It’s all a huge crock, and many of you spend THIRTY POUNDS OR
MORE PER MONTH on this idiotic addiction.
Oh no, someone is spending $30/month for their cell phone. Instead of.... spending $30/month for their landline as they used to. The horror.
Which is, unfortunately, and increasingly, a wrong statement. More and more services now are requiring a smartphone, and this is just the beginning. Living without one will soon mean living completely outside of society. If you call that having a choice, I don't think it's a fair one.
I don't see how this is any different than saying "more and more services are requiring a PC, not having a PC is not a fair choice".
If you really want to get crazy you can use an android emulator on the PC.
I agree. I also hate how everything seems to revolve around needing a smartphone now too. I see a lot of basic things like security cameras and even internet routers that require an app just to configure it. Of course you also need to setup an account and all that BS. Pisses me off so much, it doesn't have to be that way at all. It would be possible to have smart phones without all the strings attached but then they couldn't sell our info! It's all about spying on us at the end of the day. That, and planned obsolescence. They can render your product obsolete by simply ceasing to update the app. You'll own nothing and you'll be happy.
Old school wired cameras still exist, and they can be set up on the device themselves (hikvision, dahua, etc.).
Routers, maybe some cheap ones? Any major brand should have a standard web interface.