[HN Gopher] Show HN: App that asks 'why?' every time you unlock ...
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Show HN: App that asks 'why?' every time you unlock your phone
Author : jarko27
Score : 760 points
Date : 2024-11-27 08:34 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (play.google.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (play.google.com)
| Y_Y wrote:
| Cool idea. Amazingly they've found a way to put "in-app
| purchases" though.
|
| This app could just be an image set as your lock screen
| background.
|
| I've found a good way to discourage mindless phone staring is to
| set the display to monochrome (e.g. through colorblind
| emulation). The decreased visual stimulation seems to have an
| effect on me, at least until I want to see a photo or video in
| colour and go back to normal.
| jarko27 wrote:
| Allow me to clarify about "in-app purchases".
|
| The "in-app purchases" are for small complementary features,
| like making the screen appear on a schedule, making it
| impossible to skip the screen, and adding a lock button to lock
| the screen. Those features aren't essential for the app to
| function.
|
| > This app could just be an image set as your lock screen
| background.
|
| Well, yes and no. In the app, you can interact with the
| prompts. There is a history of your itneraction. You can export
| it and then analyze it if needed.
|
| > I've found a good way to discourage mindless phone staring is
| to set the display to monochrome (e.g. through colorblind
| emulation). The decreased visual stimulation seems to have an
| effect on me, at least until I want to see a photo or video in
| colour and go back to normal.
|
| +1 here. I have always had this setting on closer to bedtime.
| mzhaase wrote:
| The point I think was more a critique on the fact that
| everyone now tries to extract profit with everything, even
| the simplest of apps.
| ltadeut wrote:
| why shouldn't they? they had to take the time to make the
| app and get it up on the App Store.
|
| it's totally fair to charge for work you've done. the fact
| it's simple is irrelevant. what matters is the value it
| brings to the user.
| matkv wrote:
| It is totally fair to charge for work you've done - but
| then again, in my opinion, not _everything_ needs to be
| built with some profit in mind (not talking about this
| app in particular now).
|
| I think it's really refreshing to find an app that
| doesn't lock any features behind a paywall or makes using
| it more cumbersome unless you pay. I'm mostly okay with
| one-time payments though.
|
| Just because you invested some time into making a project
| doesn't mean that you absolutely need to make some money
| to make it "worth" it. Hell, most open-source software is
| built on free/voluntary labor.
| mavamaarten wrote:
| I understand the sentiment from a user's perspective, I
| really do.
|
| I have been totally burned out by having to maintain all
| my free apps in the Play Store though, lately. Even a
| simple non-internet-using app needs an update every year
| and needs to comply with new bullshit policies every few
| months. It has totally changed my opinion on free vs paid
| apps. I still despise subscription models, but I
| absolutely understand that there's just no free apps out
| there anymore. It just costs too much of my time to keep
| doing it for free.
| matkv wrote:
| I've actually been talking about the developer's
| perspective as well - I have a couple of personal
| projects that I've invested quite a bit of time into but
| I still don't feel the need to try to find a way to
| monetize them.
|
| I can definitely see your point though. Maybe an option
| would be open sourcing your app? (considering it's
| already free anyway) - that way you could maybe find some
| contributors to make it easier to keep up with
| everything.
| mongol wrote:
| Agree. I had a free app with 100000 downloads, no ads and
| 4.5 rating on Play store, it is no longer there because I
| got fed up with Google's nagging. If I will do free
| things going forward, I will do them outside closed
| ecosystems.
| throwaway290 wrote:
| It is economically better for google if your free app is
| gone and someone makes a paid app or an app with ads...
| Y_Y wrote:
| Interesting point. I think that the availability of good
| free apps on Play Store has a positive effect on the
| market for Android phones in general. I know it factors
| into people's decision of phone religion that apps are
| more likely to charge on Apple's store (even sometimes
| for an app which is free on Android).
|
| All that said, F-droid is the only one I'll ever love.
| jventura wrote:
| Also agree, and would also include paid apps as well!
|
| I had a paid app which was a one time payment and was not
| doing anything special regarding permissions (no
| internet, nothing like that), but since it wasn't was
| bringing much revenue (some 3$-4$ per year), I let the
| Play Store remove it automatically. I couldn't justify
| adding the absurd data policies (since I wasn't using any
| user data) and the cost of updating it regularly.
|
| Sorry for my 100 users, that cannot reinstall the app
| anymore!
| agubelu wrote:
| > not everything needs to be built with some profit in
| mind (not talking about this app in particular now).
|
| I agree, and I make many projects for fun and find it
| rewarding when others use what I've built. But that is a
| decision that I make myself, for my own work. I never
| feel like I have the right to tell others whether they
| should build something with profit in mind or not.
| matkv wrote:
| I agree - it's definitely OP's decision and a valid one.
| YetAnotherNick wrote:
| > not everything needs to be built with some profit in
| mind
|
| You didn't say this earlier. You said _this app_ doesn 't
| need to be developed with profit in mind.
| matkv wrote:
| I'm not the same user as the parent comment.
| akkad33 wrote:
| It's time and effort. If you're not willing to pay you're
| saying it has no value. I prefer a small upfront fee to
| seeing in app purchases though
| robin_reala wrote:
| That's not true: not all value is monetary. The results
| of my hobby are distributed for free, but I gain value
| from the creation process for myself.
| MMAesawy wrote:
| How would you suggest to compensate devs for developing and
| maintaining such apps?
|
| Personally I would much prefer that developers lock
| poweruser features behind a paywall rather than plaster
| ugly ads all over the place. Making it a paid app works
| too, but likely 95% of the potential userbase would not try
| the app if they had to reach for their wallets first.
| Timwi wrote:
| > How would you suggest to compensate devs for developing
| and maintaining such apps?
|
| As a developer, I feel more than sufficiently compensated
| by seeing people use and enjoy my work and thanking me.
| Getting featured on Hacker News would make my day; nay,
| year.
|
| I just need to be able to eat and use a computer. I
| shouldn't have to prove myself valuable just to be
| allowed to live. I think everybody, regardless of what
| they do, deserve a livable basic income.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| UBI.
|
| (I would leave the comment at that, but it would probably
| come across as a bit facetious and would fail any 'low-
| effort' test. But I genuinely mean it: remove the
| _necessity_ to obtain a certain amount of money every
| month, and all of a sudden, people would be able to
| create, share, and enjoy for free.
| cowsandmilk wrote:
| The point is, everyone believes all apps should be free
| when this developer spent time building, testing, and
| iterating to come out with quite the useful app. And the
| developer respects users, so they chose to monetize in a
| way that doesn't collect our data or shove ads in our
| faces.
| madeofpalk wrote:
| The first thing OP says is "Cool idea - don't deserve to
| get paid for it though".
| Y_Y wrote:
| I think you'll find that's not quite true.
| endorphine wrote:
| Critiquing the players and not the game misses the forest
| for the trees. This is the system we live in.
| ryandrake wrote:
| You're allowed to critique both. "The system" isn't
| handed down from god. It's just a set of choices made by
| people.
| Timwi wrote:
| Yes, and one of those choices made by people is that if
| you don't make money, you deserve to starve.
| jamalaramala wrote:
| Great idea for a little app. <3
|
| I don't see a problem with in-app purchases, but have you
| considered offering the unlocked app for free under Google
| Play Pass?
| jarko27 wrote:
| Thanks
|
| Never used 'Google Play Pass' and haven't explored it from
| a dev perspective. If that's something like a toggle in
| Google Play Console then I see no problem enabling it.
| youoy wrote:
| I do the same! It works pretty good for "visually addictive"
| apps... but not for HN for now
| siva7 wrote:
| For that you set noproc in hn settings.
| youoy wrote:
| Ah, I was not aware of that! Thanks!
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| > Amazingly they've found a way to put "in-app purchases"
| though.
|
| I've been so happy slowly going through my phone and removing
| every single app on my phone that has either ads or in-app
| purchases. I don't miss a single one.
| icetank wrote:
| Hacker news has ads in the form of job positions. Do you also
| consider not using Hacker news anymore?
| monooso wrote:
| That's a pretty loose definition of an advertisement,
| particularly in the context of this conversation.
| oneeyedpigeon wrote:
| Not all ads are equal. I am willing to bet that every
| single app they were referring to had _much_ more egregious
| advertising than HN does.
| everdrive wrote:
| My sentence, in a very loose sense is an advertisement for
| my ideas. I think the concept can be stretched too far.
| PittleyDunkin wrote:
| If I sense that these so-called ads are lowering my quality
| of life--absolutely.
| GrinningFool wrote:
| Your comment comes across as disingenuous.
|
| I think by this point in time, most people who are taking
| an active effort to remove advertising from their lives are
| well aware that the concern with "ads" isn't primarily
| about the requirement to see ads - it's the privacy-
| consuming infrastructure behind them.
| Y_Y wrote:
| Not to mention the attention-stealing flashing lights and
| popping up over the thing you want to see and all the
| other ways to make you think about something against your
| will.
| siva7 wrote:
| Best of all it saves battery
| zuppy wrote:
| same thing worked for me. on iphone, ios 18 introduced a way to
| apply shades to everything, including app icon and notification
| counters. since i made the entire thing darker, i've stopped
| using instagram. i couldn't believe that such a small thing
| could do wonders. probably the same thing can be achieved by
| disabling the notification counter, but i think it's better to
| have it when you want to look for it, but make it not pop out
| into your eyes.
| HPsquared wrote:
| I have greyscale set to activate in the evening to wind down
| for bed.
| blahlabs wrote:
| Could you share how you achieved activating greyscale
| automatically? Was it Android or iOS?
|
| I would love to be able to do this but couldn't find a way on
| GrapheneOS.
| chris_pie wrote:
| Latest Android has that built-in as a "Night Mode". You can
| also set a schedule or have it enable while charging
| HPsquared wrote:
| It's a Samsung, Android phone. I used "Modes and Routines"
| which allows to set greyscale (and silent mode etc.) and
| automate triggers (such as time of day) to activate a
| "mode".
| andreicap wrote:
| I do the same with iOS automations - disable monochrome (and
| orientation lock) for photos and camera apps, and enable it
| back once closed.
|
| The benefit is that it re-enables monochrome mode after I might
| disable it manually.
| newswasboring wrote:
| > This app could just be an image set as your lock screen
| background.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224
| space_oddity wrote:
| Either way, it's all about finding what clicks for you!
| hackernewds wrote:
| you can find a balance here by setting on bedtime mode in
| Android where after sunset, your screen glows black and white
| and they added the ability to pause for 30 minutes.
| byyoung3 wrote:
| brilliant
| andy_ppp wrote:
| Some people wrap their phone in an elastic band or there's always
| Opal if you want more fine grained control:
| https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/opal-screen-time-control/id149...
| jarko27 wrote:
| Physical barrier on the phone is probably the best way to
| tackle with such things, but that's not what always available
| or convenient.
|
| I liked Opal, but with Intenty I tried to create an alternative
| way without blockers or limits. For some reason, app blockers
| and time limits are very frustrating for me and rarely work.
