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The Quest for a Dumber Phone

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Re: The Quest for a Dumber Phone

#151

Post by vladvasiliu »

lastofthemojito wrote: post #77
titanomachy wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling a smartphone a "luxury item" if you live in America (or similar) is a bit disingenuous. Anything that has 85% market penetration is by definition not a luxury item. In some countries this could be an accurate description, though. And I agree with the overall sentiment, I would like it to be easier to get through my day without using a smartphone.

Yeah, even as a smartphone owner, I find it annoying how some places just assume you're able (and willing!) to install some arbitrary app to do business with them, etc. That being said, it really doesn't have to be all that expensive. Sure, if you buy the newest iPhone every year and get a high-end Verizon plan, that'll cost some dough. But you can get a used or low-end smartphone and a cheap plan - they're out there…

> Yeah, even as a smartphone owner, I find it annoying how some places just assume you're able (and willing!) to install some arbitrary app to do business with them, etc.

Especially when they're a broken mess.

This summer I visited LA, and at one restaurant they had a QR-code menu. They didn't require installing any app, it just sent you to some web page.

I had good service (outside, LTE, full bars) but it was impossible for me to see the menu. The thing would never load. Sometimes it would somewhat load, but when scrolling and trying to pick things (it was an ungodly mess of drop-down lists) it would disappear again.

> But you can get a used or low-end smartphone and a cheap plan

The above was on an iPhone 7, which I admit is "old" (but it is up-to-date software wise). So, I wonder what you mean by "cheap low-end phone", and how that would compare with mine. Especially since we have some low-end Android phones at work, which are "current models". And the scrolling in the settings app, for example, feels much less smooth than on my geriatric phone. They just lag all the time. My phone basically never does that, which is the reason I'm not particularly looking to get a new one.

This was the first time I couldn't have my phone do what I needed. The site worked well-enough on my friend's 11 pro.

Re: The Quest for a Dumber Phone

#152

Post by petemir »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #135
chefkoch wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in Germany you get a Smartphone for way less than 100€ and a call + SMS + 4GB data flat for 5€. If that is luxury what is going to the cinema for 20€ (movie and popcorn) for 2 hours?

5 EUR per month for service? That is crazy cheap in a highly developed country. Which provider?

Although I do not live there, I have a SIM card from Italy (Fastweb) which for 6€ lets me have 50GB Internet (of which 6GB could be roaming in the rest of Europe), 100 sms and unlimited calls.

Re: The Quest for a Dumber Phone

#153

Post by rtontic »

SoftTalker wrote: post #72
setgree wrote: post #16

I long for a dumber phone, but I’ve been thinking about all the supplementary devices I’d need to buy to make up for it — basically a printer (+ ink) for tickets and a GPS device with car ride services and google maps built in for getting around. I _feel_ as though I need those things, at any rate.

You can have a tablet in the car for maps and use the phone's hotspot feature to connect it (or download the maps in advance if you think about it). But that's still two devices instead of one, which ends up being more complicated, not less.

But hey, it is more redundant in a way. Your phone broke/battery emptied? You still have your trusty gps device.

Re: The Quest for a Dumber Phone

#154

Post by 4ggr0 »

pigsty wrote: post #149
4ggr0 wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hope you don't mind me asking - How come that a brush cutter is on HN? Did you use to work in IT or are you a hobbyist/part-timer?

HN attracts people who have interest in tech or simply came across a news aggregator that isn’t full of political spam and endless dread.

Yeah sure, but I'd say that 95%+ of things posted and discussed here require some form of understanding you only get when working in IT yourself or doing it as a hobby. I don't want to sound condescending but I doubt that HN would be interesting for the average brush cutter or just for anyone not being familiar with IT, that's why I asked :D

Re: The Quest for a Dumber Phone

#155

Post by DoingIsLearning »

extr0pian wrote: post #32

I had researched dumb phones recently only to learn that the two most important functions of a smartphone (for me) is the GPS and having a decent camera, and these things are either crippled or missing entirely from dumb phones. It's simply easier to dumb down your existing smartphone, especially if you have an Android phone. In my case, I have a 2017 Pixel 2 XL running LineageOS, with a text only home screen launche…

That OLauncher home screen just made me take a deep breath, very very nice! Truly 'calm tech' [0]

My anxiety with ditching Android to LineageOS is the loss of all the software-defined image quality in the Camera app.

