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OK folks, after switching to Windows 8.1 (a few months ago) and owning an Android phone for about 18 months now, I can now say with confidence that:
owning your own information, that is the information that you use every day to manage your life IS NO LONGER POSSIBLE without the cloud.
I just tried to backup my contacts on my Android phone, having previously stopped all apps that were sucking RAM on the phone. I could barely get access to my contact list, much less back it up. To back it up I need to back it up ON THE CLOUD! That's right, I cannot do it onto a hard drive of my choice. I can download an app for a couple of dollars that will backup my stuff, but once again somewhere ON THE CLOUD. Or at least I have to register some kind of account first before I can do that.
The Sony phone software is the same. It's an expensive mess, and doesn't allow you to use the phone as a mere external hard drive. Everything happens through the proprietary, information sucking software they write. I can transfer jpgs to my hard drive, and music, but my own contacts? That'll cost you. Where are we when we have 'free access' to someone else's productions, but cannot create and own the most simple information on our own?
But it's not only Android. I cannot buy a copy of Microsoft Windows Office without registering a Microsoft .NET account. Not even if I pay the full cost of the program.
I cannot send an SMS and receive one, and back my SMSs up, without an app that Google and /or my mobile phone provider sells me.
What happened to paying for what you do and for what you use? That's long gone, replaced by 'free' or seemingly low cost services that become high cost, because everything you do is controlled by the software, which keeps updating itself without your knowledge and consent.
And say goodbye to configuring your Android phone, unless you're a developer , and even then, probably not.
We are slaves to our computers, or better said, the software that someone else writes for us!!!! SHIT.
I don't like it, but I don't know what to do about it. Besides becoming a programmer which I tried and hated. Talk about being a slave to computers, try being a programmer for one day.
The cloud seems now to own us, and not the other way around.
Rant over. And this rant probably comes as a surprise to very few here.
Cheers and out.......
Follow Ups:
Your complaint is like buying a regular phone but complaining that you have to connect it to the wall and use local and long distance phone providers.In Win 8.1 you need to create account and password for your system that gives you access to the Cloud. After that you can disconnect from the Cloud. I have been disconnected for 2 years now with no problems.
Android phone: point of having one is to have everything synchronized and therefore you have to be connected to some service - for Android it is Google. Further, you do not have to synchronize anything - you can turn it off item by item, account by account and type by type. I let Android synchronizes e-mail/Address book/Calendar, and keep everything else local.
Also, I do not know about your phone, but several different Androids I have let you back up everything locally. As your e-mail/calendar/address book are already on the web, I see no point of not using what is already saved, but photos documents, etc. I keep local and copy to computer when I want.
So to summarize, if you do not want features of the smartphone do not buy one. If you want to use them, you have to be connected to internet and you have to have account. No one forces you to use the Cloud.
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"One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane."
Edits: 10/21/14
"As your e-mail/calendar/address book are already on the web"
that's exactly what I was concerned about. i hope my calendar is not on the web. and i see no reason why my 'address book' should have to be. there is plenty of storage space on the internal / external chip on my mobile phone, for example, that doesn't get used and could be used for this purpose. Sure, my e-mail gets sent over the internet, and even the www, but it SHOULD be SSLed somewhere on the way, which I am no longer sure about.
Besides my local PC login password, I have not created a Cloud account with Win 8.1 as far as I know. Maybe I need to read the instructions/ Terms of Use of Win 8.1 again.
The point of having an Android phone was not to have everything synchronized, but to use the functionality, like internet access, which these mini computers enable. I do not see why that fundamentally committs one to sharing everything about what I do with the phone with my provider, or Google, or whoever else decides to pay for that information. Like I said, I might pay twice as much for a phone/provider that didn't constantly tap into my information.
The phone is to some extent configurable (I can disable apps) but why should information disappear when a synch app is disabled? It doesn't make sense. There is tons of storage space on the internal and external chip slot which doesn't get used, meanwhile the RAM is constantly being hijacked by apps working in the background to upload and update, etc.....
Basically, I'm troubled by the fundamental move in the IT business towards providing software services in return not for payment that fits the service, but for unlimited access to the information that you create, manage and use. Once you get people hooked on technology they don't understand or can manipulate, even if they didn't pay for that technology, then you've really got them. Try living without the A/C power that comes out of the wall for a day, and you'll see what I mean.
To me, it sounds like you long ago drank the koolaid and are fine with it, but I'm not. Although I did also drink a lot of koolaid in the last 15 years.
How do I get off the Win8.1 Cloud (as you said you did 2 years ago?)
The point of having an Android phone was not to have everything synchronized, but to use the functionality, like internet access, which these mini computers enable. I do not see why that fundamentally committs one to sharing everything about what I do with the phone with my provider, or Google, or whoever else decides to pay for that information. Like I said, I might pay twice as much for a phone/provider that didn't constantly tap into my information.
Like Facebook, the true valuation is not in what you pay to use the device, but the data points you make by using it everyday. That's where the money is, so making it impossible to collect that info would just be bad business for them.
I try to keep as much locally as I can, but I'd be lying if I said I don't benefit from that level of integration.
Jim J.
If you do not want your callendar, addressbook, etc. on the web, do not synchronize them, your choice (Call me what you think about that choice when your phone dies or get stolen).
If you connect to internet, what you do can be seen by others if they really want to, no matter what software you use, if you sync or not...
If you send e-mail, recipient and your addresses with all the content you are aware and not can be seen by others.
If you think that you can protect yourself from it you are obviously clueless about state of the current information technology.
Also, with the apps you have choice to use them or not. Some collect data, some not. Some will collect data always, some not if you pay, your choice.
"why should information disappear when a synch app is disabled"
Have no idea what App and in what context. I keep sync off for most of the apps most of the time so that they do not drain a battery and they work fine.
I did not drink cool aid, I just live in a reality. Like where having a smarphone is not luxury but need. I do not know what you do for a living but I would not keep my job for long if I would not have and use my smartphone.
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"One must be sane to think clearly, but one can think deeply and be quite insane."
They're now calling sky drive 'one drive' and I've ignored it from the beginning, since I've been using the old UI on 8.1, not the new one.
i don't think i'm clueless about the state of IT, just philosophically question the motives behind it. where IT and software goes, seems to be ruled by profit decisions, and not necessarily by what people want to see in software apps. it doesn't have to be that way. Innovation is not always 'good' though I see the need to constantly change shape when the 'competition' is hot on your heels.
on the whole, though, I'm amazed, in a positive sense, by all the functionality. even though google can seem a bit spooky, there's no bigger fan of google maps, for instance, than I.
cheers
My main computer interest these days is digital photography, which is dominated by the elephant in the room, Adobe. In contact with other photographers, I can say that there is a backlash against Adobe and others trying to force users into cloud subscriptions. They entice new users with low fees, but when this bus gets rolling, I'm sure that will quickly escalate.
Beside the privacy issue, is the complete reliance on internet's unreliable performance, and forced trust of personal goods in the hands of others.
Many service providers are pushing for cloud operation for programs that now work with confidence on users' stand alone computers.
There are many unsavory facets to this cloud issue.
...since the German telecom switched me over to full IP telephony, which I indeed agreed to, with the hope that it would make my internet connection faster. Which it hasn't really.
And probably thereby exposing myself to further hackers and other people/institutions sniffing what I am doing.
sigh.
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