I’m not sure why there is so much negativity toward this article here.
Even a small amount of friction to getting to slot machine apps does wonders for reducing the amount of time spent on them. But likewise it’s nice (and useful) to still have access to these apps for some people so deleting isn’t a viable option.
Like any other “everything in moderation” suggestion if it’s not all or nothing, just use self control, the internet hates on it.
Probably because the article has basically 3 suggestions that don’t even scratch the surface of what the OS has built in to manage overuse.
Turning off notifications is stupidly simple to a fault. Sorry, people can’t just turn off notifications from their spouses or day care apps or school/kids’ phone numbers or other important stuff like that.
But this article doesn’t really get into the stuff that the OS has built-in to manage notification priority, it just tells you to turn it all off as if they’re telling the government to print more money to end poverty.
Kind of crazy that a blog post on this subject doesn’t even mention the Screen Time feature.
Indeed. I have actually created a dumb zen phone, and the killer way to do it is put it in supervised mode without the browser or App Store. Then you’re genuinely handicapped.
My version has maps, kindle, texting, phone, Spotify, camera, and the podcasts app.
Perfect for running errands or going to the park with my toddler and still being reachable.
And yet our parents' generation (or our younger selves, depending how old we are) managed to get through a day without any way to receive notifications from their spouses or day care apps or school/kids’ phone numbers. You simply had to trust and rely upon the school or day care to take care of it if your kid got hurt or sick.
You might have been able to get a call at work from your kid's school, but depending on your job, maybe not.
>But this article doesn’t really get into the stuff that the OS has built-in to manage notification priority, it just tells you to turn it all off
“Apple fortunately makes it straightforward to manage your notifications via Settings > Notifications — you can customize your notification preferences per-app, and if you’re on iOS 15 or later, you can also schedule a notification summary.”
>Kind of crazy that a blog post on this subject doesn’t even mention the Screen Time feature.
“using the native iOS screen-time feature or more advanced apps like Opal and Jomo to regulate your usage of them.”
Because acknowledging the utility of these solutions would mean facing that you yourself have an issue or a problem and the readers would rather maintain cognitive dissonance about that.
I tried the "grayscale-only display" for kicks, and it sucks, primarily with Apps that are better off with different colors - Maps.
Besides that, I have been disabling Notifications for ages, and that is the one decision that I believe was one of the best decisions of my phone life. I wrote an article in 2014[1] that needs a serious update, but it still makes sense.
Make it a habit to turn off Notifications as soon as you install a new app unless they are critical, such as Medical or Kid/school-related.
My Home page has a minimal wallpaper that I did a few years back, and it stayed. I usually leave one row at the bottom for beta-testing and region-specific Apps I use while traveling.
Of course, none of the Social Media Apps are on my phone. I checked my screen time to include this comment, and I've 37 minutes Daily Average. So, on most usage, I should still likely be averaging less than an hour daily.
Try turning down the color saturation. For me ~ 25% of original saturation is sufficient for using UIs that use color information.
I had the same annoyance as you, switching back and forth wasn't pleasant, and I'd forget. I think part of the reason is that switching between 0% <-> 100% saturation doesn't give room to adapt. It feels like a bandwidth of information is missing. But, if the colorspace is barely noticeable, your brain will fill in the colors for you with the information it gets... and the high-saturation default color-set would start to appear abrading and unnatural.
Actually, my primary usage of my phone is photography. I'm assuming the saturation will have an impact on Photography as I won't be seeing the ideal colors.
You can make the greyscale toggle on triple power/home button, or via control centre. Thus, you can have it on most of the time, toggle it to look at a map, then toggle it back.
You can also have a Shortcut that toggles the setting when you open and close specific apps.
I just did it and it’s very simple:
- in the Shortcuts app, go to Automations
- add a new one and pick “App” as the trigger
- choose the apps you want color in and pick “run immediately” and on open and close
- on the next screen pick “new blank automation”
- in the new shortcut add “Set Color Filters” and set to toggle
You can also make different automations for open and close, but toggle works as long as you toggle the effects manually. But in this case you can just toggle it back manually.
You could set up an "on app launch" automation shortcut for Maps to alter the Color Filter setting, but I'm not sure how you'd automate switching it back after closing/leaving Maps. I don't use the automations, but instead have a shortcuts widget with "toggle greyscreen" (among others) which is sufficient for me most of the time.
