Don't Fear the iPhone

Leo Babauta on wanting stuff:

I don’t, however, buy the iPhone. I’ve lusted after the iPhone since it first came out in 2007, and for more than four years, I’ve resisted getting one. Not because I like torturing myself, nor because I think I’m too cool for an iPhone, but because I don’t want to give in to the lust. I know I don’t need the iPhone, and I know my brain has been tricked into wanting it.

I love minimalism as much as the next guy, but I don’t fully agree with this.

What is the fear here? What will happen if you buy something you’ve wanted for four years, or “give in to the lust,” as Leo calls it, with scary music in the background.

Obviously, none of us need an iPhone like we need food, shelter, and love, and I don’t think everyone should have one. But the notion of “resisting” buying an iPhone for four years seems counterproductive. That’s four years of internal struggle because of a cell phone.

Minimalists often recommend a 30-day waiting list to avoid impulse buying. When you see something you want, you write it down and see if you still want it in a month. If you genuinely do, go ahead and buy it guilt-free. I think this is a practical idea and not too extreme of a suggestion. But why does the iPhone not apply?

I agree with Leo that advertising convinces the mind that we need much more than we actually do. His tips for reducing desires are great, and I adhere to most of them. But I don’t think owning an iPhone turns me into a victimized consumer either.

Leo’s tweet about Steve Jobs received a decent lashing, and I was among the criticism. My life is different because I own an iPhone, and I’m not ashamed to admit I believe it’s been for the better. As I wrote in my post on why the iPhone is minimalist, it makes my life easier. It makes communication and learning easier, which makes growing easier.

Leo responded to his critics shortly thereafter:

If you have been convinced a product changed your life, then it has. That’s how the magic works.

That’s not magic; it’s common sense. Your perception is your reality. If I believe the sky is red, then to me, it is. The logic here is so circuitous that it’s almost impossible to refute. The more I protest, “But the iPhone really has changed my life!”, the more effective Steve Jobs’s trick was, according to Leo. All of us who tweeted back only made him feel more validated.

Leo takes pity on us in his article, saying its not our fault. We’re only human and easily tricked. My problem is with insinuating that Steve Jobs set out to trick us with his shiny devices. Unfortunately, arguing either way is futile. If that’s what you believe, then that’s what he did.

This issue is a matter of semantics. There’s no convincing either side otherwise. I believe Apple has changed our lives regardless of whether we own any of its products. If you agree, you agree. If not, then in your eyes, I’ve been duped. I just don’t think an iPhone, or an iPad that allows a 99-year-old woman to read and write, is the same as a commercial telling you to buy unhealthy food or pointless possessions. Maybe I’m wrong, though.

I advocate minimalism because I think it solves problems. There are many different degrees of minimalism, which work for many different people. Leo’s way works for him, as mine does for me. However, what I don’t advocate is implying that people who do not adhere to a certain level of minimalism simply by having a passion for a tangible object are somehow worse off. Again, the argument is cyclical. These people have only “given into the lust” if you believe they have. Such language, intentionally or not, plays on fear by making people think, “Oh no! I don’t want to give in to lust! Lust is bad! I don’t want to be tricked!” That’s not constructive; it’s minimalism-mongering.

The iPhone is not harmful enough to warrant four years of mental struggle. Leo will be fine whether he owns an iPhone or not, and so will the rest of us.

The Great iTunes Purge

Last night, I decided to take a couple of hours and purge my iTunes library.

I started with 16,716 songs. That’s a cumulative 129.23 GB of music, which would take 64 days to listen to from start to finish.

By the time I reached the end of my library, I had whittled it down to 12,170 songs. I deleted almost 40 GBs of music. Now it would only take me 44 days to listen to my entire collection. Decent.

How’d I do it? Songs and artists I don’t like, but had some how acquired (Taylor Swift): gone. Songs I don’t mind, but would never consciously decide to listen to (Aerosmith): gone. I kept artists who I’m interested in, but haven’t gotten around to listening to yet, and I obviously kept all my favorite artists.

So, why the merciless deletion?

