I Don't Have a Smartphone

I've still never had a smartphone (technically my flip phone, a Kyocera Dura, is an android device, but it can't install apps so I'll consider it suitably "dumb")

Occasionally I need to tote along a tablet because several places (some MLB venues, for one thing) will either require a smartphone, or impose a severe surcharge for the convenience of not using it.

Anyway, I really regret that we didn't impose dumbphone protection laws back when we had a large enough bloc of seniors that didn't "upgrade" to a smartphone yet

I do have a smartphone, but I don't seem to feel the pain the author feels about being inundated by QR codes and apps. Maybe I have all the apps I need already? Maybe I just don't mind having an app on my phone because I know that I can set it to basically never bother me. Most of my apps have notifications silenced. My home screen is empty, save the handful of apps I do want. And for the little bit of effort I put forth to tweak the device to my liking, I get the world in my pocket - a full browser, every song I've ever liked, every picture I've ever taken, all my scanned documents, etc - not to mention all my loved ones available at a moment's notice. My battery lasts long enough, and when it doesn't, it's because I was using the device. I just don't understand the complaint I guess. Make the device work for you, not the other way around?

I have a motorola smartphone. I don't have google play installed. I mainly use obtainium for app installation. Its a bare bones phone and it drives my business partner crazy.

"Just log into our instagram account and. . .right, you don't have insta installed on your phone."

"Can you log into our scheduling app and. . . right, you don't have that installed on your phone either."

Some of the more painful things you have to deal with:

- Chromite and Iron Fox filtering out a ton of stuff so a lot of sites simply don't work

- Organic maps is slow and hard to use compared to Google and Apple maps.

- Fairmail that blocks a ton of images and other code - which is good, but had to get used to seeing everything blocked visually.

- Not having any banking apps on my phone. Every time my son needs a few bucks in his account, my wife has to do it if we're out.

- The open source weather apps are not very accurate. Usually within a few degrees, and the radar is hit or miss.

Kind of odd that we have to try so hard to ensure our own privacy. I'm up for a new phone this Fall so I'll most likely be moving to a newer Pixel and will get Lineage or Graphene installed on it.

> They are willing to accept all the conditions of your apps, including sending you personal data, registering an account, etc.

I've had this exact problem this morning, I wanted to download the ASD-STE100 https://www.asd-ste100.org/STE_downloads.html#article02-2l and they use a request form to get the download.

Unfortunately the last question:

> Do you consent to us collecting your data? This form has the only purpose of requesting a copy of ASD-STE100. Details are for record and statistical purposes only and will not be used or disclosed in any form to anyone. You can find out more about STEMG privacy policy here.

Only has a "Yes" option, and so I couldn't submit the form.

Great success.

I have no business-based "apps". If it's not on F-Droid, I don't have it. Google Play Store is turned off.

So far, the only thing I've found that absolutely requires a Google account is Waymo. This is probably a violation of common carrier rules, since Waymo is legally a common carrier. That forces Google's terms of service, including the binding arbitration and no class action terms, on Waymo riders.

> Somewhere on my desk, I keep an old FairPhone 3 that I repaired after it took a deep plunge into the ocean. It runs the Google-free /e/OS operating system. But why? The reason is simple: sometimes, you are forced to use an app.

I've never been forced to use an app. I've got a credit union and would close my accounts there and switch to another if they ever forced me to use an app. I refuse to buy any product that requires an app to use.

I do still have a phone though. Family and friends insist on being able to send me texts with photos and videos. It's a compromise I can live with since I've refused to join any of the social media sites they use. Besides texting I do get some use out of it with Termux, VLC, and Newpipe and I might pull something up on wikipedia, but otherwise I don't use it for browsing. It feels like reasonably healthy balance.

> I still keep in a drawer an old OnePlus 5 I bought in 2017 with a pristine Android system.

How pristine is that when the last supported Android version is 10?

> This phone is sometimes necessary. Like when a known bug in /e/OS prevented my banking app from working for several months.

This surprises me. Until very recently I was using a phone I bought in 2017, which similarly supports no Android beyond version 10.

