My year with a distraction-free iPhone
medium.com
medium.com
But on the other hand, I get it. This sort of thing (facebook, hacker news, freaking imgur) sucks up so much of my time (albeit on the desktop), and for what? Occasional interesting tidbits, and frequent annoyance and frustration? Some of it is straight-up bad for me, no way around it, but the amusing little bits keep pulling me back. imgur is the worst one for me... the community is unmoderated and uncoordinated, it's a pile of least-common-denominator bs that's as bad as anything on reddit ever was, and yet the only way I've been able to break away from it is to block myself from viewing it.
Can't find that article at the moment, though another reports that location information is logged "at least several times an hour":
http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1000142405274870398370...
Here: "In a six-month period — from Aug 31, 2009, to Feb. 28, 2010, Deutsche Telekom had recorded and saved his longitude and latitude coordinates more than 35,000 times."
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/26/business/media/26privacy.h...
That's every 7.5 minutes.
I only wish I knew who I was hiding from ;-)
One "feature" of the HTC Incredible (my earlier smartphone) is that the battery is also fairly accessible and can be removed if desired.
I had a friend who ran off the side of a mountain in Colorado. He called 911, but had no idea where he was (he was from the Midwest). Within about 40 minutes, they had triangulated his location and had a tow truck and emergency vehicles routed to get him out.
Without his phone and the ability to locate him, he was pretty sure he wouldn't have made.
The fact that the exception proves useful doesn't mean my phone should transmit and the telco provider, app manufacturers, and others record, possibly indefinitely my location data every few seconds.
If you haven't read Maciej Cegłowski "The Internet with a Human Face", do. It's quite simply one of the best and most completely cogent arguments against the advertising-supported services model I've seen ever and anywhere. He's "idlewords" here on HN.
The instant you start using a cell phone consistently, you've effectively handed over a log of your location history to whoever can convince the sysadmin in your cellular carriers NOC to to give them the data. And that's a pretty big list.
- When people want to point out that "Stallman predicted this X years ago," they phase it as, "Richard Stallman was right, as usual." Richard Stallman is not infallible. Overstating one's case doesn't win any new friends.
- There are many of Stallman's "followers" that are very aggressive at promoting the GPLv3 over all other open source licenses. While this might not be Stallman's personal position on the matter, if definitely doesn't win many people over (and probably pushes many away).
- Richard Stallman isn't necessarily the most lovable and charismatic figure. While people shouldn't factor that in to things when evaluating his message, they do.
The claim is that on these issues Stallman is more usually right than wrong. Do you have anything that suggests otherwise?
However, "I told you so" is a phrase much needed these days... specially directed towards people that insist on making the same kind of mistakes that drove us to the mess we're right now.
But in a corner of the world where predictions are a dime a gross, Stallman's made many, and his record of hits is considerable.
Adding to his credibility and significance are the fact that:
⚫ He's not commercially vested in his predictions. Unlike virtually everyone else in the space, whose "technology forecaster" title is followed by some company name.
⚫ His logic is Talmudic in its rigor. If Stallman has a position on something, it's virtually always because he's thought it through very thoroughly. Even if you don't agree with the conclusions (or if it turns out he was wrong), you're almost always better off knowing why he came to that conclusion.
⚫ He gores sacred cows. Much of the antipathy toward Stallman comes from those whose business model he's just invalidated. Or worse, proven to be utterly and completely socially and morally indefensible.
If you wonder why people don't listen to you, phrasing like this comes across as condescending, and that you have some sort of belief that Richard Stallman is infallible.
I have only ever wished for the opposite, an app/feature that will log my location, frequently. I don't particularly care if it's stored in the cloud, as long as it's also stored on something of mine in a portable format (CSV, etc). I am thinking of this in terms of potentially catastrophic events where proving my location at some given time would be incredibly helpful, say, when the spouse/boss/police need to know, and the stakes are risking my marriage/job/freedom. Even more helpful would be if the app integrated with the fingerprint reader, to help prove that not only was my phone at this location, but with very high probability, so was I.
