Hacker News Reader

Comment by rmchugh | Hacker News Reader

I'm smartphone phobic, I have only used one briefly and I hated it. I prefer the ergonomics of texting with buttons and I get stressed out by constantly being connected to social media, emails etc. Personally I feel like smartphones are a huge step backwards. We have allowed corporations to colonise our leisure time and disrupt our social interactions in exchange for a few tawdry gimmicks.

View on HN

I consider having access to maps and ridesharing to be life changing, not just tawdry gimmicks. I'm not exaggerating - for example I don't think I would've been able to go car-free without Citymapper and Lyft.

I don't have any social media apps installed on my phone, nor do I have my work email set up.

Am in the same camp. Not that into my phone at all, my 16gb iphone is battered and almost entirely unloved, but holy smokes, Maps/Uber can be useful/life saving.

+1. I'm still using a Samsung Convoy 2 (2010) because the only thing it can't do is group texts. They come in as the MMSes they are, but I can't see who else was included. So far, in all my years of owning this phone, it's never caused something catastrophic to happen by only texting whomever started the conversation.

My car has navigation, so hailing a Lyft is not a thing I do and being constantly connected to social media is not a thing I desire.

The Convoy 2 has whatever Bluetooth was new in 2010 and can stream music to cars, BT speakers, etc. Its removable micro SD card and battery means I've got more storage than most iPhone users* and still only charge it about every other week.

Only Verzion tracks where I am--the phone is innocent, knowing nothing of our post-Snowden society.

Its halves are only a little thicker than an iPhone 6, but it's shorter than an iPhone 5, so it disappears into my pockets.

I really like it and have kept it after briefly trying both of its successors--the Convoy 3 was larger and looked worse, for no discernible reason, and the Convoy 4 is targeted strictly at old people. The 4 is a huge, nasty plastic thing with a slightly-improved camera, on paper, but somehow manages to run slower than the 2. Quite the disappointment.

*Buying music from Bandcamp, Amazon, Beatport, etc. instead of renting music from Spotify means you can listen to music without a 4G connection! Crazytalk, right?

Then, don't connect them to social media? Or better yet, don't use social media at all. I use an iPhone, and to be honest 99% of the time I use it for listening to Spotify, WhatsApp and HN.

However, it's the 1% that really makes me love having a smartphone. Looking for a place to eat in a new area, needing maps, etc, access to banking in a quick and easy manner.

In my android I turn off most of the notifications, except the messaging apps. It's quite bearable that way.

I guess you're old enough to remember when everyone felt sorry for those people whose jobs required them to carry pagers.

Nope! I'm a young codger.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com