iPhone de-distraction and retro tech

[nickdalzell1]

I did use Reddit too (mainly because of forums dying and it was simpler than Facebook and the like, at least in my view) but sadly when I was simply scrolling my feed last October I got a red banner saying 'your account has been permenantly banned, check your inbox for details' which sent me to my email inbox saying that due to 'technical irregularities with your Reddit account, we require you to change your password' which I did, sadly, now while I can login and see stuff, I'm sorta like 'shadowbanned' and nobody can see any of my comments and if I browse my profile from a non-logged in browser, it just says 'this user has been banned'

I never got a reason, and I didn't do anything controversial or argue, and I had a great Karma score. I sent plenty of appeals but never got a response ever. Oh well, chock one up for another useless piece of 'modern life'. At least forums tell you what caused you to get banned. Reddit just had some algorithm go haywire.

 

[Ctrlos]

I find the obsession with retro tech rather tiresome. We were excited by MP3s because Vinyl and CDs were and still are inconvenient to listen to and I'll be damned if they sound any different. I couldnt tell the difference when I was 18 and my middle-aged, tinnitus-addled ears definitely can't now.

There was a great period, maybe 2003 - 2013 where tech was always fun and interesting because it solved problems. I point to the lauch of the PS4/Xbox One as the turning point. Oh sure, great consoles. But we also lost the ability to access our personal media and were ever encouraged to the rental model. No thanks.

I think this is a reason for the popularity of the Macbook Neo. Pricing aside, its not a laptop pretending to be anything other than a laptop. Reminds me of the first gen Intel Mac sort of era.

 

[Happy_John]

I think this is a reason for the popularity of the Macbook Neo. Pricing aside, its not a laptop pretending to be anything other than a laptop. Reminds me of the first gen Intel Mac sort of era.

This. I fully agree.

As for retro-tech, it's fine as a collectable, and I'm more than guilty of tech nostalgia, but I don;'t think "retro tech" really does offer advantages to current tech.

I love fiddling with old gadgets, and I keep thinking I should buy an old classic iPod and upgrade it. It's would eb a nice project. But I'd never actually use it as an iPod. Because I have an Apple Watch. And, to be blunt, and Apple Watch is the new iPod, if you want an portable device to listen to music / podcast without the distractions of a phone.

Compared to an Apple Watch, a classic iPod would be far more work, and it would end up being more expensive to buy and upgrade today.

 

[nickdalzell1]

It does offer advantages though. For one it lasts longer, is meant to be repairable vs thrown away in the garbage, it doesn't depend on internet servers remaining online, and isn't trying to sell your data to the highest bidder. It's more private, has details and effort, isn't plasticy and cheap, and stands the test of time. What good is an Alexa or a HomePod gonna be in 30 odd years when the servers are gone? My records and tapes will still play 30 years later. What good is a MacBook Neo gonna be when the RAM or battery fails? Garbage. My 2009 MacBook Pro will still be able to run because the RAM, HDD and battery are replaceable. Maybe I'm just old, but I prefer older stuff over new.

When I look in a 'modern' home it's all white, fake wood floors, every appliance is a huge stainless steel behemoth with screens all over them, the entertainment center is a boring white mantle with a TV mounted up high and that's it. Boring, bland and zero colour. My home has tons of woodgrain, a shag carpet, my entertainment center full of metal and wood devices with knobs and buttons and a TV with knobs and buttons with an Atari and its controls on top. Maybe that's just me but the latter feels more cozy than the former.

My car is an old American landyacht with a vinyl top and comfortable couches for seats. It's not full of distracting tech, screens or weird menus to sort through. It's got a speedometer, temperature and fuel gauge, a three-lever climate control, and a radio. The other 'buttons' are power window and lock controls, the headlamp switch and the wiper switch and cruise buttons. Everything works. It's like riding on a cloud. It is extremely enjoyable on a long road trip. A modern car is full of cheap plastic, hard seats with no cushion that makes me numb from the waist down on a trip longer than 50 miles, and it's full of sci-fi tech that makes me frustrated and angry to be near, and the ride quality is on par with an Army Jeep.

