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My year with a distraction-free iPhone

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Re: My year with a distraction-free iPhone

#131

Post by freditup »

collyw wrote: post #71
ggreer wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A stripped-down smartphone has quite a few advantages over a dumbphone. Notice which apps are installed: Google Maps, subway maps, Rdio, Uber, Instacart. As he says, these things are like living in the future.

Dumbphone plus a GPS device, mp3 player could so the same. I still prefer my Sansa clip to my phone for music (I never even set the phone up for music). Small, battery lasts a while, and I basically don't need to worry about it. I even put one through the washing machine and it worked after a couple of weeks. As a side note, I find my Android phone a serious step back in usability. I would say I hang up rather than a…

The Sansa Clip is a great mp3 player. All it does is play music (which is a big plus in my book), it's really small so it's great for running or other similar things, and the physical buttons make it really easy to use one-handed without looking at the screen.

When I got my first good-quality smartphone, I had planned on moving all my music over to it, but stopped when I found that the Clip was really a better device for music.

Re: My year with a distraction-free iPhone

#132

Post by glogla »

collyw wrote: post #119
craigds wrote: post #4

I haven't gone as far as this guy, but I recently removed Facebook and Twitter from my Android phone and it's been a breath of fresh air. I still use both apps via their websites when I've got my laptop out, but not having them in my pocket all the time is really freeing. You don't realise how much of a slave you are to these things until you force yourself to let them go. I waste a lot less time on my phone now. Wou…

One of the reasons I refused to get a smartphone a few years back, was because all I saw people do was use them as a distraction. Facebook at the bus stop. Facebook in a seminar. I now own a smartphone. Refused to put Facebook on it. I also make a point when going on holiday not to use internet, unless I need to. I have been to some stunning places in the Hymalayas, with scenery like nowhere else, and you see the int…

Maybe not. But having maps in unfamiliar territory (like Bangkok Chinatown) which also works as a camera and can replace sketchy internet cafes for booking tickets and contact people home ...

As with fire, smartphone is a great servant but terrible master.

Re: My year with a distraction-free iPhone

#133

Post by daphneokeefe »

Thimothy wrote: post #123
dredmorbius wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite and absolutely. The man has an outstanding record for predictions. I wish he weren't so good.

¿Do you know any page with a collection of his predictions? Some kind of "The Stallman Prophecies"

For starters http://en.m.wikiquote.org/wiki/Richard_Stallman

Re: My year with a distraction-free iPhone

#134

Post by michaelcampbell »

collyw wrote: post #71
ggreer wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A stripped-down smartphone has quite a few advantages over a dumbphone. Notice which apps are installed: Google Maps, subway maps, Rdio, Uber, Instacart. As he says, these things are like living in the future.

Dumbphone plus a GPS device, mp3 player could so the same. I still prefer my Sansa clip to my phone for music (I never even set the phone up for music). Small, battery lasts a while, and I basically don't need to worry about it. I even put one through the washing machine and it worked after a couple of weeks. As a side note, I find my Android phone a serious step back in usability. I would say I hang up rather than a…

"Do the same" - if you're now using 3 devices to do something that 1 can do, you're not doing the same. This is important to some.

Also, the Sansa doesn't stream, so it's not really "doing the same". Some like their own curated music and for that an on-device music player is fine. Some others (me, for example), want a radio style stream where I don't know what's coming.

> I would say I hang up rather than answer close to 50% of the calls.

I get you might not like gestures, but HALF of the time you mess it up? Let's not resort to hyperbole.

There are other callers/dialers on the market too that might have controls that work better for you also.

So, yeah, you might be able to make do with your use case and tolerances, but your needs are not everyones.

Re: My year with a distraction-free iPhone

#135

Post by CalRobert »

collyw wrote: post #71
ggreer wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A stripped-down smartphone has quite a few advantages over a dumbphone. Notice which apps are installed: Google Maps, subway maps, Rdio, Uber, Instacart. As he says, these things are like living in the future.

Dumbphone plus a GPS device, mp3 player could so the same. I still prefer my Sansa clip to my phone for music (I never even set the phone up for music). Small, battery lasts a while, and I basically don't need to worry about it. I even put one through the washing machine and it worked after a couple of weeks. As a side note, I find my Android phone a serious step back in usability. I would say I hang up rather than a…

The loss of physical buttons and keyboards has made basically every modern phone a frustrating step back in usability.

Re: My year with a distraction-free iPhone

#136

Post by pocketstar »

colmvp wrote: post #36
pocketstar wrote: post #28

I have a now 4 year old iPhone 4. It is incredibly slow, crippled by ios 7.1, so slow that Facebook is useless and I only use safari when I really need to look up something. I call it my Comm, because that is what I use it for, communication. iMessages, Whatsapp, FB messenger, hangouts all work relatively well. My iPhone is essential distraction free because it is too slow to distract me, ill look up while waiting, t…

How is your battery? I figure at four years it's got to be pretty bad. I have an old iPhone 5 and my biggest blocker is the fact that the battery can only last a few hours at most with minimal usage, which makes it an absolutely pain to travel as one is away from charger most of the time. In fact, the only reason why I'd upgrade to a new phone is because I can't stand having it die so easily.

After a day of heavy usage I'm down to about 30% which I feel is good, I can airplane mode it while I sleep and use it for directions home in the morning if I'm out. The other day: https://www.dropbox.com/s/kmx0jpvsmpeorty/Photo%20Aug%2026%2...

Re: My year with a distraction-free iPhone

#138

Post by pocketstar »

johnpowell wrote: post #40
pocketstar wrote: post #28

I have a now 4 year old iPhone 4. It is incredibly slow, crippled by ios 7.1, so slow that Facebook is useless and I only use safari when I really need to look up something. I call it my Comm, because that is what I use it for, communication. iMessages, Whatsapp, FB messenger, hangouts all work relatively well. My iPhone is essential distraction free because it is too slow to distract me, ill look up while waiting, t…

I have a iPhone 4 too that is all I use. Also running 7.1.2. No real problems. It isn't super fast but it works well enough for a four year old phone that is running the OS that runs on phones sold today.

I should also mention I am jailbroken 7.1.2, flux is required and nospot, cccontrols and appcake are incredibly useful.

Re: My year with a distraction-free iPhone

#139

Post by fractalsea »

ommunist wrote: post #137

The guy just bought the wrong phone. Nokia 1100 could save him a lot of money and bring a life changing experience - the monochrome screen! I kid you not. And it has superior battery life.

It wasn't his aim to have no apps, just apps that are distracting and time-wasting. For example, he says that he likes having useful apps like Google and Uber installed.

This is the same view that I have towards my smartphone, although I still have FB installed because sometimes I really need it to communicate with friends on messenger.

Re: My year with a distraction-free iPhone

#140

Post by yodsanklai »

Gracana wrote: post #11

As someone who owns a dumb flip phone, it's funny to read someone's enthusiastic account of their life-changing experience of... living exactly the way I do. But on the other hand, I get it. This sort of thing (facebook, hacker news, freaking imgur ) sucks up so much of my time (albeit on the desktop), and for what? Occasional interesting tidbits, and frequent annoyance and frustration? Some of it is straight-up bad…

To me, the worst one are the regular news, especially if there are comments. Not only you don't learn anything, but it leads to bitterness and anxiety and give you a wrong perception of the world. At least, hacker news is informative and the comments are of high-quality. However, I wish I was able to read some articles more thoroughly rather that passively browse.
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