I Don't Like Smartphones (2016)

https://www.devever.net/~hl/smartphones

by stargrave • 7 years ago

71 98 7 years ago

everyone3• 7 years ago

I would also add that from a UX perspective they utterly suck. Many task that are possible with a mouse / keyboard setup are impossible on a smartphone, and what is possible is much much slower and less precise.

I think its clear they have been designed from the ground up to be merely shiny toys / gadgets, and not useful pocket computers.

The key fundamental flaw in their design is the touchscreen. Eg. Press a 'button' which is just an image on the screen and has 0 haptic feedback, so the only way to locate it is by looking at it, but your finger is obscuring it (as you are moving to press it with your finger) so you cant see it. It is oxymoronical design.

janlaureys• 7 years ago

Although I agree, there's also a lot of situations where I find a touchscreen works so much better than a keyboard and mouse. I absolutely love using Google maps on an iPad for example.

Also my mother who is very very tech illiterate can intuitively use the iPad. It's just so much easier to point and press at something rather than using a mouse to navigate a small cursor.

phicoh2• 7 years ago

In my experience, current phones are the best way to have a computer in your pocket. In past I wanted to have a physical keyboard, but I changed my mind and the onscreen keyboard is actually best.

All in all, a phone is a lousy computer. But it is brilliant if you are in a random place and need to get some work done. It is slow, but slow is better than having to go out and find a real computer somewhere.

The big problem at the moment is that we are mostly stuck with some horrible consumer operating systems on our phones. But that is problem that can be fixed.

Wowfunhappy5• 7 years ago

Many task that are possible with a mouse / keyboard setup are impossible on a smartphone, and what is possible is much much slower and less precise.

I agree. But, you can't practically put a mouse on a phone. (At least, I have no idea how it could work—if you have a brilliant idea, I'd be interested to hear it.)

I think touch is the best input we have available for a device the size of a phone. On tablets, the lack of a mouse makes less sense, and I think it's notable that tablets haven't replaced laptops to the extent some predicted when the iPad was first introduced.

Edit: There is one alternative mechanism I can think of—a stylus. Still touch, but offers much more precision and in turn allows interfaces to be designed with smaller buttons that take up less real-estate.

The downside is that styluses get lost, take time to extract from the slot, and cannot be used in the same hand that holds the phone. Also, to truly reap the benefits of stylus input, the UI would need to be wholly stylus-focused. A hybrid UI will need to work with the lowest common denominator.

everyone3• 7 years ago

Just something like a Blackberry is decent.. Where you have a screen, that you look at, and buttons that you press with your fingers. Not a screen that you cover with your fingers and also a haptically featureless screen that you press with your fingers.

Handheld gaming devices are actually often well designed, eg. Gameboy, PSP.

Gaming consoles have a long heritage of being able to navigate complex menus and perform complex tasks on with just a controller (eg. Mario-maker, LittleBigPlanet)

Phones / tablets are fine for just faffing about on, but that is all they have been designed for imo.

I think a pocket computer designed for actually doing stuff on might resemble a weird Blackberry / PSP hybrid.

antisemiotic2• 7 years ago

All the issues except for "ruined web design" and to some extent "there are no secure smartphones" seem to be solved by phones based on GNU/Linux rather than Google/Linux. I'm very much looking forward to my preorder of Librem 5 and being able to use it like a regular PC with any peripherals.

Mediterraneo10• 7 years ago

The author says that smartphones suck because battery life limitations mean you cannot use the full power of the phone's components. Librem admits that they are aiming for a mere one day of use before you have to charge the phone's battery, which is shorter than many Android devices these days. Therefore, even the Librem phone may disappoint the author of this article.

phicoh2• 7 years ago

I don't see the problem. Phones often run at full (thermal) limits when they have an external power source. So, just connect an external battery pack if you want your phone to go faster.

looeee3• 7 years ago

That's a pretty obscure reason to say that smartphones suck though. If you need more computing power, buy a tablet or a big battery pack, or use a laptop. Hell, log into a remote server and run your apps there.

