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Comment by patchorang | Hacker News Reader

I've posted this here before, but I've figured out a way that makes an iPhone work as a semi-smart phone for me.

I delete all app that I waste time in, but keep one that are useful. (I won't blow two hours scrolling Lyft, and it's very helpful sometimes) I then set screentime permissions to block websites I don't want to use (like reddit), and prevent app downloads. I set a screentime password and give it to my partner.

This way I get all the "benefits" of a smartphone with none of the scrolling and time wasting. It's also very easy to switch it back to a full smartphone, get the password from my partner and turn off screentime. I'll do this when I travel internationally for work.

Hope this setup helps some others.

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This reminds me of when my dad used to ask my mother to hide the peanut butter so he couldn't find it. He was still fat, so clearly that wasn't a perfect solution.

Maybe he would have been really fat if he didn't hide it

I don't use many apps outside a browser, e-mail, and text. Two things that help me are I leave my phone on silent all the time and I disable all notifications. I can't stand notifications. I don't need them. I'm not 911, no one is contacting me with a life threatening emergency, I'll get back to their call or text whenever.

I love having a smartphone because it's a cybernetic appliance. It's awesome. I just don't need it constantly occupying my attention. It's annoying how many apps, even system ones, that want to show notifications all the time. I wish iOS supported an affirmative toggle, let me disable all notifications by default and then let me turn them on one by one. Do not disturb by default and let me affirmatively enable "ok to disturb". I filed ERs to that effect when I was at Apple but I'm sure they went to the Future/NTBF black hole.

How do you manage app updates?

I ask because I've been trying to make this system work for me, but find that the app update flow (partner unlocks phone -> update apps -> partner locks phone) always breaks and I end up with an unrestricted phone.

The fact that you can't allow updates while also not allowing installation of new apps is a huge blocker here for me.

I did the same thing this New Years. Blocked email, safari, all non-important applications. Kept things like: message, fb messenger, fitbit, camera, etc.

If I really need to know the answer to something, I will ask Siri. And most things I just add to my to-do list for looking up the information later.

It's been great!

why block email but not messenger?

I've done this in the past too and it works. Right now though I have it set so that I know the passcode to unlock it all, but that small amount of pain to go and unlock it is enough to make me pause and think about whether I actually do need to check the news, etc. Very rarely is the answer yes, but when I do need an actual smart phone (confirm a ticket on some random website for example) it's nice to have the ability to do so. Just have to have the discipline to lock it back down!

Not sure if it's a typo but how in the world would a person spend 2 hours "scrolling Lyft"?

Their point is that you can't, there's basically no way for it to be entertaining, so it's a safe app to keep available if you're prone to waste time scrolling.

Re-read the comment, they said they are _keeping_ Lyft because there's no way to doomscroll it for 2 hours.

They’re saying they don’t need to worry about having lyft on their phone because they aren’t going to spend hours scrolling it.

How can you set screentime permissions for specific websites ?

Settings > Screentime > Content & Privacy Restrictions > Content Restrictions

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