I’ve been using a flip phone as my daily driver for a while now. The smartphone is still around, but it mostly sits in a drawer until bureaucracy or banking apps force me to use it.
For me, the benefits are clear: less distraction, more focus, better sleep. But I know for many people it’s not so easy. Essential apps, social pressure, work requirements… these are real blockers.
I’d like to start a discussion (almost like an informal poll):
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If you thought about switching, what’s the single biggest thing that holds you back?
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Is it banking? Messaging? Maps? Something else?
I’m genuinely curious because if we can identify the main pain points, maybe it’s possible to work on solutions or even start a small project around it.
So: what would need to change for you to actually give a flip phone a try?
Headphone jack. I just can’t say this enough, despite the fact I have apple’s wireless earbuds (of some clique name) in my pocket at this very second. Headphone jack.
Don’t ask for it for yourself. Ask for it for the d-bag sharing music of some guy grunting over a drum track on the bus. We need to save him from the damage to his reputation when his friends remind him they knew he listened to such trash later when he needs to deny it.
Availability. There fucking aren’t any.
Yes, I had to delete lemmy, reddit, twitter, mastodon, all games etc.
But I see 0 harm in:
- 2FA authenticator apps (google authenticator, app for government ID, bank, …)
- DHL (unlocks packing station / parcel distributing machine here)
- calendar (with voice assistant)
- Pixel, iPhone, Samsung and some others are a fantastic camera! 10 years ago, it’d be a great deal just for that one feature. I used to pay USD/EUR 250 - 500 for a hobby-level camera that was worse
- read my mobile CO2 sensor
- not crucial, but occasionally show someone something in a video call
- send injured animal photo / video right to the wildlife rescue station for advice (~ 2x per year)
- plain old mp3 player
- some might read eBooks, which is a good use of it, but I still prefer a hardcopy
So yes, on my 2nd smartphone only (first in 2021), but I find that it’s worth it these days.
Enshittification intensifies, but a Linux phone might become very viable in a few years, especially when LLM adapters become easier to use. Self-hosted alternatives to google/apple photos are already very advanced.
I’ve lived through the cell phone invention, to flip phones, to smartphones. They were terrible back then and I doubt that’s changed now.
Now, I do understand the reason why you moved back to one. For me, I just got aggressive about notifications and turned off most of them. I stopped social media tied to friends and family and am selective about what I’m on and for how long. Takes more personal willpower (or whatever) but you do get used to it in the long run and feel better.
I simply wouldn’t. A dumbphone does mostly the things I don’t use a phone for.
And I don’t mean fortnite and tickytocks, I’ve grown up through (most) of the history of mobile phones, I started with my mothers old Nokia 2110 back in like… 1998? I remember how awesome it was to finally have a phone, then to be able to get the bus schedules with the painfully slow WAP connection so I didn’t have to call home, then to have navigation, replace the mp3 player, camera, and eventually even mostly my laptop.
I want to have a datapad with access to all the devices and information in my pocket at all times. If I need it to do something, I know there’s an app for it probably. It’s awesome.
I’d really prefer that the datapad wouldn’t then leech all of my information in return, though.
Oh, and bring back physical keyboards. I’d give my left nut for an HTC Desire Z with 2025 hardware.All of that, plus the benefits of having a good pocket camera to carry around - spontaneous photography is my thing and having a good camera phone solves that equation nicely.
And before anyone says “get a real camera”, I have real cameras and there’s no way they can be carried in my pocket the same way a smartphone does lol. That and the smaller they get, the further image quality worsens to the point where you might just use a (good camera) phone instead.
I grew up with dumb phones, and you couldn’t pay me enough to go back to using them - they suck!
Doesn’t really make much sense for me to switch to a flip phone unless it was specifically built for privacy/security. SMS and regular voice calls are insecure, it likely could connect to fake cell towers uninhibited, it likely doesn’t have hardware switches to disconnect various features e.g. modem, microphone, or camera.
My job, mostly.
