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i used to be an android poweruser in high school and college, I rooted my phones, played around with lots of custom roms, had a terminal emulator and full power

i used to be an android poweruser in high school and college, I rooted my phones, played around with lots of custom roms, had a terminal emulator and full power of arm debian installed in a chroot environment, tried different keyboard apps, launchers, and all other customization possibilities... then I started working full-time and had way less free time and realized 99% of the time I now use my phone to read news sites and take quick photos, and then switched to iPhone...

danuker 4y ago
Among the top 5 deathbed regrets is working too much. Many indicators of quality of life face diminishing returns past a $30k/yr (2005) threshold.
- ta988 4y ago
  I switched to a job that gives me more free time, can't be happier. Money past a comfortable level (enough for food, living and some savings) clearly can't buy not having to run around everywhere and think about your next move all the time. I've seen so many people regretting they spent their life just for their job(s) chasing they didn't even knew what. I feel so sorry when I ask how are you and the reply is "busy".
- quacksilver 4y ago
  Is it more socially acceptable or expected in society to say 'I worked too much' rather than 'my family and wife were dull and annoying and took up loads of time, I wish I had got better at my passions / done more research instead' or similar platitudes? I imagine some people who genuinely think stuff similar the latter won't say it, and others may have it written off as deathbed delirium / psychosis and ignored if they do
  - danuker 4y ago
    I believe them. I remember calculating the optimal amount to work, to maximize non-work non-sleep healthy life expectancy, and it was somewhere around 2 hours per day in my case. Accounting for retirement, it'd be around 4 hours. If you work more than optimal, you lose free time.
tpush 4y ago
Why the switch, though? You can check the news and take quick photos on an Android, too; The vast majority of Android phones aren't being used for tinkering.
- hansel_der 4y ago
  i would say that ios is the better un-tinkered experience because less will go wrong and if it does, there is not much you can do anyway. probably the same reason why it's never the year of the linux desktop.
freedomben 4y ago
This is fascinating, I really want to understand. Was Android (even stock) insufficient for reading news sites and quick photos? Or is iOS much better for you at those tasks? If that's all you need, then I would consider both Android or iOS sufficient, but I don't quite get why you'd give up so many options and capabilities to switch, unless iOS is much better at reading news and taking photos. Maybe an analogy to help with my question. If all I need to do is unscrew Phillips number 2 screws and the occasional flathead, and I already had a great power drill with a bunch of bits in the kit (and had mastered it), why then buy a different power drill that that takes a proprietary bit and can only do Phillips and flathead? At some point I might have a need to do torx or hex or square, etc. Wouldn't you be better off having the capability should you need it? Why is it better to not have the capability?
- sodality2 4y ago
  As someone who switched to iPhone in almost the same way as parent comment, it really does do those things far better. I frequently had to hard-reboot my android, install different versions of apps, etc because of something going wrong. Photos not saving was the last straw for me. It wasn't even because I was a particularly power user - I customized everything on it, but even after resetting it and wanting a clean slate, it still couldn't handle basic tasks. I just became sick of it and switched to an iPhone. This was on one of LG's flagships, as well. Edit: I'll add a bit here - I didn't realize just how much maintenance and fixing I was doing on android, because I was so used to it. I would frequently have to fix some issue and I didn't think twice because it was something I either did often, or I just wasn't in a rush and I went into "fix broken tech" auto pilot mode. But I started to realize how often I was doing it and how it wasn't really normal to have to do that, because I would just zone out and focus on fixing the issue at hand.
  - nequo 4y ago
    When did you switch to the iPhone? I had a bad experience with an Android tablet. Apps would crash regularly and the OS refused to update. (The system update crashed too.) I never touched an Android device again. But this was 10 years ago.
t00 4y ago
Sounds like a step back, both in terms of creativity achieved by tinkering, and a downgrade of the quality of photos and videos.
- Sugimot0 4y ago
  Yeah also on Android you can get extensions on firefox, such as bypass paywalls, which makes android nice for paywalled news.

danuker 4y ago

Among the top 5 deathbed regrets is working too much. Many indicators of quality of life face diminishing returns past a $30k/yr (2005) threshold.

ta988 4y ago
I switched to a job that gives me more free time, can't be happier. Money past a comfortable level (enough for food, living and some savings) clearly can't buy not having to run around everywhere and think about your next move all the time. I've seen so many people regretting they spent their life just for their job(s) chasing they didn't even knew what. I feel so sorry when I ask how are you and the reply is "busy".
quacksilver 4y ago
Is it more socially acceptable or expected in society to say 'I worked too much' rather than 'my family and wife were dull and annoying and took up loads of time, I wish I had got better at my passions / done more research instead' or similar platitudes? I imagine some people who genuinely think stuff similar the latter won't say it, and others may have it written off as deathbed delirium / psychosis and ignored if they do
- danuker 4y ago
  I believe them. I remember calculating the optimal amount to work, to maximize non-work non-sleep healthy life expectancy, and it was somewhere around 2 hours per day in my case. Accounting for retirement, it'd be around 4 hours. If you work more than optimal, you lose free time.

tpush 4y ago

Why the switch, though? You can check the news and take quick photos on an Android, too; The vast majority of Android phones aren't being used for tinkering.

hansel_der 4y ago
i would say that ios is the better un-tinkered experience because less will go wrong and if it does, there is not much you can do anyway. probably the same reason why it's never the year of the linux desktop.

freedomben 4y ago

This is fascinating, I really want to understand. Was Android (even stock) insufficient for reading news sites and quick photos? Or is iOS much better for you at those tasks? If that's all you need, then I would consider both Android or iOS sufficient, but I don't quite get why you'd give up so many options and capabilities to switch, unless iOS is much better at reading news and taking photos. Maybe an analogy to help with my question. If all I need to do is unscrew Phillips number 2 screws and the occasional flathead, and I already had a great power drill with a bunch of bits in the kit (and had mastered it), why then buy a different power drill that that takes a proprietary bit and can only do Phillips and flathead? At some point I might have a need to do torx or hex or square, etc. Wouldn't you be better off having the capability should you need it? Why is it better to not have the capability?

sodality2 4y ago
As someone who switched to iPhone in almost the same way as parent comment, it really does do those things far better. I frequently had to hard-reboot my android, install different versions of apps, etc because of something going wrong. Photos not saving was the last straw for me. It wasn't even because I was a particularly power user - I customized everything on it, but even after resetting it and wanting a clean slate, it still couldn't handle basic tasks. I just became sick of it and switched to an iPhone. This was on one of LG's flagships, as well. Edit: I'll add a bit here - I didn't realize just how much maintenance and fixing I was doing on android, because I was so used to it. I would frequently have to fix some issue and I didn't think twice because it was something I either did often, or I just wasn't in a rush and I went into "fix broken tech" auto pilot mode. But I started to realize how often I was doing it and how it wasn't really normal to have to do that, because I would just zone out and focus on fixing the issue at hand.
- nequo 4y ago
  When did you switch to the iPhone? I had a bad experience with an Android tablet. Apps would crash regularly and the OS refused to update. (The system update crashed too.) I never touched an Android device again. But this was 10 years ago.

t00 4y ago

Sounds like a step back, both in terms of creativity achieved by tinkering, and a downgrade of the quality of photos and videos.

Sugimot0 4y ago
Yeah also on Android you can get extensions on firefox, such as bypass paywalls, which makes android nice for paywalled news.