Dumb mobile phones

[stevebrooks]

I uninstalled Microsoft Teams from phone over the holidays. Work want to contact me they can call me, but I am not sitting there on teams 24/7 any more..

Not exactly the same, but on the same track I guess.

See that's something I would actually leave an employer over if that's what they wanted. They want me available on Teams 24/7, that's being on call and a loading should apply every time they communicate with me, also they should supply the equipment they want me to communicate with, not using my personal equipment to do work for them.

Still won't affect me at all these days, I try to stay calm and relaxed, and that, by definition, means not doing a lot of work.

[stylofone]

I'm thinking of getting an Opel Touchflip, a dumbphone which can also be a hotspot, which is something I like to use occasionally, because I don't have broadband. I only hesitate because I am unsure if this particular phone is dumb enough for my needs. It runs a cut-down version of Android, but it appears it doesn't require a surveillance agreement to use the phone. You sign away your privacy if you use the crappy little apps it comes with, (e.g. whatsapp). If the phone itself is dumb by default I would be satisfied.

[joele]

They want me available on Teams 24/7, that's being on call and a loading should apply every time they communicate with me,

They get around that by putting in your contract "your remuneration is inclusive of reasonable overtime".

also they should supply the equipment they want me to communicate with, not using my personal equipment to do work for them.

That is a hard one, they offer, but I don't really want their device as I use CalyxOS (google free) android on my phone and really don't want a google spyware phone with added corporate spyware.

[Irrev-Black]

(SNIP)

That is a hard one, they offer, but I don't really want their device as I use CalyxOS (google free) android on my phone and really don't want a google spyware phone with added corporate spyware.

I had a friend in Brisbane whose home was a (2G era) mobile blackspot.

Guess where I happened to stay when on holidays from a particularly nasty, graspy, job in Canberra.

[stylofone]

Yes! I am proud to be a new denizen of the Republic of Dumbphonia.

IIRC it was Joele who first informed me of the existence of de-googled Android phones, leading me to reanimate my Samsung Galaxy S5 to escape the growing horror of surveillance capitalism (it is worse now. Dystopia is here).

The S5 voice function will stop working this year when 3G is killed, so I've been forced to act. My other option was to continue with a de-googled smartphone, but I went down the cheaper path, a better choice all-round I think, in keeping with my little rule of life:

Smart people used to have lots of technology because they knew how to use it. But nowadays smart people have less technology because they know how it uses them!


The phones are dumb, but the users are beautiful.

[stylofone]

My dumbphone music player is a bit crap, but I discovered you can install rudimentary android apps on it with a little bit of fiddling. It appears to be Android 8 with no google framework, so it's not quite as dumb as you might expect, but still dumb enough for me.

[stevebrooks]

My dumbphone music player is a bit crap, but I discovered you can install rudimentary android apps on it with a little bit of fiddling. It appears to be Android 8 with no google framework, so it's not quite as dumb as you might expect, but still dumb enough for me.

Ah old phones, I remember slide phones, anyone remember those, they were the sort of forgotten precursor to foldables, thick, ugly and, well, useful. I had one which could slide left or right, slide right, keyboard, slide left, dedicated music player, or was it the other way around, can't remember. Now there's a trend that vanished really quickly, slide phones are a forgotten thing now! There's always a use for dumb phones though, my old mother, 88 now, simply can't handle a touchscreen. Every time she tries to scroll on a modern phone it starts with a "stab" at the screen, which invariably opens up whatever was under her stab as she frantically tries to slide down the screen with her finger.

Give her a good old dumb phone with big buttons and she's fine, smart phone...not a chance!