And a time where 3rd party companies had no access to 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.

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

And it was awesome.

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

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

Yes, please bring it back.

And some of us are returning to this simplicity and privacy

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

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.

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

And that's was a good thing too.

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!

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

And it was beautiful

I'm surprised American smartphones are not also firearms.

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

I still do. And it's your choice to do. For example, I use my old LG ThinQ V40 for music, because it has audio jack, and I still buy CDs and I listen to them. I still use my 9 years old DSLR. Its your choice.

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.

I still prefer this and carry almost all these kinds of separate use items, with the exception that I only carry a camera under certain circumstances. Otherwise, my phone doubles as a quick use camera.

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.

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.

Headphones are built into your phone?

My 2012 DLSR still takes better photos than the phone does. Admittedly, I don’t use it as often given its cumbersome nature.

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

guys the headphones aren't supposed to be "headphones built into a phone". they are more representative of speakers. cassette players, cd players, and MP3 players didn't have built in speakers, you had to have headphones to listen to music. in no way am i advocating that anyone should listen to music or their shitty social media short videos, or have a phone call on speaker in public. im just saying you don't need headphones anymore because phones have a built in speaker

(big boomboxes had big speakers yes but those were very cumbersome to carry around, i'm talking more Walkman's)

but also i still have all those separate. i have a cell phone, a separate MP3/FLACC player, bluetooth headphones (which connect to both my phone and mp3 player), a smartwatch, an actual wallet, and a mirrorless camera.

Good times

Ear plugs are now included in phones as well? Please don't promote people to play their horrible music on speaker. Also, you forgot to include a laptop and modem. We have internet now. And we can watch television in the form of YouTube and streaming services, so maybe also include a TV.

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.

We didn’t carry cameras around all the time.

I don't even know what to think on the bottom left is, and I am the target audience of this post.

I still would rather at least have a dedicated camera because A) They're offline devices so you don't have to worry about a hostile megacorp spying on your snaps, and B) they tend to either have better glass, including true optical zooms, bigger sensors, or both, or even swappable lenses in the case of things like SLRs or mirrorless ILCs.

Also, separate music players benefit from being offline too and some of them still have nice analog sections even by modern standards, such as the iPod Video and iPod Classic, plus both those DAPs can be flash-retrofitted and can have Rockbox installed on them.

We were all very excited to do so.

And the pocket bags were large enough to fit all of that inside, sometimes with spare space for a charger or two. Ah the times