95% of people who use phones don't need that much power and given how many people own phones they clearly find them extremely useful.

antisemiotic2• 7 years ago

The battery limitation is pretty much inherent to portable devices. I took liberty to interpret the article as "how could smartphones be better". If the point is literally "smartphones suck", then I guess, okay, they do. Case closed, we all can go home now.

vikingcaffiene2• 7 years ago

The author went somewhere totally different than I thought they would here. Their argument boils down to “smartphones are shitty computers with too many limitations”. This is a fair point but arguably not the main one.

IMO the real reason smartphones suck is that they are attention sucking, dopamine delivery systems. A logical evolution of a slot machine. I hate mine yet here I am yelling into the internet on it...

om3n• 7 years ago

IMO the real reason smartphones suck is that they are attention sucking, dopamine delivery systems.

I think he did make this same argument, in point 1:

Smartphones are unapologetically devices for consumption

s_y_n_t_a_x3• 7 years ago

You're in control of how you use it. Limit yourself to utility apps and you won't have a problem.

Bonus is your battery should never be dead when you really need it.

looeee3• 7 years ago

This argument doesn't work, especially on a societal level. Tech companies are spending millions on researching how to make people addicted to their apps, and it's working. If you can overcome that, good for you. But for society at large, it's working extremely well and should be regulated as a society wide mental health issue, just as cigarettes and pollution need to be regulated to prevent lung cancer.

the_common_man• 7 years ago

I honestly don't think humans can control their urge. It's like surrounding kids with candy. At some point we have to regulate it for the greater good ( I think sugar should be regulated like tobacco )

coldtea• 7 years ago

You're in control of how you use it. Limit yourself to utility apps and you won't have a problem.

It's a methodological error to overestimate the power of humans as animals to resist reward systems such as these.

Yes, it can be done, but it's difficult, and most will fail (and there are other factors making it even more difficult, e.g. people tired from work, depression, children that have less developed self control or sense of purpose, etc).

baxtr• 7 years ago

Sounds like a mainframe dude who says he doesn’t like PCs

buboard7• 7 years ago

question is your desktop/laptop computer less of an attention sucking dopamine delivery system?

vikingcaffiene2• 7 years ago

Yes.

rlue• 7 years ago

You're thinking of your browser. There's a lot more to be done on a computer.

cortic5• 7 years ago

attention sucking, dopamine delivery systems

I've been siting here for five minutes, trying to think about something, anything, that is good and doesn't fit that description. Everything people like, from exercise to socializing, shopping to charity. Literally everything that i do and that i like can be summed up as some form of attention sucking, dopamine delivery system.

headsoup2• 7 years ago

Just be careful to draw the distinction between a dopamine hit as a reward for genuine effort and one delivered deliberately to reinforce an action...

Wowfunhappy5• 7 years ago

I prefer the term "skinner box".

Yes, many pleasurable experiences deliver dopamine—it's a perfectly fine brain function. What's problematic are products that take advantage of this very specific bug in our psychology to trick us into performing a repetitive action for no long-term fulfillment.

dsr_• 7 years ago

Writing. Drawing. Painting. Sculpting. In general, the delay between the effort necessary to make the art and any sort of attentional award is decoupling.

Kaiyou2• 7 years ago

It's like that because of the decisions you made (and the apps you installed). My smartphone isn't like that. At all.

arethuza• 7 years ago

"smartphones are shitty computers with too many limitations"

First ever computer I used was a Sinclair ZX 80 - the computing power, storage and connectivity of current mobile devices seem like something out of a science fiction story compared to that.

duxup• 7 years ago

Yeah it is a bit shocking when I find myself just by default disengaging from life ... to look at my phone for no reason.

huis• 7 years ago

I was a little shocked that my new smartphone didn't have a notification LED. But actually this is one of the best 'features' of the device.

buboard7• 7 years ago

I dont really get notification mania either. We switched from voice calls to text to avoid constant distractions and now this. Thankfully they are easy to turn off

pwinnski• 7 years ago

Smartphones are attention-sucking dopamine delivery systems if you let them be. Deleting or never-installing social media apps does a lot to reduce those effects, though.

