Friday, February 7, 2025

Hey. Here's the newsletter:

Item 1: a link

There are a lot of folks out there looking to "log off" for reasons ranging from mental health to, well, okay it's generally mental health. There's a whole "touch grass" movement dedicated to the idea that there's a real world out there that is more worth your time than whatever is on the many screens around you.

In particular, many people feel addicted to their smartphones. Unfortunately, it's not really practical for most of us to completely unplug all day, so a number of innovators have come up with a way to help reduce our attachment to these little rectangles. That way is: make the phones bad.

The Worse Blackberry

Here's one example: let's say you have a mid-range Android phone with a built-in keyboard (like the Blackberry of old). You may be saying to yourself, that doesn't sound nearly bad enough to break your addiction to doomscrolling. But what if I told you the screen sucks? Now we're in business. The Minimal Phone is what I just described. The screen sucks because it's e-Ink (like a Kindle, Kobo, etc.). And yeah, from what I read and watch they nailed the brief (it's kinda bad). Black and white e-ink is great for reading text and extending battery life, but it's not good at anything else.

Just as a bonus they seem to have also made the keyboard terrible.

The Watch, But Not Really

But wait, there are plenty of other ways to make a smartphone bad! For example, another idea people had was: you can just use your Apple Watch. No, I don't mean you can just leave your phone at home and use your Apple Watch instead (but please note that you totally can do that). Rather, I mean you can put your Apple Watch into a little case shaped like a phone and carry it around, talking yourself into thinking it's any better than if you had just kept wearing it on your wrist. Meet the Tinypod (Apple Watch not included), a product concept that peaked with its website design.

There are some interesting ideas going on beyond just putting a watch in a phone-shaped case – in particular, a scroll-wheel like an old-school iPod's physically turns the crown on the watch – but at the end of the day it's a pretty unsatisfying experience which, remember, is kind of the point here. You will be able to do what you need to do, but it'll be unpleasant enough that you'll avoid it as much as possible.

The Phone for Your Phone

Let's take a trip back in time to a third bad idea, but one I always found kind of appealing: the Palm Companion Phone. This thing was basically just a really small, really bad, not very smart smartphone, with one killer feature: you had to also buy a regular smartphone to use it. I guess the idea was you would usually use your regular (functional) phone, but if you wanted to use a little bad phone for a few hours... you could do that. What if you wanted to use the little bad phone all the time? Well, sure, technically you could do that. But you would still need to buy that better phone and keep paying the monthly bills for it. Also your little bad phone's battery would die every 3 hours. Have I sold you on this yet?

(About a year after the Palm debuted to terrible reviews, they caved and let people start buying it as a standalone cell phone. It continued not taking the world by storm.)

So yeah, I wouldn't say we've totally cracked this nut, but if you're looking to have a smartphone experience so bad you have no choice but to engage with the world around you, you've got a couple of decent options. And I have no doubt that in coming years we'll see plenty of new awful concepts stake their claim to the bad phone throne.

Item 2: a list

Fan Favorite ChapStick® Flavors, ranked:

1. Raspberry Sorbet
2. Strawberry Daiquiri (from the Mocktail Collection)
3. Mojito (from the Mocktail Collection)
4. Strawberry Ice Pop (from the I <3 Summer Collection)
5. Clover Honey
6. Limeade (from the Vacation Getaway Collection
7. Honey Vanilla (from the Honey Nourish Collection)
8. Mint Tea (from the Spa Collection)
9. Green Apple
10. Juicy Grape
11. Vanilla Mint
12. Aloha Coconut (from the Tropical Paradise Collection)
13. Pink Lemonade (from the I <3 Summer Collection)
14. Watermelon Lime
15. Strawberry (from the Ice Cream Collection)
16. Snow Cone (from the Vacation Getaway Collection
17. Piña Colada (from the Mocktail Collection)
18. Orange Sorbet (from the Ice Cream Collection)
19. Cotton Candy (from the Vacation Getaway Collection
20. Toast to Love - Vanilla Kiss (from the Party Favor Collection)
21. Mango Sunrise (from the Tropical Paradise Collection)
22. Rose Water (from the Spa Collection)
23. Fudge (from the Ice Cream Classics Collection), 
24. Brown Sugar (from the Honey Nourish Collection)
25. Vanilla Bean (from the Ice Cream Collection)
26. Mint Chocolate (from the Ice Cream Classics Collection), 
27. Cookies & Cream (from the Ice Cream Classics Collection)
28. Almond (from the Spa Collection)
29. Milk Chocolate (from the S’Mores Collection)
30. Pumpkin Pie
31. Graham Cracker (from the S’Mores Collection)
32. Peaches & Cream (from the I <3 Summer Collection)
33. Lavender (from the Honey Nourish Collection)
34. Marshmallow (from the S’Mores Collection)
35. It’s a Baby - Angel Food (from the Party Favor Collection)
36. Happy Birthday - Birthday Cake  (from the Party Favor Collection)
37. Cake Batter

Item 3: a media recommendation

Item 4: word of the week

Minatory

He tried to look tough, but it was hard to take his minatory posturing seriously when we all knew he couldn't leave the house without his owner's permission. (He was a marmoset.)

[This whole thing takes place in a world where it's fine to have a marmoset as a house pet, but please note that marmosets do not make good house pets. - ed]

Item 5: a photograph

See ya!

Thanks for reading. See you next time.