iOS Personal Notspot

As I was traveling this week, I was reminded many times of how fragile our connections to the internet are. I’m so used to the internet speeds of my home and office that working from an airport or hotel can be quite disruptive.

This is likely a byproduct of working in a specialized field and more specifically on a project that demanded a fair amount of file transfers. If I was just sending emails or fleshing out Google Docs it’d be less taxing on my internet.

Inversely, there are times where you just want to unplug a bit but everyone around you is glued to their devices. We make it easy with personal hotspots to connect, but what about forcing intentional time to disconnect?

This led me to think of the “Personal Notspot” which is essentially an inversion of the Personal Hotspot feature. Imagine if you could turn the internet off for people within a specified radius.

In some ways, this is a light weight EMP more than it is a feature, and I could see a lot of conflict stemming from an experience. That said, some people might like having the chance to unplug a bit.

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