You can have 2 automation, one which enable grayscale when certain apps are open and one that disable it when the apps are closed. It’s under shortcuts > automation > app > is closed.
I put this in a different comment but you can also have a single automation that toggles the setting for those apps on open and close. This way you have a single list of apps to maintain.
Probably a bug but my browser in dark mode actually inverts image and video into something like posterized predator vision. Since I was looking for grayscale anyway, I’ve kept it and not looked back.
Even though phone manufacturers and service providers are doing everything they can to limit the availability of smaller, reasonably sized phones.. even the huge phone I get forced into using is just incredibly frustrating to browse the web with. Besides the usual gdpr harassment taking up a third of every screen, mobile just increases the thirsty demands for me to install apps, etc.
Might as well drive home the point that friction is inevitable rather than making it easier to start an interaction that’s only going to annoy me. If I need to do anything other than view simple text, I already know I’ll have to get out the laptop
This is the only sane approach. I have reduced my smartphone to a dumb-phone just by removing the apps that suck my attention. But the worst is youtube. You can live without social media but YT has become such a cornerstone that you cannot even uninstall it.
I'm not sure I fully agree about youtube. Yes --- if you're fixing stuff, you end up having to watch youtube. But that's so bad, it's easy (for me) to continue to avoid it. Although, occasionally I do get pulled in to interesting looking videos. But when they start asking me to like and subscribe (which is often!), that's a good trigger to close the thing.
I’m a bit confused by “Bitwarden is built in now” - are you saying that you no longer need the Bitwarden app to connect iOS’s password autofill to my bitwarden vault?
I think there is a fix for that as well, I use Focus modes to hide work apps outside 09h-16h, so there are absolutely no mentions of productivity (or badges/things that need me to do something) to be seen when I'm not on the clock.
When I am working, I am never far from my laptop, why would I install productivity app on my smartphone in the first place? When I was part of an on call shedule, the only app I would accept would be the one pushing the notification like pagerduty.
I also found out the hard way a decade ago that having access to productivity apps such as outlook usually meant to enroll your smartphone as a device managed by your IT and it was a big no to me.
Came here to make a related comment. I've had the equivalent settings active on my GrapheneOS device for at least a couple years, and I still find myself losing hours of my life to the darn thing.
If you don't go after the underlying reason you want to distract yourself from real life by entering the portal in your pocket, all the tips and tricks in the world won't fix the problem.
This article is all about showing off and getting attention from people asking about your home screen. It’s all about consuming minimalism and telling people. I disable all notifications but phone, messages and calendar, install minimal applications, no sns, and only show the basics on Home Screen. No need to configure the whole minimal wallpaper, just get your phone far for eyesight.
For a similar need, I turned to a small, portable device, that runs on battery (but not a laptop) to run 24/7.
I got a couple of ipads, but since I can't install some OS that I want (without jumping a million hoops).
So I got myself a HP Elite X2, second-hand, and it is GREAT. Then I wanted a second one, I couldn't find another HP Elite X2 (at the same price) so I got a Dell Latitude 2-in-1 (basically a Win tablet).
Basically I want something to run 24/5, so even if there is a power disruption (maintenance on building, etc.) my downtime would be the 2-3 minutes until my router/wifi reconnects. (we get some once every couple of weeks and a desktop wouldn't reboot)(and I didn't want a laptop as I don't want any fans/movable/mechanical components).
I've build custom base to keep them upright --> =|=|= so they can 'breathe' well, and stay cool.
I also got a KVM so I got all my devices hooked on it, so when I do need to do some work on them I can do it with my big screen/keyboard/mouse. I only remember to dust them every couple of weeks, and they are golden!
I would love to be able to do this as well. In reality I’m afraid there are lots of obstacles in the way. Too bad really, being able to do this would be so cool.
Are you talking about people who buy new hardware to replace what isn't broken, or people who expect to be able to use hardware they own within its functional capacity?
I talk about people refusing to buy one of the thousands of options available that are suited for their needs and say it is easier to lobby politicians than buying the correct device.
kome asked how to run an iPad as a personal server. Buying something that is not an iPad to use as a server instead will not make an iPad a server.
