Out of Hand

So many people ask me about my tiny phone I’m starting to think it’s the most interesting thing about me — and I’m not sure how to feel about it.

I’ve always liked phones with a “smaller” form factor. I put “smaller” in scare quotes because when I purchased my first iPhone, the iPhone 4, it wasn’t so small at the time. I had either an iPhone 4s or 5s from 2012 to 2019 — the 5s boasting a perfect 4 inch display. The next generation iPhone 6s and 6s Plus had a 4.7 and 5.5 inch display respectively. That’s a 38% increase from the previous generation.

The madness didn’t stop there. The iPhone 12 Pro Max has a display size of 6.7 inches. That’s a 67% increase from the iPhone 4. The iPhone has literally gotten out of hand. My hands at least.

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Screen time has also increased, and probably more than 38% from when the iPhone 4 came out. At least for me. I spend a lot of time looking at a screen. My job pretty much requires me to be on my laptop all day. Don’t get me wrong I love what I do — a lot. I also get outside as much as I can and prioritize exercise, but I still log at least 8 hours a day looking at a screen, and that’s just for work. I got to a point in September 2020 where I wanted to rethink how I was interacting with my phone.

My Smartphone Reimagined

I spent a lot of time on my phone. I watched YouTube videos, read books, texted, talked, listened to music, navigated and more. I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with any of those activities. In fact, I don’t necessarily want to stop any of them. I’ve learned a lot from YouTube, I try to read as much as I can, and I’m a This American Life podcast super-fan. The problem comes from spending more time than I want on any of those things.

For me, having a big shiny phone is like the Sirens of Titan calling me to come watch another J Kenji-Lopez Alt cooking video when I don’t even own a wok. What did I do when I have 5 seconds of down time in a line, or at a meal, or get in an awkward moment of silence in a group? Pull out my phone — check Instagram, Twitter, whatever; insert your digital vice here. I wanted to be in the moment a little more and be present. Nothing magical, just look around instead of looking down. I wanted something to give me a nudge to start a new conversation in that awkward moment instead of starting a tweet. I wanted to create an environment for myself to have the best possible chance of making the right decision. I wanted to make the right decision the path of least resistance, where it is actually easier to make the right decision rather than the wrong one. So, I started to reimagine what I wanted out of my phone.

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Palm

I wanted a phone that reflected the amount of time I wanted to spend on it. How much time did I want to spend on my phone? I wanted to cut out the extra YouTube, reading, and social media from my life, so that meant not a lot of time. That means I needed not a lot of phone. So that’s what I bought.

The Palm phone has a mind boggling 3.3 inch display. Think about that. Your phone is probably wider than my phone is tall. I want to be able to text, call, listen to music, track my workouts, and use GPS. That’s pretty much all I want. I also need to be able to check Slack or respond to an email quickly and effectively until I can get to my laptop in case I need to handle an issue for work. The Palm phone has a full Android operating system, so I can do all of the above. I even get a selfie cam. That was Palm’s major value proposition for me: I could check my email, I could watch a YouTube video, I could read an article, but would I want to for very long? No. That’s the beauty of it. The right choice has the path of least resistance.

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Palm has other features like Life Mode. Life Mode is basically like super airplane mode. Whenever it’s on all notifications are suppressed while the phone is locked, so I only see notifications when I want to see them. This has also significantly reduced the amount of times I check my phone. When I decide to check my texts, I can, instead of my texts constantly checking in with me. Another benefit of Life Mode is it puts a major kibosh on spam callers. If someone calls me in Life Mode it goes straight to voicemail. Slightly annoying for non-scammers (aka my friends), but most of my contacts know by now I’ll call them back in a little bit, or just shoot me a text first.

The Right Tool for the Job

For me, Palm is the right tool for the job. If I was trying to build a sand castle, I probably wouldn’t buy a backhoe — I’d stick with a little shovel. The backhoe would be overkill. That’s what the iPhone 12 Pro Mega Optimus Prime is for me right now: a little overkill. If I was trying to build a house, then I would probably go for the backhoe. That’s why I don’t think Palm is for everyone. If your life requires you to be more active on your phone (and there could be a variety of good reasons for that), then Palm is probably not for you [1]. I would not plan on spending several hours a day on your Palm phone and having a good experience. For my use case, in this season, it’s just the right fit.

Will I have the Palm phone forever? I’m not sure. I really like it right now. Maybe having children will change things, or maybe my job will change in a way that requires me to be on my phone more instead of just my laptop, maybe I’ll go blind from squinting at my little screen, but until then — I’ll be in Life Mode.

[1] It’s worth mentioning that Palm can also be a “companion phone” — meaning it’s synced to your primary big phone, so if you want to disconnect for a bit you can just take your tiny phone on the walk. I decided to make Palm my primary phone.

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