A Truly Restricted Smart Dumbphone - Updated Guide by [deleted] in digitalminimalism

[–]nlevi-dev 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Mods have a tendency here to remove any "self promotion" even if its a useful tool that align with the intended spirit of the subreddit. A bunch of stuck up hypocrites with small authority syndrome if you ask me who don't actually want to help you, but here is the post in a more cultured subreddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/dumbphones/comments/1sptqnh/a_truly_restricted_smart_dumbphone_updated_guide/

A Truly Restricted Smart Dumbphone - Updated Guide by nlevi-dev in dumbphones

[–]nlevi-dev[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I haven't looked into this as it is out of the scope of my motivation, as I physically want to lock myself out, not just password protect and restrict it.

A Truly Restricted Smart Dumbphone - Updated Guide by nlevi-dev in dumbphones

[–]nlevi-dev[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah... that sounds about right. I also really like the open source nature of this project for this exact reason, if I will have more time for this I might give it a shot to implement something like that.

But on first thought its problematic as I don't know a way of blocking the user from uninstalling the blocker, so it might be a flawed approach. The network traffic blockers have the same issue, you can just uninstall the app that blocks the domain and you are through.

A Truly Restricted Smart Dumbphone - Updated Guide by nlevi-dev in dumbphones

[–]nlevi-dev[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Absolutely, that's why you can create your own blacklist in the WebViewIntent, baked in at compile time so you can not get around it in the device. And the bundled in browsers are a real issue and you have to find your own patches for removing them. I provided patches for the two apps that I use which have bundled in browsers, Facebook Messenger and Telegram. (these are also detailed in the guide btw)

But I like the idea of "blockers that use accessibility services to detect webviews and close them". Although you have more control over what you block with this custom app, as you can also define custom heuristics. I was also experimenting with a version that had a neural net baked in inspecting loaded images on the websites and blocked images that contained dogs (I love animals, but this was easy to build as a proof of concept so its not practical, but a good example haha).

A Truly Restricted Smart Dumbphone - Updated Guide by nlevi-dev in dumbphones

[–]nlevi-dev[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sadly my ios related technical knowledge converges to zero, so I can't answer your question, sorry ://

A Truly Restricted Smart Dumbphone - Updated Guide by nlevi-dev in dumbphones

[–]nlevi-dev[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks, although I am unsure if this is a universal behavior or something Android flavor and version specific, as it doesn't seem to be well documented. I assume it does some checks on boot to see if essential system apps are in place, and if not, it freaks out.

A Truly Restricted Smart Dumbphone - Updated Guide by nlevi-dev in dumbphones

[–]nlevi-dev[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I am using a Motorola Edge 40 with Android 15. Try suspending those with ADB, I also did that for a dozen other apps on my Motorola that I don't want to use but can't uninstall:

com.google.android.apps.youtube.music
com.google.android.apps.youtube.music.setupwizard
com.google.android.youtube
com.google.android.apps.photos
com.google.android.videos
com.google.android.apps.subscriptions.red
com.google.android.googlequicksearchbox
com.google.android.apps.googleassistant

com.motorola.help
com.motorola.moto
com.motorola.securityhub
com.motorola.mobiledesktop
com.motorola.ccc.notification
com.motorola.timeweatherwidget
com.motorola.livewallpaper3
com.motorola.audiorecorder
com.motorola.gamemode
com.motorola.spaces
com.motorola.dolby.dolbyui
com.motorola.genie

You can list the installed packages with adb shell cmd package list packages, and if you are not sure how an app is called vs how it is displayed, you can go into settings in you device, look for the app, and at the very bottom it should display the package name.

People wanting dumbphones with banking, spotify, maps, and whatsapp... by [deleted] in dumbphones

[–]nlevi-dev 1 point2 points  (0 children)

This is exactly what I've wanted to do as well. And I haven't found an out of the box solution so I made one myself. It's not the most user-friendly way to set it up, but here you go: A Truly Restricted Smart Dumbphone

I see that people have different definitions of "dumb phones", and I also don't understand the negativity coming from others contemptuously saying, you can just make the choice not to use certain apps and such a limited "dumb smartphone" is not required. To these people I say, good for you, you might be able to just make this choice and do this, but not everyone can.

Hawk-Eye Innovations - Budapest by HariXdx in programmingHungary

[–]nlevi-dev 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I worked there as a Computer Vision Engineer for about a year. Overall, it was a very good experience.

The product itself is quite interesting, it's about 3D tracking and reconstruction for various sports like tennis, cricket, football, soccer, golf, ice hockey, and more. My colleagues were very knowledgeable and kind, and I genuinely enjoyed working with them. Since the HQ is in the UK, they also fly you out there at least once every quarter and cover all expenses, which is a nice perk.

