Comment by wds

1 day ago

A few days ago I cracked the edge of my smartphone's screen at just the right spot to shut its display off entirely, though it still works. Using the USB-C dongle meant for my laptop, the phone pops into a desktop view which basically is the same experience as a Chromebook (for better or worse).

In the meantime before its repair, I shoved my SIM card into an old flipphone I had in the tech graveyard drawer. I've actually really liked the limited flipphone experience. It's a mental breath of fresh air to not have a time/focus black hole in my pocket at all times. It made me realize that I've had a pretty bad relationship with my smartphone in terms of how much time I wasted on it. I'm considering keeping the flipphone as my primary phone. Maybe smartphones do too much.

19 comments

wds

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WorldPeas  21 hours ago

as someone who did this for a week, it's nice until you need to install an app to check your bank statements or manage your insurance. Maybe that will get better as agents do, however

  • BLKNSLVR  18 hours ago

    You don't have a laptop or desktop for those things?

    Whilst I may not represent the average person, I have no need to check bank statements or manage insurance immediately, so I can wait until I'm at a 'real' computer to do it more conveniently and easily and with a bigger screen and keyboard and mouse.

    GPs point about the 'relationship with the smart phone' seems to be pertinent. "need to install an app" to do these things only makes the point stronger.

    • fleebee  17 hours ago

      My bank only has two options for authentication: Either you use their mobile app or buy an authentication device from them that's the size of a small phone. Either way I need a handheld device.

      I can't say I'm happy with the direction of things. They used to offer slips of paper with single-use codes that worked fine, but those are now deprecated in favor of the smartphone app.

      5 replies →

    • TeMPOraL  8 hours ago

      Maybe GP choses to not use it? What about your "relationsip with the PC"?

      For me, time I have in front of my PC is quality time I'd rather not waste on bullshit like banking, or worse, rearrange my life to make activities in that quality time that I could've made on the go in the "time holes" during the day.

      Fuck apps, alright, but phones are finally getting useful (despite vendors' attempts to undo that). I switched to a foldable phone 6 months ago, and since then I haven't used my personal laptop for anything, not even once. Foldables are what tablets couldn't be, and despite the toy OS, my Fold7 managed to take over ~all tasks I used to do on the laptop or PC, that don't strongly benefit from physical keyboard and sitting stationary (and a good chunk of the latter too, plugged to a screen via USB-C).

    • zapzupnz  17 hours ago

      > You don't have a laptop or desktop for those things?

      > Whilst I may not represent the average person, I have no need to check bank statements or manage insurance immediately

      I think a lot of people check to make sure how much money they have before they make some purchases, especially big ones. Or, they check with this card declined (might need to move some money from one account to another or use a different card).

      I teach high school and see students doing this all the time when buying food for lunch. I can't imagine it's any less prevalent amongst adults of a certain generation.

      I certainly need to know how much money I have at any given time when I'm shopping. Seems fairly privileged (not in a bad way) to not need to think about that.

      1 reply →

raw_anon_1111  18 hours ago

You know any iPhone with USB C you can just plug into a monitor right?

  • arthurcolle  18 hours ago

    Is that true?

    • raw_anon_1111  15 hours ago

      Yes

      https://imgur.com/a/aOhnX79

      This is my external portable monitor that I usually take with me for my computer. It gets power and video from one USB C cable it works with any computer that can do video over USB-C. It also works with my iPhone with a standard USB C cable.

      I also have a USB C to HDMI cable.

    • SenHeng  10 hours ago

      It was since at least the iPhone 4. I still have the old digital AV connector from before they switched to lightning. It came with a hdmi port and a usb port. You could plug an SD card reader into the usb port and use it as an external HDD for transferring files.

    • Nursie  13 hours ago

      Yeah, I plugged mine into my tv a few weeks ago, using a USB-C dock, so I could play the new Katamari game on the 65" screen.

      With a ps5 controller hooked up via bluetooth, it was just like having a console.