| That was one of the primary motivations for the app creation.
| While I admit that for the majority setting proper limits on
| certain apps will work.
| psteinweber wrote:
| Opal is incredibly helpful for me. Exactly the right amount of
| control and annoyance to get me off social media.
| cnity wrote:
| Opal's ads were very good actually. I got targeted ones on
| Instagram Reels and they legitimately made me uninstall
| everything that wasn't serving me. Ironically I never
| installed Opal, but their marketing team really did me a
| solid.
| maelito wrote:
| I need this !
|
| I can also recommend Stretchly for the computer
| https://github.com/hovancik/stretchly.
|
| Forces me to stand up and look further / go grab some chicory.
| retSava wrote:
| Yes! I use this for both Win and Ubuntu. Works great.
| superasn wrote:
| Have you tried RescueTime? It's a similar app that prompts you to
| log your activities every time you unlock your phone.
|
| It's surprising to see how much time can slip by unnoticed each
| day. Using it can really make you more mindful of how you're
| spending it.
| jarko27 wrote:
| > Have you tried RescueTime? It's a similar app that prompts
| you to log your activities every time you unlock your phone.
|
| I didn't know they had such a feature. I'm going to check this
| out.
|
| > It's surprising to see how much time can slip by unnoticed
| each day. Using it can really make you more mindful of how
| you're spending it.
|
| Exactly. I have so many unnecessary phone pickups during the
| day. Without such apps that would slip unnoticed. Also, it's
| worth mentioning that when you notice those moments at least in
| my case it makes you feel guilty a bit that you picking it up
| unconsciously, but maybe that's my individual behaviour.
| hed wrote:
| Does it do this on iOS? I just cancelled RT because it crashed
| on my work computer all the time but if the phone app weren't
| useless that might be different.
| fransjorden wrote:
| Great app! Love the design and thoughts behind it. Few comments:
|
| - isn't it possible to select multiple intentions? I've tried but
| when I turn on one, another one turns off. - for apps like these
| I'm really missing a more expensive lifetime subscription. I'm
| okay with paying some more upfront if I don't have to pay a
| periodical fee.
|
| Anyway, really nice work!
| jarko27 wrote:
| Thanks for giving it a try!
|
| > - isn't it possible to select multiple intentions? I've tried
| but when I turn on one, another one turns off.
|
| Here is the place where I made a UX mistake. I implemented
| nudges in a similar way as "modes" on iOS or routines on
| Samsung phones. You can enable one at a time. If you want to
| customise the content you see, you have to customise it inside
| nudge, not by enabling another one. I didn't make any UX tests
| before releasing this and I see a lot of confusion here.
| Apologise for that.
|
| > for apps like these I'm really missing a more expensive
| lifetime subscription. I'm okay with paying some more upfront
| if I don't have to pay a periodical fee.
|
| That's another miscalculation I made :) But I already have
| plans to replace the subscription with one-time purchase. Again
| sorry for the inconvenience.
|
| Again, thanks for a try
| fransjorden wrote:
| No problem! To be fair, turning multiple on at the same time
| would be a great (premium) feature, for people who want to
| work on multiple things like me :)
| TudorAndrei wrote:
| I have been using Mindfull, and it's great. It can even block
| short form videos on different apps (Reddit, Instagram, Snap)
|
| https://github.com/akaMrNagar/Mindful
| bjt12345 wrote:
| Cal Newport would love this!
| warner25 wrote:
| I was just thinking about Cal too. I listened[1] to Deep Work
| and Digital Minimalism a couple years ago and still use many of
| his prescriptions. Namely, I have no social media or gaming
| apps installed on my phone. On my home screen for quick access
| I only have Google Voice, Messenger, Maps, and the camera app.
| The browser app (Firefox with uBlock Origin extension) is
| buried and it deletes everything when I close it, so there's no
| history, bookmarks, logins, etc. to make browsing more
| streamlined. I often leave the phone at home or in my car when
| I go out. I leave it by the front door when I'm at home instead
| of keeping it in my hand or pocket.
|
| I find that having a very light data plan helps too (in
| addition to saving money). I have the $5/month annual plan from
| Red Pocket that gives me 500 MB. I'm well aware that I could
| burn through 500 MB very quickly, so that makes me think twice
| about whether I really need to load a web page if I'm out
| somewhere without Wi-Fi.
|
| [1] Audiobooks on my phone, ironically. But making audiobooks
| more accessible is probably the best value that smartphones
| have provided for me. Libby, for borrowing audiobooks from the
| library and listening to them, is the one entertainment app
| that I have installed.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| I haven't seen any of those apps (or built-in OS features like
| screen time on iOS) not become useless in a matter of days.
|
| People that will use their phone for distraction (which I don't
| think there's actually anything wrong with) will take only a few
| days to get "notification fatigue" from those screens and
| automatically bypass them without even thinking about it.
|
| I get that you can prevent bypassing the screen as you mentioned
| as an extra feature but people will just click the other button
| then.
|
| There's not a single person (myself included) I have seen use
| screen time not automatically bypass the limitation instantly as
| it pops up.
| jarko27 wrote:
| Well, I agree.
|
| The fatigue from the screen is real.
|
| What I'm trying to achieve here with the app is to give a set
| of tools that can help deal with this fatigue. Like adding a
| variety to the texts you see, changing the intensity of the
| pop-up screen, adding cooldown, or hard mode and schedules.
|
| The Northstar is to adjust the nudge automatically based on the
| level of fatigue from the screen.
|
| I know I'm far from it now. But I'm attempting. I'm changing
| the nudges often and their configuration manually for myself
| now. And it works for me and I believe it can help other folks
| as well.
|
| That's it.
| littlecranky67 wrote:
| > There's not a single person (myself included) I have seen use
| screen time not automatically bypass the limitation instantly
| as it pops up.
|
| You can take the more drastic approach and lock yourself out of
| your phone by changing it's unlock code and use a timelock [0]
| to prevent yourself from bypassing it for a given time. Works
| also with parental-control like Apps that require you to enter
| a password/code to unlock. No bypassing here.
|
| [0]: lockmeout.online
| wingerlang wrote:
| The point is that people don't stick with it. Bypassable
| versions works just as well as this, for a day or two until
| it becomes slightly annoying. Full lockout will work for a
| day or two as well, until it becomes annoying. The bypass
| here is simply that you never use it again.
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| I think that's extremely dangerous and I would never consider
| this to be honest. My phone is my only phone, and I need to
| be able to call emergency services, or answer an important
| call, at unexpected times.
|
| If I reached the point where I was comfortable literally
| being unable to use my phone for a period of time, I would
| just not have a phone or not carry it with me.
| littlecranky67 wrote:
| You literally can do both without entering your unlock
| code. That is the whole point, locked phones are pretty
| useful, but not to kill time.
|
| You can even do more like make outgoing calls using
| Siri/Google Assistant, Take Photos/videos etc. This is
| default setting at least on iOS.
| anteloper wrote:
| > I haven't seen any of those apps (or built-in OS features
| like screen time on iOS) not become useless in a matter of
| days.
|
| This isn't consistent with the data. I'm a cofounder of
| Clearspace and we see that when people make it through the
| first two weeks, they stick around for months or years.
|
| YMMV - because our feature set looks slightly different - half
| users are in a mode where you have to do pushups to unlock
| distracting apps which really does tend to stick for people
| that opt in. (like this
| https://x.com/_oliver_hill/status/1825605422885253445)
| iLoveOncall wrote:
| > This isn't consistent with the data. I'm a cofounder of
| Clearspace and we see that when people make it through the
| first two weeks, they stick around for months or years.
|
| And how many make it through the first two weeks? I'll take a
| guess and say less than 1%.
| jarko27 wrote:
| I can relate to this. I conducted UX experiment during my
| Master's in Human Computer Interaction which was testing an
| impact of various interventions to screen time and user
| perception. I observed very similar pattern, if it clicks it
| stays with the people. Of course the experiment was with
| small group, but still.
|
| A good comparison I think are "self help" books. People are
| still reading them and those books are really helpful during
| certain times. While same ideas and concepts are circulating
| across those books.
|
| I believe such kind of apps and software deserve to exist.
| Whatever helps people to make their lives better.
| keybored wrote:
| Right. Because these things require some thought and analysis
| if you truly think that you yourself are having issues with
| screen time or other attention-related issues.
|
| I may or may not have that right now but I for sure did some
| years ago. And if you are having issues with your attention?
| Boy, loading on more stuff that you are supposed to "attend to"
| for sure does not help. Someone who is having self-reported
| issues with their attention is not going to see some automated
| mindfulness message and go, oh wait time to slow down and take
| a good gander at what I want to spend my attention on right
| now.
|
| On the contrary that will just tire them more. Which makes them
| more susceptible to losing their awareness or attention.
|
| But people who think there is one-weird-trick to fixing these
| issues are incapable of understanding the +1 attention problem:
| that loading more stuff onto the person is not going to help.
| qwerty456127 wrote:
| One should ask themselves just this whenever they are going to
| act or make a judgement.
| jeofken wrote:
| For me the only really useful intervention was getting a black
| and white e-ink Android smartphone. I started to read a book per
| month and my short video watching time was decimated.
|
| I got the Bigme Hibreak which isn't the worst, but lacks recent
| android versions. Gives me hours of my life back every day,
| compared to the phone addiction I experience with my lcd colour
| screen smartphone
| jarko27 wrote:
| As an experiment, I wanted to try something similar, but more
| extreme maybe since it's not Android AFAIK
|
| https://www.thelightphone.com.
|
| Also I wonder if my app is working nicely on an e-ink
| smartphone, very interesting.
| alexey-salmin wrote:
| I'm surprised there are so few on the market. The reason I gave
| up on Nokia in 2020 was a handful of apps: taxi, maps,
| messengers.
|
| All of that would perfectly work on e-ink. Instead I got a
| Pixel and after four years I have attention span of a squirrel.
|
| Really have to do something about it, will try grayscale for
| now.
| p1necone wrote:
| I feel like we're far too obsessed with the "nobility" of stuff
| we do for fun. Watch YouTube shorts, scroll reddit, whatever.
|
| It's only "addictive" because it's fun, it's no more pointless
| than anything else you might do for fun. What are you really
| achieving by using this app? Do you have an unhealthy
| relationship with your phone, or are you just arbitrarily ranking
| it low on the "worthiness" of random shit you might choose to do
| to kill some time.
| exe34 wrote:
| it's currently very cool to announce to everybody how little
| time you spend on your phone, it's like the new "I'm vegan" or
| "I use arch btw".
|
| people don't realise how addiction works - see the Vietnam
| veterans case: https://jamesclear.com/heroin-habits
|
| we have bigger (social) problems that's causing the phone
| addiction: if it wasn't a phone, it would be video games, TV or
| alcohol or something else.
| p1necone wrote:
| I swear comments on posts like this one always read like some
| religious support group for people that think sex outside of
| the context of marriage is worthy of shame. It's depressing.
