Is this really a driving factor for people? If I anticipate tasks that I can't wait to get back to a good work environment to do, I'll bring my laptop and tether on my phone. It's a fantastically more productive setup than trying to ssh in via a phone keyboard or even write a long email. 1 inch extra on the phone screen diagonal won't move the needle there for me.

Yes and even though you haven’t watched TV in 20 years ((c) Slashdot) people still watch TV.

The feigned ignorance on HN that most normal people don’t pull their laptops out to do everything in 2026 is amazing

> I have my phone with me all of the time and it has an always on connection

That's a bug, not a feature. You don't need to be able to do every task all the time. In fact, it's nice to be able to separate that aspect.

Yes I can just print out directions on Mapquest before I leave home, tell people to page me and I will call them back from the nearest pay phone, carry around my Walkman and my Polaroid camera with me.

Have you ever thought that with 80% of web traffic coming from mobile, you might be the outlier?

What next? The old Slashdot meme “I haven’t watched TV in 20 years. Do people still watch TV?”

The things that require more than a few taps to do aren't things that need to be done at a moment's notice. Those things can wait until I'm at my laptop.

Is there anything you need to do during that time? Or are you looking to fill that time with whatever to keep you occupied and enjoy whatever?

If it's the former, you lead a very different life from me. There are very few things in my life that show up and require immediate action (or action within 24-ish hours for that matter. Most things can wait). If it's the latter, I try to fill that time with reading.

Again, are you so much in the HN bubble you don’t realize that most people don’t wait to get home to their laptop (if they even have a laptop) to get things done in 2026?

Is it really that hard to look at stats and realize that you might not be the normal one?

I'm sure they do it that way. I'm also not convinced there's any actual need to do it that way.

You're being pretty defensive / aggressive about what some might call a phone addiction.

Most on HN know the data: healthier people tend to enforce boundaries with their devices. The average person is addicted, yes, but I'm not sure being "the odd one" in an era of actually decreasing literacy and numeracy and attention span is the insult that you seem to think.

No I’m not living in some Luddite bubble. I am sure you’re also surprised that I’m not running Linux and using KDE Connect.

Again, look at the statistics..

> while I was out to dinner that night, my wife and I were planning a trip

Were you out to dinner with your wife?

I don't understand why are you downvoted. Are people in this thread really pulling out a laptop and trying to get it connected (or pay for one with a cellular modem) every time they need to respond two words to an email, call a uber or look up where is the nearest coffee shop that is open at an odd hour?

HN seems to have some really weirdly prescriptive view of how people ought to use their devices in a way that is almost like Steve jobs.

> every time they need to respond two words to an email

I don't have my work email on my phone, and personal emails basically never need any actual response.

> call a uber

This is a few clicks and not a big ask regardless of the exact device. You can order an Uber regardless of screen size.

> look up where is the nearest coffee shop that is open at an odd hour?

Google Maps works fine on smaller screens. Ask me how I know.

And they probably are also surprised that I’m using an iPhone where I can’t use Docker and have JavaScript enabled on my browser.

Surely your laptop has a mic on it and probably a camera. It also has blueteeth, wifi and stuff. Your phone has much the same and can act as a proxy to whatever is missing on your laptop and vice versa. Obviously, getting your laptop to fit under or within your "lap" is a bit of an ask!

Things like KDE Connect provide a direct bridge and a bit of imagination does the rest.

If your laptop isn't cutting the mustard then ditch it ...

... Oh your phone has a tiny screen and a shit mic and speakers, unless you stick it in your ear?

Horses for courses.

Oddly enough, I don’t carry around my laptop in my pocket all of the time. You do realize that in 2026 most people do most of their day to day non work tasks on phones don’t you?

Yes most people use KDE Connect..

I have a hard time believing you are a recruiter for any FAANG company. They have internal recruiters. Are you a “recruiter” who farms out contractors to BigTech companies?

That's a weird assumption. I'm from the Bay. Worked at 2 FAANG and a major startup that went public.

No worries if you don't believe me.

I don’t doubt that you have worked for a FAANG (congratulations so have hundreds of thousands of others including me). I doubt they are reaching out to you for recruiting help.

You know you can use a standard Bluetooth and keyboard and mouse with an iPad? My wife uses her 13 inch iPad for everything - mostly Zoom, Office, everything web based, and “consumption”. I have an M2 MacBook Air that I bought in 2023 for a side project I was doing when I was in between jobs. I haven’t opened it since. I do the little bit of stuff I do outside of work on my iPad Air 3.

I've just never understood this. A 13" MacBook Air would accomplish everything better for me. A laptop has a stand for the screen built into it and it's much more stable on any surface vs a tablet case + stand.

