

Ask HN: Abandoning smartphones? - Mpkkk

I've had an iPhone for two years, and love using it. But in other ways I hate it. I hate having y email at hand, and ignoring my surroundings to check the interwebs, and paying the monthly plan.<p>I want just a few things from my phone: instapaper, maps, and SMS/calling. But none of the rest.<p>What's the best way to do this? Can I stop paying  for iPhone data and just use the wifi? Or should I get a new phone (do any others have instapaper)?<p>Have any of you done this?<p>*note - this has nothing to do with the philosophical iPhone/android debate. It's kist about improving my life.
======
hugh3
I have a cheap prepaid LG dumbphone for similar reasons; it's nice to be _not_
email accessible for at least part of the day.

I also have an iPod Touch, which would solve your instapaper problem.

The only problem I can't solve is maps... obviously you can get maps on the
iPod, but only when you have wifi, and if you have wifi you're probably not
lost. There's always the separate GPS unit solution; you wouldn't want to
carry it around all the time though.

~~~
jbrkr
> The only problem I can't solve is maps...

Recent versions of Ovi Maps by Nokia work offline very well. I used v3.0x when
I would have otherwise been roaming without incurring any data charges.

------
NginUS
My BlackBerry was broken >30% of the time I had it. If it wasn't the headphone
jack, it was the keypad- or reboots in the middle of replying to email. I was
constantly at the Verizon store to have the tech verify a replacement could be
sent, waiting for that, then importing everything again & all that comes with
that process.

Ultimately it cost more time than it saved.

It was helpful to have email in my pocket, but I get by without it for now.

------
alastair
i dont think you need a new phone. just disable the data on your phone plan,
and grab one of the many mapping programs that use locally-stored maps. stick
all the other distracting apps in their own folder so your screen is
cluttered, done.

------
pavel_lishin
How do you ditch email when you're still on wifi, but still keep instapaper
and maps? Short of writing your own phone OS, or maybe uninstalling built-in
apps (can you do that?) the only answer I can think of is self-discipline. :)

------
chadp
Why not just delete your email accounts from the phone?

