The Midphone, or "Dumbed Down Smartphone" Guide

I'm an insane lurker here, have attempted all the dumbed down smartphone guides and none of them have worked for me: someone who doesn't use IOS, doesn't like minimalism, and someone who's plan is to survive in the 2000s once more. So.. I'm making a guide on how I live my everyday life without certain smart features. Instead of saying "dumbed smartphone," I'm coining the term "midphone" for any dumbed down smartphone that is in the middle range between smart and dumb. While I will be calling it a midphone, the midphone is customized to the point where its functions are different from a smartphone and a dumbphone, but its base is still a smartphone of any kind, running any OS. Specifically I am running base Android 14.

SECTION ONE: The Dysfunction of Google

I have longed wished to not associate with Google. Though it is a convenience for me to have that connection, I realized around 5 years ago that Google and its tech became too focused on giving people more things rather than giving them more accessibility. I see the Ads, they sell things that can help the disabled and the poor, yet they further disenfranchise them by focusing on money, money, money - never saving the environment and its children. I realized that if I was going to have a phone, it wasn't going to be controlled by Android's investment.

While I still think Android has a better interface and a user-friendly mobile sphere, I can't seem to shake off my discomfort. This is why for my current midphone, I have disabled most of Google's account linking, deleted my advertising ID, regularly check that all functions are disabled, went in and deleted many google related apps, blocked, cleared catches and storages, disabled and stopped them as well. Turn off Usage & Diagnostics, as well as Firebase App Indexing. Go into many of the Google apps, and uninstall updates!!!! Make sure they can't modify system settings! Click show system apps, and modify them as you please, but make sure to not turn off Google Play Services until you are sure MicroG or another service can provide for you. My phone does not fit the bill, and I am not fit for running ROMs. I also pay my phone bill through Dumb Wireless, and I pay $49/$50 a month for Unlimited.

As long as you recognize that Android needs Google, you acknowledge that you are still going to be running Google, but in its most limited, restricted, and dysfunctional way. You are not to remove it, you are to make it so that it cannot function properly and it cannot connect you to its other services and features. You are opt-ing out of that. To me, I feel as though active protest must be against not only the aversion to using Google/Android products (dumbphones) but the lack of participating when given the chance (smartphones.) When using both at the same time, you get a midphone.

Either way, focus on the dysfunction and disabling Google's ability to watch you. This means not only on your phone, but reducing the amount of times you use a Google account or service in your everyday. It doesn't matter how much distance you have from Google, it matters how persistent you are in reducing it to its barely functioning state.

SECTION TWO: Write Down Everything

This part is simple. Write down everything you remember, accounts, passwords, log in pages, websites. All of it. You will need it, I swear you will. Google as a password manager sucked, and I know first hand. While I have three other devices running Google, I have disabled a lot of the same Advertising and diagnostics features as my phone. The whole point, again, is to reduce it into a barely functioning state. The other devices run Google only so I can preserve anything possibly lost when moving over. THAT is why I stress the importance of writing everything down, and why I don't shame people for still depending on Google. It is still hard to function without certain log-in information that I would have simply forgotten if I deleted everything. Certain tasks for my books need to be on certain platforms. Old emails, import employer information, I need that - not Google. So going through the progress of transferring will be a long, but fulfilling one.

This too applies to apps. Currently, I have 25 apps that I either sideloaded or bought from Aurora Store. All of these apps are alternatives from r/Piracy or here. I have FOSS apps, I have ESET, I have banking apps that use my proton email. My paypal app barely works because of me disabling Google, but it opens (half of the time!) The point is, you are supposed to disguise yourself online, and that extends to your personal life. If you want to be public, go ahead, but people and corporations are weirdos and I don't suggest hiding for them - but hiding for your own sake. Across all my devices, I have no social media apps besides Discord. Discord is what I use for communities strictly, and I have not updated it in a WHILE. A big thing you can do is stop relying on updates from apps that do not need them to still function.

My current app list is: Aurora Store, Foss calculator, Foss camera, Chomp SMS, ColorNote, Foss contacts, Crystal for Samsung Internet, Discord, Dolphin, ESET Mobile Security, Feeder, Foss files, Foss gallery, Organic Maps, PayPal, Foss phone, Proton Pass and VPN, Cracked ReadEra, Spacehey Mobile, Uber, Foss voice recorder.

For me to live, I do need Uber and Paypal. As apps? Paypal is here because I didn't want to keep opening my browser (that zooms too much) for my banking apps, which is what I do with Wells Fargo and Cashapp. Uber needs to be an app, for some reason, and I also need to get around when I can. As for Samsung Internet, the interface is better than any other browser besides Dolphin. I use Dolphin exclusively to have Invidious as a replacement for Youtube. I open it up and it stays on the page last exited. It's the only reason I have it, but if I were to compare, Samsung Internet wins.

SECTION THREE: The Design of Before

I know there are instincts within the body to perform minimalism as the first step to becoming "dumber," but I propose a better idea. Your Developer Settings + ADW launcher. My phone has been made anew with the ADW launcher. I tried minimalism and I didn't work for me, I want the 2000s and 2010s, not the 90s. My goal is not to return, it is to live, and in order for me to live in that period, I need to function in that way. So, say hello to ADW launcher. I suggest other launchers like Nova if this one does not work for you, but for me, its the best.