Why are people so interested in destroying this information about themselves? Is it "because freedom"? Or is there a real, practical threat that we open ourselves to when this information is out there? I am genuinely interested in knowing.
As a side note, I find my Android phone a serious step back in usability. I would say I hang up rather than answer close to 50% of the calls. Can't I just get a physical green answer button back, rather than stupid swipe gestures.
microUSB?
Then you're an outlier. Through common sense, it should be obvious that the vast majority of people don't run into such problems, or it would be a much more widely talked about problem. Hell, people made a huge fuss about "antennagate" when it was really only encountered by a fraction of iPhone 4 users.
When I got my first good-quality smartphone, I had planned on moving all my music over to it, but stopped when I found that the Clip was really a better device for music.
Also, the Sansa doesn't stream, so it's not really "doing the same". Some like their own curated music and for that an on-device music player is fine. Some others (me, for example), want a radio style stream where I don't know what's coming.
> I would say I hang up rather than answer close to 50% of the calls.
I get you might not like gestures, but HALF of the time you mess it up? Let's not resort to hyperbole.
There are other callers/dialers on the market too that might have controls that work better for you also.
So, yeah, you might be able to make do with your use case and tolerances, but your needs are not everyones.
I'm just playing the odds. Seriously, if you can't pick up a call much more than half the time, get a different dialer.
And I think you and I both know you're carrying this too far.
I was thinking of having my setup just be a dumbphone plus a wifi-only tablet. The tablet would have utility apps, including this offline-map app. I'd just need it when I'm lost or need to find something nice to eat. It should also have Yelp data on it, and have the ability to update the map and Yelp data when I'm wifi connected.
If I'm travelling to somewhere, I can preload the tablet with the new city info at home.
It turns out that there is a minimal Web interface to the one transit app I've used to date that works with my flip-phone's very minimal Web browser. I'm not sure if that's sufficient for me or not (I'm starting to think that it would be really cool for local stores and such to post pending arrival times for nearby stops).
I've also still got my old Android device which as a WiFi mini-tablet is still somewhat useful. Though I'm strongly favoring replacing that with a Nexus tablet. The ability to carry around the several thousand texts I'm currently researching would be a bit of a bonus.
Smartphones, like iPhone, are only 7 years old. It will take more years for people to learn how to live with it. Smartphones have already been coined "the new cigarette", used by stressed out people to calm down on café's and public places. In the future we'll probably have professional help for people who want to quit fiddling with their phone all the time.
What I like about HN is the built in procrastination tool.The fact that the community knows that HN can be a distraction and they actually built a procrastination tool is awesome. You won't see Facebook, Instagram or Twitter give you an option to stop procrastinating.
I stopped reading regular news and the comments, at most I will read articles from well informed media websites. Also over the years, the quality of articles from news sites has dropped massively. I feel like they are writing just to get hits on their websites. Add a misleading, controversial heading in the mix and it just makes the whole experience worse.
This is known as Mean World Syndrome, and it's a real thing[0].
One, on messaging, people would use text to contact me or each other if they notice that WhatsApp/Talk message hasn't reached for a couple of minutes. And a call is very helpful to transmit high density info in short time.
Two, I can still use my very nice phone with a large screen to watch videos, read ebooks on the go like if I'm in a bus or something. The difference here is that these things are not infinity-sinks in my experience - I can go 1 hour or so reading a book on a cellphone but then need to take a break which is when you look up and around. Also, subconsciously, the permanence of the book/video prioritizes real world interrupts (in an embedded programming context) rather than blocking them.
Then, you always have music that you can copy to the phone and listen to if you don't want to put your face to the screen. This enables you to move your head around everywhere and still not be all that bored because you still have that music going on.
If I absolutely want, which is almost never, I play games but I find that mobile games are not something that I like so it never comes up at all.
But a lot of time, I've just noticed myself looking around, just absorbing the world around me and being in my own thoughts rather than a forced stimulus and I find that relaxing unless I'm stuck in a very noisy environment in which case the earphone doubles up as a noise blocker.