When I see refrigerators with LCD screens and apps like YouTube on washing machines, I can only cringe. That isn't the purpose of either of those devices. They don't need an internet connection. Why are they replacing the glass windows of store coolers where you get your 20 oz sodas with freaking LCD screens? Why are they making drive-thrus AI powered? Why must fountain machines at gas stations require you to interact with a frustrating UI on a screen when all you need is a trigger activated by a cup?! That's not a world I want any part of. That's the world of Black Mirror or Cyberpunk 2077. If that ever becomes reality I'm gonna "unalive" myself.

 

[maflynn]

No desire to return back to days of reading shampoo bottles when I'm going the bathroom. There's a fair amount of negativity directed towards technology, but there's also a fair amount of positivity and doing Soduku while I drop dookies is one of them

 

[Happy_John]

It does offer advantages though. For one it lasts longer, is meant to be repairable vs thrown away in the garbage, it doesn't depend on internet servers remaining online, and isn't trying to sell your data to the highest bidder. It's more private, has details and effort, isn't plasticy and cheap, and stands the test of time. What good is an Alexa or a HomePod gonna be in 30 odd years when the servers are gone? My records and tapes will still play 30 years later. What good is a MacBook Neo gonna be when the RAM or battery fails? Garbage. My 2009 MacBook Pro will still be able to run because the RAM, HDD and battery are replaceable. Maybe I'm just old, but I prefer older stuff over new.

When I look in a 'modern' home it's all white, fake wood floors, every appliance is a huge stainless steel behemoth with screens all over them, the entertainment center is a boring white mantle with a TV mounted up high and that's it. Boring, bland and zero colour. My home has tons of woodgrain, a shag carpet, my entertainment center full of metal and wood devices with knobs and buttons and a TV with knobs and buttons with an Atari and its controls on top. Maybe that's just me but the latter feels more cozy than the former.

My car is an old American landyacht with a vinyl top and comfortable couches for seats. It's not full of distracting tech, screens or weird menus to sort through. It's got a speedometer, temperature and fuel gauge, a three-lever climate control, and a radio. The other 'buttons' are power window and lock controls, the headlamp switch and the wiper switch and cruise buttons. Everything works. It's like riding on a cloud. It is extremely enjoyable on a long road trip. A modern car is full of cheap plastic, hard seats with no cushion that makes me numb from the waist down on a trip longer than 50 miles, and it's full of sci-fi tech that makes me frustrated and angry to be near, and the ride quality is on par with an Army Jeep.

When I see refrigerators with LCD screens and apps like YouTube on washing machines, I can only cringe. That isn't the purpose of either of those devices. They don't need an internet connection. Why are they replacing the glass windows of store coolers where you get your 20 oz sodas with freaking LCD screens? Why are they making drive-thrus AI powered? Why must fountain machines at gas stations require you to interact with a frustrating UI on a screen when all you need is a trigger activated by a cup?! That's not a world I want any part of. That's the world of Black Mirror or Cyberpunk 2077. If that ever becomes reality I'm gonna "unalive" myself.

The only point here I’d argue about modern tech vs retro tech is simply power consumption and power efficiency.

I love my Mac Pro 6,1 - the reason I use it rarely now, either as a desktop or headless server, is simply its ridiculous power consumption.

In this respect, modern computers and modern cars are better, if boring.

 

[WarmWinterHat]

No desire to return back to days of reading shampoo bottles when I'm going the bathroom. There's a fair amount of negativity directed towards technology, but there's also a fair amount of positivity and doing Soduku while I drop dookies is one of them
View attachment 2622961

I think I'm an outlier here and that I never use tech when on the John. I don't even carry my phone into the bathroom!

I find the obsession with retro tech rather tiresome. We were excited by MP3s because Vinyl and CDs were and still are inconvenient to listen to and I'll be damned if they sound any different. I couldnt tell the difference when I was 18 and my middle-aged, tinnitus-addled ears definitely can't now.

There was a great period, maybe 2003 - 2013 where tech was always fun and interesting because it solved problems. I point to the lauch of the PS4/Xbox One as the turning point. Oh sure, great consoles. But we also lost the ability to access our personal media and were ever encouraged to the rental model. No thanks.

I think this is a reason for the popularity of the Macbook Neo. Pricing aside, its not a laptop pretending to be anything other than a laptop. Reminds me of the first gen Intel Mac sort of era.