Of course lobbying politicians is an absurd path to running an iPad as a server, but the other options I know of are becoming a politician and campaigning against large corporations, or advocating for change and getting enough people to care that politicians bend to the will of the people rather than the corporations. Out of the three options, writing a check to buy legal change seems to be the easiest way.
Do you know of any other ways I haven't mentioned to use an iPad as a server? Or are you sticking to the "you're holding it wrong" approach?
> Or are you sticking to the "you're holding it wrong" approach?
Yes, I will stick to that approach. Let's move things forward, life is short. My motorcycle has a front wheel and is therefore technically a wheelbarrow. If Yamaha is not interested in helping me transform it into a functional wheelbarrow, should I lobby congress or maybe hold the president hostage, or should I go out and buy one of the many quality wheelbarrows on sale – even if none of them are from the brand Yamaha that I personally prefer?
It's easy to break your phone addiction—I've done it a 1,000 times...
But, seriously, I've tried launchers, leechblock, and other software solutions. For me, they don't work long term because I end up just reverting and unblocking. I always have some justification in my head as to why I need to reinstall Discord or browse YouTube and then it's over.
For me, I've had much better luck with a device where those types of slips are impossible. Mostly... although sometimes I really do need a smartphone to scan a QR code or to pay a foodtruck with Venmo.
The Jelly Star seems to be the best compromise for me so far. It's still a smartphone, but the screen is so small that it's a lot harder to be on it for hours.
Sometimes it’s hard for us to fight ourselves. My wife has the same issue and we found a solution that works well for her: screen time. She asked me for help and we set up limits for instagram and all the other shitty apps but here’s the important part: she doesn’t know the code to disable it. And she wanted it that way. Reduced her screen time from about 7h per day to 4h.
Yes. You could try endless ways to limit usage of your phone (change screen colours, launchers, deleting apps) but in the end of day you only will be hating using your phone. And I think bringing negative context in your daily life is not okay.
In this case, by limiting your phone usage, you need to try to fill the open void with something more interesting. If you do so, then returning to using phone will feel like just using another tool.
Often I'll think about spending money on a 'dumb' phone because I'm convinced it'll fix my problem, but then I realize that I'm just giving into another vice, which is buying technology. I am trying to instead focus on what the root cause of my over-use of technology is.
leechblock works for me because i have adhd and will open a time wasting website as a reflex and without thinking about it. i'm met with the block page and I'm like "that's fair".
it will not, however, stop the deliberate decisions to procrastinate, as you said
If the problem is social media app addiction, I have found the best solution is to turn on screen time, whitelist your most important apps like messages, calendar etc. and then enable a passcode to access any other app. Ask a friend to set a pin code for you so you cannot cheat.
Another solution is to just use an apple watch with cellular as your primary phone. It has everything you need (spotify, imessage, etc.) but nothing that distracts you like youtube, tiktok etc.
Apple watch is a 'dumb' phone. I upgraded to watch ultra for this purpose. Just leave the iphone at home or in the car (bonus: one less item to carry). I use browser to check twitter occasionally, but it helps break the habit of keeping phone around all the time. Do miss the camera though..
It's important to note that music streaming and texting are also wants rather than needs. I've recently started leaving my house where the only electronic device that I go with is my compact camera.
Sony ZV-1. I've also got a smallrig L bracket on it for extra tripod mount points (I use it as a webcam with a wall power supply, but the built in mount is blocked by the battery compartment door when it's open) and it is still pocketable. I would say the image quality is better than my phone (Samsung S10) and worse than my DSLR (Nikon d3400). Sometimes I prefer it over my DSLR though, like for its super fast and accurate auto focus.
I guess it can be viewed as such. And at least for me it’s addictive. But HN lacks a lot of the anti-patterns that are present on Facebook, Instagram etc. I find the discussions here much more interesting and useful than viewing silly reels that are produced with the sheer purpose of being addictive. There’s also a builtin noprocrast option.
That just means HN's community and content is more relevant to you than other social media. Social media doesn't stop being social media if you find the content interesting nor does it stop being social media if it emphasizes one form of content over the other.
Social media was coined in the mid 2000s to separate new platforms built on social graphs and old platforms not. But it is common now to deny any difference.
