iPhone dumbphone(stopa.io) |
iPhone dumbphone(stopa.io) |
you can do most things an iphone does, but you can't doom scroll. you don't have to eject out of apple ecosystem, you get payments, 2fa, navigation, notifications. your iphone can remain as a backup that's always in sync for when you need it (e.g. traveling)
Me, I barely use my phone. But then I'm stuck a laptop guy/generation.
- Using AdGuard's pattern matching to block URLs I found distracting (news sites, youtuble)
- Deleted all apps I spend too much time on (basically down to Discord where I have two or three communities I check in on)
- Leaving my phones in the other room all day
- Turning all notifications off except for a very small select few whose (calls only) go through
- Deleting all social media (still have HackerNews (computer only), Discord)
It's great! Love it. Fuck your phone. I use mine to check bank accounts, do Spanish flash cards, and occasionally to look at housing and life is calmer and nicer and I get more done.
Maybe these sexy AI LLM's can help us root all these closed devices and OS's, instead of being used to write yet another stupid web app faster?
I use my phone a lot, but I never feel like it's taking away from me doing anything else.
Mostly reading. The 2 hours was a win for me, but the thing I appreciated even more was the that I feel less distracted throughout the day.
I remember reading about Ozempic, and how it "turns off the background food noise" that people have. I didn't realize this, but for me I have a "background notifications noise", which this hack has helped reduce.
I just often felt like I wasn't making progress on various things I've been wanting to, that I used to do, and for which I kept telling myself I don't have time. And it wasn't difficult to tell where my time was going based on the Screen Time app.
For me, I've drawn the line at endless feeds, which for me, was Reddit and Facebook. And for the first week or two, I was often catching myself in a split-second of boredom just opening up one or the other (just to be greeted by an error message). Now that instinct is gone.
I don't think I was as bad as the people endlessly doom-scrolling through TikTok, but it was certainly bad enough that I felt like I didn't have enough free time to work toward life goals that were outside my work time. And it's a lot better now.
> allows llms
why not:
- phone app
- messages
- calendar
- clock
- notes
- reminders
But I say, don't install your list, and further uninstall "extra" apple apps.
I know you don't need apple tv+ or apple news
do you really need mail?
I wonder if you even need safari?
Are you disciplined about everything you need/want to be disciplined about? Food, exercise, sleep, reading, work, family... You've got it all dialed to a perfection, yes? If not, why not? It is after all easy to learn to be disciplined.
Lol
If you spend 4 hours/24 hours on your phone then every 20X you'll have lost 3.33... X.
I think the author is using year and waking-years but it doesn't parse well for me because you don't get close to 20 waking-years for every 20 years.
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/deployment/depf4ab94ef...
As a bonus, if you're a parent and have kids it'll be very useful for them.
It takes a similar approach to the OP - changing restrictions requires a USB cable and a computer.
Also there is limitphone[3], but it has less settings and is easier to uninstall than andoff, but works via the same mechanism.
1: https://docs.andoff.one/ 2: https://www.teqtic.com/lock-me-out 3: https://limitphone.com/
* Remove Jelly browser with `adb shell pm uninstall --user 0 org.lineageos.jelly`
* Disable F-Droid so you can't install another browser on a whim with `adb shell pm disable-user org.fdroid.fdroid`
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palm_OS
Perhaps focussing on productivity and helping users like these devices did/had to instead of being consumption devices is a way to explore?
Maybe it is because I was already an adult, when the very first generation of mobile phones became affordable, those that only did calls, SMS wasn't even part of it.
I can easily go out and leave phone at home, or don't feel the urge to check it every 5 minutes.
I loved when I worked in a place with a beer fridge -chilling out on a Friday afternoon when it was sunny in Dublin was great - but for any alcoholics around it probably was hell. On the other hand, I hate it when places have free lunch and snacks because I am a compulsive eater.
Finding other things to do when bored instead of opening a browser is key. You're going to fill the time with something, so you have to find the something else.
You can try LeechBlock. It works as plugin in all browsers.
First thirty seconds are the worst for will :)
So it is better to ask a relative/friend/parent/spouse to set up a password for you - then you cannot unblock the sites back again without them.
I found that it's much harder for me to procrastinate on my laptop when I am working with peers. The repeated focus time on the laptop during work hours 'conditioned' me to use it for work more.
I kind of agree with you in a way as I ultimately think that working remote is a bit harder on social health and maybe even physical health of getting out of the house, but in another way I just don't know if I can go back to all the negatives of the office.
I mean, my toilet at home washes my ass with gentle warm water. The work toilet randomly decides to splash toilet water on me with the violent "automatic" flusher after I'm done wiping myself with transparent sandpaper.
I don’t have any social media apps on mine though. That’s what kills you.
Shout out to TechLockdown (not my company) for making this sort of setup much easier to accomplish.
That's interesting. I didn't know about lockdown mode. Noting!
> I've installed hosted-profiles (.mobileconfig) files without factory-reset, curious why didn't you go for that route?
Afaik the only way to disable the App Store is to go through this schlep of a factory reset and having Configurator prepare the phone for 'supervision'.
You can disable lockdown mode, install the .mobileconfig, enable lockdown mode again. Which is what I did with https://apple.nextdns.io
Source: Used to do enterprise Apple MDM for a living.
