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Ask HN: How can I use my phone to create things rather than consume them?

98 points by peterlk ↗ HN
Phones seem optimized purely for content consumption. One of the reasons I prefer using my laptop/desktop is that they are where I can create things. Music (DAW/VST ecosystem), code (compilers, editors, etc.), visuals (illustrator/photoshop/Final Cut). I would like a way to casually create things on my phone rather than consume them. For example, rather than compulsively checking my email or looking at HN, I'd like to update one of the synths in a song I'm working on. I'm open to the idea that desktop workflows will not translate directly to mobile workflows, and that the media I play with might be different (maybe I have to become a connoisseur of TikTok videos?) That's fine. I just want to create rather than consume. How can I do this on my mobile device?

83 comments

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hackerpain
Install code-server (https://github.com/cdr/code-server) on a server, and using it in your phone's browser to develop small web apps (works well in landscape mode with 6 -6.7 inch phones)

If you have a powerful processor and adequate RAM - you can do almost any thing that you do on desktop/pc

st1x7
I still don't get the motivation behind this. If you want to consume less stuff on your phone, you can reduce the consumption without replacing it with anything - you don't have a phone time quota that you need to meet on any given day, just cut down on the things you don't like.

When you're creating anything, it makes sense to do it in the best possible environment that you have for it - I would rather write code on a laptop instead of using a phone and I would pick a desktop computer over the laptop. Phones are rarely the best environment for any creative task apart from maybe pictures, videos, vlogs and other social media stuff (if we can put those in the creative category).

billfruit
Thing is, people find themselves in many situations where they have a spot of free time, and the phone is the only object available at hand. How can one use that time to create/build something rather than using it in consuming some sort of media.
davzie
It’s actually okay to do nothing instead! Constantly keeping the mind entertained doesn’t give the poor thing any breathing space or time to come up with it’s own entertainment!
layer8
So much this. To get real work done (creative or not), you want a desktop OS and a big screen, keyboard and mouse.
michaericalribo
Yeah, I want that, but if I’m standing in line at the grocery store, I’m not at my desk, I don’t have a monitor, keyboard, or mouse.

Those tools may be good for some situations. But what about all the other situations? Some of the best art is created under adversity.

To be clear, the grocery line isn’t an adverse situation. But being in prison, working a physical / manual job, poverty—these are all adverse situations people face every day that prevent them from accessing the tools you mentioned, but I simply don’t believe they cannot or should not make art.

st1x7
If you're in line in the grocery store, not taking out your phone to fill those 30 seconds and just being there by yourself might be better for your creativity than opening an app and pretending that you have accomplished something in that time.
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michaericalribo
My opinion is that you’re wrong—30 seconds in the grocery line _is_ enough time to “accomplish something,” and Einstein / Toni Morrison / William Carlos Williams / etc were not merely “pretending” to be creative!
layer8
I agree with the GP that letting your mind wander in those situations is often better for creativity than trying to fill every minute with activity.
layer8
Agreed, though in such “adverse” situations I would probably stick to conventional nondigital art (drawing, painting, writing, playing music, woodworking, sculpting, origami, etc.), or maybe to photography. A phone is physically just not a very good (figurative) canvas to be creative on, and really not “frictionless” (as argued by another comment). You can still use it for inspiration, (minor) research, communication and distribution.
5tefan
This. Don't get it as well. Rather enjoy my free time. I live along the line of "work smart not hard" to get as much free time as possible. But if it is a must to you... thinking is also working. No need to produce a text or edit something or such things. Wrap your head around a topic and there's no need for an input device.
throwaway524
Premiere Rush/TikTok/Instagram Reels is pretty good.
jbjbjbjb
I don’t get why you want to use your phone? Is there some added convenience?

To create you could use your phone’s camera to record and post videos, you could do some writing maybe even use speech to text conversion, there are various synths you can get for phones. I personally use apps for astronomy and workouts which is about as productive as I get on my phone.