Yes definitely. Again, audience and interests are different, but they are social media. Funny (sadly?) enough as a teenager I discovered IRC and was absolutely addicted and for a good 1.5 years spent every minute I could on IRC. I would use IRC at the school library between classes, at community college, at family friends' houses, in my own house, etc. We were poor at home but despite that I literally used any possible internet connected terminal to connect to IRC (and its resilience as a protocol made that really easy.) I had poor impulse control at that age but I do remember IRC a lot, and not in the most healthy way.
Also interestingly enough text-based social media (HN, Reddit, Bluesky, X) addict me way more than video based ones (like Tiktok, Youtube, or Instagram) do. I don't know if it's because it takes longer to digest the information through video than text but I do know that I have no problem with looking at pictures and videos and stopping for days/weeks, but once I get hooked on text it's really hard to stop. I even spent a year in middle school addicted to reading books though I had other things going on in my life at the time and books were a bit of an escape. I've had waves of HN addiction and definitely enjoy X and Bluesky because of the textual media of the experience.
As an adult I mostly grew out of these addictions but I can still feel their pull on me. Luckily I have enough going on in my offline life that digital life takes a backseat.
If you want to think of these in terms of "algorithms", then IRC and Usenet have a simple "chronological" algorithm to display posts while Reddit and HN use an "upvote" based engagement algorithm. X and more "modern" social networks may use more sophisticated algorithms but they're all just algorithms to return a sorted order of items.
it's very low on both the "social" side and "media" side. It's mostly text, it's largely technical topics, there's commenting but it's effectively anonymous aside from a couple really well known usernames if you're a regular. no engagement algos, no following, no avatars, no obvious rampant bot activity, no fake content for views
Social media was coined in the mid 2000s to separate new platforms built on social graphs and old platforms like forums. You do not follow individuals on Hacker News.
Although it could be argued that the question does not make a lot of sense. A browser is a tool. Is a kitchen knife a murder weapon? Not per se, but it can be.
It is a pity that it is not as well thought out as it appears. For example, the suggestion to remove system applications will almost immediately lead to a bootloop.
I, for example, have a hard time imagining how to protect elderly parents from a text message that will send them a link that, when clicked, will bombard them with suggestions to enable notifications, and then notifications will bombard them with suggestions to do something else.
Hey I'm the author. I definitely didn't mean to imply you should remove critical system apps (I don't think that's possible on vanilla iOS).
More just that it's worth deleting most apps beyond the basics like calls,text,calendar,maps etc
hey nah I don't (it's a very new blog!).
In the future though I'm considering purchasing and writing reviews of specific "dumb phones" like the Nokia 6300 4g. There's an affiliate marketing angle there, and I'm also considering creating Youtube review videos too.
The most effective solution I found was keeping my phone in my backpack instead of my pocket. When working I keep it somewhere I’d need to get up to get it.
Together with taming notifications this provides enough friction to discourage me from reaching for it at every spare second.
Once the phone reaches my hands the tricks in the post are not enough to remove the need for conscious effort to let go of the thing and put it back in its inconveniently positioned place.
I recognise the problems this 'dumbphone' trend is trying to solve but I really don't understand many of the solutions people are putting forth.
What I did years ago is aggressively manage my notifications settings, deleted the apps that were a problem (twitter, reddit) and I'm assertive about not being in too many group chats + notifications off for those. And it's been working great.
I think it's worth viewing through an addiction lens. Some people have addictive personalities, and their brains work differently when presented with things like this. I can have just one drink, or play just a bit of a video game. But I know people who will tip into a destructive addiction spiral from a tiny impetus like that, such that completely avoiding what to me would be a harmless thing is the only way they can live a normal life.
It's sort of like people with clinical depression. Advice from people who're not clinically depressed is often terrible, because it's stuff that'll work great if you're a neurotypical person. And it's legitimately hard to get in the mindset of someone whose brain works differently than yours for things like this, and understand what's incredibly difficult for them despite being trivial for you.
Notifications off by default and apps not on the Home Screen by default already goes a very long way. For me, there is no need to make my phone any dumber.
I would add that if you truly want to distract yourself, ‘no notifications’ policy doesn’t work. You may just open your distraction and update it manually, expecting for the notification to arrive. Even when you set it to never bother you. So, the best way is to explore what triggers you to distract in the first place.
