I have an iPhone 13 mini and I think it's really the perfect smartphone for me. I like the size and shape and I appreciate the overall build quality. But I keep it pretty minimal: I only use the phone, SMS, and occasionally Apple Maps. And the only apps I have installed are Apple Music Classical and Google Auth. No email app either, though I'll install the HEY.com app when I'm traveling. I use the privacy restrictions to disable almost everything including the camera, podcasts, Safari, Health, Siri, etc. I use iCloud to sync my contacts and that's it.

The last phone I had before this one was an iPhone 8, and before that an iPhone 5—both setup in the same way. I've never used my phone for entertainment or for socialization. It's always been a tool and I think it's better this way.

Wendell Berry, The Vacation (1994):

Once there was a man who filmed his vacation.

He went flying down the river in his boat

with his video camera to his eye, making

a moving picture of the moving river

upon which his sleek boat moved swiftly

toward the end of his vacation. He showed

his vacation to his camera, which pictured it,

preserving it forever: the river, the trees,

the sky, the light, the bow of his rushing boat

behind which he stood with his camera

preserving his vacation even as he was having it

so that after he had had it he would still

have it. It would be there. With a flick

of a switch, there it would be. But he

would not be in it. He would never be in it.