| immibis wrote:
| The new religious nutjobbery is that sex between a man and
| a woman inside of the context of marriage is also worthy of
| shame because it's gay:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flRRPTfOB2U
| exitb wrote:
| Even if the addition is really driven by the environment,
| rather than its subject itself, can individuals actually
| solve the underlying social problem? Can they do so in a way
| that's actually scalable to a significant portion of the
| population?
|
| If your work, or lack of money, or your kids school, or your
| parents health are causing you stress, most often you can't
| simply "change your environment" to a less stressful one.
| asddubs wrote:
| i don't have phone problems, but I do think there is a non-
| arbitrary worthiness scale to things I do for fun. In the long
| term, I think I benefit more and feel better about myself for
| spending time learning something or creating something than
| playing video games or doing something passive.
| jraph wrote:
| A lot of people doing the scrolling thing seem not satisfied
| with it. Listening to them, it seems they feel like it not only
| kills their time funnily, it actually goes beyond, and kills
| their time more they wanted will still not being so enjoyable.
|
| So they are trying to find hacks to counter their habits.
|
| I can relate. Sometimes I'm on HN a bit more longer than ideal.
| But that's not a big issue for me and it's not very often so
| I'm not finding a fix for this.
| jarko27 wrote:
| What I'm trying to achieve here is to make more conscious
| choices.
|
| If I want to scroll Reddit, I would like to make a deliberate
| decision rather than doing it habitually in an "uncontrolled"
| way, just immediately out of boredom.
|
| The app intervenes in this unconscious phone pickup habit loop
| and prompts me to reconsider this.
|
| I'm not deleting social media apps from the device and I
| believe we shouldn't. I'm just trying to adjust the way how I
| reach them.
| antihero wrote:
| I like the idea and I think it will be good in the short term
| but eventually your brain will just gloss over it I think.
| fergonco wrote:
| > It's only "addictive" because it's fun
|
| This is not true. Almost everything in mobile phones exploit
| human brain biases to keep us hooked. It's about regaining
| control of what you want to use your time for.
| guax wrote:
| You might have a great relationship with time and your phone,
| which is great. Not all of us have that. If/when my mental
| health is not on its best legs tools like this might prevent it
| from going deeper. Its VERY easy for me to do 30 minutes of
| mindless youtube shorts watching instead of doing something I
| was supposed to do or even wanted to do.
|
| ADHD brain is a bitch. "Gimmicks" help to trigger a intentional
| conscious response to break out of a pattern.
| vundercind wrote:
| When I don't have my phone's distractions, I read books
| instead, or play music, or maybe do a few pushups.
|
| Basically anything I in-fact do when my phone's not around, is
| better than the phone.
|
| The only thing I do without the phone that's almost as low-
| value is video gaming (gee, more electronics...)
| keybored wrote:
| These critiques/nudges/reminders about screen time are as much
| worth as a YouTube short: a dime a dozen. Completely shallow,
| thoughtless, vapid and a waste of time.[1] Anyone can make the
| point that people are staring at their phones. That they spend
| time on social media.
|
| It's the equivalent of getting up on a soapbox and exclaiming
| that we live in a society. (Except everyone is on their phone
| and won't give you any attention)
|
| Why? Why are you on your phone? Well, have _you_ , the
| critiquer of the supposed malaise given any real thought to
| that? Or do you have no insights to offer, nothing more than a
| rhetorical one-word question to ask, nothing that penetrates
| the surface of the supposed problem?
|
| Have you, OP?
|
| At least propose a theory. Like: maybe people are
| overstimulated and have choice fatigue. Then what the hell does
| yet another automated nagger help? One more reminder that you
| should drink a cup of coffeine-free green tea and smile at a
| stranger?
|
| Nothing was uncovered. Nothing was gained.
|
| [1] This is not true. Making YouTube shorts takes some editing
| skills.
| nottorp wrote:
| Why blame the phone btw? You could doom scroll or mindlessly
| watch YouTube even on a desktop.
|
| And you know, you could mindlessly watch cable tv :)
| vr46 wrote:
| My buddy has a wallpaper on his phone that says, in large
| letters, "Do I really to be picking up my phone right now?"
|
| Done and done.
| rvnx wrote:
| (edited)
| baxtr wrote:
| He'd probably be on X "creating content"
| frereubu wrote:
| I prefer this method too, as it helps me develop my self-
| control. (I have "ton eph' emin kai ouk eph' emin", which is
| from Epictetus and means "things that are up to us and things
| that are not up to us" as a reminder that I can exert control
| over my phone use).
| kukkeliskuu wrote:
| I made one with large text "Why?"
| olabyne wrote:
| I have a foldable flip phone. It is equivalent : I need to go
| through some effort to open my phone. I don't open it unless I
| need to
| jarko27 wrote:
| BTW, it was quite complicated but I added support for flip
| phones as well. So the app works correctly on flip phones as
| well. Flip phone users might have an ultimate setup.
| Refusing23 wrote:
| i scroll through reddit when im on the toilet or waiting etc.
| while cooking or something
|
| that's really it.
| yamrzou wrote:
| Love it. I wish there was a way to select multiple nudges.
|
| Is it possible to provide a lifetime subscription (instead of a
| monthly one) for premium features?
| oleksii88 wrote:
| Great app, but I second the lifetime price request. It's a bit
| weird for me to see a subscription for such an app. I'm happy
| to support the developer, but not on a monthly basis.
| jarko27 wrote:
| Thanks for the try.
|
| Now I realize that the decision to make nudges in the same way
| as modes on iOS was a bad decision. I made it intentionally,
| you select nudge as one mode to enable. If you want to
| customize the content, just change the prompts in the nudge.
| Apologies for the inconvenience.
|
| And about lifetime subscription. I also get that. I will
| replace the subscription with a one-time purchase eventually.
| thrtythreeforty wrote:
| Subscription software cost can be modeled as a one-time fee:
| you calculate the net present value of all the payments.
|
| For example, if you plan to use this app for 7 years (which is
| a reasonable expectation for a piece of software's lifetime)
| and it costs $2 a month, the net present value is somewhere
| around $138. That is, if you decide right now to use the app
| for 7 years, you are costing yourself $138 in today-dollars.
|
| Which is rather a lot.
|
| Of course the subscription does have the benefit that you can
| cut off your usage at any point, however the people asking for
| a perpetual irrevocable license are probably not the type who
| appreciate this capability.
| guerrilla wrote:
| Nothing for iOS?
| jarko27 wrote:
| On iOS it's simply impossible to implement. There is no way you
| can display an app over other apps after unlocking. I tried to
| implement something similar, like a widget, but that's a
| completely different app. Unfortunately, such an app is
| possible only on Android.
| hda111 wrote:
| After unlock is probably impossible. But open app over app is
| possible with one sec and shortcuts.
| jarko27 wrote:
| Yeah, but then it's a completely different app.
|
| On Android, you can even combine Intenty and one-sec.
| noufalibrahim wrote:
| I use
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.qqlabs.min...
| which has several things that pester you when opening certain
| applications. It also makes the home screen quite dull. Combine
| this with a monochrome display and the phone considerably loosens
| its grip on you.
| jarko27 wrote:
| I think it will work just fine in combination with Intenty. Of
| course, it might be too challenging to use the device with so
| many obstacles. But if that helps to be more mindful about
| phone usage, why not?
| jatins wrote:
| I like the idea, congrats on the launch!
|
| One feature request: instead of giving me a freeform field to
| enter "why", give me a few of common uses cases as options like:
| - Picking up the phone for real use (order, cab, call etc) - For
| social connection - For mindless scrolling
|
| overtime you can plot why the phone was picked
| jarko27 wrote:
| Thanks!
|
| > One feature request: instead of giving me a freeform field to
| enter "why", give me a few of common uses cases as options
| like: - Picking up the phone for real use (order, cab, call
| etc) - For social connection - For mindless scrolling
|
| You can add quick answers to the prompts, it's there, no need
| to type every time
|
| > overtime you can plot why the phone was picked
|
| Already you can export all historical data to CSV to analyze
| it. There is also an interesting thing to observe, it's time
| spent on the screen.
| fma wrote:
| Is this really a launch? I see reviews from 4 years ago.
| jarko27 wrote:
| The original app was released ~ 4 years ago, but it survived
| several rounds of overhauls from scratch while keeping the
| original idea - "showing nudges after phone unlock". It can
| be considered a launch because it's almost a remade app.
| tmikaeld wrote:
| Love the idea, is there an iOS version planned?
| jarko27 wrote:
| As soon as Apple allows listening to phone unlock events and
| displaying app over other apps. Currently there are not APIs on
| iOS for such thing
| mrbombastic wrote:
| Check out ScreenZen, it doesn't work with general unlocks but
| you can set it to add similar mindfulness reminders for
| specific apps or categories of apps. Been using it a few weeks
| and a fan.
| JansjoFromIkea wrote:
| +1
|
| it's pretty easy to work around but all I generally need is
| something to knock me out of my flow.
| guax wrote:
| Installed about 30 minutes ago, it already made me reconsider
| using the phone 3x. It is indeed effective while you're engaging
| with it. Hope it continues like this for long term.
| jarko27 wrote:
| For the long term, I recommend changing the prompts from time
| to time and adjusting intensity and cooldown settings.
| Sometimes even turning it off, so you are not getting used to
| the screen.
| hshshshshsh wrote:
| It will not last much. The brain will figure out the
| reconsideration is wasted mental processing and just proceed to
| open phone by clicking tool.
| Unearned5161 wrote:
| love the app, I think it works much better than a simple
| background with a question on it, and not only because I like to
| have pretty pictures there instead
|
| an idea: it would be neat to have extra functionality with
| specific apps, with regular interruptions to ask if you're still
| on track or what have you. maybe not even a button press, just
| like a 5 second breather with a message on the screen and then it
| goes away. sort of like the notifications you currently have in
| place but for the whole screen. users could modify the message
| for each app...
|
| look forward to seeing further development!
| jarko27 wrote:
| More advanced reminders are the most frequent feature request
| so far. As a very trivial way to implement it, I'm thinking
| about showing the original screen periodically instead of the
| notification.
|
| But the thing you suggest with modifying the message for each
| app sounds interesting. Are you thinking about something like
| "Have you found what you searched? Or you are just scrolling"
| on Reddit?
|
| In any case, it's an item on the roadmap already
| Timwi wrote:
| Congrats on a useful and popular app! It sounds like something
| that could really help a lot of people.
|
| Now, I really don't want to come across as smug or anything, but
| I'm not one of the people this would help. I already use my phone
| in a consciously controlled manner and I don't do things like
| endless doomscrolling. Despite, it's clear from the evidence that
| a lot of people do and would benefit from this app. So I'm really
| curious... what is that like? What goes through your head when
| you grab the phone, see the app, and then decide to put the phone
| back down? If you realize at that point that you don't actually
| want to use the phone right now, why did you grab it in the first
| place? I'm not insinuating anything, I'm genuinely just curious.