SurfingInVR
Your example is answered with Garageband. For programming, use a language with a REPL that's light on syntax. The built-in "Notes" app is exceptional for writing poetry.

Alternatively, you could use a Mosh client, but with how fast modern phones are, it would be kind of a waste.

wtmt
Since you mentioned Final Cut, I’m going to assume you’re using an iPhone. For music, there’s GarageBand from Apple. There are many third party apps too, many being free as well. For visuals, you have iMovie from Apple and many other painting/image/video/animation apps, also with many being free too.
hliyan
I think what you may be looking for is a device that allows you to type in text without requiring a surface on which to place it (while seated on a bus, lying down in bed). I've always wanted something similar myself, but mobile keyboards don't make it easy for you to type without having to focus your gaze directly on the keyboard. Perhaps someone could invent a device where your hands rest on a keyboard while the screen rests on your hands?
kgwxd
Touch screens are the worst possible input for anything productive. Maybe if there was far less latency, you could make some decent music but, in my experience, anything beyond basic, unexpressive rhythm, chords, and melodies are the best you can achieve. Nuance can be added in post, but that's tedious and sucks the life out the process.

I don't draw, but I know doing it on a touch screen is far more painful than paper.

I think alternative input devices are a must, at which point you might as well just use a laptop. That might not be practical if you're on-the-go e.g. riding the bus. If you're not, then why use a phone?

troyvit
I have to disagree. My daughter started drawing on paper but quickly moved a tablet. What she can do is faster and more precise than a) what she can do on paper, and b) what modern desktop drawing software can do. I think she'd call her style cartoonish for sure, so maybe drawing something other than interesting characters doing weird things is beyond touch screens, but the ability to generate, combine, and manipulate elements in a drawing app on a tablet blows anything else I've seen out of the water in terms of the quality of the end result and the speed at which she can achieve it. And yeah I'm probably a little biased.
vimy
> I don't draw, but I know doing it on a touch screen is far more painful than paper.

You have it backwards. Digital blows paper out of the water. And the iPad Pro with an Apple pencil is eating Wacom’s lunch.

blindpixel
Try making some art. You can use art apps to remix old photos and also to generate completely new pieces.

Not sure about iOS, but on Android there are fantastic apps like Glitch Lab, Mirror Lab, and so on. Here is a link to art made on Android using Mirror Lab: https://www.instagram.com/mirror_lab/

peterlk
Yes! This is the kind of stuff I'm looking for. There appear to be some interesting fractal apps as well. Any other suggestions?
blindpixel
On my iPad, I have briefly used Amaziograph and Kaleidacam. Other apps are Hyperspektiv, Glitche etc.

You can also buy the iPhone version of Procreate which is a super sweet painting app.

Besides that, I use Garageband and Beathawk on my iPad to compose music.

michaericalribo
This is a great question! I think other commenters miss the basic point that mobile is frictionless and can be used anywhere.

I think OP is thinking along the following lines: I’m on the bus / in the loo / waiting for my lunch to heat in the microwave. How can I use these moments to produce creatively? I already have a great tool that I know can deliver content efficiently and accessibly to me in these situations—I use my phone here already. But are there any ways to change my behavior to not flick through another feed, but actually advance my own creative goals?

Successfully being a creative person isn’t a matter of ‘tear it all down and start from scratch.’ It’s important to use the resources that are already available to us!