In the essay:
> Whenever I need some information, I can just ask my LLM, and it can give me a distraction free summary. It helps the long-tail of weird situations too: for example if someone asks me to take a look at a website, I can ask my LLM to scrape it and summarize the details for me. It’s pretty hard to get distracted this way.
not really a dumb phone is it?
My spouse and I set passcodes on each other's Screen Time. Make sure you also check the option to block at end. Problem solved.
I use Freedom, but it's a bit glitchy and too easy to delete the app if you really want to cheat.
I'm waffling a bit on the default-deny approach to websites. I think that might cause serious headaches since e.g. scanning QR codes to interact with businesses is pretty common. But I will give it a try.
Update: it took me a couple hours to get everything set up the way I like it after resetting the phone, but so far this is fantastic. I also massively restricted notifications, which had gotten a bit out of hand.
I myself independently arrived where the author is over years of self experimentation, but I think you'll get used to it in no more than a month.
I even use a whitelist (i.e. default-deny) for websites on my work laptop these days. I have ADHD though, YMMV.
I would urge people to consider going a little bit further than this guide, consider not using your phone as a reading device. Imagine deciding to sit down with a physical book, but keeping your phone nestled on the opposite page as you read. It would be a lot nicer to read without interruption, without being exposed to notifications at all times. Sure there are going to be use cases where the phone is more convenient, but I think sacrificing convenience is worth it.
I find the app is very useful. I do find it still takes some discipline, but it adds enough friction into accessing pointless apps, that it makes a real dent in my doom-scrolling. It isn't cheap, but it works well enough that at the current price point, I will pay.
[1] - https://www.getclearspace.com/ [2] - https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/clearspace
But! I have a fairly “smart” home for controlling my lights, etc. I control it with Siri and the Home app. When friends/family with iPhones stay with me, I just add them as a guest.
Just left town for a few weeks leaving my home & dog to a sitter… with an android. I’ve got an old iPhone that I ended up doing all of the Screen Time/Parental Controls hacks to lock down to must a smart remote. I didn’t love the result. I’m looking forward to using the OP’s post to guide me in making a better dumbphone/smart remote. Thanks!
I wish Apple would open up customization capabilities to properly kick the addictive elements from the phone, like Android with custom launchers...
I've also experimented with Apple Configurator many months ago but unfortunately it's too tedious for most people wanting to enforce a simplified phone, but its beauty is in its level of power of creating a bespoke iPhone experience.
fwiw I'm the maker of the Dumb Phone app (dp) that somebody mentioned below and what's mostly kept my daily average screen time to 1-2 hours is getting rid of the addictive elements from the home screen.
No more color, icons, fancy wallpapers, just a simple single-colored text-based list of my most essential apps that open when tapped. Zero social media.
We live in 2025 and as much as i'd love to experiment with a nerfed feature phone, I personally need a high quality camera each day, maps of course, banking apps, authenticators, etc.
Kicking that dopamine hit has helped me use my phone as a utility again, otherwise I put it away. I have an Apple Watch too with all alerts turned off except for calls, texts - so another reason to keep the phone down.
Since I also run a business I do need to leverage mobile social apps, so these now all live on a "separate" iPhone which stays in a drawer until I need to perform a particular task with it, then it goes back in right away.
Genuinely feels good to have my phones work for me now rather than the other way around, and I see a lot of common sentiment when I speak to people who have also done the same thing to their phones.
Highly recommend cleaning up your Home Screen as a good starting point, and purge your notifications.
edit: I also begrudgingly installed Beeper last week to keep in touch with an important group chat on FB messenger on the main phone, but it's bliss only seeing a list of group messages vs the long list of story buttons along the top in the main app, green and red dots, so i'm not inclined to tap around afterwards.
Settings -> Accessibility -> Display & Text Size -> Color Filters -> Monochrome
It becomes instantly less appealing.
On newer iPhones, tap the right button three times and your whole phone goes black and white. It becomes way less engaging to use.
This is interesting because I suspect most people use their phone while doing other things. I’m in a meeting commenting on this article with my phone. I’ve got maybe 15min a day of “I’m only paying attention to my phone” but I have 4-5 hours of phone screen time. Maybe I’m unusual though.
I think focusing on numerical stats here is also a bit of a problem and while making these guardrails might help some people but the main issue should be addressed (overconsumption/addiction).
I wonder by reducing the screen time of the phone, how the screen time of the other devices (computer/tv/etc) changed.
So really, the phone is often a "second monitor".
>installs e-reader apps, password apps, ridehailing/rental apps, music apps, gym apps, dev apps, home apps, "Your Internet Provider" apps (?)
???
I get that some of these are essential, but including home automation and gym apps is really pushing the definition of a "dumb phone". It just sounds like the author wants to avoid installing tiktok and games when he's talking about a "dumb phone".
Ultimately all of these apps were essential for me. "Your Internet Provider" is a funny one -- for some reason XFinity kept failing to charge my credit card. I would come home to find an angry girlfriend without WiFI. I had to install the app to keep some tabs on it, until their autopayment bug was fixed.
One thing I like about this setup is that you can decide which apps are 'essential' for you.
There's no web portal? If so, having the app might make the experience more pleasant, but it's hardly "essential".
I'd argue you can just stick to default iPhone apps and be fine.
