The Boring Phone

I follow a number of tech channels on YouTube. Most of them are about Apple. Many of them are always whining that the iphone has become too boring. They long for the days when each new iPhone release each year brought an exciting feature like FaceTime or Apple Pay or GPS navigation for driving. Last year with the iPhone 16, Apple added a dedicated button to activate…the camera. Even I, Apple Fan Boy-In-Chief scratched my head at that one.

There was a time when I bought the new iPhone pretty much every year, but these days I tend to keep my phones for two or even three years. Currently, I have the iPhone 15 Pro. Prior to that I had the iPhone 12 Pro. Many people keep their phones even longer. I helped a friend recently replace her iPhone 7, which came out in 2016!

These days my upgrade cycle is largely driven by when my mom needs a new phone. When her phone is no longer able to get software upgrades, I get a new phone. Then my old phone goes to my wife and her phone goes to my mom. Currently, my mom is rocking a very capable iPhone 11 Pro that I bought for myself 5 years ago. It will be able to run iOS 26 which will release in September and likely iOS 27 as well.

But believe it or not, I am happy to have a boring phone and have intentionally made my phone even more boring by deleting all the non-essential and potentially distracting apps.

In 2020, I deleted my Facebook and Instagram accounts. I believe they are detrimental to humanity and weren’t doing me any good. Then when you-know-who purchased the social media firm formerly known as Twitter, I deleted that account as well. As for Tick Tock, I never went down that road.

There is a whole group of content creators who have made videos about giving up their smart phones and replacing them with either flip phones or the new and somewhat popular ‘dumb phones’ like the Light Phone in order to simplify their lives. I was intrigued by this but it didn’t make sense to me for three reasons.

One is that I already have a phone and it seemed crazy to ditch a perfectly good device to spend $600 on a new one that did far less.

Two, there are some things like GPS for driving or banking apps with mobile deposit that I just don’t want to live without. Seriously, am I going to drive to the bank to deposit a check for $6.42 when I can just do it on my phone in 60 seconds?

And three, yeah, like I am going to use anything other than an Apple iPhone.

Simplifiying my existing phone seemed like a good compromise. Keeping the device I love but spending less time looking at it.

Doing an app cleanse was the next logical step. I removed all the news apps from my phone and anything that could be engaging or have entertainment value. This included the Apple News App, The Washington Post App, and The New Yorker.

What I am left with is just ten apps on the home screen and a few widgets that show my calendar, health metrics, and the status of our new smart dishwasher, who is named Hygieia after the Greek goddess of cleanliness. I also decided that I would not use my phone in public unless I truly needed to check for a piece of information such as a flight update or a appointment. I turned off all but the most essential notifications including email notifications and sounds. I even modified the lock screen to show the time and nothing more and turned off the ‘always on’ display to just be dark when I am not using the phone.

Thus, I am now able to keep my phone in my pocket most of the time. What do I do instead when I am sitting on the subway or waiting for a friend at the restaurant? I read a book or I look around at everyone else scrolling on their phone or as is becoming increasingly frequent, listening to a very loud program with the speaker at full blast. (Maybe this is a direct consequence of Apple no longer including earbuds with every phone?)

Recently, I was in a waiting room where three different people had their devices blasting sounds at the same time. These were people my age who really ought to know better!

Two forms of entertainment still live on my phone. One is podcasts which I listen to only when I walk and the other is music, which is mostly for driving.

The result is a device that is useful but not much more, a tool I can use to get things done but is not engaging in any way. To be sure, I can still use my computer for entertainment purposes but it is more of a commitment to take it out and most of the time I am not carrying it with me.

And I am constantly looking for ways to make my phone even more boring, recently experimenting with making the display black and white. Far from anticipating the rollout of the next iPhone, I am hoping to ignore it.

Ok, that’s not true but I am not planning to buy it. And maybe not the one after that. Who knows, maybe the next iPhone my mom gets will be one she has to buy with her own money. Don’t worry, mom, I’ll still set it up for you.

The world’s a narrow bridge; fear nothing

September Song

“Ah! sunflower, weary of time/
Who countest the steps of the sun,/Seeking after that sweet golden clime
/Where the traveller’s journey is done...”

— William Blake, 1757-1827

It took us a while to find them. We drove to the McKee-Beshers Wildlife Management Area on River Road where my wife Barbara had seen them in past years. We walked to the field and all around it. Just a lot of tall grass. We started back to the car, meeting along the way another seeker. She hadn’t found them either. 

Back in the car, we drove another 5 km down the road to another entrance to the WMA. There were many cars parked there, which seemed promising. An older man with a floppy hat, photographer’s vest and a large birding scope was headed back to his car. “Do you know where they are?” we asked. He pointed us toward a trail. “Follow that path,” he said. 

The path took us past a marsh covered with algae and lily pads. Frogs spoke unseen from the water. Then the trail turned into a wooded area bustling with butterflies and damselflies. A crawdad made its way across the overgrown track.

Then we saw them. The field of sunflowers nearly 500 meters long and perhaps 200 meters wide. That’s when we realized that we were a week or two late. The sunflowers were still in full bloom but fraying at the edges, a bit bedraggled in the hot summer air, no longer at their peak. 