| Schinken_ wrote:
| I am also not a doomscroller but a frequent "let's check if
| something new is happening" leads me to randomly picking up my
| phone regularly. It's almost automatic by now. Middle of work?
| "Muscle memory" sort of grabs phone, unlocks it, opens emails,
| messengers. Nothing new? Just close.
|
| TL:DR;: For me (not a doomscroller) it's sort of automatic to
| check my mails and messages. Not thinking much while grabbing
| the phone
| rmholt wrote:
| I don't think about it at all, it's almost automatic. Like
| locking the door when you leave your house.
|
| I have a free moment, I enter a bus, I sit down at a table,
| boom phone.
|
| I may be an usual case as I believe it to be caused by general
| anxiety and wanting to avoid the world.
| jarko27 wrote:
| In my case it depends on the nudge I'm currently set up.
|
| If that's about using the phone less, like during focus time I
| pick it up habitually to procrastinate the screen can say "Just
| put it down and check it at the scheduled time". When I see the
| text I'm kind of dragged out of the habit loop and just putting
| it down or press the lock button. So it's a kind of replacement
| of one habit with another one. See an app screen? Lock the
| phone.
|
| If it is about a weekend or a vacation I put a text on the
| screen about being more relaxed and not having FOMO. Like 'If
| that's something important, you will know about it'. Here the
| mechanism is almost the same, I'm replacing the habit of
| checking stuff with something different like music or locking
| my phone back again.
| wruza wrote:
| Usually it's procrastination and anxiety escapism, and it's all
| automatic. To know what goes through your head you have to
| reflect a lot and wouldn't have the issue in the first place if
| you did that. Reflection is hard and its insights are very
| situational so I wouldn't expect anyone to fully answer it.
| retSava wrote:
| Great! Apps like these are sorely needed. My feedback would be,
| apart from what others are saying about sub vs one-time purchase,
| to look at what Leechblock firefox extension is doing.
|
| The key point is to make it harder (but not impossible) for me to
| use the phone. A "Do you need this?" is a great start, but since
| I can easily sneak by, I will soon do that. Even if I click "1
| minute" to get a reminder, that should not be a simple
| notification, but back to the large big screen covering things.
|
| What LB does is genius. You can enable a barrier so that if you
| reeeeeeally need to, you can get around, but it's annoying and
| time consuming, and thus the quick loop of "pick up phone and get
| stuck" is broken. The barrier in LB can be to type a (long)
| passphrase, or my favorite: a 64-char random string which cannot
| be copy-pasted. You need to manually look at 2-3 chars at a time
| and replicate the whole thing. Very effective.
|
| But again, also the snap back to reality thing. If I keep using
| it, throw up a big overlay with a good question "Is your
| attention well spent?" for example. Make me wait before I can
| continue.
| guitarlimeo wrote:
| I tried LeechBlock for a while and had that 64-char random
| string passphrase thing on. Turns out I became really quick at
| typing those 64 characters to get my dopamine fix.
| retSava wrote:
| Hahaha. Yeah. I started using a second browser...
| jasfi wrote:
| The same thing will happen with this app. The user will
| select any answer to just do what they wanted to do.
| artisanspam wrote:
| You can make it up to 128 characters. That's impressive that
| you are able to type a random string of nonsense so fast.
|
| My hack was to take a picture on my phone, have Apple's image
| recognition copy the string to my iCloud clipboard, and I'd
| paste it on my mac.
|
| It's too easy to defeat the purpose of these things if you're
| even slightly driven.
| darkwater wrote:
| May I ask you why you did install it in the first place, if
| you then hack your way around it?
|
| Maybe the goal was to motivate you to find a hack anyway :)
| artisanspam wrote:
| Because I am not always driven to type 128 random
| characters or even use my phone camera, so it does
| successfully stop me from procrastinating much of the
| time.
| kibwen wrote:
| _> It 's too easy to defeat the purpose of these things if
| you're even slightly driven._
|
| Things like the OP and LeechBlock are tools for people who
| have already mostly conquered their addiction, to help keep
| them from relapsing. On their own, they're not sufficient
| to turn an addict into a non-addict.
| jarko27 wrote:
| Advanced reminders are going to be a thing for the next big
| release. I agree that one problem is to pass the unlock, but
| staying on track with your intention is a different story. One
| periodical notification with static text can in theory fix
| that, but the chances are low in comparison to the full-screen
| pop-up. I intentionally focused on the unlock procedure first.
| For now, you can combine it with other apps like minimalistic
| launchers and apps that pop up after the app opens. But
| eventually, improving the reminder experience can make the
| solution more complete, I agree.
|
| About typing "captcha" or random characters. I think it's just
| a different type of nudge. Another can be a small mini-game to
| play like catching a moving object. I'm going to consider
| adding different types of nudges to the app. Thanks for the
| suggestion.
| youainti wrote:
| Just thinking about this, there might be room for a home
| launcher that helps manage attention this way. Probably more
| work than you are thinking of doing though.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| One thing to consider, maybe open the app up for interaction
| with Tasker (being able to send events and provide actions to
| execute) - this will allow people to implement advanced logic
| on their own. If you expose user answering or skipping the
| screen as event, and ability to bring the screen back up as
| action, users[0] would be able to easily add features like
| "bring up Intenty screen when user attempts to open specific
| app or apps during work hours", or "make skipping require
| solving an ordinary differential equation shown
| rot13-encoded, and write down the answer in Klingon", or
| whatnot. That could be a good testbed for ideas to later
| incorporate into the app itself.
|
| --
|
| [0] - Those that also use Tasker. I'd wager that for your
| target audience, the proportion of such users is much higher
| than in average case.
| space_oddity wrote:
| I think you've nailed some really key points about breaking the
| "quick loop" of mindless phone use
| mihaaly wrote:
| > The key point is to make it harder (but not impossible) for
| me to use the phone.
|
| All apps, and actually the phone manfacturers themselves make
| phones harder to use through user hostile patterns. Mandatory
| updates, re-logon, TOC confirmations, cookies, self promotions
| in the face, adverts, warnings, spray of notifications on
| marginal things, answering questions to important (or not)
| questions, selecting important (or not) huge amount of
| settings, suggestions (actually another self promotion mostly),
| update informations, etc. all make the phones as difficult to
| use as much those helps, or even more. For insane amount of
| money. Problem relocation machines they are.
| fny wrote:
| Might I recommend charging? You get X for free, and then you
| pay a fee that grows.
| mdaniel wrote:
| And the fee gets deposited into a high-yield savings account
| of your choice, so you're paying yourself (it reminds me of
| those sites that allow you to make a "bet" to your friends
| that you'll (stop smoking/exercise more/lose weight/whatever)
| and if you don't do it then you have to pay your friends
| paulcole wrote:
| > Apps like these are sorely needed
|
| Why exactly?
| retSava wrote:
| To help those that need a tool to stop them from themselves.
| Sometimes, the creature part of us gets a hold over oneself,
| for me especially when I'm tired. In those cases, however
| much I want to and know I should, it's just so hard to stop
| the impulse. And when that happens, apps and services such as
| Youtube/Tiktok/IG etc etc are honed in to take advantage and
| not let go. It's probably very closely related to addiction
| (substance/sex/gambling/etc) in how it works.
|
| If you have not experienced this, and don't see the need per
| the above, I'm happy for you.
| lrvick wrote:
| I just deleted an app a month until I was happy. My phone got so
| boring after a few months of this I started forgetting it when
| leaving home. Ended up using it so little on the go, wifi was
| enough and canceled my cell phone plan.
|
| Been four years since I had cell service or regularly carried any
| internet capable devices and I have never been happier.
|
| My anxiety has plummeted and my attention span and productivity
| have skyrocketed. I do not have a phone as a security blanket
| anymore and feel so much more confident in public.
|
| Smartphones are optional for most people, but if you are forced
| to carry one, keep it in airplane mode whenever possible and only
| use it when solving the specific problem that forces you to carry
| it that you lack any alternatives for.
|
| If you need mobile entertainment buy a paper book.
| laweijfmvo wrote:
| what do you do when you need a phone number?
| xethos wrote:
| Not OP, but I've been meaning to pick up a used business
| phone and connecting it to a VoIP number for a home phone
| stillasleep wrote:
| how do you listen to music then?
| palijer wrote:
| I still use an ipod classic. My music taste hasn't changed in
| 2 decades.
| seba_dos1 wrote:
| Listening to music isn't a networked activity.
| ben_w wrote:
| I'm genuinely amazed that this question exists, but then I
| grew up with radio, then CDs, then MP3 players.
| pc86 wrote:
| It is not physically possible to listen to music without
| paying $100/mo to Verizon or AT&T and $12/mo to Spotify.
| sodapopcan wrote:
| Haha, ya, this is along the lines of "You can't send HTML
| over HTTP without JSON."
| Zambyte wrote:
| I personally got bone conducting headphones with built in
| storage. It's a wearable mp3 player.
| blululu wrote:
| This is great advice. I deleted everything that has an infinite
| scroll of new stuff and set my phone on airplane mode where
| possible. Life is better. I frequently go about with no phone
| and I have better focus. Paradoxically I now enjoy my phone
| much more. It has a compass a camera and a bunch of cool
| utilities. It's easier to appreciate how nice maps or translate
| is when you need to jump for them.
| safety1st wrote:
| Can confirm that physically separating myself from my phone has
| had benefits for me. For the last two years it's usually either
| sitting in another room when I'm at home, or in my bag when I'm
| out, always on silent. Switched off an hour before bed. This is
| enough to eliminate the distraction for me.
|
| The main benefit is really just having more free time, focus
| and attention that you can channel into things you actually
| care about. So if anyone needs motivation to un-tether, think
| of it like this: being a phone user cuts your life roughly in
| half (in terms of the portion of time that's actually available
| to you to use).
|
| I could go even more extreme on the phone decoupling, for
| instance I still bring it with me if I'm going to a bar or
| something, but at the moment I'm more focused on whittling down
| social media usage on computers as well. It does feel like the
| endgame could be a better life through just abandoning most of
| the tech that was cooked up in the last 15 years.
| alanbernstein wrote:
| This is what I want to do, but as a husband, father, homeowner,
| etc, I find it is not in my best interest to be unreachable by
| phone.
|
| So I think about carrying a flip phone for my telephone, an
| e-reader for entertainment, and a smartphone in airplane mode
| for (mainly) maps, photos, music, notes. But then I'd be
| carrying three devices, which seems worse in its own way.
|
| Probably worth the change ultimately?
| myself248 wrote:
| It drives me NUTS that nobody makes a decent e-ink device
| with a GPS app.
|
| It seems like it'd be ideal for the backcountry use-case.
| Super long battery life because you could just wake up the
| GPS every few hours and get a new fix, reframe the map, then
| go back to sleep and use the latent image like a topo map.
| dleink wrote:
| I have a few use cases like this that would go towards
| replacing my phone. I'm on the lookout for a hackable/linux
| ereader.