I've been playing around with the idea of getting an old iphone just for car play and dumbphone purposes. However, I always discarded the idea due to the lack of control iOS gives you in restricting and customizing certain things. But now, this Apple configurator gives me a bit more motivation to make that jump, even though I probably wont be able to use it for all my specific needs.
I also ended up experimenting for a few months with the Samsung G1650 which runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow. I was able to get apps like Termux and other utilities on it which made my experience what I wanted while also not compromising on having no modern messaging apps like WhatsApp and Signal. It wasnt a complete dumbphone per se, but it was almost impossible to doomscroll or browse the internet on that phone.
In the end I stopped using my G1650 due to the fact that it was too tedious waiting 5+ minutes for poorly optimized apps like Spotify/Taxi apps to load. Also, the phone became expontentially slower with more storage being used, which is expected since wasnt really made to storage gigs of message and media logs.
I thought this one was weird, personally. The App Store is among those I use least on my phone. I only open it when there is a specific new app I want to install (which is rare; I have maybe a dozen apps installed that didn't come with my phone). I easly go months without opening the App Store.
Are there people just browsing the App Store daily?
That said, the biggest shift I encountered in my own phone usage was when I got an Aro box [1]. It's expensive (I got one refurbished), but pretty, and functional, and it has made a HUGE difference in my phone habits. I no longer keep my phone in my bedroom and when I catch myself ignoring those around me in favor of my phone, I can hard cut that off by putting it in the box.
I like the idea of simplifying your phone with software tweaks like this, but I have found the physical separation to be the most freeing, and encourage that if you're interested in freeing yourself from the screen.
I have been using a profile-based restricted iPhone setup for about 6 months now, and this has been the biggest holdup for me. I've pretty successfully blocked almost everything distracting, but I'm pretty good at finding ways to bypass my restrictions. e.g., I'll find an alternative Reddit client (like Redlib) to bypass my Reddit blocks.
The obvious solution is to use a whitelist instead of a blacklist, but then you completely lose the ability to scan QR codes in the wild.
I'm thinking of building a browser designed for this purpose. Your browsing can begin at certain pre-defined entrypoints, like a news aggregator or a QR code, but you can't manually enter arbitrary URLs or use search engines.
I would definitely use this.
I restrict myself from distractions by disabling hosts via custom rules in my nextdns account. It is enough and free.
You want to spend more time scrolling on twitter?
Fine, muster up the courage to ask your wife for it while she preps school lunches for the kids.
1. Remove all social media apps from iPhone 2. Use Opal in deep focus mode to block apps and websites (I can't exit the deep focus mode - but I allow myself a 2 hour window when deepfocus isn't active) 3. Keep my phone inside my bag - out of sight out of mind 4. Remove "tap to wake up" in settings - you'll have to click the side button to see the screen 5. Deleted slack and email - was hesitant about missing important notifications, but decided to try for a week and realized it made no difference to my work
Simply use Apple's Screen Time but lock all of the Screen Time settings behind a pin. Have a friend or loved one create the pin and keep it secret from you and voila.
With Screen time you can have an "Always Allowed" list and if you use the "Downtime" setting it doesn't actually let you set limits past a one minute exception per app.
You also have to make sure that the downtime setting is 24 hours of downtime.
*Edit: seems like a lot of people are suggesting the same exact thing.
I originally did this because the negative experience of losing the internet was really high, but on reflection I think I'll have other warning signs. They did try to call
Let the battery die on your phone, and live one week without it. Cold turkey. Tell people in advance if you need to, give them an alternate way to reach you. Replace your phone for that week with a small notebook that fits in your pocket.
During that week, every time you want to do something that requires a smartphone, jot it down in your notebook. Then, fifteen minutes later or so, write down what you did instead.
After a week, you're ready to start using your smartphone again and turn it into a so-called "dumb phone." Read your notebook and think honestly about which things you really needed to do, and which ones weren't such a big deal after all.
There's the added bonus that being fully out of cell service effectively removes the ability to cheat altogether, though it seems inevitable at this point that satellite data will be invading the backcountry before long.
Pretty amazing, one focuses on actual adventures, people, food, culture, coral marine life, diving and so on. It felt like spending 2 months there.
Then coming back to all this cheap pathetic crap was a proper 'bleh'.
The most jarring was probably maps - other things like email, messaging etc could be delayed until I could reach a computer but not knowing how to get somewhere right now was problematic and required planning in advance.
I usually kept my smart phone in my car and did a sim swap on the occasion that I really needed it.
but man did I miss maps. need to go somewhere? get in the car, start the engine, look it up on some map app, and then I'm off.
text messaging and being able to send simple photos was also a loss. definitely missed being able to text the wife a photo of something on sale in the grocery store ("hey, 10% off X, wanna give that a try for dinner?"), and I missed how good some of the auto-fill was after a while.
to a much lesser degree, a phone was nice during some downtime. waiting in line for something, killing time in a doctor's office waiting room, etc. 20 years ago they had magazines, now they don't...
eventually after getting lost a couple of times I just tapped out and went back to the Pixel 4
"But what about..?"
Yes, even that.
Once in the morning, once after work, once some time later in the evening if you feel like it.
During working hours there’s rarely any reason to touch or check your personal phone (and in many professions you simply aren’t able to).
During after-work hobbies and/or family time you are for obvious reasons unable to have your phone on your person (it’s in a locker room, or you’re playing with your kids) or unable to pick it up (any creative or performing arts, or you’re having family dinner).
