Why I Miss My Dumbphone

Seems like smartphone noob syndrome. Look, it's a tool. Like any tool, it can used for good or used to satisfy your base instincts. For those without a smartphone, there have always been gossip rags at the grocery checkout line with which to fritter your time. If you don't want to be bothered by the beeps and farts of apps that think they need your attention, turn off the notifications. That phone doesn't just leap out of your pocket with the inbox displayed, there's active choice on the part of the user.

Directions? I've always avoided asking locals for directions, as most people can barely get themselves to work and back (and I've been one of them when I worked downtown Seattle). Apple Maps has nothing on the local gas station for bad directions.

People steal dumb phones; people will steal anything. You just don't cry as much when a feature phone walks off.

I've reverted to a prepaid 'dumb phone' for communication, and an Android tablet for everything else.

The "dumbphone" he uses as an illustration is a Samsung feature phone with a big color LCD (there goes battery life) and keyboard. That's just a pseudo-smartphone.

And it goes downhill from there.

I can see someone writing a love letter to Series 40 before it, too, grew a bunch of pseudo-smartphone features. Super-clean UI, insane battery life. It had an OS built around the operations of mobile telephony that successfully translated into simple human interactions. A masterpiece. But the neither-fish-nor-fowl-phones will not be missed.