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Don't ditch your phone. Divide and compartment its functions. I went to Europe without a phone once. Things were fine but there was a layer of friction over

Don't ditch your phone. Divide and compartment its functions. I went to Europe without a phone once. Things were fine but there was a layer of friction over everything. When does that restaurant/shop open, how to get reservation, buy tickets in advanced. The airline had a strike, I had to go through the concierge to find out if I needed rebooking for the flight home, it was up in the air the day I departed. I had with me a Garmin with a memstick of the local map. Sadly I'd given it away, I wish I had kept it. I also had with me a non-wifi little camera that could shoot videos. I used the Garmin for direction and map. When I got home I unpacked the camera memsticks. Things were mostly fine. What's the best alt to Apple product is the wrong question. Apple, or anyone else, has such leverage because it bundled so many functions important to you, convenience is the scaling factor. Maps and navigation on phone is great, iPhone camera is awesome, sharing grocery lists and docs is very handy. Put them all together and Apple becomes dangerous to privacy. I'm still muddling through, trying to think about this and how I will change my tech using habit.

browningstreet 5y ago
My napkin plan: * Ditch Apple products. I was going to upgrade my iPad and MacBook, that's not going to happen. * Switch to an Android phone, install only minimal apps and minimal cloud services. I need MFA for work, banking, and a few apps for travel. Photos, of course, but I can manage manually offloading those. As few apps as possible. * Ditch my Apple Watch, get a cheap dedicated running watch for maps/GPS. I had one before, it was quite enough. The Apple Watch is lovely, but not essential. * Ditch Google Mail except for my one online purchasing account. * Switch to another mail providef, maybe Fastmail, to segregate and distribute my email paths. I'm a heavy calendar user.. * Switch to NAS and a backup NAS for file storage. * Keep my Windows machine for photo and video editing, but stop using OneDrive and Google Drive. Migrate back to Linux (need to figure out a desktop machine that has some decent hardware power management support) for my personal ecosystem. Do more on the desktop, and do less on mobile. * I'll keep my FireTV for TV watching, and if I can't watch shows on a Linux laptop, so be it. * Minimize the use of integrated platforms (Apple iCloud, Google, cloud services). I've been out of the FB world for years, it'll take a bit more work to de-Apple and mini-G my life. I need some tech in my life to create and to make a living. But the whole "online life" thing will be getting scaled back. Tech for consumption and delight will be very much less so. I don't know how else to resist (yet). I've been in the Linux, privacy and encryption thing for decades, and it feels like an anachronism in the current political and social climate. I'm at an age where I can upscale my analog life and not think too hard about how that complicates my future. My son, who'll enter college next year, has already sworn off a phone and social media. Not sure how long he can live without a phone, but for however long he wants to live without one and wrestle with the discomforts out society will create because of it, he can adapt without have to un-wind the tech that has already encroached in his life.
- cucumb3rrelish 5y ago
  Android user here: 90 % of Android devices have all the stuff you think you avoided by switching preinstalled and running in the background. Either because it's in the Google contract to use Play Services or because the manufacturer uses proprietary solutions they want to push. And they certainly aren't always removable
  - browningstreet 5y ago
    I understand that. I don't think I can cut it off entirely, but I'm going to segregate my usage of the platforms as much as I can. My personal cloud archive won't be on my phone, that's one thing I can do. I may not be able to take down the beast, but I'll try not to feed it much more than crumbs.
    - cucumb3rrelish 5y ago
      I don't see why you switched to Android then in the first place, because only iCloud uploads will be scanned on iOS. Also I can't think of a single manufacturer with better privacy practices than Apple except for custom ROMs.
      - netizen-936824 5y ago
        Isn't the obvious choice to use custom ROMs then?
      - browningstreet 5y ago
        For now… I think it’s easy to imagine what v5 of this tech can do, what additional databases come into scope over time. The potential of abuse by governments, and the principle of on device scanning. Cloud scanning doesn’t bother me as much… but this feels like a step too far. Some things are reasonable, this doesn’t seem so.
  - nextos 5y ago
    These days things are much better thanks to Treble. Device-independent ROMs are a reality. You can easily flash pure AOSP on any modern phone.

browningstreet 5y ago

My napkin plan: * Ditch Apple products. I was going to upgrade my iPad and MacBook, that's not going to happen. * Switch to an Android phone, install only minimal apps and minimal cloud services. I need MFA for work, banking, and a few apps for travel. Photos, of course, but I can manage manually offloading those. As few apps as possible. * Ditch my Apple Watch, get a cheap dedicated running watch for maps/GPS. I had one before, it was quite enough. The Apple Watch is lovely, but not essential. * Ditch Google Mail except for my one online purchasing account. * Switch to another mail providef, maybe Fastmail, to segregate and distribute my email paths. I'm a heavy calendar user.. * Switch to NAS and a backup NAS for file storage. * Keep my Windows machine for photo and video editing, but stop using OneDrive and Google Drive. Migrate back to Linux (need to figure out a desktop machine that has some decent hardware power management support) for my personal ecosystem. Do more on the desktop, and do less on mobile. * I'll keep my FireTV for TV watching, and if I can't watch shows on a Linux laptop, so be it. * Minimize the use of integrated platforms (Apple iCloud, Google, cloud services). I've been out of the FB world for years, it'll take a bit more work to de-Apple and mini-G my life. I need some tech in my life to create and to make a living. But the whole "online life" thing will be getting scaled back. Tech for consumption and delight will be very much less so. I don't know how else to resist (yet). I've been in the Linux, privacy and encryption thing for decades, and it feels like an anachronism in the current political and social climate. I'm at an age where I can upscale my analog life and not think too hard about how that complicates my future. My son, who'll enter college next year, has already sworn off a phone and social media. Not sure how long he can live without a phone, but for however long he wants to live without one and wrestle with the discomforts out society will create because of it, he can adapt without have to un-wind the tech that has already encroached in his life.

cucumb3rrelish 5y ago
Android user here: 90 % of Android devices have all the stuff you think you avoided by switching preinstalled and running in the background. Either because it's in the Google contract to use Play Services or because the manufacturer uses proprietary solutions they want to push. And they certainly aren't always removable
- browningstreet 5y ago
  I understand that. I don't think I can cut it off entirely, but I'm going to segregate my usage of the platforms as much as I can. My personal cloud archive won't be on my phone, that's one thing I can do. I may not be able to take down the beast, but I'll try not to feed it much more than crumbs.
  - cucumb3rrelish 5y ago
    I don't see why you switched to Android then in the first place, because only iCloud uploads will be scanned on iOS. Also I can't think of a single manufacturer with better privacy practices than Apple except for custom ROMs.
    - netizen-936824 5y ago
      Isn't the obvious choice to use custom ROMs then?
    - browningstreet 5y ago
      For now… I think it’s easy to imagine what v5 of this tech can do, what additional databases come into scope over time. The potential of abuse by governments, and the principle of on device scanning. Cloud scanning doesn’t bother me as much… but this feels like a step too far. Some things are reasonable, this doesn’t seem so.
- nextos 5y ago
  These days things are much better thanks to Treble. Device-independent ROMs are a reality. You can easily flash pure AOSP on any modern phone.