I have about 10 third party apps installed on my phone
Chat, maps, ride share, music, study, and my car
Everything else i do is through the browser.
It’s great. If im on the bus and i want to watch slop, instagram web interface is fine lol.
They will perceive your lack of response as you not prioritising them. This has cost me a relationship. (it was long distance to be fair).
Right next to that is OTPs from financial institutions.
Work accounts, camera, and maps are the big blockers for me. I know I can buy a camera but 90% of the times when I take a photo it's to instantly send it via a messaging app, mostly for work.
I found Jomo app perfect instead. I blocked all apps and websites that are distracting or promote doom scrolling behavior in me. Once I went through a detox I’ve allowed them in the evenings for 15 minutes only when conditions are met (I’ve exercised and walked 10k steps etc.). I generally don’t have desire to use them then but I might have messages from my friends or I might want to publish something myself.
Step 1: delete your social media
There is no step 2.
Run the rest of the experiment as described for other categories of use.
I turned my iPhone into pure utility device by uninstalling all the entertainment apps. I only allow music and podcasts as those don’t require my active attention.
Then I have an iPad mini at home which has all the entertainment and social media stuff installed. However I don’t have many opportunities to use that device during the day..
After maybe a week of having this arrangement I found myself being less and less interested in grabbing that iPad. It’s been few months now and I only check my socials maybe twice a week.
Also since I deleted Facebook, Instagram, Threads, YouTube and TikTok from my phone the battery life almost doubled. It was eye opening to see how much these apps drain battery even when the device is left untouched.
They made this for people with cognitive disabilities, but it also works great for older people. It just wouldn't work for me. I need Jira, Slack, and GitHub during work hours for example. But I don't want them during non-work hours. I realize I'm describing something actually doable in the interface now with focus modes and just holding myself accountable by deleting apps like Tiktok, but I do like the idea of having a way to enforce it.
I was at a talk at FOSDEM this year and they were talking about how most emails now (over 90%) are transactional in nature and not personal. Things like password resets, offers, 2fa, shipping confirmations.
This was a lightbulb moment for me - for years I'd been trying to fight email by using sieve to filter away the most annoying senders and subjects but they're right - almost all email doesn't deserve your immediate attention.
I switched my method to whitelist. I created a folder called Transactional and everything goes in there. Then I started whitelisting certain email addresses to let them get to my inbox. I have around 20, and for the first time in years I'm at a point where I could have notifications for my inbox. I still don't, but they'd be useful now
This works pretty well for me, and the key part is Foqos, which is FOSS that allows you to disable certain apps or features with the scan of a QR code or NFC tag. I keep the QR code / NFC tag in a separate building or locked box, so there's real friction if I want to scan it to use the phone beyond basic functionality.
Like the OP, I also have the issue of "semi-important" things, which is mostly email but occasionally some browser thing (often buying or viewing event tickets.) My plan for that is to use Foqos in combination with a QR code + scratch-off sticker, a sort of "break glass in emergency" option that adds some friction but not too much. Print a sheet of identical QR codes, scan it into Foqos as your unlock option, put stickers over them, cut them out and put them in your phone case.
The counter is pretty easy to set up.
Here's how it works on the blog:
1. You set up a schema:
https://github.com/stopachka/stopaio/blob/main/src/instant.s...
2. And then use `presence` to write an ActiveCounter:
https://github.com/stopachka/stopaio/blob/main/src/app/Activ...
As you read the post it should disappear with the scroll.
The friction of having to go to my computer to grant access to my apps on the phone is enough to keep my off social media.
This might be a way back to the iPhone for me though.
I strongly identify with the author's feeling that their phone had a kind of "gravity" before removing these apps. I described mine to somebody as the sense I was carrying around the ring of power in my pocket. It felt heavy.
If you are in a room full of people and you close your eyes, you still feel the presence of those people and your self-consciousness is thus mobilized. There is something similar going on when I have a phone full of apps. Even when it's off, I can still sense their presence and some part of me is still online, idling and using resources to account for that.
> I am not sure what the solution is to these kind of apps. Maybe I can find a special mail app, that only shows you important emails. If I had something like this I think I would just be over the moon with this setup.
I have always had email notifications turned off and I was always missing important emails, especially from people I cared about. I finally figured out the solution. In Gmail (only tested on Android, can't speak for iPhone) I created a label called "notify". I then created filters for specific emails and words that apply the label. You can turn on notifications in Gmail (for Android at least) for specific labels. That's it! Maybe someone else can confirm that this can be done on the iPhone Gmail app? or something similar
Lastly, about Apple Configurator, it seems like it only works on macOS, so probably this won’t work if you have an iPhone but no macOS device, right?
Still, I have a couple questions about it, since I don't own an iPhone but am considering buying one soon.
1. How does this affect backup and restore? Could I still restore from a backup on a new phone, if needed? I've lost my phone while traveling before and buying a replacement was pretty seamless.
2. Is the ability to disable the profile bound to the Mac you use Apple Configurator on? I don't own a Mac, but if I could use a friend's Mac when I need to make changes this could maybe work.
Great writeup, thanks for posting it!
1. I don't know, never tried this. I do know iCloud backups still work, because I've used them after wiping my phone. But I think you must plug the new phone into your computer and set it up as a managed device before you load the backup, or else parts of the profile might not take.
