• anarchrist@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    6 months ago

    Idk who needs to hear it, but stop buying this shit. If it has a computer inside, but you can’t flash your own software onto it, just pass. If you’re unsure, look around, find the nearest Linux user and ask for help.

    • Jesus@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      To be fair, next to no one bought this. And the people that payed $90 for this are probably not the sharpest knives in the drawer.

      This is basically a dumb android device with one app - an auto friendly version of Spotify. To use it, you need to pair it to your phone via Bluetooth. So, yeah, it assumes you have a phone in your car with Spotify on it.

      Also it costs about as much as a cheap externally mounted CarPlay or Android auto screen. So, yeah. Not great.

      If you want to put auto friendly app UIs in an older car, go get a cheap CarPlay or AA display. Those are platforms that have been around for a decade, and Apple & Google have long partnership agreements with automakers that are likely to ensure those platforms will be supported for years to come. Hell, Apple is still supporting ancient iPod connection protocols 20+ years later.

      This thing was the Rabbit R1, but for a music streaming app.

      • mPony@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        the people that payed $90 for this are probably not the sharpest knives in the drawer

        maybe, but even stupid people should be protected from being taken advantage of.
        They should at least get a refund of 50% of the purchase price.

      • Hexarei@programming.dev
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        6 months ago

        Honestly this thing solved a very specific problem for me: My car has no good way to mount a phone for car usage so I’ve always kept it in the center console. Car Thing just put a remote on my dash for that with buttons for presets and easy song skipping.

        I only got it for $10 though, and that was two years ago. It has convinced me to get a new head unit with Android Auto support on it for sure

    • friend_of_satan@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      A few months ago my wife wanted to buy an electronic picture frame and I had a hard time explaining this to her.

      Edit: an internet connected picture frame.

      • MonkderDritte@feddit.de
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        6 months ago

        Well ok, an electronic picture frame is not much of an investition and works without internet. Well, most of them. Ok, you have to research it before buying.

  • Bazz@feddit.de
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    6 months ago

    These fuckers disabled car mode in the android app to make you buy one of those and now they’re killing it. I used car mode in my car and the moment it stopped working was when I cancelled my subscription.

        • variants
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          6 months ago

          There’s a setting to disable it, it always annoyed me so I disabled it auto going to car mode when it connected to Bluetooth

        • talentedkiwi@sh.itjust.works
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          6 months ago

          Seems they want to force you to use their “Car Thing” voice assistant. Probably to listen into your conversations…

          1000006289

    • el_abuelo@lemmy.ml
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      6 months ago

      What did car mode do? Was it when it switched to big old buttons? Mine used to do that until I got Android Auto in my new car…so up until about a year ago

      • aquafunkalisticbootywhap@lemmy.sdf.org
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        6 months ago

        downvotes are not to express disagreement!

        so many comments here about adding regulations and “this should be illegal” and, yes, those may be a valid way to curb this behavior

        but customers willing to leave a company for bad behavior, customers wary of new products without asdurances they wont just become useless, non-reusable e-waste could also effectively curb this behavior

        just because you want to outsource all of your product and company research to a law or regulation, and want to be able to blindly buy products and just hope the company doesn’t make bad choices in every regard but quartly profits doesn’t mean it is the only effective check & balance

        • MagicPterodactyl@lemmy.ml
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          6 months ago

          I downvoted the comment above because in the original comment they already mentioned that they are no longer subscribed to Spotify, which makes the “stop being a customer” comment exceedingly stupid and pointless.

      • Sentient Loom@sh.itjust.works
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        6 months ago

        I want the bands to get some money. I buy from bandcamp when musicians are sensible enough to sell on there, or on their sites.

        • ShunkW@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          I wish list stuff until a Bandcamp Friday comes around where artists get all the money. I’ve stopped buying physical media, so waiting on a digital purchase isn’t an issue for me.

            • Sentient Loom@sh.itjust.works
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              6 months ago

              The site is still the same, you still get your music to download, the band still gets most of the money. 100% still a point in using them.

            • teamevil@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              Dude Bandcamp had been sold twice and the product has not changed from a user experience and I only use Bandcamp at this point…I will say you NEED to download anything you buy to archive your collection but at the moment Bandcamp still pays bands, still allows unlimited streaming and still amazing.

              Do I expect it to remain amazing…nope, but for now it’s still amazing.

            • ShunkW@lemmy.world
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              6 months ago

              For now, they still provide DRM free downloads in FLAC. And they still pay the artists on the Fridays. I’ll continue using it till they inevitably fuck it up.

        • Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          6 months ago

          I’ve almost never paid a cent for music.

          My concert ticket stack is thicc though, and I have SOOOOO MANY hoodies, t-shirts, cups, and random bullshit. I’m not paying for DRM, but you can’t DRM a comfy zip-up!

          • Sentient Loom@sh.itjust.works
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            6 months ago

            Absolutely. Even if you pirate from some, and buy whole albums from a few when you can afford it, you’re supporting artists instead of the shareholders of tech goon overlords.

        • teamevil@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          Me too…I’m at 1500+ albums. But I do download them too for when the sad times to come…

      • FiveMacs@lemmy.ca
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        6 months ago

        What.cd

        I’m so glad nothing has replaced what.cd yet…

        If there was though, what do you think it would be called? I would like to avoid it at all costs and continue to buy subscriptions

    • morrowind@lemmy.ml
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      6 months ago

      There are three morbillion songs and I have no idea which ones I like. Streaming platforms became popular for a reason

      • PseudorandomNoise@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Yeah most people don’t care to maintain a local music library. It’s a lot of work and compared to streaming services that do it for you this offers no real benefit. If you listen to lots of new/different music all the time, streaming is actually far cheaper.

        • wrekone@lemmyf.uk
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          6 months ago

          For me, discovery is the entire reason to use streaming services. I have a ton of hard drive space, and know how to find anything I want to download. I have a fairly large music collection from before the days of streaming. But streaming services help me discover all kinds of things I’d likely never hear otherwise. They still suck, as in they’re greedy as hell and the quality is mid, but I don’t know what I’d do if I had to listen to the same stuff all the time.

        • Sentient Loom@sh.itjust.works
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          6 months ago

          It’s cheaper because the band doesn’t get paid as much. The streaming service keeps most of the meager pay.

          • PseudorandomNoise@lemmy.world
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            6 months ago

            People make up for it by buying merch or going to shows. Margins on those things are much better for the artists.

          • morrowind@lemmy.ml
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            6 months ago

            In every service I know of, the platform takes a minority of revenue

        • EngineerGaming@feddit.nl
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          6 months ago

          “It is a lot of work”? I don’t know, for me it always seemed far more convenient than being locked to a single service, single player app and following restrictions.

      • Socsa@sh.itjust.works
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        6 months ago

        Yeah this is fucking peak internet snobbery. “Just spend thousands dollars on music” ok.

    • TK420@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I love buying CDs on eBay.

      I also love buying direct downloads from artists.

      Plex[Amp] makes this work in my pocket

    • NarrativeBear@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I just realised iTunes (store) is no longer a thing. Everything’s just streaming now.

      Time to bust out the walkman

      • Sentient Loom@sh.itjust.works
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        6 months ago

        iTunes was an unhappy medium. I liked how you can actually buy albums, but they gave the MP3s weird filenames to make it more difficult to move to another device. I did it anyway, but I had to find the right folder, figure out what track it was, and rename the track. I’m against it but it’s still better than streaming.

      • june (she/her)@lemmy.ml
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        6 months ago

        You can still buy songs on iTunes and load them to an iPod, MP3 player, or in my case to my Navidrome instance for my own personal self-hosted streaming.

    • VerseAndVermin@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I recently encountered a song I could only stream but not buy anywhere without DRM. Kinda wild because it has over 5 million YouTube views.

      If anyone knows how the buy Slow Song by The Knocks, lmk.

  • AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space
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    6 months ago

    They should at least release data sheets and any bootloader signing keys, allowing people to reuse the devices for other purposes. If you could replace the firmware, I’m sure you could use it for controlling your home automation setup or displaying the weather/news/train times/other info (or possibly other tasks depending on what’s in the SoC). Now, alas, it’s just e-waste.

    • Aux@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Since that was their first attempt at hardware, I bet they don’t have access and/or rights to share shit, as everything is owned by OEM.

    • Ajen@sh.itjust.works
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      6 months ago

      Datasheets are copyrighted by the silicon manufacturer, not the product manufacturer, and usually covered by an NDA. Spotify probably couldn’t release them even if they wanted to.

  • Nate@programming.dev
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    6 months ago

    Even Google products have a longer lifespan 😖

    I’ve since moved on to Tidal. Bought it at $30 when root mods started to be developed, but never really went anywhere.