For my part, I wish it was easier to write long form quickly. Writing this on an iPad keyboard just now sucked—light years less efficient than on my computer keyboard. And my phone is even worse! But I often want to journal in bed or write fiction away from my desk. Are there better ways to input lots of text quickly?

blackbear_
I really dislike long form articles, I feel like the author never gets to the point, only jumping from one digression to another. Perhaps difficulty in writing could be an incentive to write shorter and more focused articles :)
michaericalribo
You’re talking about consuming the writing-very different. There are many situations where length has nothing to do with content, and you’re ignoring art forms that are fundamentally long form—film screenplays, novels, (some) investigative journalism. Just because it’s not to your taste doesn’t mean it’s not important :)
michaericalribo
Unless you meant the post you were replying to never got to the point, and should have been shorter and more focused...I can agree w that! :P
Veen
Essays historically originated---with Montaigne's Essais---as discursive, digressive, long-form prose. They are a prose artform that attempts to achieve more than a straightforward information dump.

You might not like the form, and there are certainly many bad examples, but a long essay is no more a failure to write a short blog article than a poem is a failure to write a news report.

peterlk
Yes, this is exactly what I mean.

I feel your pain for writing. This morning, I accidentally deleted all my notes from yesterday and could not recover them from my phone because there is no undo (!!? How can phones still not have an undo?) in my note-taking app. I had to get up and recover the version from my desktop because I wasn't signed in to dropbox on my phone.

lemonspat
The iPhone has an undo when you shake it. Works for text boxes and deleting emails and other things
jimsmart
In Apple's Notes, there is a top level folder called Recently Deleted - you can move things from that folder back where they belong.
zapzupnz
On iOS, three finger double tap, three finger swipe left, and shaking the phone — all undo. With a connected keyboard, Cmd-Z also works.
jbjbjbjb
iPhone supports dictation as an input. It’s not very private but it’s a decent way to input lots of text.
l_t
w.r.t. long-form writing, two suggestions -- depending on whether you prefer keyboard or handwriting:

- Keyboard: With a phone that supports USB host mode, you can plug your keyboard of choice into the USB port and use that for input. With a small mechanical keyboard like [0], you can have a great mobile typing experience.

- Handwriting: E-ink tablets like the reMarkable 2 [1] are quite cool if you want a paper-like writing experience.

[0]: https://www.duckychannel.com.tw/en/Ducky-One2-Mini-Pure-Whit... (Note -- this is just an example; I'm not familiar with this specific keyboard, but there are a lot like it out there.)

[1]: https://remarkable.com/store/remarkable-2

aesclepius
> Writing this on an iPad keyboard just now sucked—light years less efficient than on my computer keyboard. And my phone is even worse! But I often want to journal in bed or write fiction away from my desk. Are there better ways to input lots of text quickly?

I hate to suggest you buy things to improve your experience, but I had the same issue earlier this year. The Magic Keyboard really is just that, delivers a 95% equivalent of a computer keyboard that allows me to enter long-form text comfortably on an iPad Pro. My n of 1 and all that but I've found it to be a suitable quick-boot alternative when I just want to write a couple paragraphs down instantly.

ivan_ah
I "write" a lot on my phone using a simple voice recorder app. It's a great way to put together intros, conclusions, and other "explainers" (obviously not so good for technical parts with equations or code). I usually make a small point-form plan on a piece of paper, then go for a walk with the voice recorder. The act of walking seems to help a lot (see related [1] about that).

I've tried text-to-speech options, but what I find works best is to transcribe the audio myself (usually playback at 0.7x), since during the transcription process I can cleanup and improve the thoughts.

Honestly, without this trick I could have never been able to write books. The technical details and explanations are pretty standard (math books all have to cover the same topics), but the extra, intuition, context, intros, and "lead out" text in conclusion/discussion sections are super important to tie it all together, and these parts specifically come out much better when created using the spoken-then-transcribed since the tone comes out more conversational.

Try writing your next blog post through diction, you will see it's great!