2. No, it's not. I traded in my old macbook pro for a mac mini back in May. I was able to use Apple Configurator on the new mac mini to change the profile on my phone. There is one caveat though -- the phone is still technically supervised by the old mac, so you have to confirm the profile by going into the phone's settings. Using the original, you just have to plug the phone in and unlock it.
Both of your answers sound workable for me!
Even if I couldn't restore the whole profile from backup while traveling (which seems natural), at least it's still possible to restore some data. Which should be enough in the short term.
And that's perfect that I could manage it from a different Mac. That totally works for me. I worried there would be something which prevented that. I'm imagining a parent using this for parental controls, but then the kid disabling it at a friend's house who has a Mac. Works better for my scenario though!
I don't use Facebook or other social media on my laptop anyway, so it's nice to have when I need to access something (like marketplace). But other than that, the peace of mind is truly worth the hassle of carrying two phones.
I’d highly suggest installing Dumb Phone (dp) from App Store to simplify your home into a monochromatic list, to top off this excellent guide.
I had no idea this was even possible to customize! Thank you.
It's a double edged sword because the amount of time I spend online (X) has been directly responsible for the most valuable opportunities and generally knowing enough of what's going on to leverage that for big financial and career returns. It was pretty easy to drop all non-X social media though (all meta) and just avoid short term video generally.
I've been tempted to try the lightphone 3 though - theory being if I have a separate hardware device that might be enough to help because I can leave the iPhone at home. In theory the Apple Watch could do this, but in practice it hasn't.
Another thing I think can work is committing to avoid using it for one day a week - you get a lot of the benefits, it's more doable, and the downside is minimized.
1. Screen time to disable browser, App Store etc.
2. Type random 4-digit passwords until you forget.
3. Use your own Apple account as reset.
4. Remove apple password from password manager. Store in “Notes” app or similar on computer.
5. Lock this app storing password behind mandatory typing of gibberish using Cold Turkey on desktop.
Works well for me.
I will mention that as a younger person who grew up with internet access, I get the feeling that the “just be disciplined” comment often comes from people who didn’t have these addictive habits seared into their minds from an early age or have fought them off and forgotten what it’s like to literally lose control of your actions, especially when its normalized around you.
I’ve noticed a lot of older people don’t see the internet as a threat in the same way as I do, and I envy that.
Living with phones like this is completely unnatural.
> I get the feeling that the “just be disciplined” comment often comes from people who didn’t have these addictive habits seared into their minds from an early age
I had the exact same mentality as you. I wrote the exact same stuff right here on HN, you can check my older comments. I did the same stuff, the lengths I went to lock down my devices...
That's not the case, older people are not immune because they grew up with less tech or anything. It's (probably) just you.
Turns out I actually objectively had far worse self-control than other people. Turns out I was living life really in hard mode while everybody else were coasting with ease. Turns out I had undiagnosed ADHD all my childhood, nobody noticed because my school grades were mostly fine.
Go get checked. My life turned over completely with treatment.
Basically in "downtime" mode all the time with a few "Always allowed" app. One thing is, you're phone (and it's browser) is pretty damn useless. Overtime you realize that a lot of things you need to lookup don't need to be looked up, etc but it can be frustrating at first.
Edited to add: for some reason, time limits never worked for my kids (they could always override them with one click). That's why I had to opt for permanent downtime.
my wife has the password for my screentime, but i can't send her a request if we're physically apart. which means i'm out of luck, or she has to share the actual code with me, which then requires her to change it (and remember the new one)
See Settings – Screen Time.
You can use a passcode to lock it. It seems primarily meant for blocking things from your kids.
But it can help turn your iPhone more into a dumb phone
(Blocking safari was the key, for me)
I'd rather feel confident I'm improving along that metric than to build guardrails for myself everywhere ...
- Ask wife to set up screen time passcode and not tell me
- Block social media and other distracting websites in Screen Time
- Set a 1 minute time limit on distracting apps
- Keep the phone in the garage as much as possible
- Get an Apple Watch cellular so that I can still communicate with people, make payments, get directions etc when I am out and about
Not a perfect dumb phone but this has helped me reduce usage tremendously.
And to top it off, in iOS 26 (Beta) you can set time limits for websites too! One feature I (and I'm sure many others) were waiting for since forever.
If anybody has any ideas I'd love to hear them.
https://reincubate.com/support/how-to/pair-lock-supervise-ip...
Maybe I'll open the door and leave for a different restaurant.
But these days (for now) finding another restaurant is easy. The author mentions that his gym requires having a smartphone. Now, that's a much bigger problem.
I don't always need the dead tree version of the menu. Those do create extra work for the staff. And I am assuming they need constant replacement. Kids will drop food on them all the time.
Similarly, I felt I needed it to “keep in touch” with people, but I ultimately decided the psychic tax was too high to maintain some lukewarm friendships when I have perfectly good ones in meatspace.
I also turned off all notifications from all my apps, period end of story. My battery lasts for days and its not completely distracting. Made a huge difference in my ability to focus.
I now regularly force myself to "actively" do nothing for 15 minutes and just think.
All the things I put into my brain as "todo, please remember" at some point in time are coming back during these 15 minutes.
I get quite a lot of clarity with this exercise. As soon I pick up my phone afterwards and start browsing the clarity evaporates which feels bad. So wasting time on my phone becomes less and less appealing to me.
