dumbphone

content/blog/2024/01-17-my-dumb-dumbphone-experiment/apps.md

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+---
+title: App List
+---
+
+This is most of the apps I use on my smartphone.
+
+* 1Password: I'll have to rely on the browser version
+* A Better Route Planner: The new phone has some version of Google Maps,
+  and longer trips can be planned on the computer beforehand
+* *Amtrak*: this one could be tough. Having the Amtrak app is very helpful
+  on train voyages when problems happen.
+* Andronome: A metronome app. I bet I can make a web app on woozle.org to do this.
+* AntennaPod: Podcasts. I think there's a podcast app for KaiOS.
+* Authenticator: There's a TOTP app for KaiOS. I may need to update it.
+* Awful: I'll use the web version.
+* Book Reader: I wasn't reading books on the phone. What's funny is that
+  I read Moby Dick on my Nokia 5310. But the smartphone is too distracting to read.
+* Calculator: KaiOS has a calculator.
+* ChargePoint: EV charger app. I may have to either pay more and use my credit card,
+  or get their plastic card for in-network rates.
+* ConnectBot: ssh client. There's one on my laptop.
+* Contacts: There's one built into KaiOS.
+* Electrify America: same story as ChargePoint.
+* EVGo: same story.
+* Firefox: KaiOS has a browser. I bet it's awful. But I don't think I'll use it much.
+* Fitbit: Gonna have to give this one up.
+* Gmail: I'm already off gmail.
+* *Google Calendar*: This may be the thing that pulls me back.
+  Getting push reminders of upcoming events has been a big deal.
+* Google Home: I think I actually need to keep the phone just for this app.
+* Google Messages: It'll be SMS only for me.
+* Google News: good riddance.
+* Google Photos: web version.
+* Google Podcasts: they're killing this anyway.
+* Google Pay: credit cards have tap to pay.
+* Listen Audiobook Player: I'll have to see if I can find a KaiOS app for this.
+* Mattermost: No more work push notifications for me, so sad.
+* Open Camera: The camera is not as big a part of my life now as it once was.
+  I can get snapshots with the dumbphone. Not good ones, but good enough.
+  I grew up with crummy 110 cameras. It'll be okay.
+* Plex: maybe I can copy video files over, for the train trips.
+  Will I want to watch movies on a 2-inch screen, though?
+  Good thing I have a laptop!
+* PlexAmp: I will have to copy music files over to my phone, like I did 20 years ago.
+  It'll be okay.
+* Proton Mail: laptop ahoy!
+* *Signal*: Ironically, Signal is the one app that absolutely cannot run without a smartphone.
+  And it's where most of my friends are.
+* gStrings: (instrument tuner) I may have to buy a guitar tuner!
+* YouTube: comes with the phone, although, again, 2-inch screen.
+* YouTube Music: same story as PlexAmp. Music files on phone.
+* Work Apps: I'll just use my work laptop for work. It'll be fine,
+  the main inconvenience will be when I forget to do my timecard,
+  I'll have to grab the laptop.
+* Banking Apps: they all have web sites I can use,
+  although one of my credit cards leans fairly heavily into the app.
+
+
+
+
+

content/blog/2024/01-17-my-dumb-dumbphone-experiment/index.md

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+---
+title: My Dumb Dumbphone Experiment
+date: 2024-01-17
+tags:
+  - pocket computing
+---
+
+Last year,
+I went on a quest to reduce how much time I spend on my "phone"
+(which is actually a pocket computer: I don't place many calls with it).
+Comparing notes with my kid last week,
+it looks like I'm averaging about 1 hour per day,
+which is pretty good.
+Most of that appears to be using the web browser,
+probably to look stuff up,
+and the Something Awful Forums app.
+I do a little bit of text messaging every day,
+and a few other scattered "utility" apps here and there.
+
+The kid's phone stops getting security updates in August,
+meaning we're going to have to drop another $500-$800 again,
+or risk running malware on the gateway into her online life.
+
+I'm tired of this.
+
+I'm going to try using an $80 Nokia flip phone.
+We'll see how it works out,
+maybe jr will want one when it's time.
+
+
+# Apps I'm Giving Up
+
+By doing this,
+I am in essence giving up every app on my device at once.
+Many of them have web page equivalents,
+so this is not a big deal.
+A few, like banking apps,
+I suppose I can keep using the phone when I'm at home.
+Maybe I can set up SMS check deposits:
+that would mean I don't need the app at all.
+
+The ones that seem the most painful are:
+
+* Amtrak: Their web site isn't great, but maybe I just need to spend more time on it.
+* Google Calendar: Getting reminders has caused an improvement in me being to things on time.
+* Signal: This is where all my friends are.
+
+I made [a full list](apps.html),
+if you're interested.
+
+
+# Initial Thoughts
+
+It's much better than I remember featurephones being.
+So it's exceeding my expectations,
+which is nice.
+
+It is a lot bigger, though.
+Much bigger than I was expecting.
+Maybe in a few years there will be a smaller one I can get,
+with the same functionality.
+It's still significantly smaller than the smartphone,
+so it's still an improvement.
+
+The text messages work pretty well,
+I can do group messages and see images,
+I can even send images and emoji.
+
+The music player is fine for me.
+People on the Internet seem to hate it,
+but it's playing my music files,
+so whatever.
+Bluetooth music playback is great too.
+
+I found a podcast app that seems decent enough.
+That might be nice when Amy starts back at work,
+but right now I'm not listening to a lot of podcasts.
+
+The browser is miles better than the one on the 5310.
+It's good enough that I'm thinking about whether I should try writing an ePub reader
+that I can host on Woozle.
+I think maybe not:
+I like the e-ink book reader I've got a lot.
+
+The phone part is fine, no complaints.
+Speakerphone works well, maybe better than the smartphone.
+Bluetooth works on calls exactly like it did on the Pixel.
+
+I paired it to the car,
+but I can't imagine using it that way for anything other than calls
+and quick voice-dictated text messages.
+That's probably for the better:
+ever since Google got rid of standalone Android Auto on the phone,
+I've been unlocking it, navigating menus, and whatnot,
+in the seconds I'm at red lights.
+I was probably going to give up on that anyway.
+
+The camera is roughly equivalent to the point-and-shoot camera we have.
+My requirement for keepsake photos is that they be at least as good as a 110 camera from 1975.
+This is much better than that.
+It also geo-tags photos, which is a nice thing to have.
+
+It comes with a low-resource version of Google Maps!
+I haven't used it for directions yet,
+but it seems like it'll be good enough.
+This is a pretty big deal,
+and I'm glad to have it.
+
+I can also connect to Google Mail,
+Google Calendar,
+and Google Contacts.
+None of them seem to work particularly well:
+I keep getting reminders for things that happened years ago.
+Maybe cleaning out old events will help:
+having calendar reminders would be pretty nice.
+
+The games are insipid.
+No change there from the 5310.
+It also has news and weather apps that will tell me some headlines and the weather,
+but I have to go open them up to see it.
+There's little chance I'll get wrapped up in any of these.
+
+Calculator is basic and fine.
+
+Honestly, I'm excited about the browser being so capable.
+I tried sideloading an app in debug mode and ran into trouble,
+but I'm realizing that I'm thinking about the phone wrong here.
+It is a telephone with an okay camera.
+I should only turn to it when I have no better options:
+it's not there to try and replace a real computer.