Retro tech is fun, but it can be a real hassle too. I had a 4th gen classic iPod that I bought new in 2003, and a couple years ago I did a full upgrade; replaced the battery, new scrollwheel, 128 sd card, and while it worked, it was a pain. It didn't sync correctly to my current mac, it has a fiddley and proprietary cable..I just didn't want the hassle. Sold it, pretty quickly and for a pretty penny, on eBay.

Slowly getting rid of my small retro collection, other than my NES, N64 nd such, as they work the same as the day they were bought. Transitioned to focusing my time and money on classic tractors and mechanical things.

 

[nickdalzell1]

Efficiency is arguable. I once had nothing but 2010-2011 tech in this home that had all sorts of "Energy Star" stickers plastered on them. That's how the house was when I moved in (inherited from my father). For some reason none of that stuff was ever truly 'off'. It used power when on, used power when off (and often had an always-active, eye-searing blue LED when off!).

Contrast that to my 1970s devices. They are actually using NOTHING when off. No LEDs, no active standby power. No switching power supply whine (which gave me headaches as well). Even when they're in use (like when watching TV) the power is minimal. No internet connection too. No need for power bricks or something sipping power. The modern stuff added up and I was probably paying north of $350 a month with it. Now? $178-$190 a month. That's a massive improvement I'd say. Even the three odd old Apple devices I have, my iPhone 3GS, iPad 2 and 2009 MacBook Pro I'd wager uses a lot less power than you'd expect.

 

[nickdalzell1]

I think I'm an outlier here and that I never use tech when on the John. I don't even carry my phone into the bathroom!

I'm similar and people think it's odd that I don't need to have my mind stimulated for the 10 odd minutes I'm on the pot.

 

[TracerAnalog]

So with the general sense of malaise with … modernity, that is rippling through both tech-focused communities and otherwise, more and more people are looking to get back to their devices as being a source of productive tooling and non-distracting entertainment, myself included. I think most people are now aware of the degradation to the social fabric, politically, democratically, and individually around attention/cognition that constant access to the social media attention extraction machine does to us, and want to think about disengaging.

The most success I’ve had so far with this is the use of the Blank app to dull my home screen and force me to do 10 push-ups before I can open Instagram. (this doesn’t sound like much but it’s been the most successful method so far to remove constant Instagram use, particularly away from home because you’re not exactly gonna drop and give me 10 out and about)

I’ve also got back into iPods and off-line listening where the music doesn’t fade into the background of whatever other more distracting tasks my device is able to distract me with.

So both of these got me thinking about how much interest there would be from every day non-apple heads for either/both a new modern day iPod (with click wheel, bluetooth, modern design language but older interface and syncing, where the work required to navigate is in service of the engagement with and mindful curation of the music)

And also the potential for an iPhone model that at firmware level is not able to run any social media applications (or the ability to black list particular applications), where perhaps an aftermarket desire to do so is subject to some kind of administration fee for Apple to turn that back on at hardware/firmware level. It sounds like overkill but I genuinely think I would opt in to a social media free SKU over the standard phone. I would then just use home devices to do that more mindfully for less time.

On one hand, it’s kind of self infantilising effectively delegating parental control to Apple, but these systems are psychologically designed from the ground up to be addictive. it would be empowering for a gambling addict to be able to purchase a phone that can’t run gambling applications so why not for people who have issues with social media?

is this massive overkill/over thought or do you think there would be sufficient numbers buying in to these ideas for a sufficient financial incentive for Apple to make these a reality?

Just practice self control and reduce your phone usage. Get rid of social m(adness)edia apps. Stop posting what you eat, and enjoy your life without a compulsive need to 'share'.

 

[nickdalzell1]

Just practice self control and reduce your phone usage. Get rid of social m(adness)edia apps. Stop posting what you eat, and enjoy your life without a compulsive need to 'share'.

Easy to say if you live in a backwoods area like I do, but for some, their entire lives depend on apps for everything, including paying for stuff. Which is sad and a problem that needs solving.

 

[WarmWinterHat]

Easy to say if you live in a backwoods area like I do, but for some, their entire lives depend on apps for everything, including paying for stuff. Which is sad and a problem that needs solving.

