
Nokia 3310 3G as a podcast player - progre
http://prog.re/blog/2020-09-13.html
======
Damogran6
I just rediscovered my 5th Gen iPod Video...after a $12 battery swap, I have
uninterrupted high fidelity music in over the ear headphones has been a
revelation.

-No interruptions from IMs, SMS, Facebook, Linked In, Slack, GCN, Ring, Nest, Apple+, Farmville, Solitaire, or any other application that thinks it must get a hold of your attention

-It's a timecapsule of 2005 and before - When I curated my music myself...I had to like a song, and then Star it to make it to my player

-Works everywhere, completely offline

-I found myself REALLY listening to music again...and the notifications I needed while WFH generally had a visual component, too, so I could opt to respond to that meeting or join that Teams Chat without necessarily interrupting the music.

-It dropped me back into iTunes Music (or ITunes...or Music...or whatever it's branded now) which is a much bigger view of my music that you just don't get looking at an iPhone screen.

I'm pretty sure it's a two week distraction (because holy-smokes, that cable
catches on EVERYTHING) but it's a fun one.

~~~
AshamedCaptain
> No interruptions from IMs, SMS, Facebook, Linked In, Slack, GCN, Ring, Nest,
> Apple+, Farmville, Solitaire, or any other application that thinks it must
> get a hold of your attention

Unwanted notifications are not a vice like snacking or the like where
obviously you get some endorphins every time you do it and therefore you can
get addicted, and thus it makes sense to "restrict access to sources of food"
when you are trying to avoid it (e.g. self-control issues).

No. _Unwanted_ notifications is something that is by definition not possible
to get addicted to, so I really don't get this point of view.

Just turn them off, dammit. Like you can in any operating system ever designed
(so far) and then they are off. There's no need to go around fishing for a
device which has no support for notifications.

But I've seen a shitton of people saying they prefer this "dumbed down" device
or the like for precisely this reason, which is absurd. Battery life, I get.
Less maintenance, I might get. But "avoiding notifications", I don't get.

I have a cheap no-name Android device as bed-side alarm clock since they are
actually _cheaper_ than (off-shelf) bed-side alarm clocks and I can write my
own alarm clock program for them (a big plus). I put it on Don't disturb mode
the day I booted it for the first time. Never got a notification. Never woke
me up in the middle of the night (unwantedly ;P ).

~~~
surfpel
> Unwanted notifications are not a vice like snacking or the like where
> obviously you get some endorphins every time you do it and therefore you can
> get addicted

Except they’re not unwanted, at least not completely.

Sometimes apps don’t let you decide what you’ll get sent, so that you get a
mix of wanted and unwanted notifications. Other times one just can’t resist
looking at them.

You can argue as to what brain chemistry causes this to resemble an addiction,
but you can’t argue that they have an addictive, attention hogging effect for
many.

> Just turn them off, dammit.

The ease by which this is reversible and the habit of checking apps is the
problem with this solution.

> self-control issues

This is such an unrealistic expectation. This is always the go-to argument as
well - pinning the blame on the user.

Thousands of engineers design these apps to be addictive. Most people aren’t
going to win against that.

Furthermore, few other things in life are designed to do hog attention like
these apps are. They can only be compared to slot machines which clearly have
a strong effect on people.

~~~
AshamedCaptain
> Except they’re not unwanted, at least not completely.

I explicitly called them "Unwanted" because the post I'm replying to mentions
getting a plain old iPod (with no notifications whatsoever) as an alternative.
If you _want_ these notifications, then my argument does not apply.

~~~
surfpel
> If you _want_ these notifications, then my argument does not apply.

Then your argument has a very minimal reach and doesn’t apply to the post you
replied to.

Few apps have irrelevant and useless notifications. They usually have some
relevance or use.

Many apps, especially social media, play on reward centers to form addictive
behavior. They are wanted in the sense that they are irresistible and are
sometimes useful.

The realization that they are troublesome makes them unwanted _while still
being irresistible_.

~~~
AshamedCaptain
In which way it does not apply to the post I replied to? In which way would
using a plain iPod -which now filters out all notifications, including the
ones you actually want to receive- help if you have wanted notifications?
That's the idiotic part. There is no "wanted" notification in this context.
The poster just generically finds all notifications useless.

If you are an addict to Facebook, I could understand buying a phone-network-
capable device without the ability to install Facebook (the iPod isn't), or a
child phone, or using parental controls on yourself (seen it); to enhance your
self-control while still allowing access to work/family/whatever
notifications. However, if you just don't want to receive notifications
whatsoever, what's the point? There's no addiction here. You are talking about
a different topic entirely.

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ahmedfromtunis
I use an old Moto E4 as my "entertainment center". I just removed all the
extra apps I've installed over the months of usage, kept only Spotify, Google
Podcasts, and the Action Blocks apps.

The phone is always connected to wifi and a Bluetooth speaker. ALL
notifications are off so when I fire it to play a podcast or song, nothing
interrupts me.

Also, I use this phone as my alarm clock. Using my daily driver phone was
problematic as I usually end up opening facebook/twitter/reddit when I wake
and wasting valuable time. The Moto E has none of those.

------
bjarneh
> I was on reddit (back when the mobile website worked)

Those were the days, i.reddit.com is still sort of ok on mobile devices

