Sunday, September 8th, 2019

    Episode VI: Return of the mobile fun
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Nothing lasts forever. My adventure called  "Using Palm Treo as a main
phone in  2019" lasted three  weeks, the  second part "Doing  the same
with BlackBerry  Classic" ended  exactly after  three months  when the
Classic suddenly died one day. As I  was preparing to go to vacation I
didn't have the time to investigate  what happened and simply put both
SIM cards  back to my  Xiaomi. But I'm far  from calling it  a defeat.
Why, you may ask? Continue reading...

If you look around yourself, you'll  see people looking on the screens
of their smartphones all the  time. The phone constantly notifies them
on something so they  still have to check what's up  and when there is
no new  notification, they create  some new online content,  so others
will  receive notification  and the  circle  goes on  and on.  They're
everywhere:  on  streets, in  the  public  transport, in  restaurants,
looking like zombies,  braindead, not taking any care  of what happens
around them.

And at  one point I  was one of  them and it  started to worry  me. BB
Classic cured me. I had just two working online apps on it: e-mail and
WhatsApp.  Nothing else  could notify  me about  new content,  because
there simply wasn't  anything else. I did all the  other stuff through
web  browser,  because there  were  simply  no  native apps  for  BB10
and  most  Android  apps  do  not work  anymore  in  the  BB10-Android
compatibility layer as  it's too old. I started to  look around myself
again, read real proper books in  the metro (subway, underground - you
understand), solve Sudoku or crosswords, etc. I loved it!

Then, when I had to go back to Xiaomi, I took this approach there with
me: the  only two apps that  have permission to notify  me of anything
are again WhatsApp  (because my wife is there sending  me messages how
their day with our little autie is progressing) and e-mail. In fact no
other  app even  has the  permission to  make a  data request  when in
background. After at least five years being slave of the smartphone, I
declare myself  being free again  and my  phone isn't my  master, it's
again just a tool to be used when I want to use it.

That brings back  the fun I had when  using my Palm or BB  in the days
they were new, fresh and supported  devices. I'm happy that they could
teach me this lesson even in 2019.