For one, I’m working toward being able to get all my music on my iPhone so I can stop carrying around both it and an iPod. Up to this point, the iPhone’s 32 GB hard drive has been too small for me to comfortably fit everything; my music collection was/is too big to selectively comb through every song. My library is still pretty enormous, but with the larger hard drives coming up, an iPhone-only setup is definitely doable in the near future.

Second, I keep all of my music on a 750 GB external hard drive because I like knowing that if my computer crashes, it’s all safe and sound. I don’t miss not having my music on my laptop because I either A) have my iPod with me, or B) have access to the internet and any number of music streaming solutions, Spotify and Grooveshark chief among them. These alternatives allow me to keep my computer lean and fast; I don’t have to take up valuable hard drive space with thousands of songs, many of which I don’t listen to regularly.

I want to start backing up this drive, and the more refined my music collection is, the easier that’ll be. Deleting all of my songs-I’m-never-going-to-listen-to also frees up a considerable amount of space on my external drive, thus prolonging the time when I’ll need to upgrade to something larger. Plus, I can’t tell you how satisfying it is to finally delete Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen.

Additionally, letting go of all those never-played songs feels great. It’s easy to think that the more songs you have in your iTunes, the more sophisticated and eclectic a person you are. But the truth is, no one cares. The feeling of not having to wade through thousands of unplayed songs far outweighs the tiny bit of reassurance you might get from knowing those songs are there if you ever need them, which you probably won’t.

It was time to eliminate all of the musical clutter I’d accumulated over the years, and I recommend purging all types of files every once in a while. It feels awesome, and your computer will thank you.

Home Button Follow-Up

In my post about why the iPhone is minimalist, I mentioned that the Home button serves a single purpose: to return to the home screen.

I’d say this is true the majority of the time. However, Luke Wroblewski actually came up with thirteen different functions for the Home button, most of which I hadn’t thought about.

I stand corrected, but Luke’s list doesn’t make the Home button any less minimalist. After all, one button is far simpler than thirteen different ones.

Via The Brooks Review

Simplicity In Your Pocket

(Or, Why the iPhone is Minimalist)

Dave Caolo rolls out his new, practical 52 Tiger with a post on how to de-clutter your iPhone. It’s a good article with simple strategies for keeping your device clean and tidy. A personal favorite:

I like to keep the bottom row icon-free. This habit developed when I bought the original iPhone years ago, and there was a dearth of apps for it. Since then, I’ve always keep that bottom row empty. It looks nice and provides an obvious lane for swiping back and forth.

I’ve been keeping my bottom row free since I got my iPhone 3G, and I find it makes a world of difference in how calm my home screen looks and feels.

Still, as with all Apple products, the iPhone itself is designed with focus and simplicity in mind so you don’t have to actively think about keeping it clutter-free.

From a software point of view, iOS has a uniform design; everything is consistent across each screen. Every icon is the same shape and style, and they’re all organized into a neat grid in the order of your choosing.

A friend once asked me to fix one of the icons on her Android phone, which was inexplicably out-of-line with the others. I tried several things, but the icon refused to conform with the grid. Staring at one rogue icon all the time would drive me nuts. Fortunately, the iPhone makes it impossible to have a messy home screen. Even if you have the maximum twenty icons or an entire page of folders, they’re still neatly arranged and offer a soothing user experience.

Dave also suggests being ruthless about which apps you keep on your device. I generally don’t keep apps that I might need “someday” for the precise reasons Dave describes: Re-downloading an app from the App Store is simple and free, and iOS 5 will save my app data even when I remove unused apps. Quick and painless.

Any self-respecting nerd will tell you home screen organization is a science. A judicious approach to app selection allows me to only have two screens-worth of icons. My home screen contains my most used apps, and the second screen contains folders for games, reading, utilities, and apps I’m intrigued by or experimenting with. This setup keeps all my apps only a swipe or tap away and protects me from having to dig through pages and pages of icons to find what I’m looking for.

Of course, the iPhone’s minimalist design is not only limited to software. The hardware itself is also clean and free of any extraneous buttons, keyboards, or trackballs. The iPhone’s Home button, for example, has a single function: return to the home screen. Its simplicity allows virtually any user to be able to navigate the phone within seconds. There’s practically no learning curve; if you’ve pressed it once, you’ve mastered it. This ease-of-use is what enabled my grandmother to look up something on Wikipedia despite having never owned a computer.