Since early this year, my bank app started insisting that I upgrade my Android to 11 or higher, and hence stopped working.

More recently, Gmail also started insisting I upgrade Android. As a result I had to get a new phone, which in many ways is worse than my old phone (still 7.2" but worse aspect ratio, no more full fingerprint sensor and much worse battery life).

So the idea of keeping an old phone around in order to bank seems rather odd to me.

As a T1 diabetic, I wish that we weren't tying things like medical devices to smart phones. It's just one more failure point.

Learn to say "no". It's freaking easy.

I do have a smartphone, and every time someone asks me to install something on it, or ask for my phone number for "accumulating bonuses", I say simple and dry "no" looking into their eyes. When there's a queue behind me, they'll just show loading icon on their face a couple of seconds, and then proceed, because of pressure.

Otherwise, when there are no more people, they feel like wasting their and my time, I just stare harder in their eyes, and they feel ill at ease and back up rather quickly.

The list is missing a couple of points, including: "My camera isn't working." "I don't have a QR code scanner app." - And, of course, since we've already shown we're fine with bending the truth a little if it helps our case: "I scanned the QR code. It leads to a porn video. Are you going to argue with me about that over a couple of pixels, or will you be so kind to give me the plain URL?"

Some weeks ago, at a pub with some friends, and we were trying to order something. The waiter handles a card with a QR code. The card was approximately the size of an A4 sheet, which could contain pretty much every item the pub offered. Instead, it contained printed ads from nearby shops.

Four people at the table had problems with the app. No one could order anything. Four people, who spend most of their waking hours starring at screens to work, who gathered after some time to chat, were instead starring at their smartphones trying to order something because the app could not possibly work.

When you buy something from a medium-sized shop in India, they would insist for your phone number, as their POS app have that field as almost mandatory. I had to fight at a pharmacy checkout, holding up the queue behind me, as I refuse to give my phone number.

This is why Google's war on sideloading is so terrible. It does very little to make people safer, and it restricts user's ability to make a free market choice about which companies they transact with.

I've always admired people who can live without a smartphone. I met one linux contributor at an open source conference who doesn't have a smartphone. He uses an old dumb phone, doesn't have any socials and always carries cash! In a country like India, where every payment runs on a QR code, it's crazy that he can survive without it. He asked me to look up directions to the metro, memorized it, and left.

One other thing is that he isn't socially awkward. He could go up to people, and ask for help, which I think a lot of us tend to avoid, and instead use apps to solve them.

From my experience modified iPhones make the perfect dumb phones that you will actually end up sticking with and it's free if you already have one.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45171200

I use this method ^ which lets you keep essential apps but otherwise have dumb phone (no browser, no App Store). Highly recommend.

On the other hand, I have turned my laptop into a dumb computer using cold turkey blocker. I've never seen anyone talking about this here. I'm a standard user (for hardening reasons). And set up so I haven't watched YouTube largely for years because it's blocked and not at all in the past few days. It's flexible to configure and then because it's literally impossible to bypass you never try and then just end up living a calm life. (No ai, no reddit, no crappy news sites, etc.)

> 5. It has enough storage left for your app.

This is the wildest part. It seems that sub-250MB apps are the rarity now. So every 4 apps I install is 1GB. I guess it's good for Apple, since they know you can't back up to your SSD so will then have to buy iCloud (unless you're savvy enough to open up Terminal and make a symbolic link to an external drive – the fact that they don't enable manual changing of the backup location is unjustifiable).

It's a great read! I especially liked the list of assumptions people/companies are making about their interlocutors, when demanding that they install and use smartphone apps.

> "I don’t have a smartphone," is what I tell people and professionals nowadays. This allows me to cut the crap about companies insisting that I install their app or restaurants wishing that I scan a QR code to access their menu on a small screen.

I personally tend to be a bit more direct about this kind of thing. If someone trying to sell me something insists that I need an app, I often say “I am not willing to install or use your app.”

I wish to use GrapheneOS without the ability to access the browser and without the ability to install new apps. At least without a password. A long one written down on paper would be enough friction for me. You could also give it to a trusted person. You can also write/give only a portion of a password and then memorize the other part.