| myself248 wrote:
| I thought the reMarkable was that, but they hardware-
| disabled the Bluetooth radio in the wifi/bt chipset, and
| that really wrecked most of my use-cases.
| ThatMedicIsASpy wrote:
| I would never read books today if it wasn't for e-ink. I can
| adjust the font or the line spacing and at the end of the line
| I will read the correct next line instead of a 20% chance I
| will start at the same line.
|
| I never had a big relationship to my phones simply because I
| can't stand typing on them. My plan (prepaid) is 1EUR/month for
| 1GB and 9cents per min/SMS.
| dleink wrote:
| I have a similar problem but my miss rate is closer to 5% so
| I empathize, I'm so glad you've found a good solution. truly
| nothing more inspiring in tech.
|
| I think there's a lot of gains to be made in tailoring UX/UI
| to the individual. Not just for individuals (this person
| reading more books) but for societal advancement. (this
| person reading more books, generalized)
| pc86 wrote:
| Is this the new "we don't have a TV in this house?"
| danpad wrote:
| I think so. Also half of the people don't have children
| and/or have a lot of free time. I am not even talking about
| responding to emails/family chat.
|
| How do they do 2-factor auth to Heroku/Gitlab/whatever? Maps
| in a foreign country where you can't even read the letters?
| On way to job interview when the interviewer has an emergency
| and needs to postpone? Good friend is in the town and calls
| you to hang out? Translation when a tourist comes to ask
| where something is?
| ben_w wrote:
| I get the general point, especially as IRL payment options
| are also increasingly assuming you have a smartphone,
| however maps and translation can also be done offline.
| danpad wrote:
| Hah, I hadn't even thought of banking/payments on the go.
| And true regarding the offline maps - a few sister
| comments mentioned leaving phone at home though.
| neom wrote:
| My mum. And very grateful she did it, even if it was brutal
| at the time.
| zwnow wrote:
| A phone often is necessary if you run into issues while being
| outside. Let's not ignore the importance of being able to call
| for help if necessary. Can't blame the phone for yourself not
| being able to detach properly.
| ajithshan001 wrote:
| but why?
| sunsetonsaturn wrote:
| I'd like to give it a try, but it is not compatible with my
| device. Is there a reason for it not to work on a Galaxy Note8?
| jarko27 wrote:
| Likely it's an Android version. Minimum Android version is
| Android 11
| oytis wrote:
| Great idea, I'm a bit worried about security. To have control
| over phone unlocking the app has to be pretty privileged, right?
| cloudking wrote:
| It's 100% local only. No server side component, analytics or
| ads.
| aesh2Xa1 wrote:
| It does not list any special privilege except drawing over
| other apps. I think the author could justify the network
| permission or they could remove it, but I personally don't
| consider it a big problem as-is anyway.
|
| https://developer.android.com/training/permissions/requestin...
|
| The Play Store lists these permissions:
|
| * view network connections * full network access * run at
| startup * draw over other apps * prevent device from sleeping
|
| The only one that gives me pause is "draw over" because it
| would allow the app to capture screen content, and that is only
| concerning because of "full network access" enabling it to send
| data. I'm not sure why this app would require _both_ of these
| permissions.
|
| https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/com.actureu...
| oytis wrote:
| > does not list any special privilege except drawing over
| other apps
|
| This one is huge though? You can e.g. imitate other apps'
| login forms and collect passwords.
| jarko27 wrote:
| The network is used for checking in-app purchase status,
| requests to Google Play only
| toisanji wrote:
| I wish I could do this on an iphone.
| alickz wrote:
| You have a typo in your "To be more persent" screenshot
|
| Cool idea though
| jarko27 wrote:
| Wow. Thanks for reporting. Fixing it.
| aodj wrote:
| Haha, came here to report the same
| neondude wrote:
| love the idea, just installed it, but the premium cost is too
| much for what it offers. Monthly doesn't make sense to me,
| especially since you don't have any running costs.
| jarko27 wrote:
| After receiving so many comments about the "premium" version
| I'm going to consider adding a one-time purchase as an option.
|
| Thanks for sharing.
| qweiopqweiop wrote:
| I love the premise behind this app, but the "draw over screen"
| permission is pretty dangerous. For example, stealing passwords
| by intercepting taps on the keyboard. How can we trust you won't
| be doing this?
| farceSpherule wrote:
| People have too much damn time on their hands.
|
| Do yourselves a favor and delete all social media.
| keybored wrote:
| But that would give me even more time (on my hands).
| XorNot wrote:
| Don't know why this is being downvoted. Everyone who complains
| about their phone as a distraction, on inquiry also has some
| comment like "I get sent too many notifications by apps!"
|
| Which is baffling to me, because apps which send even 1
| notification I don't like get uninstalled unless they're some
| non-optional thing, in which case they get muted.
|
| The only notifications I get on my phone is from Home Assistant
| telling me when my dryer has finished or warning me if the
| fridge door temperature is too high (I cannot recommend this
| enough - it usually means you should clean off the heat
| exchanger).
| bcoughlan wrote:
| My approach for iPhone:
|
| - Set time limits on apps. - Block App Store. - Set a Screen Time
| pin, then forget it.
|
| Downside: if you need to install a new app, you need to do a
| iTunes backup, factory reset and restore the backup,. Also apps
| won't continue to update with this approach.
|
| Worth it though. I don't miss wasting 10-20 hours a week on brain
| rot apps.
| throwaway519 wrote:
| Why have the brain rot apps installed at all?
| jarko27 wrote:
| I think it's not the apps are brain rot.
|
| It's the content available on platforms and the way how you
| navigate inside the app. You can watch various content on
| YouTube for instance.
| bcoughlan wrote:
| Can't uninstall the browser, and occasionally it's needed for
| legit reasons. I quite literally can't resist drifting
| towards mindless scrolling apps, though I know that's hard to
| fathom for some people.
| space_oddity wrote:
| Your method skips the subtlety and goes straight to a hard
| reset (literally)
| throwaway106382 wrote:
| My iphone battery died and instead of getting the latest and
| greatest I got a Punkt phone. Best decision I ever made, I got my
| life back.
| jarko27 wrote:
| Interesting. How are you dealing with cases when you need a
| navigation like Waze or Google Maps? Navigation apps are my
| main obstacles for trying a "dumbphone".
| throwaway106382 wrote:
| My city is easy to navigate (and I've lived here my entire
| life) so I don't really need real-time map navigation when
| I'm walking the streets. I have a dedicated GPS unit in my
| car.
| jarko27 wrote:
| That sounds nice. In my case, I rely heavily on many
| "essential" apps that are available on smartphones. Maybe
| the approach of having another Kale phone and a "Junk"
| phone is a thing
| (https://x.com/george__mack/status/1681378342627311640).
| And Punkt will be a great candidate for Kale phone.
| your_drunk_dad wrote:
| Tried that but came back quickly simply due to good camera and
| ability to do a quick search/navigate that is a godsend
| sometimes. Also nobody uses SMS or Signal where I live.
| camtarn wrote:
| Installed to try it out.
|
| I really like the art :)
|
| When you're editing a prompt, the back button takes you back to
| the nudge screen instead of the prompts popup, which feels like a
| bug.
| jarko27 wrote:
| Thanks for the try.
|
| > When you're editing a prompt, the back button takes you back
| to the nudge screen instead of the prompts popup, which feels
| like a bug.
|
| Yeah, it's on the list of things to fix. Now to exit the prompt
| popup properly you have to click either on cross or out of the
| popup area.
| flaviomartins wrote:
| I use this on iOS https://one-sec.app
| rattray wrote:
| Looks interesting. Any tips for using it effectively? What's it
| been most helpful with?
| epanchin wrote:
| Surprisingly I find it most useful on my email app.
|
| I pick up my phone to check email a lot, then go onto other
| useless apps. By catching email usage, I also stop myself
| going on the rest.
| wonger_ wrote:
| I used it on Android for a bit. I liked how the screen
| animation naturally made me take a deep breath, and I liked
| seeing how many times I've opened an app so far in the day.
| Unfortunately the free tier is quite limited - you can only
| enable it for one app, and you can't customize the duration of
| the blocking animation.
| al_borland wrote:
| I usually just delete the app if it's dominating my time on the
| phone or drawing me to it.
| cnity wrote:
| This is the way. Uninstalling instagram, facebook, youtube,
| reddit, and tiktok genuinely worked for me. Otherwise it's
| like trying to diet when your pantry is fully stocked with
| every possible ultra-satisfying snack food under the sun.
| hackernewds wrote:
| I deleted the apps and then also got the mobile web/ native
| apps versions. it also seems the algorithm is very
| hamstrung given that the browser versions cannot access all
| of those phone permissions. now it makes it think what all
| data are your apps even collecting?
| edm0nd wrote:
| I went another route. I bought a second phone.
|
| I have my regular main phone that I use M-F for work and
| personal.
|
| then I bought a second phone and installed GrapheneOS on it.
| I use this phone when I go out or doing anything on the
| weekends. I only have a few contacts on it and only 2 apps
| that I use that are my banking app and Signal. Keeps all the
| distractions away from me.
|
| I bought a used unlocked Pixel 7 Pro off eBay for $250 so it
| wasnt the cheapest route but sure makes it really easy.
| princevegeta89 wrote:
| Apps like this are a godsend. Putting away all the social media
| aside (where 95% of the content is fake/useless anyway), in
| reality there should really be no use for mobile phones besides
| using it for calls/music and some important things when you
| can't get to your laptop/desktop.
|
| I've realized recently that it takes at least 3 times more work
| and time to do things on a smartphone than to do the same
| things on a laptop. This holds true for messaging apps where we
| are so limited by the typing speed and error-prone nature of
| composing messages on a smartphone, and the lack of good
| multitasking options like on a desktop interface. I have more
| time in my life now, more than ever, after I started to avoid
| using my phone for things wherever I can.
| beala wrote:
| This app interrupts usage of the target app by setting up an
| automation (in the native Shortcuts app) that triggers when the
| target app is launched.[1] This means you can skip the app
| entirely and try to set up your own poor man's version. I
| fiddled around a bit and it's possible to set up an automation
| that automatically exits back to the home screen after some
| pause, or displays a notification to try to nudge you out of
| the app. This is not as good as the app but it is free. Also,
| without the Safari extension, I don't think websites can be
| blocked.
|
| My own strategy is to simply use pi-hole to block time-wasting
| websites entirely. It's kind of a sledgehammer, but it works
| for me.
|
| 1: https://tutorials.one-sec.app/setup-ios
| jbobrow wrote:
| Same. Installed for ~ 1 year, deleted after my muscle memory
| adapted. It was an inconvenience for some of the apps that I
| would actually need access to some of the time, but then again,
| it is a less obvious inconvenience when excessive amounts of
| time were spent in apps I showed up to do one thing in... All
| that to say. I think these tools are great, and ideally they
| assist us in shaping our behaviors to match our intent. A
| little more system 2 than system 1 thinking.
| hackernewds wrote:
| I dislike the amount of access to your entire OSN screen you
| have to give to these apps. is there an offline or open source
| or OS based solution?