“But it’s so expensive!” you protest. “How can can something so expensive be considered minimalist?”

You could certainly make an argument that a free flip-phone is more minimalist than an iPhone, but this brings me to the issue of quality.

I’m a fairly ardent minimalist, but I agree with Marco Arment on this issue:

If you sit on, sleep on, stare at, or touch something for more than an hour a day, spend whatever it takes to get the best.

Why? Well:

1. Quality lasts longer. You can buy something cheap that will need to be frequently replaced, or you can buy a high-end item that will serve you well into the future. My iPhone 4 is fifteen months old — forever in technology years — and it still seems brand new.
2. Quality feels better. I love using my iPhone. I don’t get frustrated with it because I can’t figure out how to do something or because something isn’t working properly. That’s one less source of stress in my life.
3. Quality inspires you. My MacBook Pro is so enjoyable to use that I actually want to write posts with it. My iPad makes me want to read articles, essays, and novels. I don’t dread using these devices, so they actually allow me to get more done. Could I get by on a phone that just makes calls? Yes, but I’m a nerd, and I need more than that. Maybe not as a human, but as Andrew Marvin, I need to be able to read the latest news and check Twitter and play a game here and there because those things make me happy.

Everyday, the iPhone makes my life simpler and easier. I don’t have to carry a dictionary around with me. I don’t have to wait until I’m at a computer to send a quick email. I don’t need to buy a GPS for my car or a pedometer for exercising. I don’t need to keep a planner or a book with me all the time. The iPhone simplifies all of these areas in my life, which in turn makes me more productive, calmer, and happier.

Clean is Calm

Michael Lopp, of Rands In Repose, on how a clean workspace allows you to get in The Zone:

Try it. If your desk isn’t already OCD-tidy, go find a piece of paper hiding on your desk where upon discovery you realize its importance — was it important before your [sic] discovered it? Yes. Did it matter? No, because you forgot about it.

His article talks mainly about virtual desktops, but in any case, a clean workspace is often a tremendous boon for productivity.

Your external environment reflects your internal state of mind. When things are clean and organized, you feel calm and relaxed. When your desk is laden with things demanding your attention, you probably feel behind or stressed. I know when I’ve gone three days without putting my laundry away, going through my mail, or cleaning my room, I’m much more likely to get flustered or anxious for what seems like no particular reason. I’ll eventually get so fed up, knowing I still haven’t done what I’ve been meaning to do for days, that I’ll rip through those chores in a burst of productivity. And afterward, I immediately feel better. It’s like a great sigh of relief.

The more your desk accumulates piles of things over time (mail, books, papers, etc.), the more your brain reminds you, “Hey, you need to go through this stuff.” The longer you put it off, the more the task weighs down on you because you know you still haven’t done it yet. The thought of “Ugh, I need to do XYZ…” is still bouncing around in your head, and it will continue to bounce around up there until you either A) write it down, or B) do it. Since your mind only has a finite amount of space, it’s vital that you not leave too many things bouncing around at one time.

Of course, you might be a person who loves clutter and thrives under pressure; in which case, by all means continue doing what works for you. But if you’re at your best when you’re relaxed, try getting your environment to reflect your desired mental state. When your workspace is clean, you have more room to breathe, and you can focus on the one thing in front of you. As Lopp says in his article, “Distractions damage creativity.” I totally agree.

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Clutter & Physics

Clutter and Newton’s First Law of Motion | Unclutterer

Erin Doland, Editor-in-Chief of Unclutterer.com:

In the case of the Neosporin, and all clutter, I believe Newton’s First Law of Motion can explain how it lingers for years in our spaces. An object (clutter) will stay at rest until a force (motivation) of equal or greater value acts upon it. The thought, “I should get rid of that,” is not a force of equal or greater value than the clutter. As unfortunate as it is, thoughts cannot move clutter. We can’t wish away our unwanted objects. We actually have to do something about them physically.

I’m not one for physics, but Erin’s point is as true as it is obvious: your desk isn’t going to clean itself.

Via Minimal Mac