And the general trend I've heard here is that you need to be on email. But work already has wifi and if you're at work your computer is right in front of you. Secondly, aren't you making a big mistake by configuring work email on your phone?
Maybe I'm the second coming of RMS but I do not install Facebook and Twitter apps on my phone for privacy reasons. Checking at most once everyday seems to be enough for me but I know that's not the case with everyone. It seems a lot of plans are made over fb for you guys, which is understandable - we use hangouts and whatsapp over here, but primarily whatsapp. But more importantly, for immediate plans we generally use SMS and phone calls which might be why we're not as reliant on facebook. FB is considered more of a public 'show-off' billboard than a private friend group.
So yeah, maybe this was worthy of its own blog-post but my gist here is that turning off the data does wonders. You still get to retain those handy unit converters, two factor authenticators, password wallets and other things that are yours without the Skinner box annoyances of the infinity-sinks.
Of course, before someone rants "You don't know how important it is to have internet on my phone", I'd say you're obviously right. However, maybe after reading my post, you realize that it isn't all that important then kudos to you. You should atleast try it once before knocking it right? A lot of times we think "It's impossible to get through without X" but humans are surprisingly adaptive and can cope without X just fine.
I'm just sharing my experience, hoping that it's useful to you.
Then, my computer is for work, and my phone is for being bored. That way (in theory) there is no reason to be logged into timesinks on my computer, so I can use it without distraction.
I do miss the convenience of a physical keyboard in FB discussions, though...
I go for a walk at lunchtime rather than read clickbait. Even if I work s-l-o-w-l-y, at least I am working rather than brazenly procrastinating. I never take my work home, I just get in early and get it done.
This 'regime' is like freedom, it does not require any discipline, now that I am set into it I see no reason to change. The news will still be there when I get home, as will sports results, HN and anything else. I have no need to read any of this trivia at work. If I want to read I have plenty of time for that outside of work where I can read something more substantial on my own clock.
We had a bright intern with us recently, he needed little help, however, I was most keen to stress to him how liberating it was to not recreationally surf at work and to have a phone for personal emails.
I think it's a good way to live. Your friends/acquaintances/etc. that you are with should be the most important people in your life at that moment. When at work, your work is your most important point of focus (unless it's your wife/kids/etc. - family or friends of great significance). It also is generally good to try to control addictions.
In a way, it's about controlling your life, and not letting the phone control you.
Both mine and my daughter's were covered. Our run time had suffered and our battery gauges had become mostly insane.
My primary use case is email, Twitter (When I'm bored), WhatsApp / SMS / Snapchat / Google Maps (spending summer in a new city) and listening to podcasts (plus a brief, unrequited fling with 2048 this summer). Its amazing how much Facebook drags on it, to the point that its utterly pointless to even have on the phone.
Somewhat related, I've come to a similar conclusion myself recently but via app fatigue instead. I've been running a Windows Phone for over a year now, and although I loved the OS, constant remarks regarding the app gap made me wonder if I was missing out on the full smartphone experience.
Thus I obtained a Samsung Galaxy and logged into my old Android account, eagerly anticipating all those exciting apps I'd soon have access to at my fingertips. Going thought the Play Store was a great experience - Instagram, SnapChat, Yo, etc. - I installed every hyped app like I was on a crazed shopping spree. This included apps that simply replicated a web experience, e.g. Amazon Shopping, Quora, and even Go Daddy (in case I ever wanted to check my domain renewal status while out and about!)
The first week or so was exciting, I was in thrall of all the things I could potentially do with my phone and how (by some unknown means) these apps would help me live my life. However as the weeks went on I found that even though I had all these apps, I simply didn't use them. I realised that just having the technology available isn't enough, you have to have a want and need for it.
From this experience I've recognised what I personally need from a smartphone. For me it's about a good camera, music player, calendar, and a way to directly and privately communicate with my friends and family. Add to this a few key apps, covering transport/maps, gym, ebooks, podcasts, etc., and I'm good to go.