I don’t mean turning off the notifications isn’t going to work. It would, and I highly recommend turning off everything, but the urgent stuff. You’ll notice you won’t miss what you truly need anyway. And you still may distract yourself, when you want it.
I was seriously looking into purchasing a dumb smart phone, a la Light Phone 2 or Punkt MP02. I want some messaging, audio, maps etc but keep the slot machine apps as far away as possible. This simple guide saved me at least € 300 on the purchase of a new phone... for now.
Looked into this category specifically and Light Phone 2 is actually an e-ink touch phone with Android as its underlying OS. I may reconsider my choice later on, but for now these solutions will do.
I recently finished Atomic Habits and these actions pair well with it. Especially the points about making the bad habits less accessible and make them less satisfying.
I guess a lot of people only need a dumbphone most of the time but a smartphone becomes a lifesaver a small fraction of the time. Like to hire a cab once in a while, get information online or buy museum tickets on a decent browser while travelling, have access to public transport app in an unknown city, navigation in a vehicle, etc.
So there is a case of having the capabilities of the smartphone but not wanting the distraction that are part of the ecosystem. In my own experience, I don't have any social media accounts anymore except one one the fediverse but I only access it from the browser and don't get distracted by notifications.
I just wish there was an easy way to mute everyone but a selected number of contacts (you can sorta do it but you need to go through all your contacts, it doesn't work for unknown numbers or for calls). The only real people I want a phone/message tone is my partner, my daughters and their school numbers[1]. I want everyone else to be silent and when calling being redirected to voicebox immediately.
[1] which doesn't work as usually people from school use their private smartphones.
What appeals to me is the choice about when I want to enable the smart features. Instead of finding myself victim to alerts and being late to the notification, I want to choose when I spend time on my phone. There are a few ways to achieve this, but I decided to give Dumbify a shot.
myb i wanted an iphone 6months ago but today i want a ~dumb phone but im stuck with this iphone i already have. i could sell the iphone but i do need the apps i wouldnt have on a dumb phone so i try to do what i can to dumb it down
A hack that has worked for me is having another person set up the code for screen time settings, in a way that there is just enough friction for the often unconscious reflex to open XYZ app and proceed to get sucked in.
In my case I both set a daily time limit and block certain apps to only certain hours of the day
I take a medium approach and turn off almost all notifications, do not install “social” addictionware apps or similar junk, turn off background refresh for almost everything, and if I need some gratuitous app on a trip I uninstall it as soon as I don’t.
I haven’t tried their lock down mode yet whatever it’s called.
The always-on display simply showed a small Whatsapp icon. No need to unlock your phone or check an app for messages. Only unlock it at all if you have a message. Ignore the message without reading its contents.
And, as LineageOS/cyanogenmod can, disable notifications also in the status bar. Use Google Maps or your train ticket app without being interrupted by the status bar icons/notification center. "Do not disturb" really means you won't get any notifications. 1-click toggle.
iOS on the other hand, I haven't even found a way to make notifications silent while making calls ring. (Apart from toggling notification settings for 30 apps individually!)
> iOS on the other hand, I haven't even found a way to make notifications silent while making calls ring. (Apart from toggling notification settings for 30 apps individually!)
In iOS you can use a Focus mode. You can either "Silence Notifications From" to blacklist or "Allow Notifications From" to whitelist (then don’t whitelist any to silence all).
I would say what you can do is simply block or time limit distracting apps and websites from the screentime section of the iPhone settings, and then get a friend to input a pin to lock the settings in place
IDK about parking situation as I don't own a car, but I find it hard to believe that in some place there would be no way of paying for public transport without a smartphone. I personally use a cash-paid, cash-refilled transport card.
As for TOTP - this one is very universally doable on desktop, like with KeepassXC. Or you're talking about logging in outside your home, like in a library or computer club?
Saw the parking thing on a trip to Pennslyvania. Lots of signs for the parking app on the street, yet none of them were kiosks or had a phone number to call and arrange parking fees that way.
It boggles my mind that so much innocuous activity got sucked into smartphones. It is not actually more "convenient" to download yet another app that wants access to all my data, just to pay for a parking space, when my credit card is on my person and kiosks do not take up that much space.
For Android users, take a look at BaldPhone. Fully Open Source and primarily aimed at seniors, does a pretty good job at simplifying the interface making most important actions easier to perform.
