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There's actually some really solid advice in here – I never thought about Android as being "better" for reducing distractions, but the amount of control you can

by owenwil 10y ago

There's actually some really solid advice in here – I never thought about Android as being "better" for reducing distractions, but the amount of control you can get over not having self-control seems useful. Apple, on the other hand, is busy trying to get you to open as many apps as you can every time by resisting adding change to the home screen, outside of those luring red (1) icons that show up constantly, often for no reason. I might consider switching to a Pixel for this alone.

alexwoodcreates 10y ago
Thanks - I got so frustrated with Apple not making it easy for me to control my own addiction. Good luck with the switch! Alex
seltzered_ 10y ago
I'm about to switch to an iphone (oddly been a cocoa/mac developer while being a android user for years), and have been a bit worried that it'll be a more distracting experience while watching friends more engaged with their phones than conversatin at dinner. This said, here's my tentative iphone-specific plan on managing myself from becoming addicted: - Generally, don't keep social apps on the phone. Use the web versions with content blockers. - Email: keep using gmail's importance filtering and set notifications only for 'important' messages - been doing this for years and it's mostly worked fine. - Content blockers - find a safari content blocker that lets me block social sites at certain times, or write one myself. - Keep using a smartwatch - I really like using my pebble to let me minimize phone use, ideally I can still do voice replies like I can on android.
soylentcola 10y ago
This is clearly a personal preference/weighting but one of the reasons I've always leaned toward Android is not so much because it "succeeds" better than iOS but because I find that it "fails" better, in that they both do what you want for the most part when using as the OS or app developer intends. But when I want to make a device do something other than the default behavior, I find that easier to do on Android. iOS has made some real leaps in this realm over the past few years and no longer do I need to jailbreak to make most of my common changes and alterations, but it's still been enough to keep me leaning toward Android.

by owenwil 10y ago

alexwoodcreates 10y ago

Thanks - I got so frustrated with Apple not making it easy for me to control my own addiction. Good luck with the switch! Alex

seltzered_ 10y ago

I'm about to switch to an iphone (oddly been a cocoa/mac developer while being a android user for years), and have been a bit worried that it'll be a more distracting experience while watching friends more engaged with their phones than conversatin at dinner. This said, here's my tentative iphone-specific plan on managing myself from becoming addicted: - Generally, don't keep social apps on the phone. Use the web versions with content blockers. - Email: keep using gmail's importance filtering and set notifications only for 'important' messages - been doing this for years and it's mostly worked fine. - Content blockers - find a safari content blocker that lets me block social sites at certain times, or write one myself. - Keep using a smartwatch - I really like using my pebble to let me minimize phone use, ideally I can still do voice replies like I can on android.

soylentcola 10y ago

This is clearly a personal preference/weighting but one of the reasons I've always leaned toward Android is not so much because it "succeeds" better than iOS but because I find that it "fails" better, in that they both do what you want for the most part when using as the OS or app developer intends. But when I want to make a device do something other than the default behavior, I find that easier to do on Android. iOS has made some real leaps in this realm over the past few years and no longer do I need to jailbreak to make most of my common changes and alterations, but it's still been enough to keep me leaning toward Android.