Lets see where this leads me. I so far wasted quite a bit of time with my phone.
podcasts? How do you listen and benefit without paying active attention?
I just bought a cheap MP3 player and it has significantly reduced my smartphone usage to the point that sometimes I forgot where left it.
You can still access all the social media from the browser eh?
But this is desperate level of proper addiction, when serious hard look at one's life is by far the best course of action. Professional help is not a bad idea neither. Life can be pretty amazing, but screens won't get you there, in contrary its cheap basic addictive 'fun' for poor.
Many years ago I removed all FB apps and messenger from my phone (due to their crappy engineering their constant snooping of user's activity was, draining batteries fast even when not using them). Have them on desktop only. Pretty amazing move, can't recommend enough.
There is something magical in 2025 to practically disconnect from all the social noise. But one can't be total piece of s*it who can't stand themselves of course.
However since you're the account owner (rather than a child), you can always just bypass the Screen Time block... But at least it adds a barrier.
So do I, but I certainly don't need them on my phone. For the longest time the only work app I had on my phone was some 2FA thing. Then asked them to either buy me a phone or a yubikey. I got a yubikey (and my phone complete free from anything work related).
I'm still bitter about the intrusion of work stuff on my personal phone.
Not an iPhone, but my solution to this is LineageOS + microG, where I just disable push notifications when I'm not working, or enable them for just the few select apps if I am expecting some messages there. The price for this is that I don't always receive the social app message when it is sent, but that's fine by me.
My question, why do you need them on your phone during work hours? Why aren't you using a desktop/laptop/something else?
Most of these attempts to simplify things are putting idealism at odds with reality.
Does… does my phone addiction and inability for self-control qualify as this?
I've gotten direct responses sent to my spam. I've gotten emails, WITH ATTACHMENTS, sent to my spam from a known email address. Its a good thing I check my spam. Many (most?) don't.
It's inexplicable to me how google, of all companies, can be so consistently shit at search across all their products.
This is probably where I can see the most value from LLMs, the ability to filter all of my emails by urgency without distracting me with notifications from newsletter spam.
I've gone from ignoring my email for weeks at a time and fighting with spam to quickly checking my email every day now.
What is sending you the most emails? What emails did you actually care about?
Yes yes, you can do this technically speaking, but good luck actually trying - everything is so slow and old emails with attachments will simply not download - they won’t load even in the UI sometimes
For me, I did what you did except with a new email address
That address has notifications and they are reserved pretty much for just people - I don’t use it for websites at all - I only give to people whose email id like to see right away
One iPhone that was wifi only, had my entire music library local, used for car play and a few exclusive apps.
One android with a sim that had my communication apps, social media, and some custom tinkering stuff that doesn't exist on iOS.
I did this for about two years. The main takeaways: -I 100% could have just had the iPhone with a sim for communication apps and been fine. The social media was just annoying enough to swap to that I never felt that draw and barely used it on 2phones. -even though I despise how little customization iOS lets you do, without social media or game apps, the only actual pain point with it was the nightmare of managing notifications/alert/vibration/screen wake settings* -god it made me miss small phones so much. The android was a pixel 4a, the last real phone with real hardware that released at the actual ideal size for my hands(that has an unlocked bootloader, I really can't do the Samsung hellOS experience again).
Now Im on a pixel 8 only, with Glider for this site and no other social media or games. It's fine. Phones too big, car doesn't have AAuto, and Google is trying to rot the foundation of android, but for now it's fine and better than the two phone experience because it's less juggling.
https://www.idownloadblog.com/2018/08/28/add-senders-vip-mai...
Email from my boss, my wife, my sister, my mother, and like 2 best friends produces a notification. Nothing else.
And if any of those folks were too chatty, I'd make a different choice.
Different people get different e-mails.
Also, some people just don't check e-mail otherwise. Why would they? Notifications tell them the 5 times a day they get a new e-mail, so they don't need to manually check their e-mail 2-3 times a day. It actually makes a lot of sense. Notifications mean you never have to check your e-mail.
Do you get notified of every article on HN that you read? Or what about YouTube or other content that you consume?
I’ve had email notifications turned off for years, and have no problem checking my email once or twice a day, just to see if there’s anything worth reading. (Spoiler alert: there almost never is.)
Just like HN, and a couple forums that I visit. I’ll check occasionally to see what’s going on.
For all of these things, it’s never anything urgent or time sensitive. Even if I went a couple days without checking, it’d be fine.
If somebody needs to reach me for anything time sensitive (outside of work), there’s SMS (with notifications) or phone (of course, notifications).
I think much of the issue with these comments — and this whole thread, in general — boils down to:
1. People use things outside of SMS and phone for time sensitive things (solution: move time sensitive things to SMS/phone)
2. People overestimate the criticality/time sensitivity of these things sending notifications
I’d rather check my email (or other X app) once or twice a day, if that, and catch up on low priority things, rather than get interrupted 5-10 times a day for these low priority things.
People are different and have different use cases and needs.
i don't have them enabled; but, the email address I use for my Android phone and tables is used only for those devices.I've neer used my primary email address on a mobile device. Email can wait until I'm at a computer.
I really wish Apple/Google would do something about notifications, use AI for something useful.
"Hey you haven't read any of your 3454 emails, should I disable notifications for Gmail?"