~~~
progre
I guess, but I have sort of lost interest in reddit anyway. They can do
whatever they like to their webpage, I'm out. The only thing I really miss are
the in-jokes that HN really don't like. I drift more and more to youtube
instead, I even read the comments there sometimes (!).

~~~
bjarneh
> I even read the comments there sometimes (!)

Some of those youtube comments are pure gold IMO. I guess youtube has its fair
share of toxic comments as well (as most social media), but it's somewhat
strange that youtube got famous for its horrid comment sections.

------
chucky
> BankID used to be only a bank issued smart card and a special little card
> reader.

If you had the right bank. If you had the wrong bank it was a Windows-only
application with the kind of yankiness that screams "I have more holes than a
Swiss cheese".

I may not particularly like mobile bankid (mostly for the same reason I didn't
like desktop bankid), but I have a lot more control over what permissions it
has, at least.

~~~
McDyver
It bothers me that these apps like BankID don't work on rooted phones. I
should be allowed to control and choose what I share with any app.

To use this, I had to install it on a dedicated older phone, and I'm running
out of older phones to run stuff on...

------
mrweasel
For a long time I used a Nokia 104, rather than getting a smart phone, it was
great. For work I got an iPhone, and there’s no way I’m carrying two phones,
so the Nokia ends up in the draw of mystery tech. Now four years later I
really want to go back, but I still need a few apps for work and MobilePay has
become a must have in Denmark. The first phone companies have started shutting
down 2G so in a year or so I can’t even be sure that the old phone will work.
There’s still not total 3G, 4G or 5G coverage so I also can’t be sure the
iPhone will work.

It’s becoming extremely difficult to not wanting a smart phone. We heading
towards an App-only world.

~~~
Yetanfou
On the app-front I've actually noticed an opposite direction in that I'm using
fewer and fewer of these by moving more and more to web-versions of the
services offered by apps. What apps I'm still using are mostly free software,
often connected to services under my own control. I don't use apps because I
don't see the need for all those app providers to get access to more of my
data than necessary for the services they render _and_ because I don't like
the Balkanisation caused by the app world. While Android and iOS may divide
more or less the entire mobile world between them I want to keep the door open
to new contenders, preferably of the free software variety. An app-only world
is an effective blockade for new contenders and as such only serves the
incumbents.

I live in Sweden where as you probably know electronic payments are big, with
Swish being the overweight gorilla in this field. I don't use Swish or any
other electronic payment platform yet I still manage to get around, cash still
works where it matters. My reasoning for using cash is the same as before, I
like my privacy and don't see the need for the bank and the state and several
advertisers to know I bought object A at location B from vendor C for price D
at date and time E. Cash makes this possible, electronic payments do the
opposite.

~~~
pjmlp
You will see several post from me regarding native vs mobile Web leaning on
the native side, but the fact is that unless one is doing games or requires
access to hardware specific capabilities, most stuff is actually doable as web
app, specially with Google increasingly pushing ChromeOS features into Chrome.

------
dijit
I have one of these candy bar style Nokia phones, and its surprisingly good,
but warning to the user: they don't work on 3G..

This isn't a problem unless your provider no longer supports 2G which is the
case with the aptly named "3" provider. (Both in Sweden and the UK).

Getting a payG SIM card for another provider isn't too much of a pain but I
bought this as a backup for my main phone and only noticed it in an emergency.
:(

Other nitpick quirks include: being able to unlock the device with one
keypress (when locking is at least 2 keypresses) and no discernible way to
update the firmware.

~~~
unwind
I'm pretty sure the OP's modern feature phone, which is _named_ the "3310 3G"
after all, works on 3G.

The OP author seems to be Swedish, too.

For an actual old phone though, sure it'd be an issue.

~~~
dijit
I’m talking about the 2017 re-release. But it seems there is a new(er) 3G
variant too!

------
mongol
Something old featurephones also had was tactile buttons. Can be controlled
without looking. I miss that.

~~~
codetrotter
I was in high school when the first iPhone came out. Before any of us got a
smartphone I had a friend who knew T9 so well that she could type out an
entire SMS to someone while in class without looking at the screen. So she
would reach down in her pocket and pick up her phone and she’d be holding the
phone by her side and she’d be typing out a message but she’d be looking at
the blackboard, the teacher, and her desk while typing so you couldn’t even
tell that she was typing from where the teacher was standing. I found that
pretty impressive. I asked her about it and she said it was no biggie, she’d
just been typing a lot and therefore she had learned how to do this without
really trying to learn it.

~~~
jacobush
My kid brother and a couple of his friends had this skill, too. Between that
and being thoroughly spanked in multiplayer games, and taught the joys of
Homestarrunner by them, I felt really old. (Early 20s then.)