It does not turn a smartphone into a dumbphone (I don't think that is even possible without removing entire parts of the system, possibly bricking the device) but the simpler and immediate interface makes it a lot more usable.
I have turned my work iphone into a dumb phone. It has got only apps that cannot be removed, plus the apps that are provisioned through mdm. No icloud, nothing beyond what is needed for communication with my colleagues. Location services off, bluetootg is always off, wifi only connects to cirporate network.
My personal phone is less so dumb but I follow the YAGNI principle there as well.
just turn it off and check your messages every few hours, that's what I do. Airplane mode is a god send if you're trying to break the habit. Yesyesyes I know that's not an option for everyone. Back in the day I did fine without being constantly online though, and so far I'm good. Seems like a reasonable compromise between smart phone and dumb phone
I gave this a try. I'm already a skeptic towards cell phone usage, but I figured why not try to push it a little further by "minimalizing" my home screen.
Dumbify is easy enough to set up. It's not always an elegant solution as the list of supported apps is quickly exhausted and required me to make a shortcut. There's a delay and window transitioning from when I tap the link for Anki as Dumbify must first open its app, then go to the shortcut, and then open Anki. Not a huge latency, but noticeable and irksome at times when I want to do a quick search on Firefox. Maybe that's my fault for not trying to deliberately dumb my phone down further to the point where I don't even need a browser. How do we know when we're dumb enough with our phones? What level of distraction is acceptable?
The other major detractor is the fact that instead of seeing my badges on my homescreen, I just flip over one page. Mind you, these are only messenger apps, so that I can at least be reachable by those in my life. I don't have badges enabled on Mail or other apps. I don't have social media accounts, let alone the apps for them, yet my instincts are still to open and flip to the page with the badges. Maybe my behavior will change over time, but I am skeptical it will.
disclaimer: No relation. Adding to this clearspace app. Kicks you out of your current at after a selected amount of time. Takes time to load the app in, really good jolt to the brain. Although the apps SSO is buggy af, and it glitches out sometimes.
80% of the battle is notifications but iOS really sucks at this compared to Android. On Android, I could use an app like Uber, keep the important notifications on like driver/delivery arrived but turn off all the marketing trash. On iOS all you can do is turn on or off all notifications, so if you need certain notifications from an app they get a free pass to spam you all they want :/ The entire idea of any random being able to spam messages onto your phone and make it beep without consent and fine grained control is insane.
Apple used to forbid advertising push notifications completely but then when they pivoted to services they started doing it themselves and eventually the hipocracy got to be too much for even them and they started allowing it with no decent way to discern them
That’s still miles away from being able to filter or categorize notifications by regexps or keywords at least. Both systems are designed for an “average idiot”, and you feel exactly like this using either. Btw, I remember that apps abused the system you mentioned or used it in a way which was annoying (e.g. a messenger not choosing my default beep for every new chat and instead using system default).
Android apps can request very powerful permissions, but those permissions are specific, explicit and revocable. There's a fundamental trade-off between power and risk, but I think the Android security model handles that trade-off quite well.
My #1 issue is that I'd love to grant an app powerful permissions if I can ensure it doesn't have internet access. But default Android doesn't expose the network permission (which exists and is accessible in ROMs like LineageOS)
Of course if this was exposed then people would start blocking the Google data vaccum - and that's bad for business
In the Uber app, click on person icon in top-right corner, go to "Privacy and Data" tab, open "Privacy Center" and you should be able to turn off ads and promos.
I used Uber once, then it woke me up with a notification in the middle of the following night. So I deleted it. I still have Lyft though, without problems.
That's why I disabled all notifications, including the ones from taxi apps. When you think of it, they're completely unnecessary as you can track the moment of the car in (near) realtime anyway, so for these 3 minutes between ordering a car and it arriving I can live without any notifications. Also, for me the "Your driver has arrived" is not that useful anyway as I need a minute or two to actually reach the taxi starting from putting my shoes on etc., so even this notification is suboptimal.
I’ve never used an android phone so I’m curious… isn’t the categorization of such notifications totally up to the developer? I don’t see any other way it could work unless the OS is doing some ML on the notifications.
