It's still way too hard to switch phones

What It Covers

Vergecast hosts David Pierce and Allison Johnson answer listener questions about practical smartphone challenges: choosing between phone cameras and dedicated cameras for newborns, reducing phone dependency as a parent, and whether switching between phones and carriers is deliberately obstructed by Apple, Google, and major US carriers like Verizon and T-Mobile.

Key Questions Answered

• •Baby photography gear: Skip the $500 point-and-shoot category — it barely exists anymore. New Canon PowerShots run $300–$400 but underperform in low light. Instead, buy a cheap 50mm prime lens for an existing DSLR for staged moments, and use a third-party camera app like Halide on your phone to reduce over-processing for spontaneous shots.
• •Phone reduction via friction: The Brick device uses NFC tap to toggle apps off on your phone, creating a deliberate pause before accessing social media or distracting apps. This physical friction — requiring a conscious second tap to re-enable apps — reduces mindless scrolling more reliably than willpower or app timers alone.
• •Aspirational home screen setup: Configure your phone's home screen to reflect desired habits rather than actual usage patterns. Place apps like Kindle front and center even if rarely used. This mirrors the behavioral strategy of moving junk food to the back of cabinets — proximity to preferred options nudges behavior without requiring discipline.
• •Focus modes as behavioral zones: iOS Focus modes can be configured to activate automatically by time, location, or manual trigger, transforming the phone into a contextually different device. Setting a home-mode profile that hides distracting apps and changes the lock screen creates a visual and functional signal that reduces habitual phone checking without removing essential functions.
• •eSIM portability reality: Despite expectations, eSIM technology has reinforced rather than dissolved carrier lock-in. iPhone-to-iPhone transfers work smoothly, but cross-platform switches between iOS and Android remain unreliable. T-Mobile, Verizon, and Google Fi are each approaching multi-device account management — where one number routes to several devices — but none has fully solved seamless phone-swapping yet.