I use Uptime Robot to tell me if anything goes wrong, and I need to be able to VPN into my work network and restart services if they go down. A flip phone can’t do that.
All my parking meters require an app, and all of my work logins require pressing a confirmation in an app.
The apps 100%
I personally dont think you need to switch to a dumb phone to get those benefits, smartphones themselves arent what’s causing issues its what you’re using. You want less distraction just stop using those apps or turn off push notifications.
I wholeheartedly agree with this perspective.
I started on a privacy journey because I didn’t like that I’m being tracked (by basically everybody) and feel that the technology that I pay for should be service to me, not me as a service to it (and its related parties).
Anyways, along the way I did a few things. Namely, I turned off mail notifications (this was an inadvertent feature since my mail service couldn’t send notifications without google services that I removed). I also removed my sim and use data only via a hotspot, to which I don’t always have on. These sound like crazy things, and admittedly they aren’t for everyone, but the resulting mental shifts are exactly to this point.
Just because I have a device that let’s me be available to anybody in any place at any time, doesn’t mean I should be, or even need to be, available unless I want to be.
Now I protect my time, and the mental clarity that comes with it. I never was a doom scroller, but even now that concept is even more reduced. The phone is my tool, and I use when needed.
I really hate when people are like “just stop” like everyone has impeccable self control and executive function.
What self control? Just delete the app and find a different addiction. Right now I’m on Lemmy 😜
Agreed. Also, there are important applications that I wouldn’t do without. Like Google Maps, my Garmin watch app, My security camera app.
Who even makes phone calls today? Not me. I need a device that does everything but phone calls more than I need a device that only does voice.
Construction workers, for sure. I miss PTT from NEXTEL (Motorola radio built into the phone) that shit was awesome.
There are both open source and commercial apps that do PTT over internet. It turns phones into radio, it even has the capability to have central radio operation rooms for companies and such. It’s all automated.
I can’t get these people to use Signal instead of SMS.
But nothing internet dependent will turn a phone into a radio. We are in places where even 4G doesn’t reach sometimes and if there was a Motorola repeater onsite it’d be great. I’ve got our company trying it out and the SL300 has been a game changer for our communication on site.
There are devices like that. For example the iPod touch.
I still need internet service and the iPod touch was discontinued years ago.
Sony still makes an Android equivalent.
I know someone that has been trying out all of the mp3 players and has yet to find something that works as well as an iPod classic.
But then why would I need one? It’s all on my phone.
I’ve seen a few devices go by recently trying to capture that use case. Some have looked promising but I still have a Zune.
I don’t like talking to people.
I don’t use the phone part of my smartphone much, so thie idea of a dumbphone has no real appeal for me.
Camera is probably the first obstacle. I’ve got a kid, and I really want to have good documentation of her growing up. If there were a dumbphone with a legit camera, that’d be a big deal for me.
After that, probably maps is the next most important thing that I want an actual smart phone for. I remember getting my first smart phone, and probably the main thing I was excited about was always being able to navigate directly to where I wanted to go.
Almost everything else is tertiary to my needs.
I highly recommend just getting a real camera. The pictures I took with my camera 11 years ago are still better quality than an iPhone can manage today. Modern cameras are far far better.
But then I start to feel like
this guy, with the “real” camera and the phone camera, but the phone camera is the one I’ve most consistently got on me, because I can’t lug a whole additional piece of hardware around in a camera bag, meanwhile the phone camera pictures are grainy and shitty, and I’d just as soon have a Pixel in my pocket at all times that can take fairly good pictures at all times.
Fair enough, though modern cameras are much smaller:
Without the lens, exactly.
Realistically, cameras can be put into two categories - they either effortlessly fit in your pocket, or don’t, and any that don’t tend to get left home unless you intend to specifically go take photos. Doesn’t really matter how much bigger it is at that point.
And if you have a high end smartphone, you probably can’t get a camera that fits in your pocket that would be significantly better.As the saying goes, the best camera is the one you have with you.