| wayoverthecloud wrote:
| Genuine question, I also like to use my smartphone less, but what
| about when you are in the lavatory? I have a habit of using my
| smartphone else I cannot go. Has anyone been able to solve that?
| prettyStandard wrote:
| Do as I say, not as I do....
|
| Don't take it? It's bad to dit on the toilet longer than 10
| minutes.
| catlikesshrimp wrote:
| https://archive.ph/Lfh1u (CNN Health)
|
| >>"Don't sit on the toilet for more than 10 minutes, doctors
| warn"
|
| >> Leave your devices behind when you head to the bathroom
| (...) too much time spent on the toilet can cause possible
| health problems...
| itishappy wrote:
| I'd challenge that. I suspect you can go fine (or should go to
| a doctor) and just don't like boredom. You're not alone!
| Provided it's not a medical issue, it's a mental one, and the
| answer is practice. Leave your smartphone outside, you can sit
| idle for 3-5m. If you're spending much more time than that,
| it's a medical issue.
| racl101 wrote:
| Has anyone built the app from Google: The Movie yet? Er. I mean
| The Internship?
| diimdeep wrote:
| This will turn into gamified form filling habit for no profit,
| what is the point ?
|
| If you mechanically open phone at least do something useful in it
|
| read a quote https://github.com/jameshnsears/QuoteUnquote
|
| track a habit https://github.com/iSoron/uhabits
|
| learn vim
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=develop.exampl...
|
| c++ quirks https://github.com/vsklamm/CppQuiz
|
| or else
| namukang wrote:
| For anyone looking for something similar for their desktop
| browser, try out Intention: https://getintention.com
|
| Show HN post from 2020:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22936742
| jarko27 wrote:
| The fun fact. I've been using that extension while I was making
| Intenty back in 2020. Great extension, I'm glad to see it up
| and running till now!
| namukang wrote:
| Aw yay, glad it was beneficial in helping you bringing
| Intenty to life!
| tasn wrote:
| Love it! Reminds me of an app my brother and I built 10 years ago
| (time flies!). It's no longer on Google Play because of the
| maintenance burden of keeping it there, but here's a page with
| some screenshots: https://apkpure.com/spinach-motivation-lock-
| screen/com.tengu...
|
| The idea was that if you're unlocking your screen, you should at
| least: (1) reinforce a mantra, or (2) force yourself to
| acknowledge you shouldn't be unlocking the phone.
|
| Happy to share notes if you think that would be helpful.
| mdaniel wrote:
| Up to you, but if the app has (or could have) an OSI license,
| you could submit a PR to f-droid and the app could live on.
| They don't care if you ask for donations, so it could even
| resurrect a bit of revenue
| tasn wrote:
| Yeah, I have a few apps on f-droid, maybe worth doing!
| jarko27 wrote:
| Wow. It's so cool to see such a project.
|
| I even remember in 2019 finding an app that was using a popup
| after unlock to learn words of a foreign language,
| unfortunately, it closed and I cannot recall the name.
|
| I would be happy to see the notes.
| tasn wrote:
| I think it could potentially be us too, though not sure. It
| was a very flexible product and we had a variety of use-
| cases. :)
|
| We also had a lock screen app that you needed to play a tune
| on an instrument in order to unlock the screen. This too died
| because of Google maintenance burden (it had 500k downloads
| IIRC). Here's what I could find about that one:
| https://music-lock.en.softonic.com/android
| jarko27 wrote:
| That app I mentioned also had iOS version as well. I don't
| know how they made it, because AFAIK any customisation to
| unlock/lock process weren't allowed on iOS from the very
| beginning.
|
| But nevertheless. It's a bit disappointing that major
| operating systems are becoming more closed for developers
| to create such beautiful apps
| yieldcrv wrote:
| I want a screentime app where it requires your friends to approve
| an override
|
| Like the ones you share location with
|
| Keep you accountable more than reflexively remembering the
| override pattern
|
| Has to be at the OS level so that everyone already has it
| MortyWaves wrote:
| Needs an option for "my employer turned on shitty Microsoft ten-
| billion-factor auth settings".
|
| To login to my work Microsoft account requires a passcode and
| then three face scans.
| poincaredisk wrote:
| But that's ok your work phone right? At least I hope you didn't
| agree to have it installed on your private phone. For work
| phone I guess a good strategy is to avoid installing anything
| non-work related, so the temptation to use it for anything is
| low.
| cglong wrote:
| Not GP, but I'm okay installing that stuff on my personal
| phone because it's isolated via Android Work Profile.
| autoexec wrote:
| How is that keeping Microsoft from accessing your GPS,
| sensor data, wifi, camera/microphone etc? Sure, they can't
| get at SMS or your other apps and your work won't have
| access to your entire device but it means MS can still
| access your location (using GPS and nearby bluetooth/wifi),
| record audio/video, read/control sensors (accelerometer,
| proximity, gravity, temperature, pressure, magnetic field
| etc), have full network access, etc and can record and
| collect that data whenever they feel like it for the most
| part.
| cglong wrote:
| That's true with a separate work phone too right? And
| once I turn off the AWP for the day, all of that stops.
| autoexec wrote:
| A work phone I could leave in a lead lined box until I
| needed to log into the company network. My personal
| device is often carried with me and in use at other
| times. If your IT people let you pause your work profile
| indefinitely that could help protect you though.
| zamadatix wrote:
| The IT people don't get to choose how long you pause your
| work profile, you do. If they want control over profile
| access then they need to manage the full device, not just
| have you run an app in a profile on it.
|
| If you plan on carrying a lead lined box with you
| everywhere you plan on authenticating for work you can do
| the same with your personal phone before you switch the
| work profile on.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| There's different kinds of intune enrollment. Generally
| if it's not a company phone, they can only see your IMEI,
| last 4 of your phone number, OS version etc. They'll be
| able to isolate and control the work apps but nothing
| else because it's in a separate profile.
| johnisgood wrote:
| You may want to try "Shelter"
| (https://f-droid.org/packages/net.typeblog.shelter/).
| encom wrote:
| No way I'm doing anything work related on any of my
| personal devices. I have a separate work phone. I turn it
| off at the end of the work day, and leave it at work.
|
| I used to answer emails from bosses and managers while at
| home (at a previous employer), but it gets out of hand
| quickly and then they _expect_ you to do it. Never again.
| Set boundaries immediately. At 15:00 I 'm gone.
| cglong wrote:
| Leaving it at work goes one step further than my flow. I
| have AWP configured to automatically turn off at the end
| of the workday, so I become unavailable after that.
| There's always the possibility I can turn it back on
| after hours, but that extra step works well enough as a
| deterrent for me :)
| throwawayk7h wrote:
| You can usually do OTP from your pc directly, just install an
| OTP application on your pc like keepassxc
| deskr wrote:
| Security dept. would like to have a word.
| compootr wrote:
| security theater dept. has entered the chat
| bongodongobob wrote:
| No. It completely defeats the purpose of MFA.
| MortyWaves wrote:
| Oh well
| CryptoBanker wrote:
| Doesn't work if your work uses SSO like Okta
| zamadatix wrote:
| If it's plain OTP this works fine. Plenty of corporate
| solutions like Microsoft's have moved on to requiring
| additional extensions or modifications which only work in
| their app.
| autoexec wrote:
| I had an employer want that too, but we protested. Basically
| making that the case that they'd need to provide us with phones
| so that we don't have to install invasive apps on our personal
| devices. We ended up getting tiny hardware tokens that go on a
| key ring and couldn't access GPS, cameras, microphones, sensor
| data, network, etc even if it wanted to.
| alexvitkov wrote:
| This has always boggled my mind - If you don't trust me to pick
| a decent password and maintain my own machine, why in God's
| name would you trust me to write code or deploy/maintain
| company infrastructure?
| tecleandor wrote:
| Nah, it's not lack of trust, it's just compliance and
| plausible deniability.
| ryanmcbride wrote:
| They _don't_ trust you to do that stuff. Not unilaterally at
| least. In a healthy system you generally aren't able to
| change anything without sign off from multiple other people.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Also the argument they make is, they don't trust every
| single component of your machine, and want to mitigate the
| damage caused by an attacker or malware breaking in and
| _impersonating you_.
| alexvitkov wrote:
| If I have a group of N people who I individually don't
| trust not to use mike1234 as a password, I wouldn't trust
| them as a collective either - at least until N gets
| impractically large.
| dongkyun wrote:
| 1. Even if they trust you, they might not be willing to
| extend that trust to non-technical staff (or even non-infra
| staff) and having a global policy is the easiest. 2. Even if
| they trust you, your employer's customers definitely don't,
| and a lot of big contracts will have security exhibits that
| explicitly require MFA if you're handling their data.
| zamadatix wrote:
| MFA isn't solely about "the user had poor security posture
| and can't be trusted". It's about what happens even if the
| user's info is leaked by a information breach of a service.
| I.e. "having the login info for the service isn't enough, the
| user must be notified and approve of the login via a separate
| factor".
|
| That's why MFA is referred to as defense-in-depth rather than
| being a better password.
| scruple wrote:
| First thing I thought of, too. Why do I need to unlock my
| phone? Because I need yet another MFA code for yet another
| mundane part of my job.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| I installed this in the morning to give it a test drive, and
| after several hours, I learned the following: it's great when I
| reach for the phone as a distraction; it's a big annoyance
| otherwise.
|
| E.g. each time I want to change the currently playing song, what
| was muscle memory gets scrambled by the interruption. Or, when
| I'm taking a lot of photos (like on my daughter's kindergarten
| event today), I tend to keep the screen off in between, and rely
| on being able to turn it on and shoot a photo in less than two
| seconds, total. Guess how that got screwed up by this app.
|
| The app itself is great, and I'm still a believer in the concept
| of managing executive function issues by throwing obstacles in
| front of bad habits and known focus black holes. However, this
| experience made me discover the _third_ class of phone activity,
| next to "distraction" and "work" - quick, intermittent, on-the-
| fly use, the kind you ideally don't think much about. This class
| does _not_ distract you... unless someone adds friction to it.
|
| I just saw the app has "every N unlocks" option, I'll try it out
| and see if this helps with the "third class".
| echelon wrote:
| This is where an OS-based agent would help. If it semantically
| understood the tasks we're trying to accomplish, it could
| filter the cases we care about.
|
| I'm even more excited about browser or OS agents being able to
| unilaterally scrub the web of all advertisements, spam,
| polarized toxicity, etc. Forget adblock - I can effectively
| block all the bad things Google, Meta, Twitter, etc. do and
| their army of PMs won't be able to stop me.
|
| This tech is going to rip the advertiser and algorithmic
| madness out of the internet and make it serve me and only me.
| hackernewds wrote:
| neither Apple or Google will ever develop this given that
| their core Business depends on users using their phones often
| Tistron wrote:
| In what way does apple depend on users using their phones
| often? I am also hoping somebody would develop helpful
| agents like gp suggests
| bornfreddy wrote:
| Maybe the app should kick in only if you start using one of the
| "bad" apps, like a browser or a social network app? Being in
| the way when I want to snap a quick photo doesn't sound nice.