------
CraigJPerry
I sometimes go camping or hillwalking and although an Apple Watch and iPhone
can be kept going for a few days with a battery bank, it’s not entirely ideal.

So i bought a 3310 or 3330 i forget which. It even came with headphones and I
put on my old gshock watch.

Signal reception is not as good as an iphone but otherwise pretty ideal for
hillwalking and maybe an overnight camp.

I can’t really fault the cheap nokias for that use case. I was so impressed
that I decided to try using it as a daily for a week and see how i got on - i
was going through a periodic prune of notifications in my life at the time, a
digital detox so to speak.

Need to quickly transfer money? Nope. Phone banking is stupidly slow.

Want to check the weather? Yeah but no.

Want to search your email for that thing. Nope.

Hey quick, snap a picture of that. Nope.

Todo list? Nope.

Calendar? Nope.

Lookup a password or pin code? Nope.

Read something. Nope.

Take a quick note.

Check the price of something.

How far away is X?

No. No. No.

I didn’t even last a full day :-) i still do think it’s pretty good as a
backup or for hillwalking.

~~~
Jaruzel
Back in the day I ran a few WAP[1] sites for 'feature phones' \- I wonder if
these nokias can still connect to the internet (over the cell network) and
access WAP sites? I've got the archive of my stuff somewhere....

\---

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Application_Protocol](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Application_Protocol)

~~~
progre
I don't think I have seen any WAP things for the 3310 but it does have a Opera
Mini browser, so regular old (no-js) web surfing is still possible. The
rendering engine is even somewhat competent, but since the screen is something
like 10x10 pixels you have too zoom into the pages and move around your little
zoom-box to read anything.

------
derefr
Not to deride the post, but if you’re willing to carry your smartphone _and_ a
feature-phone, wouldn’t it be about the same to carry your smartphone _and_ a
power-bank / battery-case of equivalent weight to said feature-phone?

~~~
progre
Sure, that would stretch the battery time to maybe 2 days. But I still would
have to have both of those in my pocket. Now I get 4-5 days on my smaller
pocket phone and the Android stays in the backpack.

~~~
derefr
> But I would still have to have both of those in my pocket.

At the height of the Pokemon Go craze, people were carrying large batteries
around _in_ their backpacks, with a long wire snaked out of the backpack
between the zippers to the phone in their pocket. Not the _most_ practical
thing, but it worked.

It's kind of funny; the next season after that, many backpack manufacturers
re-introduced the flapped-seal cable pass-through port that had previously
gone out of fashion (it used to be a thing for people who were feeding their
headphones into their bag to listen to music from their _walkman or discman_ —
not pocketable devices, for most definitions of "pocket.") But by the time the
backpack makers did this, the craze was already over.

While we're talking alternatives, another alternative is to activate your
smartphone's "Battery Saver mode" permanently, and then disable things like
Wi-fi (so it isn't searching for a signal when you're out and about);
Bluetooth (I assume, if you're okay with the Nokia, you aren't a Bluetooth
headphone enthusiast); and — if you really want to go all-out, and "people
phoning you" isn't generally a thing — find an app that will automatically
disable the cellular radio whenever the phone's locked/asleep. (Which would
wreak havoc on battery life if you woke your phone up all the time, but is
great if you only wake it up a few times per hour at most.)

I've been able to pull a good few days of battery life from some rather old
phones this way.

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JubbaOnJeans1
Very cool. If this had a way to count steps, it would have been an ideal
podcast companion for me given I really don't enjoy notifications when I walk

------
swinglock
> I'm not sure why podcasts in particular are so hard on the battery, it
> seemed that about equal time on Spotify would not drain it nearly as much. I
> suspect that the fact that the podcast files are stored on a external SD
> card has something to do with it.

So why not just get rid of that SD card and try another app for podcasts,
maybe even Spotify since you already use it with better results?

~~~
progre
I'm in a fairly rural place and I'm often in places without 3G coverage, so
streaming anything is right out. I doubt that another podcast app would handle
the storage any better, but it's true, I don't _know_ that. I was using
Antennapod.

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pjmlp
Yeah, if it wasn't for the hardware having failed on me, even some old Symbian
Belle phone would be more than enough.

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pearjuice
Not sure what the 3310 3G runs, but if it's series 40 it has a lot of annoying
bugs. One of them being that removing the headphone jack doesn't pause the
music but actually continues playing the music on the stereo. I tried using an
earlier Nokia feature phone but that drove me nuts, together with some odd
quirks.

~~~
progre
The info from the phone says OS version MOCOR_W19.6.3. Supposedly this is
something diffrent from the Series 30+ that the 2G version of the phone runs.
Anyway, it seems rock solid, haven't really had any bugs at all. The resume
works, unplugging the headphones stops the playback.

Also the sales material harps on and on about how the phone has the snake
game. Witch it has. But it also has a real licensed Tetris game

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diimdeep
Best player I had is Sansa Clip+ with Rockbox FW and 64 GB MicroSD