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25543656

robjan
The only thing I can think of is writing a blog if that's of interest to you. If you use wordpress of blogspot you can use their app to write drafts then edit whatever you wrote on a desktop.
michaericalribo
Any alternatives to a touchpad screen for text input? Touchscreens are garbage for writing...
technoryt
If you have a phone with a pen (e.g., Galaxy Note), sketching is rather fun. FWIW, I use Adobe Sketch, for which I get a license through work. Not quite creating but also not quite passive consuming: Anki or other apps for learning (when I am in a good period, downtime becomes opportunities for buffing up geography and music).
michaericalribo
Agreed with this ! The Apple Pencil w an ipad and Adobe sketch is endless fun, and a really new way for me to interact w the world around me!
thiht
You can simply take pictures and videos. There's lot of inspired and inspiring shorts on Tiktok for instance.
djaahk
Great question and something I’ve been struggling with as well. A few things I like to do to make “down time” more productive:

- listen to podcasts and take notes, which I then turn into mini mind maps (it helps me remember concepts and linking ideas together)

- I do brand and marketing work, so I often use phone time to doodle early logo concepts, draft storyboards, start composing shots for photo shoots... etc. I find the constraints of the small screen quite interesting as it obliges me to veer towards simpler designs (I use Google Keep which allows for zooming in and out easily, and seamlessly integrates with the laptop version)

- whiteboarding (again in Google Keep or Miro) is also something I love to do on a phone, usually for processes and/or identity systems where I’d collate references for a projects into a single document for future use

- photo editing / story editing using VSCO and Over is a great way to use phone time productively. I often prepare visuals for blog posts or social stories that way,

- financial planning (probably less creative than the rest, but also a good way to spend phone time and many workflows are actually faster on mobile): I use a virtual bank (Monzo, in the U.K.) so I use phone time to label/categorise spend, visualise budgets, pay anything that needs paying and create simpler invoices with a Google Sheet template and pdf exports to Dropbox

Many more options, but these are my major uses. Looking forward to reading the other answers!

Bmalone
Do a tech/ social media fast...it sounds like you would benefit from being more imaginative,as there are already a dearth of applications out there to aid creativity (or, even to fool people into thinking they are creative, i.e. GarageBand loops, etc).

From the basic 'notes' app included in all phones for creative writing, to the camera for photography, to FL studio app for music.

Not only for you, but for myself and many other people who like to 'make stuff', a good tech/ social media detox to spark some imagination is the only thing I think will truly get you being creative (myself included). The paradox of choice out there, coupled with instant gratification is a productivity/ creativity killer...get that imagination firing again!

yoz-y
As somebody with no music making skill I quite liked using arpeggiators like Figure.
novosel
I rather enjoy writing longhand, and closest in feel to it is Dasher[0]. Don't get me wrong, keyboard entry is, in my opinion, a superior option for moving across large amount of text; and Dasher is indeed an accessibility writing system, but I like it's single-handed interface and _ex tempore_ feel that I also get from writing by hand. And the fact that the right hand side of the GUI is in fact a Borges' Library of Babel, is extremely suggestive to my mind.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dasher_(software)

yorwba
I tried the Dasher app available on F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/packages/dasher.android/ Not updated since 2013, but I guess that just means it's in a stable state.

Trying to write with it was a trippy experience: just forging ahead without steering generated some interesting nonsense text, but even then it felt quite slow. Getting it to write exactly what I intended was rather challenging. (I did not have the patience to try writing this comment in Dasher.)

novosel
Well, it's vocabulary grows to accommodate your writing habits. And nothing is ever erased, there is a txt file containing everything you've written. You can jump-start it with a txt collection of your particular writing style/lexicon.

For me, the speed is not an issue. I feel like the speed/responsiveness of the medium is inversely related to the length of the final text. Speed of light for the poetry, longhand for a novel. There is a reason why old prose is such a lengthy affair, and why it so often flirts with the letter writing trope. (That is probably anchored in the rhetoric schooling of the writers of old.)