| koevet wrote:
| For this use case, I use "IChooseTo" https://play.google.com/
| store/apps/details?id=com.appsofuse....
| throwawayk7h wrote:
| This looks like it's based on a timer, and prevents you
| from using the app if you use it for, say, too long. Is
| that right? I have legitimate longform uses of my browser
| app as well as bad ones.
| jkukul wrote:
| I use iOS's built in Screen Time settings. For "bad" apps
| (Reddit, TikTok, etc) and "bad" websites ("hackernews", etc)
| I set a daily time limit of, let's say, 15 minutes.
|
| I configure a random password for Screen Time so that it's a
| real hassle to circumvent the daily limit when I get over it.
| hackernewds wrote:
| this is 100% what I want, and I'd gladly pay $10/month for
| this
| gen220 wrote:
| What I did (helped me eventually delete them) was offload the
| "bad" apps on my phone so, if I wanted to access them, I'd
| have to wait for them to re-download. This is an iOS feature
| where the pointer to the app and the local data remains, but
| the app bundle itself is deleted. I think it's primary use
| case is to manage scarce disk space.
|
| It forced me to reckon with the fact that tapping on these
| apps is often a system 1 instinct. The forced delay to
| reinstall the app is an escape hatch into system 2 thinking,
| a mode in which I normally realize I don't even want to use
| the app, I'm just bored. And then I'd pick up a book or use
| my newspaper-reader-app (i.e. a more intent/system 2-driven
| choice).
|
| Off-loading apps or even just removing them from the home
| screen is really helpful. It gives your system 2 brain an
| opportunity to mutate your environment to make system 1
| processes lead to more fruitful outcomes.
|
| For the same reason, I clear my browser history every month
| or so and avoid bookmarking certain sites like hn or reddit.
| jorisboris wrote:
| I would love to remove the email app for iPhone for that
| reason but it's a standard app for iPhone
|
| Maybe I should just delete my accounts and access them
| through browser instead
| nottorp wrote:
| Do apps have permission to interfere with other apps on
| Android?
| iandanforth wrote:
| Re: The photos case: I have the camera app bound to a double
| click of my power button. I find it to be incredibly useful to
| have a way to immediately open my camera and Intenty doesn't
| override that flow.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Hah, I used to do that too, however I changed it so double-
| press of the side button _toggles the flashlight instead_. I
| find this to have much better ROI.
|
| For camera, turning the screen off while camera app is open
| means I can just press the power button and slide up, and I'm
| back in camera app (unless Intenty interferes).
|
| For flashlight, having a quick key (that works even when the
| phone is locked) is a _qualitative_ change - I use the phone
| flashlight much more often, now that I can casually turn it
| on and off with zero effort, like a traditional torch. There
| are actually two major use cases I have for that daily:
|
| - In autumn/winter, by the time I pick my kids up from the
| kindergarten, it's already dark. There's a stretch of
| pavement that's pitch dark, so I just casually light it up as
| we walk over it.
|
| (That was the driver behind me changing the button mapping
| from camera to flashlight; having done that, I now
| instinctively turn the flashlight on and off as I walk,
| lighting up dark spots.)
|
| - Have you ever tried to read something from a phone while
| walking at night? It's a big problem - the screen pretty much
| blinds you, unless you turn the brightness down to minimum.
| You can't read and monitor ground under your feet at the same
| time. _However_ , if you also turn on the flashlight, the
| brightness of the screen and the light reflecting off the
| ground are similar, so reading becomes comfortable _and_ you
| regain awareness of terrain.
|
| I figured out that trick long ago, first with Kindle
| (Paperwhite) - I'd put my phone against the back of the
| Kindle, turn the backlight on the reader, and the flashlight
| on the phone. But it works even better for reading from the
| phone itself.
| andai wrote:
| This is solved by having dedicated devices for camera and music
| player! (At least for these two examples, which are also my top
| non-distraction / non-social phone usage.)
|
| I don't have those yet but I wish I did! I was just thinking
| back to how cool the iPod was back in the day. (The one before
| touchscreens!)
|
| (I was also thinking how cool it would be if it had the iPod's
| UI but Rockbox's (and every other mp3 player in human history)
| support for just putting folders full of files on it... but I
| guess I'll keep dreaming!)
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| That's fair. I miss MP3 players and even feature phones - all
| of them could be operated without looking at them!
|
| Alas, ever since Apple showed it's Courage(tm) by ditching
| the audio jack, Bluetooth headphones became ubiquitous
| (doubly so thanks to AirPods and alternatives). They're nice
| and all, but they also have mikes, so you want to use them
| for calling and voice messaging too, and then you can also
| put notifications on them, ... with Bluetooth device
| switching being what it is, this complements and reinforces
| smartphone's role as single device for everything.
|
| EDIT: I wonder if it's possible to have some kind of mixer
| wearable that would accept wireless audio streams (both in
| "music" and "headset" modes) from multiple devices, mix them
| together, and route to a single set of wireless headphones.
| That would solve a _lot_ of the issues I have with wireless
| audio in practice.
| ar_lan wrote:
| That is a solution, but not an ideal one for many (most?).
| One of the great innovations of the smartphone is that I have
| all 3 devices in one small form factor, so I don't need to
| carry/travel with the bulk of many.
| cardanome wrote:
| I actually went full old-school and got an portable cd-
| player.
|
| This has the side effect of me listening to music more
| intentionally and not wasting time selecting tracks and
| skipping around. Listening to a full album is great,
| something I rarely did before. And physically owning music
| feels great.
|
| Sure, it is less practical for traveling but it mostly sits
| on my desk to help me get through work. And CD's having a
| fixed run length helps me to take breaks so my tinnitus does
| not get worse.
| ar_lan wrote:
| This sounds like a good case for an allowlist for certain
| applications - Camera, Spotify, Notes, etc.
| jarko27 wrote:
| Thanks for giving it a test drive!
|
| I'm thinking also about adding an option to have like 50%
| chance of a popup or a 75% chance, so it's less predictable. I
| first made it as every 2nd, 3d and so on, but maybe adding a
| randomness to it will be better? WDYT?
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| For my use case, randomness would make it even worse. For
| muscle memory, consistency is key. I don't know what the
| solution is - ideally, the app would not interrupt such quick
| actions like unlocking to take a photo or switch the song,
| but in practice, it can't exactly _guess_ what I 'm going to
| do before I do it. I was thinking about maybe "unlock and
| don't show the popup for the next 5 minutes", but then I
| already know that one of these days, I'll activate it for
| "one quick check of Instagram" (or HN), defeating the purpose
| of the application.
|
| Sorry I can't be more helpful. I've been mulling this problem
| (selective blocking in dual-purpose apps/sites) in my mind
| for a long time now, but I haven't found any solution so far.
| j1elo wrote:
| Here's maybe a solution: don't trigger the app if the phone
| is unlocked via a hardware shortcut.
|
| At least in my last 2 phones, I got them configured such
| that a double press on the power button wakes the camera
| app immediately (great for quick photos), while the rest of
| the system is still locked (need the unlock pin when trying
| to navigate away from the camera app)
|
| So in that situation the app could choose not to interrupt.
| bfdm wrote:
| +1 I rely on this hardware shortcut heavily when trying
| to catch photos of the kids in fleeting moments.
|
| Edit: just tested this and the nudge does not appear to
| interrupt the camera quick access
| j1elo wrote:
| Fastest feature request implementation ever! :-)
| pacoverdi wrote:
| On my phone (Pixel 5) I don't need to unlock to take a
| picture (double click on power button) or switch to the
| next song (slide menu down, click Next).
|
| Not sure if it helps. Have not tried the app yet.
|
| Edit: sorry, didn't see the almost identical answer
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| As mentioned elsewhere, I have double-click on power
| button bound to _toggle the flashlight_ , as I find it
| _way_ more useful day to day, plus quick launch of camera
| becomes redundant after you launch the app.
|
| As for songs, I specifically mentioned _picking a next
| song_. As in, picking from a list, possibly navigating or
| doing a search first. Next /prev is both trivial and
| something I rarely use anyway.
| jarko27 wrote:
| You also can try setting nudge Cooldown. It will prevent
| nudge from popping up during Cooldown period. For now it's
| 3 minutes max, but I can easily add more options in next
| release.
| noapologies wrote:
| How about a pause mode?
|
| I use Android's Bedtime mode a lot, and it has a helpful
| feature that let's you quickly "Pause for 30 minutes" or
| "Turn off for now" from a notification [1].
|
| I don't think the app needs notifications as such, but it
| could have quick access to a pause button.
|
| [1] https://img.gadgethacks.com/img/original/21/75/6372310031
| 848...
| sadeshmukh wrote:
| I actually saw that exact feature on the app in a
| notification, with "pause for 30 minutes" and "turn off for
| now".
| noapologies wrote:
| Ah perhaps the app is using bedtime mode for its
| functionality? Didn't get a chance to try it myself yet,
| but great that pausing is already implemented.
| sn9 wrote:
| Just add a whitelist for apps that aren't for distraction so
| users can decide what they need.
|
| Maybe make suggestions based on screentime if possible.
| wheels wrote:
| I wonder if being location based would be helpful? I'm not
| actually a heavy phone user, but I would guess that people
| are mainly using it as a distraction when they're at home or
| work, and less likely if they're out and about? (Though
| honestly, for me, the main thing I use my phone for at home /
| work is two-factor-authentication, and there it'd probably be
| annoying.)
| seb1204 wrote:
| Whitelist for camera and phone calls?
| rapind wrote:
| Can you track how long since the last unlock? I think adding
| a TTL of say 5 minutes to not be asked again after answering
| would probably eliminate the majority of annoyances.
| jarko27 wrote:
| Yes. App already has a setting call Cooldown. It allows to
| have time after phone lock during which the app won't pop-
| up again. Not sure if that's what you are suggesting, and
| it's max time right now is 3 minutes.
| rapind wrote:
| Yup that's what I meant. Great! I would set the default
| to 5 minutes and allow up to maybe 30m.
| Libcat99 wrote:
| So responding to you and the parent post both...
|
| I have my own thought and also one in response to the "taking
| a photo" type tasks.
|
| I'd like a drop down of some tasks I predefined, so I can
| answer with one of those.
|
| Things like "answering a message" that I can choose instead
| of entering one. There is occasionally one message with 3
| choices, I think, about how this aligns with my goals. So
| something like that but user defined.
|
| Second thing, maybe a couple of those options could be tied
| to app launch so clicking it takes you to the common task.
| For example, "Taking a photo" could drop me right back into
| the camera app.
|
| Great app, I've been using it all day and just doing so is
| insightful. And glad this comment chain led me to the
| "cooldown" function.
| lubujackson wrote:
| Better solution: add in increasing delay before opening a time
| waster, increasing 1 second between each open over the course
| of the day. Openning Reddit for the 15th time today? 15 second
| wait (or longer).
