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Show HN: App that asks ‘why?’ every time you unlock your phone

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Re: Show HN: App that asks ‘why?’ every time you unlock your phone

#311

Post by jarko27 »

throwaway106382 wrote: post #201
jarko27 wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. How are you dealing with cases when you need a navigation like Waze or Google Maps? Navigation apps are my main obstacles for trying a "dumbphone".

My city is easy to navigate (and I've lived here my entire life) so I don't really need real-time map navigation when I'm walking the streets. I have a dedicated GPS unit in my car.

That sounds nice. In my case, I rely heavily on many "essential" apps that are available on smartphones. Maybe the approach of having another Kale phone and a "Junk" phone is a thing (https://x.com/george__mack/status/1681378342627311640). And Punkt will be a great candidate for Kale phone.

Re: Show HN: App that asks ‘why?’ every time you unlock your phone

#312

Post by fransjorden »

jarko27 wrote: post #13
fransjorden wrote: post #8

Great app! Love the design and thoughts behind it. Few comments: - isn't it possible to select multiple intentions? I've tried but when I turn on one, another one turns off. - for apps like these I'm really missing a more expensive lifetime subscription. I'm okay with paying some more upfront if I don't have to pay a periodical fee. Anyway, really nice work!

Thanks for giving it a try! > - isn't it possible to select multiple intentions? I've tried but when I turn on one, another one turns off. Here is the place where I made a UX mistake. I implemented nudges in a similar way as "modes" on iOS or routines on Samsung phones. You can enable one at a time. If you want to customise the content you see, you have to customise it inside nudge, not by enabling another one. I did…

No problem! To be fair, turning multiple on at the same time would be a great (premium) feature, for people who want to work on multiple things like me :)

Re: Show HN: App that asks ‘why?’ every time you unlock your phone

#314

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #213

I installed this in the morning to give it a test drive, and after several hours, I learned the following: it's great when I reach for the phone as a distraction; it's a big annoyance otherwise. E.g. each time I want to change the currently playing song, what was muscle memory gets scrambled by the interruption. Or, when I'm taking a lot of photos (like on my daughter's kindergarten event today), I tend to keep the s…

I already have an app that does this on Android (One Sec is the app) and it only inserts a "mindfulness break" for specific apps (e.g. Chrome and social media), and I came to the same conclusion you did.

It's grind when I just mindlessly tap to open the browser to search for something random. Lots of times, though, the browser opens when I want to do something quickly, e.g. I get an email and I need to open something in the browser, and it becomes a big annoyance. After a while I just started subconsciously ignoring it, which I think defeats the purpose.

It's a tough problem to solve - I want it to prevent me from doing "mindless scrolling", but not when I have an actual task to accomplish.

Re: Show HN: App that asks ‘why?’ every time you unlock your phone

#315

Post by guptat59 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #213

I installed this in the morning to give it a test drive, and after several hours, I learned the following: it's great when I reach for the phone as a distraction; it's a big annoyance otherwise. E.g. each time I want to change the currently playing song, what was muscle memory gets scrambled by the interruption. Or, when I'm taking a lot of photos (like on my daughter's kindergarten event today), I tend to keep the s…

Screenzen (android) does exactly this and I navigated through all the use cases you mentioned successfully.

Re: Show HN: App that asks ‘why?’ every time you unlock your phone

#316

Post by jarko27 »

neondude wrote: post #135

love the idea, just installed it, but the premium cost is too much for what it offers. Monthly doesn't make sense to me, especially since you don't have any running costs.

After receiving so many comments about the "premium" version I'm going to consider adding a one-time purchase as an option.

Thanks for sharing.

Re: Show HN: App that asks ‘why?’ every time you unlock your phone

#317

Post by dongkyun »

alexvitkov wrote: post #262
MortyWaves wrote: post #209

Needs an option for “my employer turned on shitty Microsoft ten-billion-factor auth settings”. To login to my work Microsoft account requires a passcode and then three face scans.

This has always boggled my mind - If you don't trust me to pick a decent password and maintain my own machine, why in God's name would you trust me to write code or deploy/maintain company infrastructure?

1. Even if they trust you, they might not be willing to extend that trust to non-technical staff (or even non-infra staff) and having a global policy is the easiest. 2. Even if they trust you, your employer's customers definitely don't, and a lot of big contracts will have security exhibits that explicitly require MFA if you're handling their data.

Re: Show HN: App that asks ‘why?’ every time you unlock your phone

#318

Post by pacoverdi »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #286
jarko27 wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for giving it a test drive! I'm thinking also about adding an option to have like 50% chance of a popup or a 75% chance, so it's less predictable. I first made it as every 2nd, 3d and so on, but maybe adding a randomness to it will be better? WDYT?

For my use case, randomness would make it even worse. For muscle memory, consistency is key. I don't know what the solution is - ideally, the app would not interrupt such quick actions like unlocking to take a photo or switch the song, but in practice, it can't exactly guess what I'm going to do before I do it. I was thinking about maybe "unlock and don't show the popup for the next 5 minutes", but then I already kno…

On my phone (Pixel 5) I don't need to unlock to take a picture (double click on power button) or switch to the next song (slide menu down, click Next).

Not sure if it helps. Have not tried the app yet.

Edit: sorry, didn't see the almost identical answer

Re: Show HN: App that asks ‘why?’ every time you unlock your phone

#319

Post by jarko27 »

anteloper wrote: post #244
iLoveOncall wrote: post #17

I haven't seen any of those apps (or built-in OS features like screen time on iOS) not become useless in a matter of days. People that will use their phone for distraction (which I don't think there's actually anything wrong with) will take only a few days to get "notification fatigue" from those screens and automatically bypass them without even thinking about it. I get that you can prevent bypassing the screen as y…

> I haven't seen any of those apps (or built-in OS features like screen time on iOS) not become useless in a matter of days. This isn't consistent with the data. I'm a cofounder of Clearspace and we see that when people make it through the first two weeks, they stick around for months or years. YMMV - because our feature set looks slightly different - half users are in a mode where you have to do pushups to unlock di…

I can relate to this. I conducted UX experiment during my Master's in Human Computer Interaction which was testing an impact of various interventions to screen time and user perception. I observed very similar pattern, if it clicks it stays with the people. Of course the experiment was with small group, but still.

A good comparison I think are "self help" books. People are still reading them and those books are really helpful during certain times. While same ideas and concepts are circulating across those books.

I believe such kind of apps and software deserve to exist. Whatever helps people to make their lives better.

Re: Show HN: App that asks ‘why?’ every time you unlock your phone

#320

Post by seb1204 »

jarko27 wrote: post #279
TeMPOraL wrote: post #213

I installed this in the morning to give it a test drive, and after several hours, I learned the following: it's great when I reach for the phone as a distraction; it's a big annoyance otherwise. E.g. each time I want to change the currently playing song, what was muscle memory gets scrambled by the interruption. Or, when I'm taking a lot of photos (like on my daughter's kindergarten event today), I tend to keep the s…

Thanks for giving it a test drive! I'm thinking also about adding an option to have like 50% chance of a popup or a 75% chance, so it's less predictable. I first made it as every 2nd, 3d and so on, but maybe adding a randomness to it will be better? WDYT?

Whitelist for camera and phone calls?
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