Other design choices you can make depends on the phone. My midphone is a base Motorola 2023 5g. This base offers customization (not better than Samsung but...) in color, font, size, and much more. It runs android 14, Has ESET Security in its accessibility, etc. I bold my text, keep my font size small, and put my text in high contrast mode. In the dock, I have my phone, camera, and sms, with no button to access my other apps because i dont put them on the home screen. on my home screen, i have the weather and the internet search bar. I use DuckDuckGo while turning off all AI and tracking and ads. I use strict anti-tracking with an ad blocker on my browsers. I use my browser for everything now. Banking, the news (RSS feed from Reddit), downloading files and music and apps, and I make sure to track how long im on it too so I can reduce that amount and instead do other productive things. Internet browser quick access has more reading, specifically for webcomics and manga and my emails. I make sure not to add anything distracting, I have to manually look them up. And on my computer, my home page immediately shows the Ytoo/org page, which sets me back years! Just recently, I was using the JS Paint tool like a little kid.

No matter what they say, minimalism just isn't enough for me and others. There must be color, there must be this pop, this mixture between the functions of before and the growth of new web design. I want things to run and look like they function poorly on purpose, and in this case, I am getting there! They do, and it doesn't bother me. It has taught me patience. I think others want something that looks "simple," but without the simple functions. They want something minimalistic without the minimalist function. I am a maximalist, I like the color, the swag, the pop, and the ability to have more things for more diverse functioning - not less things into one, all-seeing beast. It just won't work for me. The devices that I mentioned earlier are exactly for that. The tablet is for when I draw art and produce manuscripts. The Samsung galaxy S3 I have was my first phone in middle school that I dropped over and over again until the batter kept falling out, and now I use it to pirate all my music I download from Invidious I have a mini kids camera that I put an SD card in. I just bought a handheld console that reminds me of the DSi, that I still have in hot pink in the corner of my room. I have a CD and DVD player, I have a radio and clock, I don't use online journals I have a shelf of notebooks from since I was a kid, I have so many electronics because I don't want minimalism.

SECTION FOUR: It's In Everything You Type

I no longer use a qwerty keyboard on my phone. I use Traditional T9 instead. It's easy to learn and customize, and I haven't had anyone comment on it at all, really. The only setback you will get is finding the right symbols, the pace of your typing, and how you get around certain things like not having emojis if you don't want them.

It's In Everything You Type is referring to your keyboard, how it stores data, how you input characters, and what the receiver does with such information. Do they collect it? Does the app have trackers in it? Does it allow you to encrypt or delete data? Aurora Store is pivotal in revealing this info, and allows you to run for trackers if it hasn't been. Not only does getting a T9 keyboard keep you fresh design-wise, but it stops you from constantly being on your phone. Since I got it, I found less time to scroll and type but more time to read physical books, get physical media, listen to music, draw, write on my computer, and physically draw myself away from my midphone. One big thing I have seen here is that people believe that dumbing down to a dumbphone will save them from their "addiction," but that isn't a fix. You can't product placement your way out of doomscrolling, you have to actively fill your time up with other hobbies. You can doomscroll live TV, as long as you are not bed-rotting if able, as long as you are functioning to the capacity that you comfortably can.

The T9 keyboard helped me put down my phone. I don't want to type because I can't type important messages like emails, texts, and other semi-professional info without scrolling too far in the bar. Instead, I use my computer. I use my tablet. I use other devices, but that requires charging them and restricting their use to certain parts of the house so that I have to physically MOVE in order to use them. It forces me to get up and go around. That, is why I am maximalist as well. Even for Spacehey, a social media app, I barely text on there and instead like to read the blogs. I think there is this thing where people feel the need to be in the conversation a lot, especially on the go. My goal is not to watch the city burn but rather make sure I can help the fire be put out, but there is no water in my words. Action is a must.

Stop typing, start reading. Stop typing, start drawing. Stop typing, start listening. Stop typing, start calling. Stop typing, start writing on paper.

SECTION FIVE: So What, Midphone?

Well, this is it. That was the guide. I genuinely wanted to get this off my chest, I've been writing this since 1:32 AM. In the end, it boils down to: make Google dysfunctional, sideload and take control of your data, collect everything they own from you and reclaim your information, make sure they can no longer get it in the first place, and make sure you aren't giving it to them. The dumbphone movement is much more than just using a dumphone, it begets the act of new avenues of functioning that you must walk if you want to actually keep yourself "dumb." It is not enough to spend money on a flip phone, you have to barely function in this current tech and unlearn the smart things you were taught to get used to.

While I am not so sure how this translates over on another OS, I do think the midphone as I have presented it can be replicated by making your own OS or using Linux, almost skipping the first step entirely. One day, I hope the midphone can be something physically created into a dual-input phone for a new market of people who want something like this native to their device rather than customized. IMO, that's the only true way I'll be able to have a non-custom phone in my pocket besides something forcibly dumbed.