"Hey you're drowning in notifications with your son texting you 2 hours ago, 4 pages down. Should I prioritize him maybe?"
For me email on the phone uses less than 1% of my screen time during the day.
I don't read my work email at all unless I am specifically looking for something.
Apart from that I only have notifications for IM (telegram/whatsapp) and the phone is in constant DND mode (with sound allowed only for calls).
I have type 1 diabetes, and there's studies about this on diabetics actually. There's a huge hit to quality of life and specific kinds of burnout attributed to the thousand or so extra decisions we have to make every day to manage our blood sugar. I'd love to get rid of those, but since I can't, I'm particularly sensitive to bullshit that takes my attention or willpower like that. In my experience, people don't live on a spectrum where "I have self control" = Everything that happens to me I make the right decision even if its hard or "I have no self control" = I always make the bad decision. There's always a pool of decisions, and the further you get into the onslaught of decisions the more you're beaten down and the worse your self-control is.
It is perhaps possible to attain a monk-like state where your will is absolute and you never make any compromises (although I doubt it), but since 99.99% of us will never get there, I think there's a lot to be said for cutting out things that nudge us in the wrong direction constantly
Maybe breaking out of your phone is just more self-control than you currently possess. Imagine trying to get in shape but you're only allowed to lift 200+ pound weights - you simply aren't strong enough to even make progress, you need an easier task.
Or maybe you just have other priorities in the short-term. I'd love to get to the point where I can easily ignore my phone, but right now my priority is to finish unpacking after a move and getting back into the rhythm of going to the gym. As James Clear says in Atomic Habits: To break out of a bad habit, make it invisible, unattractive, difficult, and unsatisfying. Locking a phone down to barebones functionality does all three.
Finally, maybe you have a deficit of attention. I've had diagnosed ADHD since I was a child - my level of self control for addicting systems is significantly diminished compared to a "normal" person. Yes, a certain level of this learned behavior: With dedicated effort and practice, I can develop that skill and get better about distractions. However, my baseline is still lower and my progress will be slower than a neurotypical person. Crutches like this help me preserve mental energy for my day-to-day tasks instead of spending a significant portion of my mental energy fighting the urge to check my phone all day every day.
Just my perspective at least. I know everyone is different and I aspire to be the kind of person that doesn't need to employ blockers and safeguards just to ensure I don't end up getting sucked into doomscrolling for 2 hours, but right now I'm working with what I've got.
For me it's a bit different: It's phases.
Some phases of extreme self-control, others where I tend to give in a bit more (usually induced by external stress).
But that tells me I have it in me to do it without external fences.
I guess it’s like when recovering alcoholics, though ideally should just “simply” have self control, in reality it’s about removing booze from your apartment, getting rid of triggers, changing habits, friends, etc.
Usually it works better to exercise willpower to constrain your future self's available actions. For example, by not buying chocolate or cigarettes when you are at the store.
The same principle applies to your phone. Use your willpower to constrain what your future self can do with it.
Like, I want to eat healthier. I can try more self-control to not eat the Oreos in the pantry, or I can stop putting Oreos there. Putting guardrails on my devices is just easier to help me live the life I want.
It's not the phone, it's you...
[0] https://github.com/rickgram/NoBrowser
[1] https://developer.android.com/develop/ui/views/layout/webapp...
So I ended up using an allow list for internet traffic with nothing allowed, which stopped that. What do you find you need the browser for?
Most certainly you can still order at the bar the old fashioned way, but since COVID, physical menus have been removed, so how is your group meant to decide what it wants to order before one of you goes up on its behalf? (You cannot all go up if you want to hold the table.)
I don't even particularly mind the experience of using the website; the interface enables the display of all ingredients & allows you to specify allergens they need to avoid. If the kitchen runs out of an item, they can mark it as unavailable in the webpage. Finally, fighting to order at a busy bar was never a fun experience to begin with (it is the norm in non-fine-dining experiences in the UK to not have your order taken at your table.) But, this does require you allow arbitrary internet access on your device, which complexifies the blocking situation.
At least so far I don’t need any of the things I’ve blocked on the go.
I've tried things like Leechblock, but they don't stick.
The only thing that's really worked is turning the damn thing off and sticking it in a drawer. I managed it for a week once. Hard to keep to though.
Hacker news is about the only website that works. But, once you find a couple threads you are interested in you are rate limited from replying before long and that frustration kicks me off it until days later potentially.
Tbh, (imho, having tried it) in normal circumstances it would be a miracle to make anything really work like that, but at present you're just fighting a losing, nearly irreconcilable battle, unless you're both wholly on the same page about infrequent synchronous communication.
If a relationship relies on immediate responses to async, unpredictable, text-based communication, and what you want is a sane lifestyle, it's going to be a tough situation.
I just tell people that need my attention how to get it. Call me if it's important and/or time sensitive, otherwise I'll just check when I check based on the implied nature of the platform. Instagram is super casual unimportant brainrot usually, Messenger for coordinating plans with older millennials and Gen X family, Whatsapp for younger millennials sometimes, SMS or RCS is slightly more important and I'll get visual but not physical or audible notifications. I make it clear that if it's a group chat, I'll turn notifications off unless I'm specifically tagged, or maybe check in once a week if it's for a specific purpose, but otherwise I hate them. Signal for some things that aren't time sensitive, no notifications, no read receipts on any platform.