I work in the largest city in the state, and spend a lot of my time here, but I do live in a rural area. I can pay with my watch, or a card, or my phone. They all work pretty much everywhere. What you don't need, on your phone, is social media, reddit, instagram, etc. You don't have to have games, either. if you want your phone to be a tool, and not a time suck, just install tools on it.

I don't use my phone to browse the web, either, except in a pinch. So I just put firefox focus on it since it has no bookmarks, no history, no persistent logins.

 

[Populus]

So with the general sense of malaise with … modernity, that is rippling through both tech-focused communities and otherwise, more and more people are looking to get back to their devices as being a source of productive tooling and non-distracting entertainment, myself included. I think most people are now aware of the degradation to the social fabric, politically, democratically, and individually around attention/cognition that constant access to the social media attention extraction machine does to us, and want to think about disengaging.

Wow, I thought I was a weirdo thinking this way. I know there’s a few more of us out there, but not sure how much we can do for society itself… the only thing we can do is survive, I guess? And what you’re talking about focus loss is just one part of a big picture where our data is being harvested and we’re being profiled. I know I sound like a conspiracy guy, but I just recently learned about a private AI powered big data company whose name begins with PAL and ends with IR.

Honestly, I’ve felt we’re heading towards a digital totalitarian world for quite a few years now, and AI is only making it happen faster…

Okay, conspiracy talk end.

By the way, I don’t have barely any social media, and it’s true that is not easy to engage with friendships, or meet new people, let alone meeting a romantic/sexual partner, being outside social media. But aside from that, it feels good. It feels quiet, in a good way.

 

[nickdalzell1]

I work in the largest city in the state, and spend a lot of my time here, but I do live in a rural area. I can pay with my watch, or a card, or my phone. They all work pretty much everywhere. What you don't need, on your phone, is social media, reddit, instagram, etc. You don't have to have games, either. if you want your phone to be a tool, and not a time suck, just install tools on it.

I don't use my phone to browse the web, either, except in a pinch. So I just put firefox focus on it since it has no bookmarks, no history, no persistent logins.

So, live with iPhone 3GS. Gotcha. Way ahead of ya. All I need is iMessage, Phone, Mail, Alarms, Music, maybe Safari for a quick DuckDuckGo search, or to take Notes.

It's incapable of much else and I'm fine with that. Was a smartphone, now little more than a feature phone. Does what I ask and does it well. Also fits in the hand nicely. Has a headphone jack.

 

[mk313]

Best thing I did in recent years to manage "too much wasted screentime" was get an Apple Watch and AirPods.

No scrolling. Get the message, calls and notifications that are important, can even check email, but to reply I have to dig out my phone or sit down at a keyboard and the added friction of having to take out the phone or sit down at a keyboard.

The watch works brilliantly as a iPod for music and podcasts - I download them and the watch is not a great interface for getting distracted by music or podcasts / playlist you didn't intend to listen to.

Unfortunately, this only works when "away from work", and I've had a hell of a lot of work on for the past few weeks, so I'm constantly in front of screens. No social media at all - current MR is the only online platform I randomly spew out words as a pressure valve ( my real work is happening at the same time, and there I use language very carefully).

100% agree with Happy John. The watch (cellular edition) and airpods is the perfect complement to the iPhone for me. I'd love to get rid of my iPhone, but for practical reasons can't (need to use Microsoft Authenticator for work, getting traffic updates when driving, having a camera on my phone is extremely useful), but there are times when I wish I wasn't using my phone so much. The watch allows me to 'stay connected' via phone & text, which is what I think a lot of people worry about when they refuse to give up their phone or turn it off, but removes almost all of the distractions. It's fantastic for using on the weekends, or when out with friends & family. Th watch allows me to keep my iPhone & the benefits that it offers, but not feel like I am a slave to it.

 

[nickdalzell1]

If phone and text were most people's concerns re:giving up a smartphone, then I'd expect flip phone sales would be more than the niche they currently are. Sadly, just like with smoking, there are a TON of folks who don't want to give the addiction up, or addictive qualities up, even though they're fully aware of the concerns. (of course, I have encountered people in 2026 who think Phillip-Morris were right in 1958 and firmly entrenched in the belief that smoking does NOT cause cancer, and have their 100 year-old pack-a-day grandpa as 'evidence'...)