Sure, it's easier to use a tablet while standing, but that's what I use my phone for, and it's always with me in my pocket. If I'm going to carry a 13" tablet around it might as well be a laptop which is thinner and lighter than a tablet + keyboard case.

Then there is always something annoying that I can't do on an iPad so I have to grab a real computer to do it.

I tried using iPads many times over the years but ended up selling them because a laptop + smartphone does everything I need better.

You stated "You know you can use a standard Bluetooth and keyboard and mouse with an iPad? My wife uses her 13 inch iPad for everything - mostly Zoom, Office, everything web based"

In my opinion all of that works better on a laptop. I don't use any streaming services so that functionality is not important for me, but I do recognize that may be important for some.

For me carrying a tablet + laptop while traveling would just be wasted space when I can and prefer to do everything on the laptop anyways.

Yeah but the cheapest iPad only costs $300. Not all of us can afford a MacBook Air. Not to mention I found a case which has a kickstand feature + magnetic BT keyboard + pen to make it work like a laptop + added pen functionality ($60 for all of those 3rd party accessories).

So you don’t understand why someone who doesn’t need a computer most of the time might rather have an iPad?

Besides, you can’t get a MacBook with cellular and you can’t download movies to use offline with most streaming services on a Mac since most of them don’t have Mac apps.

We travel a lot. Even I take my laptop + iPad + external USB powered/USB video display that works with one USB cable. Most of the time I just use my external display. But I can use my iPad as a third display.

I really use my personal laptop for nothing. I left it at home while we are spending a month and a half in another country. When I get off work, I don’t think about using my computer for anything - I don’t do side projects and haven’t for 30 years.

It’s been well over a decade and 5 jobs ago that I had to sell myself on my coding ability even though coding has always been part of my job.

I’m going to keep getting a job the way I have for the past decade - my ability to use my now 30+ years of experience between development, 10+ years of leading architecture projects and being able to deal with the business and disambiguate and solve XYProblems. AI has changed nothing about the value o bring to the company. Now I just do a lot of the implementation drudgery myself faster or that I would have delegated to other people.

I can get a foldable phone that extends to a 13 inch screen.

What’s wrong hardware wise with the current one?

I think its at least 3 years old

And? What do you expect from a new one?

Because it has a large screen and my wife uses it as her only computer and uses it with a regular $30 Bluetooth keyboard and mouse

This is the dumbest most myopic take I’ve seen in awhile. MCP servers aren’t just used for geeks using Claude Code. If I have an app in production that uses an MCP server what is he suggesting? That my LLM create a shell script and run it inside of a Docker container?

For context, I don’t want this to sound bitter. The first time I was single as an adult was from 1996-2002 and dating apps weren’t a thing. The second time I was single was from 2006-2011 and I wasn’t really trying to date and spent most of the time getting my head back in the game and just hanging out with female friends until I started dating my now wife who I met at work. Even she had to make the first move.

That being said as five foot four guy, the chance of me having any success on a dating app at the time from everything I know would have been basically 0 no matter what. “Working on myself” would have done no good. I was objectively in great shape as a part time fitness instructor and I just run my first (and last) two half marathons before I met my wife.

Some guys just haven’t won the genetic lottery to succeed on dating apps. Again I’m not bitter as one of the relatively few straight male fitness instructors, it wasn’t hard to date during my first stint of singleness

FWIW, one of my (male) friends is about 5'2" and met his wife on OKCupid. She's about 4'10".

Dating is kinda like founding a startup or getting a job, in that you have to kiss a lot of frogs, but you only need to succeed once. The point's to eliminate all the unsuitable prospects in the pool and find the one that is a match for you.

> Dating is kinda like founding a startup or getting a job, in that you have to kiss a lot of frogs, but you only need to succeed once. The point's to eliminate all the unsuitable prospects in the pool and find the one that is a match for you.

That's true, but dating apps are still a pretty toxic technology. It's got kind of a McNamara fallacy baked into it, they encourage users to setup filters on easy-to-quantity aspects (height, age) in a fairly thoughtless way, and entourage superficial, consumeristic evaluations. Most people would probably benefit from IRL interactions, which present a more holistic picture.

Working on yourself extends faaaaar past just going to the gym.

The only thing that matters on dating apps and first dates are first impressions

From a professional standpoint, I’ve never found “enjoyment” from coding. I enjoy every part of the process of getting business goals from talking to stakeholders -> completed project with coding being the necessary evil.

Funny enough, I started working in 1996 professionally (and had been a hobbyist for six years before going to college). But it was only between 2012-2016 that I was a ticket taker without working with the end user directly - everything I’ve done has been B2B.

GenAI (and working remotely since 2020) has made me enjoy every part of my job.