Crinus3• 7 years ago

I agree with the posted article more, but i see your stance (and the others who echo your stance) as equally valid. I think the difference between the two is how you already have fallen into using smartphones.

My POV and i guess the author's is from people who do not really use smartphones much (personally i never use any app, i only use twitter and other social sites from the desktop via the web browser and that sporadically, i never allow any site or app to push notifications and my only use for my smartphone outside being a phone to make and receive calls is to read websites and ebooks).

But i suspect if you consider smartphones an essential part of your life (i don't, i only carry it with me just in case something happens since i am in a foreign country, but at my home i could regularly forget it at my place - even forget to recharge it for days) then you can see other negative aspects past those mentioned in the article.

So essentially, it isn't really that "smartphones are shitty computers with too many limitations" vs "smartphones are sucking, dopamine delivery systems" but "smartphones are shitty computers with too many limitations and sucking, dopamine delivery systems". It is only your POV that changes which one you see as worse.

dangus3• 7 years ago

I could see someone who gets a lot of use out of a smartphone feeling that normal computers are more limiting.

After all, my computer can't call a rideshare, it can't navigate, it can't call my mom, it can't connect to the Internet outside my home or a coffee shop, it can't take photos and videos, it can't fit in my pocket, it can't pay for things in a store, it can't deposit checks, it can't measure objects in my house, it doesn't know where north, south, east, west, up, or down are, and it can't stay in a useful standby mode all day without draining out the battery, it can't get wet without damaging it, it can't play music for me while I'm outside exercising, it can't scan QR codes, it can't be used as a boarding pass or show ticket, it can't tell my security system when I've left the house...

CaptainZapp• 7 years ago

I got the new rendition of the Nokia 8110 exactly to avoid what you describe. And generally speaking it's working.

Unfortunately KaiOS at this point is so buggy and partially so annoying that it's borderline unusable (for example, after a software udate it can't do umlauts, which is pretty bad for the German language region and there are literally dozens of such bugs and annoyances).

I'm still hanging in there, but the frustration level is so high that I'll probably need to switch phones. An idea, which I loath.

What I will do if there's just no other way I decided not to install any apps (except for the absolute minimum, i.e. banking), let alone games.

Another option would be to switch back to a seriously dumb phone, but the problem there is that I couldn't find any one that offers a 4G hot spot. And that would be a minimum requirement.

In addition to what you describe, and which I think is the most important reason to dislike smartphones, there's the privacy landmine to consider.

nextos• 7 years ago

I don't like smartphones either, mostly for a reason he missed. They are intrusive. They are designed to suck your attention, and I feel peer pressure to be available all the time. I refuse to, and I'm often looked down for this reason.

I prefer extreme computing devices. Either big desktops, with great ergonomics and power, or tiny non-intrusive wearables.

I hope we get true autonomous watches soon, that can silently track some biomarkers and offer some smartphone-like capabilities for occasional use (maps, calls & IM) without apps nagging for your attention.

thekingofh• 7 years ago

Smartphones are great for communication. Better than anything we've had before. But past a point, they are distracting. Just use smartphones for communication and have the self control to avoid the pitfalls.

jmiskovic• 7 years ago

For me it's not just communication. Maps give you super-powers. Camera comes in handy. Phones are decent remote controllers for other devices. Playing music (and occasional video) is also useful feature. All these features except incoming communication require you to engage, which provides benefit without stripping me of control.

Just disable most of (or all?) notifications and don't use social networks. Observe yourself checking the phone compulsively, and disable distractions that cause this behavior.

buboard7• 7 years ago

They have ruined web design.

With regards to that: maybe we should switch away from responsive designs? Modern phones have big enough screens that it s often better to navigate a medium-desktop site by zooming rather than by collapsing everything to an endless scrolling stream. I find often that trying to compromise things to fit in responsive design is annoying for little benefit.

