We were all very excited to do so.

I literally remember this. I was living in the US in circa 2000. I remember standing outside my apartment with a mobile phone, a GPS system, an iPod, and a digital camera, and thinking 'these should all be one thing'!

And here we are, 26 years later, and all of these things are deeply infected with unnecessary LLM bullshit. Progress!

And it was beautiful

That's me, today. Different brands and models, but pretty much the same items. If I have the space (inner coat pockets, for example), I also add a small notepad and pencil, and a calculator. I ain't gonna pay for a HP-12C calculator app, when I have the fully functional hardware.

It was better and the price of the slight convenience now is that the next generation, and your aunt and uncle, are openly cheering on nazis and pedophiles with no idea what's actually happening in the world.

Shut up and carry the cassette tape thin digital camera already.

I don't remember having to deal with USB-C earbuds before the iPhone.

And some of us are returning to this simplicity and privacy

And a time where 3rd party companies had no access to any of them

Well, the headphones are still a separate thing. They are even more separate now, than they ever were (each one earphone is separate now)

That's today if you're looking for quality for any of them.

I know this is a shitpost, but I honestly think that was better. In the past couple years I've bought an mp3 player, and dslr camera, and a pocket sized e-reader, and a retro gaming handheld, and it feels so much better swapping between them when I'm doing something than just staring at the little hell rectangle for 12 hours a day.

And it was awesome.

Yes, please bring it back.

I'm always surprised I these conversations that almost no one mentions always having a useful, generally charged, decent close range flashlight.

I'm old enough to ha e experienced that having a zippo was the most reliable way to see close range stuff. Flashlights were basically dead battery containers.

And that's was a good thing too.

Young people today are increasingly choosing to have separate dedicated-purpose devices. And that's probably a good thing. It decreases distractions, lets you focus on what you're actually trying to do, and makes you less addicted to your phone, and avoids the always-connected evils that come with it

I feel like this is a shitpost because they’re all weird or anachronistic in some way

Ah yes, Lightning headphones. Or USB-C, can't tell. Either way, none of the iPods accept these. Meanwhile late keypad phones all have headphone jacks...

EDIT: yup, USB-C. Also, the phone has a clock. And a camera, not a good one but a camera. It's a ~2008-2010s Samsung.

The time is now. Fuck relying on a tech giant for all my cloud storage and "convenience"

Don't you remember the joy of carrying around a dozen proprietary cables. Oh dads cable drawer was great.

I don’t miss all the different cables but fuck, do I miss being able to listen to a song without having to silence a spam call in the middle of it

I literally have all of these things separate today.

Smartphone, mechanical watch, wallet, wireless headphones but also a Fiio portable audio player that can drive my good wired headphones.

These things all do their job very well. Combining them makes everything worse for me.

Exception maybe is camera, I have a good Fuji digital mirrorless but I do actually enjoy using the very good cameras in my phone as well.