 

[NickArchiver52]

I find the obsession with retro tech rather tiresome.

I agree so much. Don't get me wrong, I love collecting retro tech. For example, I collect old tape based video formats and their equipment. I do it because I think it's cool, interesting. Not because I think it's better and want to use them day to day. There's a reason why society has generally moved away from tape based formats. Sure, they have their advantages but also have some pretty severe disadvantages. Recorders break down, bad belts, capacitors, ripped or worn video heads. Makes my technical brain hurt. There's nothing that beats the convivence of pulling out your cellphone to record a quick video.

Oh and don't get me started on the people who had made it into an investment/job. That killed the retro game market.

I think old tech is cool to play around with. As a hobby. For real life, I'll stick to my 16e and modern [enough] Macs.
Newer doesn't always mean better, the opposite is also true...

 

[turbineseaplane]

Newer doesn't always mean better, the opposite is also true...

This is an important note.

Also, retro tech can simply mean older but still advanced tech, like my iPod Nano fleet.

For someone who wants local music over Bluetooth to Airpods in a tiny lightweight form factor that "just does that", it's untouchable by anything newer, to this day.

It's technically retro tech, and they are quite old, but they are fantastic.

In our current era of everything junked up by features nobody asked for (to serve business goals), the distinctions here on what is "better" vs "newer" are getting increasingly stark.

 

[Happy_John]

Easy to say if you live in a backwoods area like I do, but for some, their entire lives depend on apps for everything, including paying for stuff. Which is sad and a problem that needs solving.

I don’t think the poster wa saying, don’t have a phone and don’t have those apps / that functionality. Just don’t have the crap.

I’m in my 50s. The internet is wonderful. Online banking, online purchasing, online organisation of travel, online delivery tracking, online payment of taxes / social insurance, access to information - all of this things are immensely better than what we had before.

Societally, the world seems to be going down the toilet. Part of this is to do with social media; collapse of attention spans and promoting extremes / polarisation of opinions, but it’s also to do with other factors - the monetisation of „public” spaces and public interaction, the trend towards disposability and consuming rather rtan making. General trust between people has broken down.

This isn’t caused by technology, it’s caused by human beings and how the technology is implementented.

Personally, the worst thing about the social media side of the internet is the addictive mess, it’s that it makes me feel that human beings are f**king horrible creatures.

Nuclear bombs = bad. But nuclear power is not itself inherently bad, and the science behind the technology can’t be said to be bad.

The science and technology has to been seen as seperate from disasterous implementations of that technology.

 

[nickdalzell1]

Tape based formats are enjoying a comeback as of late. They're not the constantly-failing mechanical nightmares you think they are. I have a few decks dating to the late 1970s that I never replaced any belts or did any work on (a 1979 Fisher and a Yorx all-in-one). The ones I did have to rebelt they had crappy quality belts that turned back into oil/goo. But you probably do that how often? Once every 30 odd years?

One thing that I never understood is how many claim streaming is 'convenient'. Okay here's one of my experiences:

Task: Play some music while out walking in the park

iPhone (or Android whichever):

1. unlock and open Spotify (or Pandora, Slacker, et al)
2. Attempt to play a station you created at home
3. Realize you're in an area with 1 bar or nothing at all
4. Have nothing, you're singing tunes to yourself or humming

1990 portable cassette player:

1. Put your preferred cassette in
2. Hit Play
3. put headphones on and enjoy!

Again, what is 'modern' tech solving?! Seems it's got more points of failure and frustrating issues than what worked previously.

 

[Happy_John]

Tape based formats are enjoying a comeback as of late. They're not the constantly-failing mechanical nightmares you think they are. I have a few decks dating to the late 1970s that I never replaced any belts or did any work on (a 1979 Fisher and a Yorx all-in-one). The ones I did have to rebelt they had crappy quality belts that turned back into oil/goo. But you probably do that how often? Once every 30 odd years?

One thing that I never understood is how many claim streaming is 'convenient'. Okay here's one of my experiences:

Task: Play some music while out walking in the park

iPhone (or Android whichever):

1. unlock and open Spotify (or Pandora, Slacker, et al)
2. Attempt to play a station you created at home
3. Realize you're in an area with 1 bar or nothing at all
4. Have nothing, you're singing tunes to yourself or humming

1990 portable cassette player:

1. Put your preferred cassette in
2. Hit Play
3. put headphones on and enjoy!

Again, what is 'modern' tech solving?! Seems it's got more points of failure and frustrating issues than what worked previously.

