Actually the Point and shoot market has largely dried up, even the 'fancier' point and shoots.
Apple did a very smart thing, using Sony BSI[0] and Stacked[1] Sensors in their phones.
As the 'Camera Snob' in the family my Brother recently asked me to help look for a small point and shoot for his wife for their child's events, and I was shocked at how few options there are compared to a decade ago (And how little most have improved since!)
To be clear, the 'ILC' (what many might think of when they think of when they say DSLR) market has continued to advance and the tech is better than ever, but the simple built-in lens point and shoot market has gotten very small outside of certain markets.
[0] - Back Side Illumination, basically a way to build the sensor that allows more light to hit it, but has some yield implications
[1] - Stacked sensors is again another sensor-build optimization, but it allows for faster readout of the full sensor with less rolling shutter, makes 'computational photography' feasible.
Or passes to buses, trains, planes, concerts, sports arenas, and possibly soon government identification.
There was a recent story about some guy who had been buying season tickets for decades by paper ticket. The stadium shutdown the paper ticketing and left him without an option, except to purchase a smartphone.
Must be a Europe thing, as RealID pissed enough boomers off here in the States that I doubt anyone would push harder than that, and outside of very stupid ticket apps that occasionally won't let me print, I can't recall the last time a paper ticket and my drivers license didn't work. I also can just walk into a bank branch and raise a stink whenever I need something banking related, I guess all of this feels really contrived.
I called Capital One to replace a card this month (either there's no online flow or it wasn't available to me). The default flow to verify my identity before they'd replace the card was to send a notification to the android app. My android version is too old. The alternative flow (which took them 20 minutes to figure out) was to send a text message with a link to an online ID verification service.
Is it COMPLETELY impossible that you could receive that link on a dumb phone, send it to a PC with a webcam, and then take a selfie photo and an ID photo? No. Is it likely to be an incredible hassle? Dear lord, yes. You can't upload photos, so you'd have to finagle with a webcame to get a shot of your ID on a surface followed by a selfie of yourself. Is it possible that in other similar situations, you'll be required to use an android app instead of a website? Yes, I've had that happen.
I think you are grossly underestimating the degree to which smartphones have become absolutely mandatory for many tasks.
Which is not a valid alternative for the card replacement use case as that's time sensitive and might happen when you are in an entirely different country where your bank doesn't even have any branches.
> The phone numbers never stopped working. You just stopped calling
The bank managed to not fix the problem the last 4 times my grandmother called them. Every single problem required an appointment to fix (I suspect they're not even allowed to do anything with any account over phone given how many times this has happened).
Yes, her bank is bad and I've told her to switch. But I wouldn't expect any other bank to actually have good customer service.
> Every restaurant I’ve been to like this has a menu somewhere.
And the best restaurants have staff and chefs that can deliver things that aren't even on a standard menu...
Actually, this reminds me of a time when I saw a person with communication difficulties order at a McDonald's counter. Without missing a beat, the staff member pulled out a large pictorial menu from beneath their counter for the person with a disability to point to. It seemed like a totally normal occurrence to them, but a very novel one to me as the next person in line.
> Every restaurant I’ve been to like this has a menu somewhere.
Yeah have fun being that guy for every restaurant visit.
There problem with relying on last-resort alternatives is that sooner rather than later you'll be in a situation where they have been optimized out and you are left with nothing.
On MP3 players: I specifically got bone conducting headphones with on board storage so I could listen to music without carrying another device with me. Look for ones that are targeted towards swimming, they are the ones that tend to have on board storage.
On small point and shoots, I have a Sony ZV-1. It's marketed as a video camera, but I mostly use it for photography. It's great quality, and pocketable.
On compute, I don't really have a phone at all. I carry a Daylight Computer DC-1. Which as a device I recommend, but unfortunately the company backs anti-vax efforts which I found out about recently :\
If your daily life includes interacting with a bank then in many cases you absolutely do need a smartphone many banks no longer have websites that can be accessed with a web browser.
You you also don't really NEED a roof about your head or a shower or a daily meal even or contact with any other human being. Not really as strong of an argument as you seem to think.
Many so called dumb phones are just Android phones with buttons, real dumb low powered devices are being phased out because you don't get support for VoLTE Emergency
If it can't call 911 you're not allowed to sell it as a phone. Phone calls use VoLTE which is newish technology. Therefore it's illegal to sell older technology as a phone.
Allowed or not, if you bought your phone before the regulations were in place you'd still have no connection on some models, even 4G phones
> https://www.whistleout.com.au/MobilePhones/Guides/Check-if-p...
"But it's not just 3G phones that won't work on Australian mobile networks; certain 4G phones won't work either if they don't support Voice over Long-Term Evolution (VoLTE) Emergency Calling."
Nothing is stopping you from buying an mp3 player, a small point and shoot, and running Linux on a 12 in ultra portable.