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| I already have an app that does this on Android (One Sec is the
| app) and it only inserts a "mindfulness break" for specific
| apps (e.g. Chrome and social media), and I came to the same
| conclusion you did.
|
| It's grind when I just mindlessly tap to open the browser to
| search for something random. Lots of times, though, the browser
| opens when I want to do something quickly, e.g. I get an email
| and I need to open something in the browser, and it becomes a
| big annoyance. After a while I just started subconsciously
| ignoring it, which I think defeats the purpose.
|
| It's a tough problem to solve - I want it to prevent me from
| doing "mindless scrolling", but not when I have an actual task
| to accomplish.
| iterateoften wrote:
| Having work and leisure mixed on a device or service is a
| pain.
|
| I had tried to block Reddit but then I needed it when
| researching some programming stuff. Most conversations happen
| on Reddit these days so if you need to look something up for
| work to see what others are doing, chances are Google will
| give you Reddit links first especially if what you are
| searching for is relatively recent.
|
| What I found is that I developed a muscle memory for just
| ignoring the block and overriding it.
|
| Instead of allowing myself an override that so I could
| dismiss the block I had to just hard block all of Reddit by
| setting an PIN I immediately forgot and if I really need
| something I'll use ChatGPT to summarize.
| esperent wrote:
| > I had tried to block Reddit but then I needed it when
| researching some programming stuff
|
| I used to have this problem. But now I just use Claude to
| research any coding or similar stuff that I would have used
| reddit for. The quality is at least as good as reddit
| discussions. Now I've totally blocked reddit using NextDNS
| on my phone and laptop, and configured Kagi to not return
| any reddit search results.
| guptat59 wrote:
| Screenzen (android) does exactly this and I navigated through
| all the use cases you mentioned successfully.
| j45 wrote:
| Separate devices for work and personal might help manage these
| use cases.
|
| Tools that help with managing digital health and screen use can
| help you slow down access to any problematic apps a bit more
| than others.
| nox101 wrote:
| it's a hard problem. I often open the phone to do something
| legit but then get distracted by a notificiation or unread
| count.
|
| maybe a better solution would be "why?" when you switch or
| launch apps. Then being able to select apps that don't cause
| the prompt like camera and bank apps
| w_for_wumbo wrote:
| This is my problem in a work context. I know I'm
| distractable, yet for security reasons I have to have a
| distraction device which I have to pick up and use for
| signing into certain applications.
| MiddleEndian wrote:
| >I installed this in the morning to give it a test drive, and
| after several hours, I learned the following: it's great when I
| reach for the phone as a distraction; it's a big annoyance
| otherwise.
|
| I have thought of a workaround. Instead of an app that asks
| "Why?", a sticker on your phone that asks "Why?" Or maybe just
| a question mark. I will order one for my phone.
| pdecker wrote:
| this is great, especially the design. but, as some of the
| comments have stated, it will prob get annoying.
|
| Instead, I think it would be better to incentivize people to use
| their phone/social apps less.
|
| Touch Grass. Earn Points.
| jarko27 wrote:
| Making it work in the long term is going to be a challenge. I
| agree.
|
| I'm planning to implement as much tooling as possible so you
| can deal with annoyances that appear over time. While
| incentives can be outside of the app. For instance, there is an
| initiative called OfflineDay.
| https://www.reddit.com/r/OfflineDay/
|
| And even now in-app, you can create a nudge for OfflineDay
| nosduhz wrote:
| On iOS, I've tried nearly everything, but here's what's lasted
| more than a few months.
|
| 1. A physical blocker like Brick (getbrick.app) and/or a Kitchen
| Timer Safe (KSafe).
|
| 2. One Sec app
|
| I'll occasionally leave my phone at home and use only an Apple
| Watch with LTE.
|
| These are the only flows that haven't become frustrating over
| time and have worked to cut screen time and addicted apps (or
| altogether).
| chatmasta wrote:
| One Sec broke my addiction to doomscrolling apps. The feature
| that makes you look at your face for two seconds when you open
| the app, while telling you that you last opened it a minute
| ago, is both hilarious and effective.
| hackernewds wrote:
| has anyone dug into whether one sec is safe (private offline
| on device as it states)? it requires access to accessibility
| settings, which means that it could be reading all of you
| cryptocurrency apps, passwords as well as two-factor
| authentication
| chatmasta wrote:
| I just needed to create shortcuts. I don't remember needing
| to grant any further accessibility settings, but I don't
| currently have it installed.
| khernandezrt wrote:
| Wonderful, now i need this for my Iphone!
| dvngnt_ wrote:
| Looks like Hinge
| mrkramer wrote:
| Even more cooler idea would be that the app restricts you to only
| communication apps when you choose "communication" intent or when
| you choose "boredom" it prompts you to enjoy IRL activities and
| tells you to leave your device aside. That would make it even
| more interactive and fun.
| jarko27 wrote:
| Well, that would be ideal.
|
| But as soon as I think about implementation I realize how
| complicated it is to make such an intelligent system that would
| understand intent and based on intent adapt the action. In
| theory, it all can be manually connected, but then it would
| require a complicated setup.
|
| Of course, it's only from an implementation perspective. From
| the UX it can be trivial.
| mrkramer wrote:
| Idk, my impression always was and is that Android app
| development is complex, especially when you got Java in the
| mix....maybe now it's easier when Kotlin is around.
|
| Your idea is very good and you can even monetize your app by
| selling ad space when users choose "boredom" then you can
| recommend them sponsored apps and games.
|
| This idea would be also interesting on PC, when users lock
| their screens and then come back to do something. Maybe it
| can even be part of some diary/note taking app where when you
| unlock your screen note window pops up and asks you "What are
| you planning to do now?".
| anonyme-honteux wrote:
| Kotlin is a great langage, but Android being difficult was
| not about Java but about Android APIs being terrible.
| mrkramer wrote:
| Yea and that....my bad for not mentioning it.
| Havoc wrote:
| A counter in a corner or similar might be less disruptive and
| still keep you mindful. Bit like a step counter
| jarko27 wrote:
| I remember a very cool similar thing from Google Digital
| Wellbeing Experiments called unlock clock
| https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.digitalwel...
| mcflubbins wrote:
| I can answer this myself. 95% of the time its because I need to
| do some form of MFA (totp app, sms, email, duo, etc)
| j45 wrote:
| The mobile app Opal and others do a good job too.
|
| I dare everyone to try putting their phone into grayscale instead
| of color display.
| Ylpertnodi wrote:
| Yay! I've been on greyscreen for about two months now. Phone
| used much, much less, each week.
| stackedinserter wrote:
| I want this for my fridge.
| greekanalyst wrote:
| The app I always knew I needed but never thought I wanted too.
| asdf6969 wrote:
| I love the idea but the globohomo art needs to go. Nobody wants
| to see that
| myhf wrote:
| Why?
| xyst wrote:
| this is the type of tool a C-level executive would mandate to be
| installed on your devices. Instead of "why", it would send out
| notifications to a central server with a data pipeline into genAI
| which can generate reports on productivity.
|
| Employee not complying? Bye bye equity, severance
|
| Employee opening device too much? Fired.
|
| Of course C-level executives would get exempt from policy because
| "rules for thee but not for me" attitude.
|
| As for personal usage, I would much rather configure "Focus" mode
| to block certain apps from opening. Rather than rely on this. I
| would install this on phones of annoying people though for shits
| and giggles
| notadoc wrote:
| The "why" is often habituation
| goda90 wrote:
| I've been day dreaming about an Android launcher that has a
| section for tool apps that you can access freely, and then a
| section for distractions that either guides you towards a
| "productive" distraction, or makes you wait for a timer before
| you can open a distracting app.
| iljya wrote:
| Last year I laser-cut a replica of my phone out of wood. I looked
| at it, said the words "this is my phone", and put it in my
| pocket, where I normally carried my phone. You wouldn't believe
| how many times I mindlessly pulled out this piece of wood from my
| pocket, intending to check messages, or whatever. When I placed
| it on the table while having dinner with a friend, my inner eye
| was looking at it, thinking maybe there is a new message. It was
| absolutely absurd and scary. You can try this out yourself.
| MarcelOlsz wrote:
| Manufacture these with some slick styling and a nice website
| and I'd probably buy one for $99 lol. Give it a name like "B R
| I C K" and a slick logo.
| ClassyJacket wrote:
| Someone already did. I'm trying to remember the name of it.
| archon810 wrote:
| NoPhone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NoPhone
| pyt_ale wrote:
| Statistics for the current day are recorded for yesterday (GMT
| +4)
| jarko27 wrote:
| Thanks for reporting this. I will be taking a look at this
| issue in the next release.
| pyt_ale wrote:
| Statistics for the current day are recorded for yesterday (GMT+4)
| moderatorjerry wrote:
| Nice job. I like what you built here.
| jujumilk3 wrote:
| simple perfect idea
| foobarquxbaz wrote:
| You humans are just too weird.
| hulitu wrote:
| > Show HN: App that asks 'why?' every time you unlock your phone
|
| Just like Google or Microsoft does with "hey, we have a new
| feature nobody uses, press ok" or "hey, we are spying on you in a
| new way" or "hey, we determined that you need a microfone and a
| camera button in Messages, although you only send text messages,
| press ok".
| 0xf3ffff wrote:
| Inspired by someone's comment on Reddit, I have setup this
| routine on my Samsung phone:
|
| - when app X is opened - start 10 minutes timer (wait) - turn on
| blue color filter - turn on grayscale mode - flash screen
|
| This is particularly effective with photo/videos social media
| apps (e.g. Instagram), as with all colors dulled down they lose
| much of their appeal. Not so much on text-based apps like Reddit.
| Therefore, a couple of days ago I went even more nuclear and
| added two more steps:
|
| - wait 3 more minutes - close the app
|
| When that happens, I just put my phone away. It's hard, because
| when the routine starts running (i.e. when I open the targeted
| apps) a notification shows up, and I can kill it right away from
| there, preventing it from triggering the annoying effects. Also
| if I switch apps and come back the timer resets. A tiny amount of
| willpower is needed anyway to make these things work. Another
| thing I did was to put a "Screen Time" widget on my homescreen,
| so I any time I unlock my phone I am reminded of how much time I
| am throwing away Doom Scrolling (that's also the name of the
| routine, btw).
|
| Both of these things can also be implemented with iOS, as it also
| has a Screen Time widget, and the capability of turning your
| screen to grayscale after X seconds when an app is opened via
| Shortcuts' automation (although I prefer Samsung's routines are
| they are much more versatile).
| YVoyiatzis wrote:
| I'd prefer it to nudge me when I'm about to add a task to my
| calendar, asking, "Why are you adding this?"
|
| Actually, I just got an idea...
| josephernest wrote:
| Jarko27: on my Android 9 phone of a few years ago, i cant install
| it : the play store says it Cant be installed on my device. Why?
| jarko27 wrote:
| Unfortunately the minimum android version is Android 11
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