    Image alt:

    • 2021-04-13: Interested in car thing
    • 2022-10-18: order placed after discounted to $30
    • 2022-10-21: shipped
    • 2024-05-23: Discontinue notice
    • 2024-12-09: Service discontinued
  • VerseAndVermin@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    The bastards barely started selling it a few years ago. I feel like some responsibility should exist. It isn’t a company that is going under, so it shouldn’t be able to just casually kill the devices tied-service it only recently sold.

    • Nommer@sh.itjust.works
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      6 months ago

      Agreed. Anything sold with the intention of being used with a subscription service should have 10 years of support.

      • Rinox@feddit.it
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        6 months ago

        Anything discontinued should stop being protected by copyright law, and the manufacturer should be forced to give every piece of information they have on that product.

  • Aggravationstation@feddit.uk
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    6 months ago

    Holy shit: “The company is recommending that customers do a factory reset on the product and find some way of responsibly recycling the hardware.”

    So they’re not offering to dispose of it, or even giving any advice on how to dispose of it responsibly. Just suggesting people should probably do that.

    If companies are allowed to behave this way we’re all screwed. Any efforts by the average person to avert the environmental damage caused by the waste they produce is completely futile and any politician who claims that they’re doing their best to try to hold companies accountable is a liar.

  • monkeyslikebananas2@lemmy.world
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    We need new laws y’all. All these companies should be forced to collect all their e-waste as part of their products lifecycle.

    If a company produces any product and the company has a market cap over $1billion, then they should be responsible for collecting and recycling all their trash.

    • laurelraven@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      6 months ago

      I don’t know how accurate this is or if it’s still true but I remember hearing like twenty years ago that Germany has laws like that, including dealing with waste packaging, with the result that companies suddenly found ways to use more sustainable packaging

  • JIMMERZ@lemm.ee
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    6 months ago

    Spotify is an evil company. Bad for artists, bad for consumers. I’m glad to have quit using their service.

      • Nakura@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        I use a combo of streaming stuff I bought on Bandcamp with their app and playing local files. In addition to albums and EPs, I have bought a lot of singles on Bandcamp. I put all the singles in a giant constantly growing playlist on the Bandcamp app and then set it to random shuffle. It takes more effort than using something like Spotify, but I personally like it a lot more because it’s only full of music I know I like and I feel satisfied because I supported the artists I like.

      • JIMMERZ@lemm.ee
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        6 months ago

        Currently using a combination of Plexamp, WinAmp, Bandcamp and Apple Music.

  • phoneymouse@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    This was predictable. Everyone has a phone. Phones have CarPlay and Android Auto.

    The fact that they named it “Car Thing” made it clear that it didn’t have much of a valid use and that they didn’t really have a lot of confidence in it.

    It’s annoying that they even created it in the first place. It’s more annoying that they now predictably are not supporting it anymore. It should be illegal.

  • Gsus4@mander.xyz
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    6 months ago

    Remember kids, never place buttons for a service on a remote if you don’t know if the remote will last longer than said service :)

  • tal@lemmy.today
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    6 months ago

    It’s a little annoying how the article only gives much of a hint as to what exactly a Car Thing is, beyond a “dashboard accessory”, in the last paragraph of the article:

    the product was more of a remote control for Spotify on your mobile phone than any kind of standalone player

    • misk@sopuli.xyzOP
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      6 months ago

      It’s worth noting that it was quite cheap and therefore a very good budget option to MacGyver music streaming into older cars.

    • Jesus@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      Car Thing is basically the Rabbit R1, but for music. In other words, a cheap Android device, with one app (a car dashboard variation of Spotify), a scroll wheel, and a some shortcut buttons.

      It works by connecting to your phone via Bluetooth. So, yeah, instead of using the phone for the auto friendly UI, it pipes that UI to a second cheaper mobile device.

      It’s truly stupid, and it cost about the same as an external CarPlay / Android Auto screen… which could display an auto friendly Spotify UI, and much much more.

  • Bizzle@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    I bought this for my old Cadillac that only had a tape deck and it was amazing (with a Bluetooth cassette). I haven’t used it since I got rid of that old Cadillac about two years ago now. Pretty limited use case but it still sucks to kill shit for no reason.

    • Drusenija@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      I didn’t know Bluetooth cassettes were a thing, although if I think about it then of course they are. What’s the sound quality like?

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        6 months ago

        The sound is honestly not bad, better and less hassle than an FM transmitter. There are 3.5 mm ones too that work pretty well but I had a few of them and they fail where the cable meets the cassette. I passed it on to a friend with a whole house cassette system when I got my new Cadillac