It is a cliché that life is short but if that is true for a human being it is all the more so for a flower. The life of a blossom is counted in days and these sunflowers, which had been in the full blush of youth just about a week ago, were now preparing to enroll in Medicare. Yet, in that short time, they had fulfilled their reason for being. Each of those thousands of flowers had produced hundreds of seeds, potential sunflower offspring carried to the four winds in the guts of birds and other critters or simply fallen to the ground to take root in whatever soil they find. Reproduction, the mission statement, for every species on the planet, the path from the present to the future, had been executed in breathtaking beauty by these cheery pagan sun worshipers. 

Like me, a little past its prime.

But although their core purpose was complete, they were not yet ready to relinquish the summer. Today, as the sun appeared, each of those blooms turned its face toward the source of life and followed it across the sky as if rejoicing at the chance for another day.  

“They are a little past their prime,” my wife said.

“I know the feeling,” I replied. 

As I said it, it occurred to me that more than just a quip, I had stumbled upon a truth about my own existence. I too am a bit past my peak. I too have largely fulfilled my purpose. My own seed has been scattered and taken root in other soils (in the Denver metro area as it turns out).

“It’s a long, long while from May to December,” the classic tune, September Song tells us and I have without a doubt arrived at the eponymous month “when the days grow short.”

But a short day is better than no day, and so, like the sunflower, I awaken gratefully each day eager to see what it will bring. I go into the morning air (after coffee, of course), turn my face toward the sun and the Source of Life, and follow them until nightfall when I fall back into bed. 

But even in sleep, I face east, anticipating the moment when the sun and I will turn our countenances toward one other once more and I will greet her again — at least as long as we both continue to rise. 

The world’s a narrow bridge; fear nothing. 

The Big Shill

Everyone is selling something but at what cost?

In 1999 Julia Child and Jacques Pepin did a cooking program together for PBS. The show was filmed in Julia’s kitchen in her home in Cambridge, Mass. It’s the same kitchen that was lifted whole and placed in the Smithsonian Museum of American History. You can see it there today. The program was great fun due to the fantastic chemistry between Julia and Jacques. There are whole episodes of the show on YouTube and I encourage you to check it out. I’ve watched all the episodes many times including the one on “Pork,” which contains not a single dish that I can cook. 

One thing you will not find in any of the 22 episodes of the series is the name of a single brand or product. Even when they were using a popular brand of mayonnaise or olive oil, they took pains to make sure that the label was facing away from the camera. They never mentioned the brand of their food processor or cookware or even a favorite knife. 

Yes, there was a mention of the show’s sponsor during the opening credits. Something along the lines of, “Today’s show was made possible by a grant from the Acme Product Company,” but that was about it. Julia never endorsed a single product for money during her entire career. 

My, how things have changed. 

I am a big podcast listener. I listen as I am walking every day. With a few exceptions, all of these podcasts feature the hosts endorsing this product or that. The same products seem to show up over and over. A certain dietary supplement, a hydration powder to add to your water bottle, a mattress guaranteed to improve your sleep or at least to track it. In most cases, I do not begrudge the endorsements. If making a podcast is your whole work, you need to find a way to make a living and accepting ads and/or endorsing products is a way to generate revenue. 

But if you are famous for say, acting, is it reasonable to trade on that fame to make a little more money? And if you are going to do endorsements, I do think it is a reasonable question to ask yourself, “What is the value of my reputation and how much of it am I willing to squander.” Because for each paid endorsement, even for a product you truly believe in, there is a price to be paid in reputation. It may be small or it may be large. What is that price and why should you care?

This is the question that occurred to me recently when I started seeing a series of ads for Wells Fargo Bank featuring the comedic actors Steve Martin and Martin Short. I don’t know anything about the financial circumstances of these two living icons of comedy. I’d assume they are doing ok but I must admit that I don’t know. Perhaps the only option at this point in their illustrious careers is performing in ads for what is arguably one of the most corrupt and criminal banks in recent history. (Don’t take my word for it. Here is what the U.S. Department of Justice said about Wells Fargo in February of 2020. 

And more recently, Wells Fargo was still at it in 2023.

Even worse, the Short-Martin ads aren’t even mildly amusing. 

In a world in which almost everyone will sell almost anything for a few bucks, those who will not stand out. One such a holdout is Sam Harris. Harris has a popular meditation app called “Waking Up” which is available by subscription and contains no advertising. He also has a Podcast called “Making Sense” which has no ads and is also available only through subscription. If you don’t have a subscription you can listen to the first 20-30 minutes of each episode free. After much debate (I hate subscriptions), I subscribed to the show for $150 per year and I am glad I did. He offers very thoughtful interviews and commentary— ad free but not free.

Another example is “For Heaven’s Sake” a podcast from the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, which features analysis on the changing situation in Israel and is also ad free. 

Other podcasts have ads but allow you to forgo them in exchange for a paid subscription. But that is not the same as Sam Harris who has the courage to say, I am not going to take ads; if you want my content you have to pay for it. 

But folks like Sam Harris feel like exceptions to the rule. Even government officials and political figures are selling meme coins, crypto currencies, NFTs, and beach towels with their likenesses. Often they are giving the impression that what they are selling is their favor. In other words, it often looks like a bribe. 

Most of us are not famous enough to be in a position where we can trade our endorsement (or likeness) for cash but it still may be a useful thought exercise to ask yourself: Just how much would it cost to buy you?

Your reputation is what’s left when everything else is gone. What’s the price for yours?

The world’s a narrow bridge; fear nothing.