And correctly so: you are prioritizing people that contact you in the normal way (via phone calls).
If I send you a text message, it's usually because I don't need an immediate reply; answering me tomorrow is good enough. If I do need a faster reply (if I'm texting an image or some such, or in a noisy place), I'll make a call afterwards, just long enough to set off your ringer so you hear it.
I also deal with notifications in a different manner: I have different ringtones and extensive notification filters set up. Most of my apps will not make any noise with a notification while the screen is off. Most notifications will not show up on the lockscreen. Most notifications will not show up in the status bar. My standard ringtone is an mp3 with a short quiet ring and a long pause before it ends, so while I do get call notifications they're easy to ignore; only important contacts (family) are allowed to bubble or pop on top, and they also get a different ringtone.
I dread migrating my phone, as none of this can be backed up. I changed phones last year and still find the occasional app that I forgot to blacklist notifications for and never noticed because things related to https://dontkillmyapp.com simply prevents it from running altogether when I haven't used it in the past couple days.
Is that a distinction without a difference?
Doesn't seem like this is possible anymore?
Some people have family juggling/concerns that requires frequent contact (usually involving children being remote places).
There are many, many, not so strange reasons that someone might need to maintain contact. Thinking it's not possible suggests a very naive perspective.
At first it was a bit annoying, but once you know that she works like that it perfectly fine. I'm starting to think that she's doing modern communication correct.
But whatever the case is, you hit on something right here!
You know you touch on something interesting. I feel like the best 'marketing' or 'networking' happens over decades. Of course this implies that best 'marketing' and 'networking' are often done for a different goal entirely.
I noticed this in my career. I've always been interested in programming and writing, and it would bring me to ask people random questions over email. I'd find myself connecting with the same person 10 years later, and we'd help each other out in some way.
(you know you can make those bubbles go away?!)
Hah! Says something about my self control!
Yeah it's usually trouble once a week. I recently needed to pay for parking using a QR code had to finish it in the 1 minute I had. Another appointment asked me to fill some online form and their reaction when I said "my phone is blocked from the internet" was funny. Turns out they still have paper forms when needed.
Huh, that's weird. Seems to work ok for mine in limiting their iPad use. They can request more time and I can decide to grant it or not, I get choices of 15 minutes, 1 hour or all day.
While we're at it, I wish there was a 30 minutes option! There are many situations where 15 minutes is too short, and 1 hour is too long.
In case your kids hack the router you know that they have Kevin Mitnick skills :)
I have NextDNS profiles on my phone and PC that block problematic sites, as well as the settings dashboard itself to stop me touching it unless I'm on my tablet.
Nobody's saying you're wrong. That's great.
I'm just saying there are also people who are the opposite, and their way of doing it is also valid and works great for them.
Also, stuff on HN and YouTube isn't for you personally, and it doesn't need your reply, so it's not really an analogy for personal messages.
Agreed, but if we’re here discussing ways to reduce distractions of smartphones, I think auditing our notifications and the usage of apps that send notifications, particularly of things that are more noise than signal, is worth mentioning.
> Also, stuff on HN and YouTube isn't for you personally, and it doesn't need your reply, so it's not really an analogy for personal messages.
Fair point, but I’d bet that 90% of most people’s email is also not personal messages, and just more noise.
Yes, we should unsubscribe from the noise, and I have, but I still have some things I get that I occasionally care about, just not enough to be notified.
They don't make it clear in the messaging during the sign-up flow, which just says Microsoft Authenticator everywhere. But when you proceed through the steps to get a TOTP code for Microsoft Authenticator, there's a step with a link to something like "I want to use an another authenticor app", which presents a QR code for any generic TOTP app.
However, I've gathered that this is a setting that is up to the organization so your YMMV. Since some employees work at secure sites without wifi/mobile connections they aren't able to turn off TOTP.
I realize it is amusing to even consider offloading OTP generation to a web browser extension however, if `$work` doesn’t want to provide you with the correct hardware (e.g. Yubikey, NitroKey, etc.) there are boundary-respecting alternatives
Yes, one way of doing this is to turn on an email client and let it run on your computer for hours and hours to download everything
The problem is that unless you’ve done that incrementally since the beginning, going back and doing it now is unreliable. The take process above is your best bet and probably the best you can actually do, but outside of that there’s nothing that works well
I’ve even written gscripts with different approaches to do it and it always ends up petering out no matter how careful I am
Also, I think some attachments are permanently corrupted because my apps, whatever the app, always hangs when I try to download them
Anyway, this could be made a lot easier if they actually wanted to let people do that
If anything, it’d be great if they had a tool to do it to begin with - I’ve had my account for over 20 years now so just downloading everything is no small feat
I will also point out that free email is not something that should be expected to be a scalable storage service.
That said, the times I’ve encountered this, when the import doesn’t actually fail and appears successful, I still can’t access the specific attachment I’m looking for
It could be an old picture that is probably gone for good but forever shows loading… in the ui
When I'm waiting for Uber to arrive I know it will come, because I just ordered it, so I just check my phone.
Maybe I'm lucky with my delivery apps because mine don't send ads.
I certainly don't.
I have email notifications disabled. I check my email in the morning.
I don't get a notification every time I receive a letter. I check my mailbox every other day.
Mail? Absolutely. Because most mail doesn't produce a notification.
It does if you turn them on.