I now have a Nokia Lumia on its way to me in the post. I won't have the latest hot apps, but that's okay. And when the next big app does come around, hopefully at some point it will come to my platform, and if not I'll happily just get on with my work.
Any idea how well a Windows mobile phone can integrate with a household that's predominantly Mac?
I guess most integration would be fine - email, calendar and so on. There are WP alternatives for most services, i.e. OneDrive for cloud syncing, etc. - however iTunes, iCloud and so on could be an issue.
It could be MS's new marketing angle - "come to Windows Phone, we don't have any apps, and that's a good thing" :)
The downside is people are sometimes annoyed at me not reacting to calls/messages immediately. I should probably experiment with the iOS Do Not Disturb feature, but it hasn't been too big of an issue so I've put it on the back burner.
Maybe my laptop needs a hosts file to block "infinite" sites. Of course, I'm on one right now...
My compromise is to simply leave it off much of the time.
This was a time when toll charges were high enough that unsolicited calls were something of a rarity. That's definitely changed (and lack of caller-ID on landlines is all but unbearable now).
There was even a time when answering machines didn't exist -- can't reach someone? Try later or send a letter. Not email, a letter.
Amazingly, we got by.
The conceit that I've got to be reachable by every unintelligibly accented stranger on a crap VOIP line anywhere on the planet at any time has gotten old.
And yes, if I don't aggressively guard my access, I do get a lot of crap phone calls.
An established residence over time (a few decades) and various other marketing-database-entry events, and it's a pretty constant annoyance, in my experience.
Problem I've got with chat over phones is that the keyboards stink.
SRSLY?!!!
I patiently (?) explained that his first call was a waste of both our time. And the second far worse than that. But I'd be more than happy to spread his and his employer's name over teh Intarnets.
He didn't call back.
For example, by only leaving apps like Kindle, Audible, or Bible on my home screen, I'm much more likely to do something productive when I'm looking to fill in a few minutes waiting somewhere, rather than checking Facebook which will be a waste of time.
If deleting apps is a big leap for you then I think disabling all push notifications is the second best thing you can do.
I still use both apps via their websites when I've got my laptop out, but not having them in my pocket all the time is really freeing. You don't realise how much of a slave you are to these things until you force yourself to let them go. I waste a lot less time on my phone now. Wouldn't go back.
I now own a smartphone. Refused to put Facebook on it. I also make a point when going on holiday not to use internet, unless I need to. I have been to some stunning places in the Hymalayas, with scenery like nowhere else, and you see the internet cafes full of westerners, updating their facebook status. Did you really need to pay for the flight to do that?
As with fire, smartphone is a great servant but terrible master.
1. Maps - maps come in very handy at times when you are stuck in some unknown area and want to find way home. 2. Browser - to be able to check anything on the web is also very important to me. 3. Access to online storage and email.
Basically I gave up all social media, all smartphone gaming and other unwanted apps and use smartphone for basic internet access device. I have cut down my smartphone usage from 3 hours a day to about half an hour a day.
It also doesn't help that this time can be labelled as "productive" in my mind (as opposed to Facebook etc), when in reality there are more productive things to be doing in these moments.
I finally gave in when I moved and would constantly get lost (I needed maps).
I really like this article, but I see opportunity in short digital breaks. The truth is that the majority of people won't delete infinity apps. They don't have the self-control to do it.
That's why I'm building an app (Android-only) to temporarily disable distracting apps.
You can check it out, I'd love feedback -> http://www.digitaldetoxapp.com
In the future, I'd love to give people different "packages" (ie. - Uber, Lyft, Instacard, etc) as not all apps are distracting.
I need a break for this always connected world.
Times on the bus when I would’ve checked email, I listen to music or just look around. I even started meditating on the bus (yes, really! And, uh… please don’t mug me) using an app called Calm."
Is this satire? Meditating using an app, the conquest of boredom, the gain in productivity/focus.