They have led to massive centralization

I really wish someone comes up with a successful home router that includes preloaded optional decentralized services like ipfs. It's a pity that we don't take advantage of can't take advantage of that always-on computing power in the era of crappy-battery tablets and phones.

looeee3• 7 years ago

Modern phones have big enough screens

Not all phones have big screens. Not all people want phones with big screens, and even though it's the current fashion that may change in a few years.

buboard7• 7 years ago

Agreed. But they have high enough resolution to show any website in a reasonable, pinchable way

StavrosK• 7 years ago

Unfortunately there's no way the current IPFS daemon can run on a router. It barely runs on a PC, and has unusably high latency, in my experiments.

pwenzel2• 7 years ago

I've gone through this thought exercise a lot myself, even considering replacing my iPhone with a flip phone. For me personally, the issue is the time-sucking nature of the apps and services that were on my phone.

To solve this, I deleted any apps with infinitely scrolling content, leaving my phone to include only utilitarian functionality, maps, and tools for music creation.

Because I know myself and my vices, I went so far as to add Facebook, Instagram, and Reddit to the "Restricted Content" list.

I bookmarked text.npr.org and mprnews.org and use those as my quick, bullshit-free gateway to local and national news.

With my phone in utility mode, I no longer experience false vibrations or that feeling of a phone burning a hole in my pocket.

Finally, I joined a meditation center and attend weekly.

My relationship with my phone is improved. It's great.

Always looking for more suggestions.

etrma• 7 years ago

Deleting apps and limiting or disabling notifications for the essential ones does the trick.

frosted-flakes• 7 years ago

What about websites like Hacker News?

pwenzel2• 7 years ago

I set my Hacker News profile to `noprocrast=yes`.

vharuck• 7 years ago

I've limited myself to games downloadable from F-Droid. Without the reward of money from obsessed players, the games aren't as abusively addictive. I've definitely spent hours in a row playing some of them, but mostly because of other reasons (car trips, lazy vacation days, etc).

ninju• 7 years ago

With a PC, I don't have to perform some arcane operation to actually have control of the device.

I guess he does not have "user" accounts on his PC and runs everything under the Administrator account

gitgud• 7 years ago

They have ruined web design... Suffice to say however that I am very, very tired of the epidemic of (often massive) position: fixed headers on websites nowadays.

Well fixed headers are annoying, but I find that considering all sorts of screen sizes has actually improved web design in the most part.

Most sites are better in terms of accessibility and UX than they were 15 years ago, which could be attributed to more diversity in devices that developers need to deploy to.

AnIdiotOnTheNet2• 7 years ago

I think this is a blatantly false statement. Ask anyone who actually requires accessibility features how they feel about the modern web.

Crinus3• 7 years ago

considering all sorts of screen sizes has actually improved web design in the most part

Yeah, no. Considering all sorts of screen sizes usually means considering all sorts of mobile screen sizes and depending on your browser width, which oversized, overpadded elements will disappear.

And woe to you if you are using a low DPI desktop screen and do not want to have your browser window maximized, because suddenly your 23" or 27" monitor gets the shitty mobile UI.

sharperguy• 7 years ago

Instead of these hyper-thin smartphones, can't we have one that's relatively fat but where the battery lasts a few days, or even one whole day?

Kaiyou2• 7 years ago

You just have to buy one of them. But grabbing one for yourself you may decide that thin is better after all.

seba_dos1• 7 years ago

I'm still using my Nokia N900. It lasts a few days on battery and there's still nothing better on the market, although I sometimes carry an old Galaxy S3 to access banking app or to buy public transport tickets - however, I sometimes have to do without them when its battery is flat :P

dangus3• 7 years ago

Should I pepper you with links to the Moto E5 Plus (5,000 mAh), Moto G7 Power (5,000 mAh), Apple Smart Battery Case, and the entire Anker power bank product line?

Phones aren't even getting thinner anymore, e.g. the iPhone X is actually thicker than the iPhone 8.

LogicalBorg• 7 years ago

What a terrible article.

They are unequal devices. - This is not a design flaw. The screen is just small.

