Smart phones and stupid phones

“Hi, can I help you?”. “Yes, I want a stupid phone. No bloody smartphone, just a thing that can call and send texts. The cheapest you have please!”

That was my conversation in the nearest phone store after Apple quoted me £220 for replacing my broken iPhone. £19.50 was a done deal.

iPhone was never cheap, but the price used to be OK. Now iPhone costs £619 (6s 64GB). That’s nearly as much as my notebook.

Would the new models be so sturdy as 4s, I wouldn’t mind as much, but as iPhone got bigger and thinner, it also got more fragile.

So dear Apple, thanks but no thanks.

So did my life change by not having an iPhone? Surprisingly little.

Probably the biggest change is I don’t have Google Maps on me. So now before I go, I check Google Maps online, write down how I get to my destination and that’s it. It works surprisingly well. I was able to get from the city centre of Lisbon where I never was before to an airport (7 km long walk) with no problems.

Change of plans? I just ask people.

I have less distractions now. I have and use my iPad, but I purposely didn’t install any email and messaging clients and disabled all notifications.

At the end all I really need phone for is confirming transactions in online banking.