Comment by jaabe | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jaabe | Hacker News Reader

Aren’t they supposed to be toys? I mean, I need a smartphone for e-mail and maps, but I don’t need something that’s more powerful than an iPhone 5 for that, and yet I’m typing this on an iPhone XS while I’m on my commute to work (election preparations).

The reason I have the XS was mainly because I wanted more screen space for things that fall in the “toys” category, things like hackernews, and I’m certainly looking forward to playing the Harry Potter Pokemon go. I also wanted the better camera to take better pictures of my newborn, that I share with our family in Tinybeans.

I don’t see a problem with that at all though. I did turn notifications off from everything except the e-mail where I get alerts. I use todoist, a todo app, to schedule a lot of things, but even that doesn’t allow to alert me, not even with a little red number on the app icon.

I suggests this to everyone. I did it at a suggestion of my personal-efficiency-coach, but once the apps stopped reminding me to open them, it instantly freed up hours of daily time. Now I check them when I want to, like right now, where the alternative to my smartphone is quite literally staring at the open train bathroom across me. This had the added advantage/side effect of making me realise what apps I didn’t actually want.

I agree with what you wrote, my iPhone has all notifications off and the only person who can make it ring is my wife.

But

> staring at the open train bathroom across me

I have since found that this sort of time wasting is pretty powerful way to let creativity recharge. It’s like disengaging from screen let’s my mind work at it own rhythm.

Typically I’d agree, if I was seated next to a window I’d be looking outside. That’s often how I get my best ideas, but the bathroom is just too boring. Especially because it’s the same bathroom I look at every day.

I sit on folding seats in the conjunction between carts because I commute with my folding bike, and it’s just easier to sit out here, but I do think you’re absolutely spot on. I think “wasting” time is extremely valuable.

> That’s often how I get my best ideas, but the bathroom is just too boring.

Yeah, it's boring. I personally like taking this in as a bit of a challenge. See how boring it can get before I get my smartphone out.

Sometimes I do other things, like finger drumming on my leg. Trying to keep a rhythm. Or just wonder about materials the train is made up of.

> I think “wasting” time is extremely valuable.

Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.

At the very least you get to disconnect your brain. At best you come up with something awesome.

> Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.

People use this to justify just about everything, like being addicted to World of Warcraft for 5 years and forgoing their ambitions to watch Netflix. It's a joke at this point.

It needs to come with a second part "but do your best to set yourself up for life fulfillment" or be refactored into "don't beat yourself up for wasting a little bit of time". Wasting time and instant gratification will absolutely keep you from achieving what you want in life.

Time you “waste” looking out the window, thinking about life is not instant gratification and doesn’t beg you to come back whenever you can. It’s really not comparable to a video game, movie streaming, or social media.

> Time you “waste” looking out the window, thinking about life is not instant gratification and doesn’t beg you to come back whenever you can.

Exactly.

Now compare the difference between what you said and the trite "Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time" that I responded to. That's my point.

When you consider something wasteful it trumps what another person thinks about the same? Are you using some objective criteria for this? I’m sure something you consider a good use of time is considered wasteful by a good number of people.

So my point is: should I consider binge watching Netflix (random example) as wasted time because you consider it a waste or should I keep doing it because I enjoy it? Especially if objectively speaking it doesn’t prevent me from being a useful member of society, perhaps more so than many people who don’t engage in such “wasteful” behavior.

You can probably find a counter example for most rules you can think of. A cherry picked example doesn’t negate the premises.

Years ago some guy was rambling about shadows in a cave. Not quite WoW but still pretty wasteful depending on who you asked.

I had this reflection last night. Wandering aimlessly is good, great, useful.. Constant external inputs have a value limit.

Some article on HN talked about how books gave ways to that. It made you experience your own time. Other medium put just a tad too much disturbance (battery life, multi usage, parallelism) to let it grow deep.

Related -- you might enjoy Simon Sinek's talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lU3R0ot18bg

Exactly why I like to keep a notebook in my right back pocket and a pen in my shirt pocket.

Yes, sometimes I might take my phone with me on the toilet to solve a cryptogram or two, but usually I take my toilet time as a moment of tranquil reflection, a respite between my multitude of daily responsibilities.

I do see a problem with this. I don't use my phone for much more than messaging, browsing, and navigation. Yet, I have to buy a new smartphone every two years because it gets slow and the USB port breaks. This isn't just an inconvenience, it's changing our perception of what tech is and how it should be. People think its normal that technology sucks, and anticipate it works that way. The reason that Steve Jobs, while being a disgusti g human being, made good products, was that he actually called out the bullshit.

And with each generation of phones, developers give themselves more liberties, use more third party libraries which themselves gave themselves more liberties so that simple apps today would barely work on a more modest phone.

> I have to buy a new smartphone every two years because it gets slow and the USB port breaks

I moved from Android to the iOS ecosystem specifically to get the Lightning port. Wikipedia tells me that micro USB ports are rated to 10,000 cycles but in practice I've had to toss tablets because they won't hold a connector, and wiggle phones to get them to charge. With the iPhone connector never an issue and it just feels solid. Why is the design so much poorer?

My guess is that the connector on iPhones is riveted into the frame somehow, keeping it from stressing the solder joints when you plug and unplug. On many cheaper phones, maybe the port is just a hole going back to the circuit board, where the only thing holding the port in place is the solder.

The tongue design also is just simpler and sites not admit crud into it. And it fits either way around.

I've found that it is most often the plug on the easily replaceable cord that breaks, which I gather is by design and an improvement over mini-USB, where it was the socket that tended to break.

The biggest issue I've had with micro-USB is that pocket crud and lint tends to gather in the socket, but it's very easy to pick out with one of those slim plastic toothpicks or a similar tool. Every device I've had where the USB socket became wonky, a bit of cleaning cleared it right up.

I haven't encountered a single mini-USB port that I couldn't use with any mini-USB cable (however, these are mostly devices that I don't use as often as a phone, so my view may be biased).

Micro-USB ports, on the other hand, just stop holding connectors, even after I cleaned the port.

I had great success cleaning a 3 year old phone. I basically had to scour the bottom of the port with a sewing needle though.

But after I did that, charging went from maybe to not a problem.

The springs that hold the micro-USB connector in are on the connector itself. I have one cable that barely holds on to my phone, but brand new ones lock in tight.

If a micro-USB port doesn't seem to hold anymore, I would replace the cable first.

Get a wireless charging phone.

>The reason I have the XS was mainly because I wanted more screen space for things that fall in the “toys” category, things like hackernews, and I’m certainly looking forward to playing the Harry Potter Pokemon go. I also wanted the better camera to take better pictures of my newborn, that I share with our family in Tinybeans.

So which phone does Apple make for people who don't want more screen space for toys then?

The XS is already a $250 premium to get a smaller screen than the XR.

As you point out, the iPhone 5 was plenty big for not playing games on. And the SE was fantastic, with the same processor and camera as the flagship 6s.

So naturally Apple killed that product line. Tim Cook talks big about Screen Time and giving people tools to manage their time, but the hardware team is working against us. They must not have got the memo.

I just got an XS after being on Android. I like that iOS has included Screen Time by default with app limits, which seems to be an attempt to help solve the problem of me wasting time and make my phone more of a tool than a toy. I set Social Media to 15 minutes a day so I have a chance to check it then I don't get any alerts. Anything I use for productivity is set to always allowed. The one complaint is that I can't move apps to different categories. I set downtime up so I usually have an hour before and an hour after work. My usage is down 34% from last week.

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