They are not real network clients. - This is not a design flaw. It's the best batteries can do.

They have led to massive centralization. - No, high bandwidth and big data requiring centralized processing is what led to centralization.

They have ruined web design. - This isn't even a critique of smartphones, it's about desktops.

There are no secure smartphones. - Are they really worse than other computers?

They are devices of unclear alignment, or of clear malevolence. - Wait, what? You claim that your phone is not secure, then you want to root it, install arbitrary software, and do your online banking on it? wtf?

merricksb• 7 years ago

Discussed at the time of publication in 2016:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11097994

(Shared for information purposes; not a dupe).

kilo_bravo_33• 7 years ago

Smartphones are unapologetically devices for consumption.

The only people who say this, as well as "Tablets are only for consumption" are those who lack creativity and imagination.

Movies have been shot on smartphones. Music has been produced on smartphones. Novels have been written on smartphones.

On a smartphone I have "created" or edited notes, videos, spreadsheets, photo slideshows, goofy songs for friends and family, and smartphones are a portal to a vast wealth of information that is infinitely more convenient and useful for my technical hobbies than a laptop or desktop PC.

Ham radio tools, astronomy tools, film photography light metering apps, the list goes on and on.

Using Star Walk to peruse the constellations at night while in your backyard "creates" knowledge and memories better than any astronomy program on a "computer".

If you're not using a smartphone (AND TABLET!) to "create", you are probably a very boring person.

francisofascii• 7 years ago

Drop the last line to make this argument compelling.

kilo_bravo_33• 7 years ago

How about "If you criticize smartphones as devices fit only for consumption you are probably a very boring person, especially in light of the overwhelming abundance of evidence to the contrary. Grandma and Grandpa would probably enjoy receiving a photo slideshow of you and your friends enjoying life, created on and communicated via your smartphone."

AnIdiotOnTheNet2• 7 years ago

Novels have been written on smartphones.

There's no accounting for masochists I suppose. That's like saying its possible to beat Dark Souls with a Guitar Hero controller. It may be technically true but that doesn't mean anyone should ever do it.

judge2020• 7 years ago

Nice reference - https://youtu.be/g789wC9YhCw

kilo_bravo_33• 7 years ago

In Japan and other parts of Asia it is a form of constrained writing.

Refugees and political prisoners have written books using smartphones because either they were not allowed PCs or would send out chapters one SMS message at a time using borrowed phones.

In the US, authors have written epic fantasy novels on their smartphone because it allows them to carry their drafts in their pocket and work on them as fancy strikes. 60% of "The Warded Man" was written on an HP iPaq, 10 years ago.

I did the math once. Early on my publisher asked me that in an interview, and it was about 60 percent. About 100,000 words. But it wasn’t all on the train; sometimes I do it while in the park, or in-line at the bank, or while on a road trip where I’d sit in the passenger seat and just work.

The YA romance novel "After" was written on a smartphone and made its author a couple million bucks before turning into a movie that made $63 million.

Novels used to be written with pen and ink on paper, and later were typewritten. A smartphone is not as ergonomic as a physical keyboard but it is light years ahead of writing everything out by hand.

buboard7• 7 years ago

the truth is you sort-of edited notes (you didnt typeset a book), you sort-of edited video (cropping and some minimal effects), you sort-of made a spreadsheet (try making an errorbar graph), or a photo slideshow (template-based). Yes they are a portal to computer creativity, a demo, but i doubt someone created a mobile game or learned to make a web page with them.

grive• 7 years ago

I consider the main issue to be the first point: that they are purely consumption-oriented platforms. This might evolve for the better though with a little imagination(°).

However I disagree with the second point. Smartphones were optimized for power consumption, while PC were optimized for stability and functionality (depending on your operational flavor, the platform can be quite flexible, allowing such seemingly contradictory directions).

This "optimization for (reducing) power-consumption" is the only times it seems to have happened, and it is actually a good contribution to network design. We should actually embrace this process in general, not only mobility-based computers.

