Phone to Smartphone and Back Again

April 4, 2024 8:24 AM

A recently added setting on iPhones and iPads makes the devices less complicated. When activated, it switches to a bare-bones home screen that shows one or more apps as larger-than-usual icons. It makes smartphones and tablets easier to navigate by minimizing the number of options and adding more visual-based controls. WaPost gift link to article
posted by hydra77 (16 comments total)

good.
posted by philip-random at 8:32 AM on April 4 [1 favorite]

It's interesting and it's something I might implement if I were going on a road trip (using a map/gps program, a podcatcher, and maybe the wallet app for gas stations and rest stops) to make getting started after breaks easier.

For most purposes though, as far as I am concerned, my smart device is a pocket computer that can make phone calls, so hiding everything but the ability to make voice calls seems like missing the point.
posted by Karmakaze at 10:11 AM on April 4 [2 favorites]

Don't despair Android users. The Android devices I've had from Google, LG, and Samsung over the last decade or so have all supported limited/easy modes too. Something I've found invaluable when handing over devices to less tech literate family and friends. Search for easy or limited mode plus the manufacturer or model of your phone to get instructions on how to enable or customize the mode.

hiding everything but the ability to make voice calls seems like missing the point.

You aren't the target market. Lots of people out there who need a phone, messaging app and a browser and/or Facebook. The other things a modern pocket computer will support are just mazes of twisty passages all alike to get lost in. Being able to restrict accidental entry to the Colossal Cave is a much appreciated feature that doesn't impact full feature users at all.
posted by Mitheral at 10:19 AM on April 4 [9 favorites]

I wish there was a reversion mode on the Iphone so you could go back to an earlier time. I can't stand it when it decides to organize my photos and show me pictures of my dead mother, "maybe you'd like a slide show, music perhaps?." My poor FIL has been driven to distraction by his phone showing off Focus and silencing his calls, maybe he fat thumbed a "suggestion" but it took a while to try to kill it off, it kept leaping back from the dead and leaving him in the dark. There's plenty of other stuff that would be much better if it was strictly opt in, strictly when requested. I appreciate that a lot of users love their phones and all the newness that keeps coming and coming, that's great but, these are no longer optional devices and to some extent it is as if some genius decided to built 12 foot flights of stairs at the foot of every doorway when 50% of the people are in wheelchairs. It seems like a failure of something, empathy? The Market?
posted by Pembquist at 11:03 AM on April 4 [3 favorites]

You aren't the target market

The article thinks that this is "potentially beneficial applications for everyone" so it's not distinguishing a target market.
posted by Galvanic at 11:09 AM on April 4

There's a big history of accessibility features turning out to be useful for the broader population. Look at how many hearing people use closed captions, or the general usefulness of curb cuts & ramps.
posted by scose at 11:42 AM on April 4 [8 favorites]

The article suggests using this to replace a home phone but isn't adding an extra cellular line at the "smartphone" rate a lot more expensive than just getting a land line set up?
posted by vibratory manner of working at 11:50 AM on April 4

The price of land lines has been steadily increasing over time and cell phone plans have been getting cheaper so there may not be much between the two now.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 12:09 PM on April 4 [1 favorite]

Getting a standalone home phone is twice the price of a cheap cell phone plan in my location. The former is local calling only (long distance is extra and who the hell knows where a cell phone is when you call it) and the latter only includes 100 minutes of to any where in Canada talk (but that is plenty for a lot of people).
posted by Mitheral at 12:19 PM on April 4 [1 favorite]

Huh. The more you know☄
posted by vibratory manner of working at 1:23 PM on April 4

This should scratch that itch that I sometimes get when I see something like a Cricket phone and think, "But that's all I really need, right?"
posted by Halloween Jack at 2:36 PM on April 4

cell phone plans have been getting cheaper

(Citation needed)
posted by Greg_Ace at 2:42 PM on April 4

I wish there was a reversion mode on the Iphone so you could go back to an earlier time. I can't stand it when it decides to organize my photos and show me pictures of my dead mother, "maybe you'd like a slide show, music perhaps?."

My iPhone has never done this, so I looked through Settings to se if I had something turned off and the one thing I saw was "Show Featured Content". Mine is toggled off.
posted by oneirodynia at 4:59 PM on April 4 [1 favorite]

Pembquist - here's how to prevent Photos from showing you memories and featured photos.
posted by theory at 6:46 PM on April 4 [1 favorite]

Soundtrack: Let's Get It Started, Black Eyes Peas
posted by beesbees at 10:05 PM on April 4

*Less* complicated? The UI is like a Fisher-Price toy already.
posted by GallonOfAlan at 2:54 AM on April 5