken, src.conf for a world customization is supported

* base the catalog can place on MD/RAM/TMPFS on a disk that can be useful at a big num of jails with RO mounted base

* support of ZFS of file system, ZFS of quotas, ZFS snapshots

* GUI configurator of jails (DIALOG/WEB)

* VIMAGE support (separate network stack per jail container)

* traffic count per jail, RACCT/RCTL support (resource restrictions)

* import/export of jails, jail replication, cold migration of a jails between nodes

* descriptions for jails

* management of sequence of start of jail and their priority

* a repository with ready jail template

* possibility to create own scenarios for creation of jails/repository

* jail converting into PXE/ISO/Memstick-image

* support for jail non-native architecture via Qemu User mode (eg: arm or mips64 jail on x86-64 host system)

</comment><comment><USER4> FWIW, the PC-BSD project (think "FreeBSD fine-tuned for the Desktop") has written various tools to help managing such things as FreeBSD jails easier -- see, for example, warden [0]).

If you're looking to try it out but don't need/want the desktop/GUI, there's also TrueOS. It's basically FreeBSD plus all the cool management tools they've written but minus the desktop/GUI.

[0]: [http://wiki.pcbsd.org/index.php/Warden%C2%AE/10.0](http://wiki.pcbsd.org/index.php/Warden%C2%AE/10.0)

<comment><USER5> Can Warden be install on FreeBSD (not PC-BSD flavor)? Wondering, it looks nice.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The dependency list is amazingly minimal!

> rsync,sudo,libssh2,sqlite3

Now, I don't use FreeBSD, but that seems like a dream when it comes to provisioning.

<comment><AUTHOR> That's possible because most of the technology behind CBSD is a intergated part of FreeBSD system for quite some time now: Jails have been there for ages, ZFS support dates back to 7.x with becoming default in 10.0-RELEASE. Sudo is not in default install, but sqlite should be there, as it is being used in the system (if I am correct, at least by pkg, the new package manager).

<comment><USER2> > but sqlite should be there, as it is being used in the system (if I am > correct, at least by pkg, the new package manager).

AFAIK, no. PKGNG is intentionally not part of base, it's meant to always remain in ports. The reason is that it allows pkg developers to iterate quickly (and this ties nicely into the recent ports infrastructure overhaul efforts). Once something is part of base and goes into a RELEASE it pretty much has to stay frozen apart for security fixes, and this was deemed not flexible enough for pkg. The only thing in base is a shim pkg which on first invocation installs the real thing from ports (and, I think, later just routes everything to it, unless you remove it or change PATH). So nothing in base uses sqlite and it's in ports/packages.

<comment><USER7> PKGNG is the default (integrated) package managers in 10.0-RELEASE.

<comment><USER2> It's the default alright, but that has nothing to do with it being in the base (yes, it's an exception to the rule). You can look it up on the freebsd- ports@, there were somewhat heated discussions concerning this and some other issues. Unless I've missed something, this decision hasn't changed.

<comment><USER4> _pkg_ can also bootstrap itself. I don't have a fresh FreeBSD install w/o _pkg_ already installed but upon first use it basically goes like this:

      $ pkg foo
      pkg is not installed. Install it? (y/n) y
      ...
      pkg is now installed

<comment><USER2> Right, that's what I said[1]---there's a shim pkg in base to install pkg proper from ports. The real pkg is in ports so it can receive continuous upgrades, which wouldn't be possible in a RELEASE (or STABLE for the most part) if it were in base.

[1] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7114744](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7114744)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> See also [http://sourceforge.net/projects/zjails/](http://sourceforge.net/projects/zjails/) which is pretty cool because all of the jail config is stored in ZFS attributes, so they are backed up/replicated with snapshots and ZFS send/receive.

</comment><comment><USER9> Interesting project, but I'm a little disappointed it's not a shiny new thing for the bhyve virtualization layer[1] introduced in freebsd-10, but rather builds on "plain" jails.

I'd say something like this on top of bhyve would be a closer match for docker (which sits on top of lxc).

[1] [https://wiki.freebsd.org/action/show/bhyve?action=show&redir...](https://wiki.freebsd.org/action/show/bhyve?action=show&redirect=BHyVe)

<comment><USER10> LXC is similar to jails and bhyve is more like KVM, so Docker would be the appropriate comparison for a jail management tool. Also, I wouldn't consider bhyve/KVM to be necessarily better than jails/LXC; one has better isolation and the other has better performance.

<comment><USER9> AFAIK bhyve only supports paravirtualization (and for now freebsd guests)?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> dallagi: your comments are marked as dead. Judging from your comments there's no real reason for it, so I think a bot did it because you commented on a troll submission.

for the rest of HN:

Isn't one of Dockers killer features the layered file system? Using rsync for making new jails seems like it's going to be real slow for reprovisioning.

What kind of things to people use FreeBSD for? I wonder if they're really rooting for a docker coming to their environment.

<comment><USER12> > _Isn 't one of Dockers killer features the layered file system?_

Use can mount anything you like to any mount point in jails. (Even without ZFS, with ZFS it's a different story.) I don't know about this CBSD, but ejail and qjail (similar tools) do that for you — they mount some "base" system in jail. Then you mount what you want, _pkg install_ what want etc

> _I wonder if they 're really rooting for a docker coming to their > environment._

WHAT? No, it's with docker GNU/Linux is finally going to have something like jails, which FreeBSD have has for decades.

<comment><USER13> LXC is to Jail as Docker is to CBSD

<comment><USER3> > _LXC is to Jail as Docker is to CBSD_

Yes, exactly.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> When i asked whether there are any equivalent of Docker and CoreOS for FreeBSD, i got downvoted by HN into Oblivion.

Good to see there is at least 74 points on the topic.

</comment><comment><USER15> how does this compare to [http://www.7he.at/freebsd/vps/](http://www.7he.at/freebsd/vps/)?

<comment><AUTHOR> VPS is entirely new OS level virtualization that's in beta as of now, while Jails have been in FreeBSD for years, are well tested, stable, actively developed.

</comment></comment><comment><USER16> What is the impetus for needing an alternative? I don't know much about Docker, so this is a serious question.

<comment><USER4> docker:Linux::jails:FreeBSD

<comment><USER3> Not exactly. A more accurate comparison would be

docker:linux :: cbsd:freebsd

lxc:linux :: jails:linux

docker:lxc :: cbsd:jails

And if one day docker gets a jails execution driver:

docker:freebsd :: cbsd:freebsd docker:jails :: cbsd:jails

:)</comment></comment></comment>


Apple blames China as it cuts forecast - <AUTHOR> https://www.bbc.com/news/business-46742871 <comment><USER2> Unless Apple is able/willing to release a more affordable iPhone, their growth in developing markets is unlikely to increase any further. The competition in the $250-$500 range has gotten very good in the past few years.</comment>


Why We'll Need a Universal Basic Income - <AUTHOR> http://robertreich.org/post/151111696805 <comment><USER2> _The economy we're heading toward could offer millions of people more free time to do what they want to do instead of what they have to do to earn a living._

Looks like Keynes wasn't far off with his prediction in 1928. [http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/05/26/no- time](http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/05/26/no-time)

Though I suspect we'll find some other way to spend our time and earn money doing it.</comment>


An effective outsourcing system you'll actually use (solopreneurs, small teams) - <AUTHOR> http://life-longlearner.com/business-outsourcing-systems/

<comment><USER2> Now just make Amberly into a virtual person and you've got something scalable.</comment>