N.B. I have been using only the desktop version of the Dasher. Nor did I use it to write this reply.

imjustsaying
Use the phone's web browser, open eBay and buy a laptop
core-questions
Propellerhead Figure + Loopy HD = make electronic music entirely on your phone. You'd be surprised how far down the rabbit hole you can go for less than $20 invested.
jelliclesfarm
i am using it to learn music and modulate my voice. it's an app called Riyaz for indian classical music training. there are so many apps out there and during covid time, i can brush up on my forgotten childhood music lessons. i just got a controller board and i am learning a different kind of music theory. none of this would be possible without my phone and how it connects me to the rest of the world.

i listen to audiobooks constantly when i walking or gardening or practicing my punches.

but here is my favourite: i am learning astrology and i have downloaded an astrology app which gives me info at the fingertips..something that would have been pretty unthinkable a few years ago. there is a technique called prashna with indian vedic astrology. you can make predictions based on the positions of planets at that exact second when a question is posed. you dont need to know anything about any person's birthtime etc. it is the astrology of 'that moment' in time..not a person.

so far, this has only been theory from the books. experienced astrologers good in math can calculate in a jiffy. not for the newbies or the students. they can also tell the time by watching shadows..not everyone of us can do that. anyways.. now we can test it and draw prashna charts on demand to learn and cross check. i know there arent a lot of astrology buffs here..much less indian astrology. but as a student of jyotish and i am sure for others who have more experience w/astrology too, this is a game changer. and now we can conduct more research and test everything from the reams of ancient texts. it is very exciting.

filoeleven
Check out this video from MylarMelodies about playing Moogfest with just an iPhone.

https://youtu.be/PEC_JL5pf10

Mobiles have a pretty great ecosystem of audio creation apps. Standard synths and sequencers abound, and there are lots of weirdo instruments to play with too. Using Audiobus or AUM lets you drop effects onto audio synths (or any sound source really) and control them via sequencers (check out Fugue Machine), most apps support this. It’s a lot like playing with modular synths, and you can stick GarageBand or some other DAW at the end to record your improvised sessions; I believe some can do multitrack recording as well.

I bought an iPad Pro back in 2016 specifically for music production. I got a lot of mileage in particular out of Loopy, the most versatile loop “pedal” I’ve ever seen. $5 gets you a 12-track looper/mixer with an intuitive touch interface and lots of advanced features. It’s iOS only though.

powersnail
Having tried to do a lot on smartphones, I'd say I have given up most of them. Editing texts on a touch screen is quite miserable for me, and I get thumb cramp after sending a lot of texts. Speech-to-text is great, but I still have to edit a lot, especially when what I talk about isn't pure English. I now carry a notepad and pen with me.

One thing that can be done effectively is recording. Whether it's recording a video or audio, modern smart phone is better than cameras in terms of usability. I don't edit on the phone though. It's still too small a screen to be comfortable.

I also want to point out that not all consumption is unproductive. If you are reading/watching videos critically, it's a very enriching experience. You can learn a new recipe, analyze some music, etc.

Reading emails, sending important texts, making reservations, etc., especially if you are going to do it at some point anyway, are also productive.

nanomonkey
This is a two part problem. One you need a better input capabilities than what a normal touchscreen keyboard provides. For this there are only a few options that are mobile. Either whip out a blue tooth keyboard, which is hardly applicable if you're standing, or use a chording keyboard such as the twiddler[0]. The later take some time to learn, and are still somewhat awkward, in that you look like you're carrying a detonator device in your hand at all time.

The second problem is that most mobile devices are walled gardens that don't allow you full access to your pocket computer's sensors and filesystem. This makes piping the output of one program into another (even say an editor, to email or a compiler) difficult, to say the least. In this case you really need to jailbreak your phone, or purchase an open option such as a PinePhone.

[0](https://twiddler.tekgear.com/)

Ldorigo
All my idle phone time is spent creating (and answering) anki flashcards. I usually have wikipedia or a textbook open on half the screen, and anki on the other half. Whenever I find something I want to remember, I make a flashcard for it. Not sure if it fits your definition of "creating" content, but it's one of the best ways I found to optimize idle time on my phone.