Afaict there's not an effective way to do this like you can on iPhones with Apple Configurator [1].

Removing appstores from secondary profile and browser with ADB has a workaround (which I won't say in case someone uses that setup). Another drawback is enabling ADB is bad for security.

Dumbphones are stupid because they're overpriced, not secure, and lack awesome apps like maps or Signal. And I already have a phone.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45171200 this is seriously great if you have an iPhone, I used to use it before I switched to GrapheneOS.

I've been able to say this truthfully up until 4 years ago. I was perfectly familiar with iOS and Android, and I could pick one up and use it as competently as anyone else. Was the same even when I decided to get one 4 years ago. Not having a Google and Meta account remains true for me. Never had a Meta/Facebook account at any point in time, and I deleted my Google account a decade ago.

It is frustrating dealing with people not willing to accept this is an option people have, and anything requiring an app is a dealbreaker for me. I didn't realize it was quite as bad as the author suggests with his various household items, but I am worried it will continue to get worse in that way without laws in manufacturing partitioning technology from life.

I get the arguments against it but what i really want is people having some easy digital way to interface with the tech around them. Having a small on person computer be a client to things in your life seems like a really cool thing to aim for. It just sucks that corporate greed and a breakdown of trust between users and builders has lead to it being an annoyance rather than a peice of a scifi utopia

> When I buy something, from a small kitchen appliance to a car, I’m now forced to get formal confirmation by the seller that I will be able to use it without installing one, two or three different apps.

I have no idea where is without buying stuff, but other than a car I bought more than a dozen of appliances or devices in the past years and other than obvious ones (label printer), none required an app, or it was pushed by a vendor.

Never had a personal smartphone, just work-issued ones that usually stay on-location after a shift. Yeah, it can drive people up the wall. I don't care lol.

Authentication and 2FA, group messaging, and poor map support are the only reason I switched back to a smartphone and I still miss it

While I agree with the sentiment that's not a not a convincing list. I could make the same argument and break down essentially anything in life into similar assumptions. For 99% of people it's not a problem in practice.

I do not (and never had) a smart phone, either.

I have been at one restaurant that had a QR code to view the menu, although they did provide a iPad to any customer who needed it. (At the time, I was with someone else who had their own iPad.) It was not very good food (and badly managed) so I do not intend to return there in future.

If you do not want to print the menu in multiple paper copies, then you might consider a single epaper display somewhere that the customers can easily see (anyone with a camera or a camera phone can take a picture; someone with pencil and paper might copy it out by hand).

At lease one issue I want to push back on is this one

> That person owns a smartphone (which is at least a couple hundred dollars).

Smartphones can be bought for under $100 these days.

People are misreading the author's case as annoyance, that they simply don't like apps or the way society is foisting apps on them.

What I read was what they really hate is being forced to have an account with a handful of American companies to engage with the world.

I totally agree, this situation is intolerable. Your average user should not have to be forced to have a phone managed by one of two American companies to get by in the world. I should not be forced to use Facebook to receive updates from my European embassy whilst abroad. I should not be forced, through the network effect, to have WhatsApp installed on my phone.

America is going nowhere good, fast, and we -- as individuals -- are chiefly tied to this deranged shitshow through our spyware-enabled tech.

I'd ban every American tech company from every device in my country if I had the chance.

I agree with the thesis that expecting an app is a non-trivial ask of the user, particularly for those with relevant disabilities.

But if you purchase a toilet that needs an app, it’s not really the toilet that obligated you to use the app.

It has been about six years for me without any phone, even a "dumb" flip phone. I started a new business recently and it has been really difficult to engage in external outreach without a phone, but I am still managing it. Maybe one day, I have to get a flip phone, but I will try to stay away from smartphone as long as I can.

I went back to a old Motorola phone not once but twice. Both attempts were unsuccessful. For directions I got a Garmin potable gos navigator. Once I was coming back from somewhere with my kids and it was 10:30 pm. They were hungry and wanted pizza. I used the Garmin gps and went to the restaurant but it was closed. That happened because the gps unit did not have the latest information. My family was mad and I went back to smartphone. The second time my extended family living outside the country were mad because they couldn’t call me on WhatsApp. So I went back to my smartphone. Totally two failed attempts at using a dumb phone.