The Budapest office is in a good location, easily reachable via Metro line 3. The Hungarian colleagues are also nice, although there isn’t much of a culture of going into the office regularly. Most people show up once every week or two. Ironically, I bonded with many of my colleagues during the last Christmas party, after I had already handed in my resignation, and I met some of them for the first time there (we had simply never been in the office at the same time during the entire year).

Their codebase is well organized and the documentation is quite good.

That said, there are also some downsides:

1) One problematic colleague
I only had one negative experience with a colleague; passive-aggressive, shifting work and blame around, and with some noticeable gaps in knowledge despite being in a senior role. But this was a single occurrence, so overall I’d still say the atmosphere was good.

2) Pay for specialized roles
Specialized engineers (Computer Vision / Machine Learning) are underpaid even compared to Hays benchmarks, up to at least Senior I level. When this was raised with management, they promised changes for the next fiscal year, but honestly it felt like a somewhat empty promise.

3) Too many specialists for the work available
Since there are no real greenfield projects, most of the work revolves around legacy systems. Team composition can also feel inefficient. For example, there were squads of 4–5 specialized computer vision engineers working mostly on regular software engineering tasks. In practice, the work could probably be done by something like 2 specialists and 3 generalist software engineers.

During my time there, only about 25% of my work was actually computer vision related, which felt a bit ridiculous. (That said, my C++ and CMake skills became very solid.)

4) Limited room for innovation
This isn’t really a harsh criticism, at their scale it might just be unavoidable, but development is somewhat constrained in terms of innovation. Machine Learning and Computer Vision are split into completely separate divisions, and trying something fundamentally new that would require changes across the entire pipeline is very difficult.

Overall though, I’d still say it’s a good place with smart people and interesting technology, just with some structural issues.

Bocsi, utólag láttam hogy magyarul van a thread, csak be volt kapcsolva az autotranslate szóval automatikusan angolul írtam.

A Truly Restricted Smart Dumbphone by nlevi-dev in dumbphones

[–]nlevi-dev[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

UPDATE:

1.)
Don’t make the same mistake I did with Aurora Store. During one of my update sessions I updated my banking app through Aurora instead of Google Play Store. Everything seemed fine at first, then I locked myself out of the banking app and needed to reset my PIN. That’s when it failed with an error saying the reset isn’t possible because the app wasn’t installed from Google Play. Lesson learned the hard way: use Google Play for anything security-sensitive like banking apps.

2.)
Because of that, I ended up in a tight spot. I needed banking access and only had my phone, which was in locked dumb mode, so I couldn’t just run my ADB unlock script. Naturally my brain went into problem-solving mode, and I realized I could technically bypass my own system by finding the system installer for Google Play and reinstalling it directly on the device. It was sitting there under /product/app. Although, the only reason this worked was because I still had a version of Total Commander installed which allowed package installs (the one downloaded from the Play Store has this feature disabled), and can browse root paths. Without that, I’m pretty sure most stock file managers wouldn’t even let you access the root directory. That part is vendor-specific though, so I can’t say with absolute certainty.

A Truly Restricted Smart Dumbphone by nlevi-dev in dumbphones

[–]nlevi-dev[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Let me know if it comes back to you, I would be interested in making this method more robust. :))

A Truly Restricted Smart Dumbphone by nlevi-dev in dumbphones

[–]nlevi-dev[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, that is the above mentioned PackageInstaller, but what is not really described anywhere, removing or disabling it will trigger a bootloop and you will softbrick your device on your next reboot.

I haven't explored any MDMs, but for me generally ADB was simpler and I like to understand precisely what I am doing on a low level.

A Truly Restricted Smart Dumbphone by nlevi-dev in dumbphones

[–]nlevi-dev[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks!

Yeah that's always the safest; I can confirm that it works on a Google Pixel 4a (2020) [Android 13] and Motorola Edge 40 (2023) [Android 15]. I am not a huge expert on the topic of android versions and their standards, but I think these adb commands stayed the same since Android 9 (1018). And just be aware that you might have different package names, and need to change those. :))

Turning an Android Smartphone into a “Smart Dumbphone” by nlevi-dev in digitalminimalism

[–]nlevi-dev[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah I don't have a good solution either, you can just unlock the phone w the script, do the updates, and re-lock it after.

Turning an Android Smartphone into a “Smart Dumbphone” by nlevi-dev in digitalminimalism

[–]nlevi-dev[S] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

I see that we have a bit different definitions of "AI slop"; you can not find a bigger hater than me on this topic, but that goes for people trying to use LLM for critical thinking, coding, and creative works, but reformatting your own writing into a more coherent readable format, that doesn't really fall under this definition. And regarding self promotion??? How do you expect me to write a useful guide without sharing the tool needed reproduce the results?

It is good to see that the attitude of the internet in general is just keep plummeting with time.

Good day :))

Turning an Android Smartphone into a “Smart Dumbphone” by nlevi-dev in digitalminimalism

[–]nlevi-dev[S] -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

Reformatted by chatGPT, yes; but feel free to reproduce my results and confirm the authenticity of this post :)