This isn’t meant as an insult, but I just haven’t been able to work my Mudita into my life lately. I was curious how many people found themselves with their Kompakt sitting powered off on their shelves?
For me, mainly, it was a long (6 week) trip where I needed a lot of heavy map and navigation usage and to be able to have a very reliable and flexible device on hand.
Where I’ve found the Kompakt fits in to my life is when I go for a walk and maybe grab a coffee and read a book - but then I don’t even bring a phone with me in these cases anyhow so…
Anyways, just wondering how everyone’s finding their Kompakts fitting into their routines? I still think it’s a very neat device, just trying to figure out where it fits into my life.
I keep it rather on besides overnight (Offline+) as it’s my phone, but might be going Offline+ more often as I just got a landline phone over my fiber - and only key contacts know the number.
I still sometimes get to my car for an MFA code which I just removed from some service as it was pain in the butt.
Now I tend to use my smartphone in the car to double-check e-mails even though I can access them on my computers, boo.
I also launch some YT interviews while on the go, hard to get rid of that one since I don’t have much time after work. I already listen on x2 speed.
Lastly, I get back to my car phone (let it be it or a dedicated tool) for navigation but it’s a matter of time, I already went back to paper route planning and I have paper maps of my country and my region just in case. I also remember my language so can ask for directions eventually. I used MK maps several times and it’s okay for walk or bicycle navigation. For car navigation, is tricky because of naked GPS update speeds and I have screenshots where current “next move” provided me with far different distance than the distance right underneath. But hey, can still lead to the point.
I use MK for sideloaded WhatsApp and Signal at times but I don’t like having to kill it after each use to avoid battery drain. I might remove those or keep dormant for some corner cases while I mostly use those two on my PC.
I don’t read ebooks, I don’t listen to podcasts or music most of the time so I don’t care about those. I make paper notes and calculate on a sheet of paper if I need help.
If you don’t struggle from smartphone apps’ notifications and addictive traits of those apps and the screen itself, I think you’re doing great already! Then, probably other reasons would come into play when deciding about MK.
Been in a similar boat. My usecase is probably a lot different than most people’s here, so bear that in mind. I needed a phone with an eink screen to cut down on my social media/ video consumption and the MK solves that really well, but I still have a lot of apps I’d like to use. I thought I could achieve that through sideloading but unfortunately I keep running into different hurdles.
The main one is I couldn’t figure out how to connect my galaxy watch 7 which pretty much renders the watch useless. Probably something to do with the lack of google services but I’m not 100% sure. My intention was to use the watch for payments and other stuff that I can’t do with the phone. But as you said there are other things like navigation reliability which can be a problem. Or banking apps not working (Revolut in my case). Or Viber not playing well when used on two phones. Or the total mess that notifications are. InkOs makes those kinda usable but there’s only so much the dev can do about that given MuditaOS’ strange design decisions/limitations on that front. I can look past these but the watch connectivity is a big one for me, since with it I would have been able to complement the phone in its weaker areas.
I can’t ever feel truly confident with using this phone as my main and completely ditching my regular phone. And lugging two phones around doesn’t feel great, especially given the fact that the transition isn’t quite smooth.
I use it as a daily driver probably 90% of the time. It especially shines becasue it helped me replace bad habits with better ones. For example, now instead of watching youtube before I go to sleep, I read — much better on my eyes, more calming, and doesn’t derail my sleep as much as youtube on a non-e-ink display.
But I do still have my iPhone in my drawer. I take it out maybe once every week or two when I have to go on a longer trip for more powerful navigation capabilities. And I use it once a month to check my banking stuff and pay my taxes.
Also… porn is better in color lol.
So yeah, my MK isn’t collecting dust at all, but I still do occasionally rely on my old smartphone.
I was so motivated to use the MK. I managed to squeeze it into my life, with a few inconveniences. Then a difficult period came when I had to use my smartphone for some special apps which required Google. Then I was waiting for the update, hoping that it brings some fixes to certain shortcomings of the phone so I can trust it at least as an alarm. Luckily I waited with the update and still rocking 1.1., so none of the new issues appeared yet. Honestly not hoping much from future updates anymore. So my MK is just lying on my shelf waiting for me to use it again or sell it. I am a bit angry though, it was the most expensive phone I have ever bought.
After 12 weeks I got rid of mine, SMS didn’t work, phone calls were too quiet, couldn’t trust it the alarm. Small things like having to go into the music app to adjust the volume of the media play back so that the meditation timer gong wasn’t too loud. I could go on, it was a total mess, I’m so glad I gave up.
It was nice to read e-books on but that’s about it, but actually, the screen was a bit too small for that.
It has been the only phone I’ve used for 16 weeks (since the day I’ve received it in the mail) and I have no intentions of going back to my iPhone or getting any other phone.
Mine has been getting regular use. I like to read and this is my portable e-reader that also makes calls. I also value my privacy, though that meant I had to sideload options like a VPN and secure messaging apps.
Depending on what I’m doing, I sometimes carry my old phone for ease of use with some apps, plus any apps that will track me go on that phone instead of my MK.
I have been frustrated with the poor quality of the default apps, the lack of options (seriously, why would they strip away options that exist in AOSP by default?), and the lack of notifications. I disabled most of the stock apps and sideloaded FOSS alternatives which do the same thing but better. That improved the functionality of the MK a great deal for me.
I don’t think they necessarily meant to strip away options. I think when they were porting the settings to make them display better, they simply chose to display only the settings that seemed necessary for the minimalist built-in functions. They have addressed this by the 1.3.0 fix which will be bringing Accessibility settings that were inadvertently hidden back.
The more I use it, the happier I am. OpenStreetMap took me a little time to get use to but now, enjoy it quite a bit. I’ve traveled internationally with my Kompart - zero issues. I love the offline+ function. It just clicks and I am recovering from my iPhone notification PTSD - I viscerally HATE the iPhone ding.
I find the Kompakt comforting and use it as is - no sideloading. I find the experience to be liberating. Everything I want is on the roadmap… I guess I feel the wait to be worthwhile as I have all the required basics as is. Most of the upcoming updates are just icing on the cake.
That makes sense and you’re probably right, it just frustratingly amounts to the same thing as the end user. But as long as they keep making improvements, I think it’ll all work out in the long run.
After a while back to smartphone I felt again that cognitive load so I went back to the Mudita. For now I use the InkOS launcher just to have some quick access to useful system settings and have a music player widget. I do like the stock Mudita launcher, though. Not big on text-based.
Using my Kompakt with the sideloaded apps, I can go about my day and in 95% of the time not need my smartphone. I also have to say it feels nicher in the hand than a big unwieldy smartphone. Still not as nice as a flipphone, though.
Fun fact, I actually started it as a simple launcher like Mudita but went with text-based for one reason: icons.
My favorite black and white icon pack disappeared from internet, and I didn’t have to deal with mismatched icons for apps Mudita vs third-party apps vs default AOSP app icons.
Gamma mode is only available to system apps, so non-black icons looked horrible without it.
I used MK maps several times and it’s okay for walk or bicycle navigation. For car navigation, is tricky because of naked GPS update speeds and I have screenshots where current “next move” provided me with far different distance than the distance right underneath. But hey, can still lead to the point.