My phone is turned off for roughly half my waking hours. The remaining waking hours, I have access to a real computer, or I have reason to not touch a phone or computer at all. A smartphone would be pointless.

I agree with all the assumptions, but it is a moving goalpost on being included in society.

Same as in some areas being a productive member of society includes: have a job, have a car, have a permenant address.

The only exceptiosn seem to skew to the top and bottom 10%? And even then it can steer more closet to top/bottom 5%? 1%? Where it doesn't matter you have enough or a complete lack of social proof that it doesn't matter.

I got a Sunbeam F1 in January and have been pleased with it. The hardest part is when I lost it, there is no find-my-phone (at least not that I know of, I should look, they are always adding new features). It has GPS and weather which is perfect for me. I just can't go to restaurants that don't have paper menus, which is fine.

We could all be a bit more humble about the onerous “tools” we’ve built . I have a lot of sympathy for the elderly, and the ridiculous rituals they go through just to book an appointment, fill a subscription, buy tickets to a concert, order groceries.

The McDonalds app is 15+ screens to order a burger. Compare that to walking in a, “hi, how are you, I’d like a Big Mac meal with a Coke, here’s my money, thanks”.

Let’s all have a bit more humility, and even humiliation, for the absurd protocols we’ve imposed on everyone.

I do not have one (and it's actually true.) And it's not easy. :-(

“Just in my toilet, I’m supposed to have an app for the seat, an app for the flush and one for the ventilation.”

Ok that explains where the hate for apps comes from…

Installing an app vs scanning a qr code is vastly different. That being said, I won't do either to see s menu.

> "I don’t have a smartphone," is what I tell people and professionals nowadays. This allows me to cut the crap about companies insisting that I install their app or restaurants wishing that I scan a QR code to access their menu on a small screen.

I have another approach. I show my GNU/Linux phone, explain that it's neither Apple, nor Google phone and ask how I can download their app for it.

I’m always in voice group chats , and fellowshipping is more important to me then being digitally free.

I don't use apps. It's a phone with a web browser and camera.

> following assumptions

You actually forgot the most important one: your phone should be latest and approved by google or apple.

I have an old iphone that is mint clean and fairly excellent battery, a couple months ago I wanted to travel but didn’t want to take my main in case I lose it, turned out most the essential apps won’t install because your OS is outdated, from bank ones to uber, none! Same goes if you tried to install say a banking app on grapheneos.

Those assumptions were vivid during covid, I know personally some people who happened to be in some countries where the “pass” was only through an app on a smartphone, not even printed or screenshots were accepted, only the app to get your basic human needs.

That’ll get you detained for a while at the border.

> Just in my toilet, I’m supposed to have an app for the seat, an app for the flush and one for the ventilation.

There should be some sort of unofficial rule that if you’re writing something that strains credulity, you should actually link to something that explains it.

A week ago, a medical office that I had an appointment at kept pestering me to fill out their intake form online. (Multiple, multiple texts.)

I got there the next day, and when they asked me to do the form, I rolled my eyes and said, "do I need to install an app?"

The lady behind the counter asked for my insurance card, scanned it, and told me that I was all set.

What was all that nonsense for, anyway?

I get it, I really hate it too. When I don't want to use my phone, I just leave it somewhere in the house and forget about it for a couple of days.

I love you.

I actually don't have a smartphone. Unfortunately I did get a tablet, as I need it for MFA to access some websites that I need. It's quite annoying to be forced into this though. There is a push towards making this mandatory. The ideal perma-ID governments dreamed about.

> Just in my toilet, I’m supposed to have an app for the seat, an app for the flush and one for the ventilation.

Is this a joke? Are there really toilets that require a smartphone to flush?

Have definitely used this one, or “my SIM card doesn’t work in this country”.

My other lie is “I don’t carry cards.” Works best whilst holding up a Benjamin.