You won't spend 30 minutes scrolling through your navigation app, or your music app, or through the pictures you made, or looking at the weather forecast, or...
These are all very useful features. I wouldn't throw out the baby with the bathwater.
It's meant to be a temporary setting, like to turn on while in a meeting or while sleeping, but I have it set to run 24 hours a day, only allowing people in my "favorites" to call me, everyone in my contacts list to message me, and only allowing notifications from a couple apps.
I just set it up a week ago, and I absolutely love how little I'm bothered by my phone now, including no more calls from bots, which I was receiving around 4-6 times a day.
* I assume most recent Samsung equivalents have this feature as well. My S6 had it.
When I'm testing new smartphones in stores, I'm shocked at how crappy the experience is compared to the LineageOS, both in terms of UI, and in terms of interruptions and notifications and ads shoved down the user's throat
Could you share your experience about bot phone calls? What in it for them?
Just like email spam, I assume there's enough benefit to be worth the cost, which is far less than it used to be now that, much like the transition from physical mail to email, a computer can do the calling for very little cost or effort.
I used to get a a few random spam calls from people a week, and still do from time to time. They're generally trying to sell me something; trying to ask for my vote; trying to convince me that I'm in trouble for one thing or another and I should give them some personal information or money to get out of it.
As for being called by bots, if I answer and I don't hear a human voice within a second or two, then I assume a computer just dialed me. It might play me a recording; It might connect me with a human. Regardless, it was a bot that called me to begin with, and I've no interest in speaking with or waiting for the unsolicited demands of computer programs.
I used to be able to keep a list of numbers to block with whatever dialer app I was using, but it's gotten incredibly easy for these spammers to spoof numbers. The big trend in the past couple months seems to be to use numbers that have the first six or seven numbers of my full ten-digit phone number. So if my number was 444-555-6666, I'll get random calls throughout the day from 444-555-6777. It's obvious when I see the number - especially since my number is from a city I haven't lived in since 2012 - but harder to block via standard phone apps.
This is why the white-listing of a "Do Not Disturb" mode better suits me.
As for why I get so many spam calls, it's hard to say. I've had this number for almost 20 years. I'm sure it's been sold and resold for pennies hundreds of times. I'm sure it's also on plenty of database dumps from various hacks as well. No matter, switching numbers seems to be more hassle than it's worth. I assume whatever new number I get would be just as bad.
What I _really_ want is for phone numbers to become obsolete. Just a random UUID that means "Call / Text / Message enobrev" in someone else's device, where I can maintain a whitelist of who can connect to my devices to talk / chat / etc.
The thing that has surprised me most is that it's all utility. I can run Google Authenticator, I can read what I need to read, I can find out when the bus leaves, but the phone is no fun. The tiny screen doesn't attract or tempt me.
I thought I'd get something small that fits in every pocket, but stumbled upon something else. Maybe more.
(Same thing with more detail: http://rant.gulbrandsen.priv.no/unihertz)
Separately I have an iPod touch which gives me some control over smartphone addictive behaviour as it only has wifi. And it has the headphone jack :) I absolutely refuse to buy a device without one.
I used to joke with friends about "smartphone zombies" in the streets but now it is no longer a joke. It's genuinely scary to be on a train or subway and see everyone glued to their phone without looking up. Mothers and kids each staring at screens instead of interacting.
I was a big Steve Jobs fan when he was alive, but now wonder if the iPhone (and its competition) are destroying society the way automobiles destroyed much of the physical world.
Its kinda funny how removing features is defended by "well it makes them simpler and lighter and smaller", meanwhile 99 % of all smartphones are basically tablet-sized nowadays with insanely large and unwieldy screens.
However, at the aggregate level, I.e. the device level, the message is the opposite. Apple, Google, and 3rd party devs and businesses keep promoting the idea of more apps which essentially eliminates and overwhelm the benefits a user may see from simplicity at the app level.
A good example are messaging apps. While each messaging app may have simplified (even as they add features) for a regular user, they have to worry about 3-4 different messaging apps as well as which contact has to be contacted through which app. Do I use iMessage, FB messenger, Hangouts, WhatsApp to contact a person?
This is something Apple and Google should be tackling at the platform level. Windows Phone, and WebOS before it, made some token efforts towards this through their hub concepts, but they were destroyed by lack of support, and lack of open standards.
We really need to be promoting more open standards to enable users to control their phones, instead of becoming slaves to them.