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Sign up with Google Sign up with FacebookQ: How much is your life in China dependent on algorithm's?
How much are you dependent on apps..programs and technology in general for survival here?
11 years 40 weeks ago in Web & Technology - China
Close to zero. I barely need a phone. When it comes down to it, I'm very low maintenance when it comes to technology.
I find very few apps useful here. Maybe it's because I am in a small town, but generally all digital services I use come from outside of the country via v p n
When I have tried any Chinese apps I have always felt a general instability take over my phone leading me to do a factory reset. Instilling stuff like QQ on the desktop makes the malware scanner light up, and generally I find Chinese web sites poorly designed and covered in colorful crap.
Scandinavian:
oh, and bandwidth on mobile networks are always disappointing compared to back home
For me..for anything i want to know or i need , rather than depending on Technology I always take help of my local friends ...
Very little. I use a local Chinese map, buses, taxis and friends both foreign and local. I use my phone for calls and texts. I can't even imagine QQ on my phone; I would never stop QQing. So no apps for me.
Extremely, 90% of my free time is spent on the internet. Not for searching for food, or other 'stuff' just for entertainment.
For restaurants, shopping etc I have the Mk1 wife.
Wholly dependent upon technology. I find you can't really trust the local media outlets to provide any kind of accurate news or suitable entertainment. I'm convinced that Chinese TV really only has six different television shows--the one about the war with the Japanese, their allies, and the nationalists, the one about the couple with the horrible in-laws, the one about the young lovers who may or may not get together, the one about the Tang dynasty, the one about the Qing dynasty, and the talk show about the adult children who disappoint their parents--that they just periodically re-shoot with different actors.
I was very dependent. Daily apps used on my phone included AK Notepad, which kept instructions in Chinese on how to reach different locations in the city. I would have either my wife, Chinese friend or assistant enter the notes in my phone, I would then add a bit of English so I knew what they were and then I could just show them to any taxi driver anywhere to get where I was going without any issue.
Then there was Google Translate. I used that app a lot for basic communications. It saved my butt more than once.
If I was out on the town and my phone battery went dead, I could probably rely on my basic Mandarin to get home but thankfully that didn't happen too often.
I spend too much time on the computer. I wish the thing did not exist. I use GPS and translator on my phone in China, couldn't survive without them. I lost my phone before I left to a pick-pocket. I had to use my computer and hand write in Chinese things I thought I needed to ask, but there were things I needed to ask and had no note. Chinese aren't good at guessing or thinking outside the box, Asking Guangzhou and pointing at my watch at a bus station, the attendant has no on I'm asking when the bus gets there. I have 4 phones for the next trip.
TedDBayer:
na, I picked up used android phones cheap, they won't fall apart, easy to unlock and root them.