°: A future where your smartphone will be your transportable workstation, only docking on controls changing depending on your activity (screen + keyboard + mouse in general, screen / speakers for media consumption, joysticks for gaming). You'd arrive to work and dock your phone, start working, take it with you and being able to work from another office, another location, remotely (at home), etc.

asark• 7 years ago

I've never understood the "they're only consumption devices" gripe. It's such a narrow perspective, and very programmer-centric. I use mine,

1) as a tool to build real-world stuff (a level, camera to get reference pictures, measurement notes for when I go to the hardware store, measurement converter)

2) to regularly take better pictures of my kids than we get from "real" photographers with fancy, expensive cameras & lenses—and I barely even know WTF I'm doing, plus I'm like 2 generations behind on my iPhone,

3) to cook—measurement conversion, recipe book which I guess is consumption but I also use it to track results and take notes for the next time I cook something

4) I write messages to people. If that's consumption then so's letter writing which... can't be right.

5) Note-taking device for various personal projects, most of them having nothing to do with programming (thank God).

Further, if you asked me to film & edit a movie with a single device, you bet your ass I'd take a "consumption-only" iPad or (even) iPhone over a laptop or desktop. And so on for a bunch of other non-consumption stuff, for which the devices are anywhere from good-enough to much-better when compared with a laptop.

They're not great for programming, sure. Phones are awkward for long-form writing, though tablets are fine with an external keyboard. They're pretty good—even great—for tons of other creative work. Programming is not the only thing computers are for. In fact we program only to make the computer let us do other stuff with it. From a certain perspective, programming's the worst creative thing you can use a computer for.

gflarity• 7 years ago

OLD MAN YELLS AT CLOUD

Right off the bat the author has embarrassed themselves. They seem to be oblivious to the fact that the majority of content on the most popular platforms is created using smartphones (Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat). Smartphones have actually democratized content creation and in a way that laptops and desktops never could. This should be obvious, not sure how this ever got upvoted.

Go take pictures with your laptop OP.

majewsky• 7 years ago

While it may be true that the majority of Youtube content (by hours uploaded) is created with smartphones, the majority of worthwhile Youtube content very much isn't.

apo• 7 years ago

Smartphones rob users of the ability to communicate person-to-person.

Visit any restaurant and you'll find example after example of people worshiping at their private electronic altars despite the presence of friends and family.

Or try having a conversation with almost anyone with a smartphone. The minute a notification goes off, they're gone. Master calls, bye.

It's a vicious cycle. Greater isolation leads to greater dependence on the fake bullshit being spewed.

It's kind of comical to see geezers doing this. But to see it in young adults is terrifying. They're going to fight this addiction until the day they die. Most won't even know what's wrong with their lives because they've never seen anything else.

Ishmaeli• 7 years ago

Most won't even know what's wrong with their lives because they've never seen anything else.

I feel like that's something every older generation says about the younger generations. Why should the younger generations care about ways of living that are no longer relevant to them? If nobody knows that they're doing it wrong, then are they really doing it wrong?

neuralRiot• 7 years ago

Technology changes but the human nature at the core does not, we are a social animal and we need to live in packs where communication, verbal and nonverbal are key, it's not just cultural but primal, i see it everyday, people don't know how to socialize or communicate anymore and that leads to isolation and depression.

buboard7• 7 years ago

The causation is the other way around though. People and local societies grew apart decades ago, and the norms changed. The culture of isolation of big multicultural cities slowly became increasingly common and people stopped talking in the bus/train. The phone fit nicely into this trend and reinforced it, but i dont think the trend is reversible by removing the phone.

xisukar2• 7 years ago

It's unfortunately a bleak reality. I like to think all people with their heads buried in their phones, even when walking down/crossing the street, are talking with a loved one but the constant swiping in all imaginable directions leads me to believe it's not the case.

