On phones

05 Apr, 2026

I want to jump onto a little thread that is going on here:

I have a love‐hate relationship to phones. I also daily drive two of them. I try to discourage their use as much as I can, by keeping them focused on some of the things Peter was saying:

[…] knowledge in your pocket, communication with friends.

I mostly do this by picking what applications are installed. Secondarily I think about how much I need access to the application. And finally I consider whether I can do the task at my desk, more on that later.

What does that look like?

Work provided me with an iPhone 16. When I unlock it, it shows me a pixelated space seen obtained from r/Amoledbackgrounds. A 67.7% black pixels version of this art by Eugenia.

In addition it shows me 3 app icons on the little bottom dock: Slack, Gemini¹, Calendar. There are no icons on the first home screen, there are no additional home screens, and notification badges are turned off. I do not want to encourage myself to casually launch things.

In total there are 66 applications installed on that phone. Which now that I have counted them is probably going to be driven down. That said, these 66 include applications from Apple such as both the App Store and Apple Store, the Clock, Compass, Contacts, you name it. Then all the Google apps (we are a G Suite company) and a bunch of browsers for testing. So it is unclear what I can actually remove.

These apps only exist in the App Library and are only ever started through search when I need them. I never just tap an app to spent time.

My personal phone is only a third of the price of that phone. It is a CMF by Nothing Phone 1. When I unlock it, it shows me the default wallpaper that came with it. Some day I will get something from r/Amoledbackgrounds.

In addition it shows me 4 apps icons and one app folder on the bottom dock: Firefox, Capy Reader, YouTube, Pocket Casts, 🗀 Messaging. The Messaging folder contains WhatsApp, Messenger, Messages (SMS), Discord, Instagram, Quasseldroid, and Signal. As on the work phone there are no screens to swipe to or notification badges anywhere.

I also apply a custom version of Arcticons. So all icons are monochromic and of a similar style. No more fighting for my attention.

So what are these apps mainly for? Consuming on-the-go content and communication. Where I try to limit consumption to curated content.

I have pre-chosen what content shows up through RSS, both for Capy Reader (websites) and Pocket Casts (podcasts). The same is true for YouTube, but I will admit it is more distraction prone. The app will open their big algorithmic feed, when I really just want to get at pre-downloaded videos that I have queued for commutes.

In total there are 78 applications installed on that phone. Again, a bunch of these came with the phone and are Google‐Android things. And again, these applications are only accessible through the application drawer. Even in there, it only shows a single screen of icons (7×5) as I make liberal use of Nothing Launcher’s hidden icons feature.

What sort of things do I hide? Those aforementioned default applications, and a bunch of one-use applications that are a pain to reinstall such as different regional public transport providers.

I don’t want to be using this phone, so why would I give myself tens to hundreds of apps to pick from every time I unlock it. Why would you?

As I wrote at the start of this post, I also try to steer myself to my desk.

Too often I see people who are very dependent on their phone also struggle with it. They couldn’t really receive that Word document, they couldn’t really sign that PDF, they couldn’t really compare those two hotels.²

But they also have a laptop. Or even a cheap Chromebook. They have just let themselves be tricked by society that they can do everything on their phone.

I am against this.

What I do not do on my phone is production. Only consumption. I do not limit this to “broadcasting” (as Peter called it). I draw the line way before social media applications. This also makes my phone a much smaller part of my life.

People figured out the importance of the second place when they noticed it was not mentally good to have both leisure and work in the same living room. Now I hear a lot of people talking about the importance of third spaces, a place for the community and socialising that is not work or your private home.

I think it is time we start to apply this to devices to.

Bonus: see all 34 applications that made it into the application drawer of my phone