What has been your experience using your phone camera with Lineage? As in is it good enough to also capture some family moments or do you use it just as functional camera to take pictures of something you need to remember?

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calm_technology

Re: The Quest for a Dumber Phone

#156

Post by carlmr »

andrew-dc wrote: post #69

Having not used a smart phone for ~5 years now, I can say that it is totally a workable solution - however, there are, of course trade-offs, and several persistent annoyances. Rather than get into a list, I will present the one thing that I find the most frustrating: Our society expects you to have and use a smart phone for nearly everything. This might be less annoying if it meant only new functions or supplemented…

>or reading a menu.

I have a smartphone and this annoys me to no end. No I don't want to zoom through your menu in some PDF format which doesn't render nicely on my phone.

I have left restaurants because of this, and told them why.

Re: The Quest for a Dumber Phone

#157

Post by Version467 »

fleddr wrote: post #91
em500 wrote: post #20

Focusing on the phone seems like missing the mark. The addictive thing is not the phone, but the internet. Even with a dumbphone you can easily waste as much time on your laptop's web-browser (and people did: FB and Youtube were already big before the iPhone was a thing). Conversely, if you turn off data, there are not many possibilities to spend huge amounts of time on your phone. (And yes, there are still plenty of…

Definitely a key insight: every attempt to be less addicted to your smartphone will fail if you do not fill up that void of newly available time with something more productive, healthy, etc. The good news is that you don't need to set a very high bar for a better use of this free time. Read a book. Go on a small walk around the block. Take care of your garden, if you have one. Do simple chores. Do nothing at all. Alm…

I only recently rediscovered that doing nothing is a perfectly fine activity and that it's okay to be bored.

That might sound obvious and borderline stupid, but it really feels like I had forgotten that for a while. This insight made cutting down my smartphone time dramatically easier and much more successful. Because while I had strategies to replace bigger chunks of social media consumption with reading books, going for walks and other hobbies, you can't really read a book if you just have a short downtime (like waiting in a queue). So I pulled my phone out to bridge that little bit of downtime which eventually always crept back into more and more situations until my screen time ended up right back where it started.

Realizing that I can just 'do nothing' made a huge difference. I also read a paper that found that boredom plays a huge role in creative thinking, which made it easier for me to do nothing because it suddenly felt like that was a productive activity.

It's a little sad that 'taking care of myself' wasn't a good enough reason to accept boredom into my life and that I was only able to do it once I believed it would have an effect on my productivity, but it worked very well and I have yet to see a downside.

I am sleeping better, I am more emotionally balanced, I feel like my problem solving skills have improved and I'm slowly, but noticeably, increasing my attention span.

All in all I can highly recommend reducing mindless doomscrolling as well as accepting more boredom into your life.

Re: The Quest for a Dumber Phone

#158

Post by reacweb »

throwaway2037 wrote: post #135
chefkoch wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least in Germany you get a Smartphone for way less than 100€ and a call + SMS + 4GB data flat for 5€. If that is luxury what is going to the cinema for 20€ (movie and popcorn) for 2 hours?

5 EUR per month for service? That is crazy cheap in a highly developed country. Which provider?

I am in France paying 5€ per month to red-by-sfr for 20Go and illimited call/SMS/MMS

Re: The Quest for a Dumber Phone

#159

Post by cik »

It's fascinating to me how this is a topic of conversation in parts of the world, and a fait accompli in others. In Israel, may Hareidim use "kosher phones", which the world would recognise as dumb phones. Some allow for texting, some don't... that's it.

Honestly, I love the idea. I've reduced my smart phone usage at this point to convenience of paying for public transit, small credit card purchases, 2FA, and chat - but only to get in on the real world. It's made me happy.

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