listic comments on Less Wrong Product & Service Recommendations - Less Wrong

24 Post author: lukeprog 02 July 2012 01:18PM

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Comment author: listic 07 July 2012 11:22:18PM *  0 points [-]

I no longer have to plan anything when I'm leaving my apartment

Do you mean that GPS navigation relieves you from the burden of planning your spatial transportation?

Can you please provide other examples (ideally as many as you can) about how owning an iPhone have improved your life?

As you can tell from my other comment, I'm currently very sceptical about such claims. My hypothesis is that most such claims are delusional; people are not aided by smartphones, justifying owning them as convenience while using them as entertainment and receiving additional stress and expense in the process. It would be a good occasion to be proven wrong.

Comment author: lincolnquirk 08 July 2012 01:22:51AM *  12 points [-]

With a smartphone, I can:

  • Find restaurants and bars while out, of a much higher quality as compared to walking into random places
  • Discover what my friends are up to, without having to rely on them texting/calling me - Foursquare, Find My Friends, Facebook, Twitter.
  • Not write down addresses or directions
  • Not be bored while waiting for things
  • Not forget appointments
  • Never worry about getting lost
  • Read news / articles I wouldn't otherwise read (e.g., while on the toilet)
  • Take photos I wouldn't otherwise take (which create social experiences I wouldn't otherwise have) and get geotags/dates with those photos
  • Show off my photos to people while I'm out
  • Write things down when I don't have a notebook (and get geotags/dates with those notes using Evernote)
  • Take voice memos (and get geotags/dates with those memos)
  • Read urgent emails I would have missed until I got back to my desk
  • Listen to music at the gym
  • Pay with Square (an awesome experience. if you have an iPhone and live in San Francisco, go to Sightglass and do it once. It feels like the future.)
  • Reference Wikipedia and do Google searches in social contexts
  • Get alerted when people mention me or my business on Twitter
  • Check the stock market
  • Reserve a Zipcar at a moment's notice while out
  • Track my workouts at the gym (Fitocracy)
  • When I see a nice house in Palo Alto, look it up on Zillow to see the exorbitant price people are paying. (Also creates fun social experiences.)
  • Order and pay for food delivery (Seamless)
  • Order and pay for a taxi (Uber)
  • Reference subway maps (Embark)
  • Dropbox in my pocket. Awesome.
  • A level. That's right. I can level my wall hangings without needing to purchase an actual level.

I'm sure I've missed some stuff. But all these things have improved my life, some in small ways, others in rather significant ways.

FWIW, I've heard many people give your justification for not having a smartphone. Of those who eventually caved, every one (4 or 5 people) said something like "holy shit, why didn't I get this a long time ago?"

Comment author: Risto_Saarelma 08 July 2012 11:02:08AM *  7 points [-]
  • Read novels (my main use for smartphones, read 100+ by now)
  • Listen podcasts and audio books
  • Record home videos
  • Listen to radio (when you're curious to why the phone network is down, the electric grid has blacked out and there seem to be awfully many sirens going off outside)
  • Track routes and speeds of runs using GPS
  • Play emulated 16-bit console RPGs and strategy games that don't demand much control dexterity
  • Find out what constellations are currently in the sky where you point the phone
  • Read barcodes and QR-codes
  • Photograph signs and pictures and look them up with reverse image search
  • SSH shell connect to remote machines
  • Translate text (possibly OCR'd from photos) with Google Translate
  • Compass
  • Portable audio source for a home stereo system
  • Quickly scan book or article pages with the high-res camera
  • Kitchen timer
  • Smart alarm clock that wakes you up when you start moving around in your sleep close to your wakeup time
  • Spaced repetition drills on the bus
  • Remote control for the media center PC
  • Exercise timer for Tabata, HIIT etc.
  • USB drive, if you have a micro-USB adapter
  • Watch movies and TV-shows
  • Emulate an RPN scientific calculator
  • Flashlight using the camera flash LED
  • Share the mobile internet connection with a quick WiFi hotspot
Comment author: EvelynM 17 November 2012 11:07:15PM *  5 points [-]

I have Android:

  • Sleep duration data collection (Sleepbot)
  • Sleepiness forecast (Sleep watcher)
  • Google Drive (writing/spreadsheet)
  • White noise/nature sounds for going to sleep (Lightning bug)
  • Bed lamp (full screen light)
  • Notes (Catch)
  • Google Tasks integration (gtasks)
  • Calendar
  • Countdown and count up timer
  • Sudoku
  • Streaming audio (SomaFM)
  • Fitness improvement (100 Squats)
  • Camera/Photo manipulation (Painteresque/Vignette/Paper Camera)
  • Knitting pattern counter/row counter
  • Habit building reminder (Beeminder/Habit streak/FailLog/TaskLife)
  • Daily diary
  • Rain forecast for where I am (SkyMotion)
  • Shared grocery list
  • Current images of earth cloud cover and of the sun (Solaris)
  • Current wave height, temperature and other data covering the whole earth (Earth Now)
  • Dual-n-back
  • IRC client (Android IRC)
  • walk tracking (MyTracks)
  • Psychological first aid (The Tools)
  • Work timer (Pomodroido)
  • When should I call my family again (Nextcall)
Comment author: drethelin 08 July 2012 10:23:15AM 0 points [-]

I don't see what's wrong with owning it for entertainment, and I don't see where the stress comes from. Maybe it's more entertaining than useful to be able to go to wikipedia whenever I have an argument or want to settle a bet, but that doesn't mean it's not worthwhile.

Comment author: listic 08 July 2012 03:40:46PM *  1 point [-]

Owning something for entertainment is only wrong (looks like irrational behavior for me) if one claims otherwise.

Stress comes from having additional personal computer in possession, which one has to manage, charge, mentally track location of (e.g. not lose) and respond to. Granted, dumbphone also has the above properties (and I'm regularly thinking if it is wise to have a cellphone at all), but to a limited extent.

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