If I’m an app developer I could just lie and say all my marketing trash notifications are actually time sensitive/important so that you’ll still receive them. Apple has a similar thing and it’s only a soft policy (that an app reviewer would have to catch) that prevents developers from abusing it.
If it really is up to the app developer to categorize their notifications so that you can disable categories, then it sounds like it’s just a simplified way of managing individual apps’ notification preferences, no? (Not that that’s a bad thing, I wish iOS had this.)
> I’ve never used an android phone so I’m curious… isn’t the categorization of such notifications totally up to the developer
Yes, but any popular app will have implemented it.
> If I’m an app developer I could just lie and say all my marketing trash notifications are actually time sensitive/important so that you’ll still receive them
In those cases, your users would come to distrust your app. I reckon, only a negligible percentage of 3b Android users ever turn any notification off. More likely that some have learnt to ignore them altogether (banner blindness); swipe left to dismiss those isn't exactly as hostile as cookie banners are. Or, worse uninstall your "misbehaving" app (some are annoyed by notifications).
It is up to the developers, and most of them play ball from what I've seen. What I can tell you from a user perspective is that if they don't categorize their notifications properly, I will at the very least block all their notifications, or uninstall and look for an alternative app if possible. Maybe a developer can weigh in on the incentives this behavior creates, in terms of lost engagement or userbase
It's up to app developers, and some of them indeed just straight up lie with their categorization. Moovit and all dating apps come to mind. They implemented _some_ categories, but none useful – nothing that lets you separate wheat from the chaff
iOS actually has two kinds of notifications. Normal and time sensitive (urgent). It’s app developers which abuse the mechanism. It’s not one size fits all.
Are time sensitive notifications new? I’ve never heard of them but the setting is there for me.
Using Uber as the example if I turn off Lock Screen notifications and turn on time sensitive notifications then will I get no marketing notifications, and only notifications about my driver turning up?
> if I turn off Lock Screen notifications and turn on time sensitive notifications then will I get no marketing notifications, and only notifications about my driver turning up?
It's up to the app developer, they get to mark notifications as time sensitive or not. So if someone decides that because a coupon is expiring soon it's "time sensitive" to ping you about it, then they can mark it as such. Hypothetically Apple could frown on this in app review, but it isn't something app reviewers are likely to be able to reliably catch.
you're misreading the comment. this a about filtering the kind of notification from a single app.
notifications from a single app are split by category, and you can disable in the phone settings notifications from a single category will keeping the rest for a single app.
(though this categorizing is done by the app dev not you, so the dev can mix annoying stuff with the useful)
That's not what they're talking about. On Android, notifications have a "channel". So you can disallow certain types of notifications while still allowing others through.
Seriously, HN? You want a dumb phone, go get yourself used iPhone X/SE or something, and never install anything, but only the essential stuff. Without all the gazillion of apps, it would work wonders even in 2024.
You have issues with you wasting your life on something like Facebook? Don’t install it. Use browser when needed. Use private tab in Safari, and enter your password each time, so it’s all complicated now. (That’s how I use it, btw.) Same with any other addictives.
Android users, I recommend you to get oLauncher from f-droid/gplay (or better oLauncherCF), and that’s enough already. Hide all the distractions, and Bob’s your uncle.
I have my phones to be the bare minimum pocket computers for years now, and I’m surprised that topic still arises and is actual. Greyscale is bullshit, isn’t it? Has anyone used it seriously for over a couple of days? Even Night Shift is kinda bullshit, in a way. (Better to leave it on, though.) The way is to not use your phone in the night, if you can afford it.
If there’s no nightly drone and missiles attacks from russia in your countries now. So that you need to watch out for Air Raid Alerts 24/7. And your life is at stake. If you’re not there, chances are you can afford to not touch your phone since the evening till the morning. Think of it.
The essential thing isn’t inside your phone, it’s outside of it. It’s you. Work on yourself, and those distractions wouldn’t take you that easily, even when your phone is all flashy and colourful.
I know, we all have that shared problem, but I thought it’s kinda resolved issue for over– for years. Since– idk, 2017?
Even a small amount of friction to getting to slot machine apps does wonders for reducing the amount of time spent on them. But likewise it’s nice (and useful) to still have access to these apps for some people so deleting isn’t a viable option.
Like any other “everything in moderation” suggestion if it’s not all or nothing, just use self control, the internet hates on it.