As is pretty apparent, I’ve been thinking a lot about digitmal minimalism here lately.1 This morning on my walk, I pondered a little what my perfect device setup would be, and I think I’ve got it. Here’s what I want.
- An iPad mini with the Daylight DC1’s screen.
- An iPhone mini with the same screen, no app store (only Safari, iMessage, Apply Pay, Wallet, Mail, Calendar), and a single small camera.
The more I think on it, this would totally solve my many problems.2
An iPad mini Daylight tablet would be a wonderfully constrained device. Yes, I could get by with Android and — if it ever actually ships — I’ll probably get a DC1. However, the apps in iOS are just better. I’m in the ecosystem and it would just be so seamless. With a fulltime B&W screen it wouldn’t matter if I had the whole app store or not. The no-color constraint, keeps things chill and focused.
With such an iPad I could imagine a world where my phone basically stays in the other room the majority of the day. I’d be able to catch up on my RSS feeds, pop in on Micro.blog, read some PDFs, read an ePUB, review my Readwise highlights, read saved articles on Readwise reader, dig into Wikipedia, and do some research on the open web in Safari. The B&W screen limits the dopamine hits and helps in keeping things focused. Full iPad OS could remove rough edges and make things possible while yet still being unpleasant.
For the phone, I can imagine a beautiful iPhone 4 or 5 sized device with paired down functionality. Yes, I could go with a minimal phone, but I don’t want to become a “green bubble” and lose messaging on my desktop. Also, QR codes and the things in my Apple Wallet have become more or less required for city life. A minimalist iPhone would solve these problems. It’d give me everything I need to live a standard smartphone city life without the temptation or possibility of distractions.
I know, I know. A mini iPhone doesn’t sound as lucrative to Apple. I don’t know, maybe bundle it with the minimalist iPad? Maybe it doesn’t work without the iPad? Heck — though I’d totally turn this feature off — make the notifications from the iPad hit the mini Phone. Whatever it takes to keep services revenue up and make the bean counters happy, I’m willing to compromise.
This all, of course, will never happen. Most likely, I’ll get a DC1 — or something very similar — and stick with an iPhone with most everything turned off. But, boy, it would be nice if it’d happen.
