61–70 of 189 posts
Bloggings like these come up semi-regularly, and I sometimes wonder if they're just designed to troll people into deleting all the apps from their phone.
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.
It's still really hard to get around the privacy invasions of a smartphone, though. I'd like something without GPS and for which I can completely control the OS and environment. CyanogenMod seems to be as close as I'm likely to get to that at present.
The instant you start using a cell phone consistently, you've effectively handed over a log of your location history to whoever can convince the sysadmin in your cellular carriers NOC to to give them the data. And that's a pretty big list.
So I've gone the other way: everything that is distracting (fb, twitter, reddit, ideally HN but android apps suck for this) is on my phone. Then, my computer is for work, and my phone is for being bored. That way (in theory) there is no reason to be logged into timesinks on my computer, so I can use it without distraction.
I think this also makes a great use case for an iPad. I have hosts-blocked all time sinks on my Mac, and unlike on my iPhone, I don't even have much time to use my iPad. I do miss the convenience of a physical keyboard in FB discussions, though...
So I've gone the other way: everything that is distracting (fb, twitter, reddit, ideally HN but android apps suck for this) is on my phone. Then, my computer is for work, and my phone is for being bored. That way (in theory) there is no reason to be logged into timesinks on my computer, so I can use it without distraction.
I think this also makes a great use case for an iPad. I have hosts-blocked all time sinks on my Mac, and unlike on my iPhone, I don't even have much time to use my iPad. I do miss the convenience of a physical keyboard in FB discussions, though...
In a similar vein, I almost always have my phone set to silent without vibrate. This small change has made a huge difference in my interaction with my phone. I reach for it less and just generally think about it less. The downside is people are sometimes annoyed at me not reacting to calls/messages immediately. I should probably experiment with the iOS Do Not Disturb feature, but it hasn't been too big of an issue so…
So I've gone the other way: everything that is distracting (fb, twitter, reddit, ideally HN but android apps suck for this) is on my phone. Then, my computer is for work, and my phone is for being bored. That way (in theory) there is no reason to be logged into timesinks on my computer, so I can use it without distraction.
Does anyone find it odd that the author talks about distraction free, removing things and then uses an iOS app to meditate on the bus?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's still really hard to get around the privacy invasions of a smartphone, though. I'd like something without GPS and for which I can completely control the OS and environment. CyanogenMod seems to be as close as I'm likely to get to that at present.
Any phone's location can still be tracked by cell tower. From whom are you trying to get privacy?
Can't find that article at the moment, though another reports that location information is logged "at least several times an hour":
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405274870398370...
Here: "In a six-month period — from Aug 31, 2009, to Feb. 28, 2010, Deutsche Telekom had recorded and saved his longitude and latitude coordinates more than 35,000 times."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/business/media/26privacy.h...
That's every 7.5 minutes.
I only wish I knew who I was hiding from ;-)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's still really hard to get around the privacy invasions of a smartphone, though. I'd like something without GPS and for which I can completely control the OS and environment. CyanogenMod seems to be as close as I'm likely to get to that at present.
Richard Stallman, as usual, was quite ahead of the curve on this topic when he noted that he didn't carry a cell phone of any kind because of the privacy considerations associated with logging your location, accurately with triangulation, against cell towers. The instant you start using a cell phone consistently, you've effectively handed over a log of your location history to whoever can convince the sysadmin in you…