I don't want to give this up, but can't find an app that only sends email. So when I opened Mail to send a todo email, I'd see all the new emails that were begging to be read. I could create a new email account that I use for sending only, but that seems like a pain.
Anybody seen an iOS app that sends email, but doesn't check it?
Couldn't find any apps that worked so ended up creating a receive-only account that gets no email and using that as my incoming account. My outgoing account is my normal Gmail account. Will be interesting to see how things go without email on my phone.
It made me realise that I had to make a change. I depend on the internet/technology and I personally think that's scary. I'm gradually cutting out applications, I think the big shift from being connected to not being connected would just cause a relapse. Right now Twitter,Facebook, HN are not on my smartphone anymore and I feel much better already.
I have a lot more time now and its quite shocking how people are still productive these days with the insert next trending application coming out every week.
It's important to moderate use of addictive services that provide a stream of instant gratification like facebook, twitter, reddit, 9gag, pinterest, etc. The first step is being conscious of excessive use.
Restriction -> Websites -> Specific Websites Only
I would rather be able to change the hosts file tho and while I'm blacklisting sites I'd also get rid of ads.
That depends on the icon:
http://img1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20131127043932/marvelmovi...
The only way to deal with this is to better understand your own personality and try to learn how to get self control. There are lots of cognitive therapy based behavioural modification techniques. Self control only when it's interesting isn't really self control.
1) Downloaded Silence for Android (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=net.epsilonlab...). This let's me adjust triggers for putting the phone in silent mode. For the weekdays, I set it to be silent from 10pm until 6:30am.
2) At work, I silent my phone as well. No need to get Facebook notifications during thinking time.
This leaves my phone with a few hours each day to yell at me. The mornings, and the early evening (but I put my phone away for dinner anyways). It gives me a few moments each day to check notifications from services like Facebook, see Google Now reminders, and that's about it. When friends need to contact me, they text, call, or chat me. If my phone is silent when they do, such is life.
All I had to do was use a Blackberry 9900 as my primary phone.
I did not have to disable anything. I primarily use it for emails, calls and SMS. Those are also the only things that seem to work.
When travelling out of town I usually carry my backup devices as well(iPhone/Nexus)to find directions etc.
I have a script that runs at 5:30 pm and then at 6 am that disables email and enables email again in the morning before work.
The script uses phantomjs to log into my webmail and change my password, then changes it back again to enable email.
When I got back home I popped the SIM card into my old iPhone 3GS and have been experiencing a similar smartphone underload. I updated the apps I needed to, mostly 2-factor software tokens for VPN and my Google account, and realized that I wasn't missing much of my Nexus 4.
I did try to save the phone with a couple handfuls of dessicant packets but it never successfully got past the bootloader screen. But that's fine with me, I am in no hurry to replace it.
Fast forward six months of the Nexus 4 sitting in a drawer forgotten about. I took it out and charged it. Amazingly, the phone now works 100%.
I sometimes post about my company working on the next big "social platform". And we are trying to do things RIGHT - open source, fully distributed (while respecting CAP theorem), people own their own data, etc.
So when it comes to notifications, like in every other area we want to encourage the apps to use "best practices" and only notify people of what they really WOULD want to know about. That means turning down the "slot machine" factor and handing over control over notifications to the people. To do this, we needed to design a standard, expressive interface and "language" that people could use in any app across the platform to quickly indicate what they want.
And here's an overview of how it works withte rest of the system:
Every piece of data in Q (http://platform.qbix.com) is typically stored in a Stream. Which means things like access control (privacy), real time updates (like chat), offline notifications (delivered to any endpoints), etc. are all implemented by the system and available to the app for free.
The user can fine tune notifications settings for any stream or type of stream, and each app can provide Rules with configurable settings and thresholds. For example, a "Groups/activity" published by a user who is in my contacts under a "Friends" or "Family" label and matching my interests would accumulate enough weight to bust through my notification threshhold for sending me an in-app notification, or an email, or an sms. At certain hours of night, my notificaion threshold goes up. When I get into my car, and start moving fast, my notification threshhold goes up until I get out of the car, so only the most urgent things distract me.
