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The Quest for a Dumber Phone

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Re: The Quest for a Dumber Phone

#21

Post by dbalatero »

jihadjihad wrote: post #19
patchorang wrote: post #8

I've posted this here before, but I've figured out a way that makes an iPhone work as a semi-smart phone for me. I delete all app that I waste time in, but keep one that are useful. (I won't blow two hours scrolling Lyft, and it's very helpful sometimes) I then set screentime permissions to block websites I don't want to use (like reddit), and prevent app downloads. I set a screentime password and give it to my partn…

Not sure if it's a typo but how in the world would a person spend 2 hours "scrolling Lyft"?

Re-read the comment, they said they are _keeping_ Lyft because there's no way to doomscroll it for 2 hours.

Re: The Quest for a Dumber Phone

#22

Post by hcal »

I've been using my Samsung smartwatch with LTE as a smartphone that's hard to abuse. Thursday through Sunday I only carry it and leave my "real" phone at home.

It's pretty nice because I still have Bluetooth calls in my car and navigation in a pinch. I can still stream music and ask Google to look things up for me.

Actual calls on the watch are fine, but I do keep a pair of bluetooth headphones on me so I don't have to take business calls on speakerphone.

If texting is your addiction, technically this doesn't solve it but it doesn't increase the friction so maybe it's less of a temptation. I don't text that much so it's not a big deal to me. Doomscrolling is my downfall and fortunately not really doable on a watch.

Re: The Quest for a Dumber Phone

#23

Post by aradox66 »

jihadjihad wrote: post #19
patchorang wrote: post #8

I've posted this here before, but I've figured out a way that makes an iPhone work as a semi-smart phone for me. I delete all app that I waste time in, but keep one that are useful. (I won't blow two hours scrolling Lyft, and it's very helpful sometimes) I then set screentime permissions to block websites I don't want to use (like reddit), and prevent app downloads. I set a screentime password and give it to my partn…

Not sure if it's a typo but how in the world would a person spend 2 hours "scrolling Lyft"?

Their point is that you can't, there's basically no way for it to be entertaining, so it's a safe app to keep available if you're prone to waste time scrolling.

Re: The Quest for a Dumber Phone

#24

Post by ttthomas »

I too have quested for a Dumber Phone. As an easily distracted engineer who values my time, I enjoy being on a dumb device, particularly one without Maps. Things hat I've tried:

  - Punkt MP02 (Pigeon): small black & white Android phone with a non-standard launcher. Doesn't support MMS on Google Fi, which is needed to participate with friends & family (USA), so it sits on a shelf.

  - Unihertz Atom: tiny Android phone, storage chip began dying within 3 months. Supports MMS, but my previous company's MDM locked it out due to a lack of recent security updates and their phone plan required a login to receive MMS!
I also looked into the Hisense e-Ink phones (Android), but they are hacky to use this it in the USA (lack of frequencies & Google Play). In eventually realized that I already had perfectly good hardware (Pixel 4) that I could turn into a dumb-phone without generating more e-waste. I began compiling my own locked-down distro, but in the end I just wrote a shell script to turn an Android phone into a dumb phone: https://github.com/tstromberg/quietude. For example:

  - For a truly "dumb" phone: `quietude.sh disable all`
  - Disable distractions but keep the app store: `quietude.sh disable distractions`
The key here is that apps are disabled in a way which can only be enabled again by plugging the phone in with a USB cable. This keeps me from mindlessly re-enabling apps when I am bored in line somewhere. I also get to keep PagerDuty, Plugshare, Lyft, Google Photos, and whatever other apps I find convenient to have available.

Re: The Quest for a Dumber Phone

#25

Post by procinct »

jihadjihad wrote: post #19
patchorang wrote: post #8

I've posted this here before, but I've figured out a way that makes an iPhone work as a semi-smart phone for me. I delete all app that I waste time in, but keep one that are useful. (I won't blow two hours scrolling Lyft, and it's very helpful sometimes) I then set screentime permissions to block websites I don't want to use (like reddit), and prevent app downloads. I set a screentime password and give it to my partn…

Not sure if it's a typo but how in the world would a person spend 2 hours "scrolling Lyft"?

They’re saying they don’t need to worry about having lyft on their phone because they aren’t going to spend hours scrolling it.

Re: The Quest for a Dumber Phone

#26

Post by TacticalCoder »

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.

> 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've got a printer at home. Sister in law printed a plane ticket on it the other day, just in case there'd be an issue with her phone. Instead of "GPS device + car ride services" I've got an old-fashioned thing: a car. The car happens to have its own GPS so I can get around.

It may not suit everybody of course.

Re: The Quest for a Dumber Phone

#27

Post by bovermyer »

What about landlines? I feel like that's an option people rarely talk about.

I use my iPhone as a camera, for text chatting with (less than 5) people, and for navigation, mostly. Sometimes I use it as a phone. I could see replacing the phone feature (except for emergencies) with a landline.

Re: The Quest for a Dumber Phone

#28

Post by wwweston »

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…

When I finally got a smart phone 5 years after the iPhone came out, one of the first things I tried to do was train myself by not getting service on it for over 3 months. The idea was to make sure I had other kinds of content on it that weren't update-hits; mostly eBooks and saved long-form articles, plus some map apps for navigation. So data engagement was limited to WiFi islands and focused on practical business.

This was definitely only partially effective, probably because I already had bad habits from my laptop. OTOH, to this day I do have at least a rudimentary deeper reading/writing flow for my phone I can focus on without too much conscious effort, so it wasn't useless.

My conclusion is that most of us probably would benefit from either intentional choices or self-imposed restrictions... but most of us could also probably benefit more from a combination of both.

Re: The Quest for a Dumber Phone

#29

Post by AstixAndBelix »

I've realized there's a single simple thing that makes these dumb phones useless:

closed source.

That's right, closed source services.

If we were able to write our own minimal Messenger, Whatsapp, Signal, Viber, etc. clients without fear of getting a cease and desist letter from a trillion dollar company we could easily sideload them into any phone with an internet connection.

Phones are meant to be used for communication, but communication is not SMSs or emails anymore, it's a bunch of proprietary services which dictate what platforms we can use to access them.

Re: The Quest for a Dumber Phone

#30

Post by stagger87 »

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…

It's not the bottle that's addictive, it's the alcohol inside. Just don't open the bottle and there are not many possibilities to drink!
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