I know technology isn't inherently good or bad. In most circumstances, it's a matter of how it's applied. However, I feel something that could be best described as disdain for it. For instance, I've been able to read several books on my phone but I feel that doing so might throw me in the same category of people who use their phones for what might be one of its most common uses, self-reinforced and mindless consumption. For instance, I honestly cannot think of something I hate but I truly despise those bite-sized videos with the loud music which are even auto-scrolling and it seems almost everyone watch/listen to them everywhere (subway, bus, etc.).

Regarding the conversation part, you hit the nail on the head. Notifications and phone engagement seem to be gaining a foothold and being prioritized over person-to-person communication. The following story is totally anecdotal but something I couldn't help but notice. In one of my college classes last semester, I estimate that roughly 80% students were immersed on their phones right from the start of the class up to the end with the occasional look to the whiteboard or writing something down. It went to the extent that even the professor remarked, ten minutes before the class starting, (and I'm paraphrasing here) that it was sad he didn't see the students sharing/talking with each other and I'm sure you might guess one of the reasons.

I don't know if this is only me but I for once don't like to grab the attention of people buried in their phones because I feel I'm being too intrusive and interrupting something intimate. And I understand this might not be at all true but that's the perception I get, which seems to be so different to other mediums. For instance, I might build up the courage and strike a conversation with someone reading a book because there might be a starting point of conversation but unless necessary, that's a no-no if the same person is using a smartphone.

brainwad• 7 years ago

There isn't anything wrong with our lives. People of older generations spent all their time yakking on the phone and watching TV. We just do that more efficiently - we're still communicating with people on the other end of the internet, after all.

0x445442• 7 years ago

I've had this idea of starting a SaaS of sorts which delivers a bunch of functionality supplied by apps and web pages over SMS. Back in the early 2000's using my Blackberry 7290 I was able to access all kinds of information by texting to various short codes.

Does anyone here think there's a demand for this type of service anymore. It seems a lot of folks just want talk and text with access to some information like news headlines, weather reports, sports scores etc. All doable over SMS.

el_cujo• 7 years ago

I like the idea of getting rid of my smart phone, and I don't really have the "addiction" a lot of people seem to have, but every time I think about getting rid of it, I'm stopped because:

1) Maps/GPS for driving

2) Ride Sharing apps

3) Web browser for quick googling when I'm out

I can live without access to phone games or the reddit app, but it would be enough of a burden for me to not have access to these three things that I don't see myself dropping a smart phone any time soon.

Bakary• 7 years ago

One solution is to password protect the app store and forget the password or give it to someone else.

diveanon2• 7 years ago

I would pay a significant amount of money for a general computing device with the form factor and build quality of an iPhone.

Cell phones are amazing tech hamstrung by operating systems designed to drain wallets and collect data.

I do not have a phone number and I use a lower end Samsung basically as an ipod with wifi support. It constantly annoys me that apps that have no reason to require a phone number will not even let you register without one.

xisukar2• 7 years ago

I do not have a phone number and I use a lower end Samsung basically as an ipod with wifi support. It constantly annoys me that apps that have no reason to require a phone number will not even let you register without one.

This is interesting. I've never had a cellphone plan myself, however given that some apps (e.g., Telegram) and job applications require a phone number as you say, I've been using a TextNow [1] phone number with the caveat of needing wifi/cellular data. As of now, the only thing that worries me a bit is when I'm out and I need to contact someone but I don't have wifi access.

So how do you go about without a phone (mainly for calls)?

[1] https://www.textnow.com/

diveanon2• 7 years ago

I live on a small island with poor cellular connection, so a phone number is pointless anyways.

People explored the entire planet without phones, I can get by without WiFi for a few hours.

When I visit more civilized societies where people have the expectation of immediacy in communication I just plan my days when I wake up. My friends and family all know that when you make plans with me it is usually more detailed than "I'm not sure where we will be, I'll text you later."

I use apps for all of my day to day communication. Email is also one of my main communication channels.

Some apps like PayPal are basically unusable without a phone number, so I don't use them.

I get asked why I don't just buy a sim card when I visit other countries, and it really just boils down to liking being disconnected and bored of seeing people staring at their phones every time they are confronted with a problem.

I Don't Like Smartphones (2016)

Related Stories