Hari's Corner 2 – Page 7 – Reboot of Hari's Corner – the place for my thoughts and creativity

There are no real online shopping deals

October 22, 2020 Hari Comments 2 comments

The Indian festive season is here. Online shopping sites offer “up to 40% / 50% off” along with mouth watering credit EMI offers and want you to loosen your purse strings… And all the time, I’m still waiting for that elusive item((with a clearly marked and verifiable current Maximum Retail Price)) that is genuinely discounted at 40%.

Most, if not all, of the online deals even by established players seem to be big scams. To my knowledge any shopping site that offers “up to 40% off” or “up to 50% off” rarely offer any items with even bona fide 25% discounts and only a few items above the 10% range. 5-7% discounts seem more common and if you’re lucky, there’s a bank offer with 10% off((of course, subject to a maximum limit which makes it much less generous for higher priced products)). The actual 40% off used for marketing purposes is mostly on clothing (branded and unbranded) which is grossly overpriced anyway((speaking of clothing, even in physical retail stores, that 40% off item is always something nobody really wants)).

The other big issue with discounts I’ve found is that online stores frequently quote old MRPs to show inflated discounts on items that have already dropped in price. This “oversight” is frequently the case with electronic items, where manufacturers often drop the maximum retail prices of existing models when a newer model is released. A price drop by the manufacturer is not a discount and in any case selling the product above that price is an offence. And I don’t know why, but it’s not trivial to get official information regarding current prices of older models from manufacturers. More often than not, older products are pulled down from the official website, and even if still sold, there is no price information available. Getting this information must be possible((I’ve not tried e-mailing manufacturers yet)), but probably requires quite a bit of digging and persistence. I doubt whether they will make it easy anyway because revealing the price information in black and white will make it easy for consumers to calculate the real discount and not the discount that is marked by the retailer.

My suggestion then: ignore all these deals. Don’t go by the marked discount on the product but consider whether you really need the product and that it’s is worth paying for from your own perspective. Yes, the sweet deal may end in the next 3 hrs 45 mins and 32 seconds, but don’t be surprised to find the same deal still valid for another “12 hrs” the next day.

Why mobile games are usually so awful

October 21, 2020 Hari Comments 2 comments

Try installing any random game on your Android phone or iOS device and chances are that the game sucks. More often than not, the game is severely curtailed in its free avatar and requires you to make micro payments to advance further into the game. And most likely the “game currency”((coins or gems or whatever that are required to unlock higher levels of gameplay/mechanics/content)) cannot be earned enough in-game and usually require to be bought using real currency. Even paid games suffer from this to some extent, in the sense that you usually pay mainly to remove ads and enable some content, but unlocking more content/levels require further micro payments. Over the years, this mechanic seems to have become the de-facto norm for mobile games. In “free” games, on top of such crippled gameplay you also get annoying in-game ads interrupting every few minutes that simply takes away any sense of immersion. And then, of course, you have the problem of “games” that are not really games but pure-and-distilled crappy spyware.

Search for “why are mobile games so bad” on the internet and you’ll find that this is a popular sentiment.

From my perspective, the answer is this – there is no market for serious gaming on mobiles because budget to mid-range mobiles are usually underpowered, and mobiles are not ergonomic enough for serious gameplay. High end mobiles which make somewhat decent gaming possible are expensive enough to be a niche market. Most casual gamers are not going to shell out big money for mobile games((serious gamers who almost never play mobile games simply won’t care)) and mobile game developers probably cannot make enough money to justify developing high-end games, which would only work on the expensive devices anyway. The bigger problem, is that, being primarily touch-operated devices, mobile games have to keep the input and interactivity simple and basic while many serious games require complicated inputs, including keyboard interactions to be ergonomic enough for sophisticated gameplay.

What is more surprising in my opinion is that, there is no real popular open source eco-system for mobile software (including games) similar to the desktop open source software eco-system that developed around Linux. You can be productive in a desktop system with entirely open source software on an open source operating system (Linux) not having to deal with any crapware/adware/spyware, but no such popular open source app eco-system exists for Android that I am aware of.

What happened to the sub 5 inch Android phone market?

October 20, 2020 Hari Comments 2 comments

Is it just me, or are there other smartphone users who’d prefer a device that can be held and operated on one hand and a thumb?

Is there no market for such Android phones that you can operate from one hand? It appears that there are very few small form factor Android phones on the market these days. There are no decently specced models that are less than 5.5″ that I can find online. This is simply annoying because not everybody wants a large screen((some of us use phones as phones, not as video-watching devices)). For me, and I suspect for a lot of people, operating a phone with two hands is an ergonomic issue. Even my Nokia 2.1 (which is a 5.5″ model) is hard to operate with one hand alone for some tasks. I frequently find myself switching the phone to my left hand to use the right forefinger for touch operations. On the other hand, my old iPhone 5s which its 4″ screen is still a delight to hold and operate. Yes, the keypad is too small, but still usable at that size. I think the 4.7″ to 5″ form factor is ideal.

I do understand the need for large screen smartphones, since some people want to use their phone as a mini tablet (especially with the monster sized 6.7″ screen phones), but surely there must be users who just want to conveniently hold the phone and operate it with a thumb. Besides smaller phones fit snugly into the trouser pocket.

The other issue with larger screens is that they draw more battery power and drain even powerful 4000+ mAh batteries in a short duration. So manufacturers have to stuff the phone with more powerful batteries just to get the same charge duration. I also find the overall weight of larger phones to be an issue.

Maybe the trend will once again change and soon we’ll have reasonably sized smartphones once again. In the meantime, the still somewhat pricey older iPhone 7 and 8 (with 4.7″ screens) seem to be the only options in the sub 5″ smartphone category.

Edit: There is a list of current 5″ smartphone models compiled by digit.in. And yes, the iPhone 7 is at the top of the list.

A Brand New Start

October 19, 2020 Hari Comments 2 comments

After a long time, I’m starting over. In 2005, I started blogging with WordPress and eventually moved to my own custom-made PHP blogging platform. But now, I feel the time has come for me to start afresh, because the old harishankar.org has become a bit too unwieldy to maintain. Also, using a standard software like WordPress will ensure that the script is kept updated with the latest PHP security requirements. Since this *is* a new start, I’m planning to write a lot more, apart from sharing my usual artwork.

Over a period of time, I noticed that I just didn’t get motivated enough to write more. I think this new start should definitely help find some focus.