And that red badge on the icon? It should earn your trust, like all interface elements it represents a relationship and shouldn't cry wolf. It should NOT show the number of messages waiting for you, but rather show the number of streams with "important" messages posted since you last checked that stream on ANY device.
In short - there are lots of things to solve but they only have to be solved once. That's what we have been working on for over 3 years.
Thus, I just use it for calls and texting, and for Google Maps if really needed. I need to charge it once a week and for all I care it just works.
My employer provides me with a smartphone as a work benefit but I mostly use it as a small tablet for reading stuff in bed. The battery is often out of juice, too.
In the remaining cases of "waiting for something but not equipped with a full sized computer", I'm quite happy to use the phone.
The greater problem is "spending time doing less-productive stuff on the Internet" -- I just prefer doing so with a real computer.
I don't Facebook, Instagram, twitter, or any of that nonsense, but I'm still hooked to my phone and need a break. I might give this a shot.
-- by social scientist, Herbert A. Simon.
Keeping our phone distraction free will definitely make us attention rich and free us from the information pollution that we're getting used to. If not a distraction free smartphone, we should probably make better decisions about what information we choose to spend our attention on.
Amazing how much isn't necessary.
This comment included ;-)
Screenshot: http://jmp.sh/JZIZ12q
It just seems like it would be on par with buying a brand new computer to get your writing done, then installing DOS because the web browser was just too alluring.
All that said, I ended up taking this to the opposite extreme: I've set up my phone to be cross-linked into as many work-related systems as possible, so that I can take better advantage of those little "in-between" moments during my work days. Build's compiling? Get an alert when it's done. Waiting for a coworker to get out of a meeting? Get an alert when they ping your name in IRC/Skype/GChat. Not having to sit in front of my computer waiting for asynchronous blockers to resolve means I can retreat to the porch, or the living room, or the park up the street, without having to worry about coming back to find something's on fire. Additional apps allow for limited on-the-go debugging, interfacing with systems and the like, so that I can continue being away from my computer if the situation isn't severe enough to require my actual physical presence at a keyboard and larger screen.
https://www.techendo.com/posts/how-i-killed-my-cellphone-pla...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Full-screen_writing_program
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/write-peace-distractionfree-edi...
I've found Readability and my own nearly 1200 local CSS hacks for more distraction-free Web browsing are also somewhat useful.
Luckily my iPad was a gift, otherwise I would feel cheated. I often try to browse the web, but after a few minutes I get frustrated and switch to a laptop. In my mind the iPad is a useability nightmare, it's only good for a few well designed casual games (and may reading, if you don't have a Kindle). For anything else, including browsing and email, it's quicker and more comfortable to just get out the laptop.
I actually had a flip phone before that, but I prefer the iPhone with distractions disabled.
So, this was the last post I made on HN using my iPhone...
i rarely ever check mail on my phone unless i really need it (which is like 10 times a year). Same for the rest.
What I use most of the time: - texting (specially for meeting/bar/etc) - maps (directions, traffic...) - booking (plane/train/etc while on the go) - making pictures - listening to music (sometimes)
yeah.. thats it. I use the other apps less than once a month...
I do use email, web, etc on the laptop tho (which i do not carry with me unless its work hours)
I find it a lot better this way, and in fact, past the initial experience of having a smartphone some years ago, i never really used it any other way.
i dont get the addiction ppl get with the phone games (they're fucking terrible) and non-stop checking notifications (its horrible)
https://d262ilb51hltx0.cloudfront.net/max/2000/1*8cXiIn88Rzq...
Now there was a time in the distant past where we didn't have smartphones for directions. People used maps. Here in Barcelona, every bus stop has a big map of the whole city on it.
This is the same view that I have towards my smartphone, although I still have FB installed because sometimes I really need it to communicate with friends on messenger.
So you bought an iPhone instead of the old ones, to have the additional features that it provides, and then you don't use it, and call it an accomplishment. That is non sense.