Problem with this - just download your music first and listen to it on-device. Use your device as an iPod.

That’s the more accurate analogue to making your own mixtape at home to listen while you’re out and about.

 

[eyoungren]

I did use Reddit too (mainly because of forums dying and it was simpler than Facebook and the like, at least in my view) but sadly when I was simply scrolling my feed last October I got a red banner saying 'your account has been permenantly banned, check your inbox for details' which sent me to my email inbox saying that due to 'technical irregularities with your Reddit account, we require you to change your password' which I did, sadly, now while I can login and see stuff, I'm sorta like 'shadowbanned' and nobody can see any of my comments and if I browse my profile from a non-logged in browser, it just says 'this user has been banned'

I never got a reason, and I didn't do anything controversial or argue, and I had a great Karma score. I sent plenty of appeals but never got a response ever. Oh well, chock one up for another useless piece of 'modern life'. At least forums tell you what caused you to get banned. Reddit just had some algorithm go haywire.

I would imagine that someone got into your account because your password was out there. They did whatever damage they did, Reddit mods cleaned it up and then locked your account. Because they couldn't trust that it was still not comprised - shadow ban.

For this reason (security), when I signed up with Reddit, I enabled 2FA. If someone has my username and password they can't get in without using the code from my authenticator app. That keeps my Reddit account secure.

Modern tech…😉

 

[nickdalzell1]

Problem with this - just download your music first and listen to it on-device. Use your device as an iPod.

That’s the more accurate analogue to making your own mixtape at home to listen while you’re out and about.

Which I can also do with my 3GS.

But here's another scenario where this might not work with say a 17 Pro Max:

Task: Play music while out

1. Open Music (or whichever app you use to play back downloaded content)
2. Put in AirPods (because Apple for some asinine reason deleted the headphone jack)
3. Realize you forgot to charge the case last night, and the case is dead and the AirPods are at 10% left and 30% right

4. After ten minutes, only your right ear is enjoying it.

Not much of an advantage as having wired EarPods and my 3GS is it?

Also, let us not forget that buying MP3s in 2026 is becoming harder and harder to do--Even Amazon stopped allowing me to purchase albums as MP3 formats, the option got greyed out for most albums lately. So you're stuck with a constantly draining subscription model. Lose that and your music is GONE, downloaded or not. Even Apple doesn't want you to own music, as they are systematically killing iTunes.

 

[nickdalzell1]

I would imagine that someone got into your account because your password was out there. They did whatever damage they did, Reddit mods cleaned it up and then locked your account. Because they couldn't trust that it was still not comprised - shadow ban.

For this reason (security), when I signed up with Reddit, I enabled 2FA. If someone has my username and password they can't get in without using the code from my authenticator app. That keeps my Reddit account secure.

Modern tech…😉

Actually, I got it linked to my Google Account which shares the password, and that's also linked to my LifeLock account. LifeLock would have notified me if my password got compromised. Also, I think there are issues with VPNs causing shadowbans on Reddit, as many posted about that--my Norton VPN was on at the time, had been for a year at that point no issue.

 

[eyoungren]

This. I fully agree.

As for retro-tech, it's fine as a collectable, and I'm more than guilty of tech nostalgia, but I don;'t think "retro tech" really does offer advantages to current tech.

I love fiddling with old gadgets, and I keep thinking I should buy an old classic iPod and upgrade it. It's would eb a nice project. But I'd never actually use it as an iPod. Because I have an Apple Watch. And, to be blunt, and Apple Watch is the new iPod, if you want an portable device to listen to music / podcast without the distractions of a phone.

Compared to an Apple Watch, a classic iPod would be far more work, and it would end up being more expensive to buy and upgrade today.

I'm using my Macs and my iPhones as devices to stream my music. I refused then, I refuse now, and I will refuse again in the future to buy an Apple Watch to get abilities that my phones/Macs/iPads/other devices can already do.

Fortunately, I chose a profession that uses computers to do work. So, I'm never far from a computer (or my phone) that can stream my music.