An App Platform for Dumb Phones

#1

Post by ramseynasser » Thu, May 23, 2013, 1:21 AM UTC

An App Platform for Dumb Phones
dumbsto.re

Re: An App Platform for Dumb Phones

#2

Post by JosephRedfern » Thu, May 23, 2013, 1:34 AM UTC

Cool idea - but how is it being paid for? By the looks of things, it's using Twilio - but that'll get expensive if this becomes popular.

Re: An App Platform for Dumb Phones

#3

Post by netghost » Thu, May 23, 2013, 1:39 AM UTC

I knew my phone would be valuable some day!

Re: An App Platform for Dumb Phones

#4

Post by bryogenic » Thu, May 23, 2013, 1:52 AM UTC

Slightly off topic, are there actually any good (i.e. recommendable) dumb phones? It has been an interesting market to try to navigate and research.

Re: An App Platform for Dumb Phones

#5

Post by beggi » Thu, May 23, 2013, 1:56 AM UTC

bryogenic wrote: post #4

Slightly off topic, are there actually any good (i.e. recommendable) dumb phones? It has been an interesting market to try to navigate and research.

I believe Nokia Asha line of phones is leading the charge in dumb phones in developing countries, Nokia Asha 501 being the newest. It has pretty freaking awesome (especially in countries where access to electricity is a luxury) 48 day standby time (beat that iPhone!). In addition, Asha 501 actually has some kind of support for 3rd party apps.

Re: An App Platform for Dumb Phones

#6

Post by SSilver2k2 » Thu, May 23, 2013, 2:00 AM UTC

This is really awesome. Back when I was helping work on Pingie (an rss->sms service), I put some of this functionality into it (weather reports, stock quotes, traffic reports).

Good luck with this!

Re: An App Platform for Dumb Phones

#7

Post by [deleted] » Thu, May 23, 2013, 2:26 AM UTC

[deleted]

Re: An App Platform for Dumb Phones

#8

Post by brackin » Thu, May 23, 2013, 2:31 AM UTC

Don't like the interface (makes it seem 100x more complicated than it is) but love the idea. I often hit my data cap, am in an area with slow or no data coverage or don't want to load up an app and would be happy to shoot a text off to get a piece of info.

I'm in the UK but this is a far bigger problem in other countries so if executed better this would be very interesting.

Re: An App Platform for Dumb Phones

#9

Post by rapind » Thu, May 23, 2013, 2:35 AM UTC

bryogenic wrote: post #4

Slightly off topic, are there actually any good (i.e. recommendable) dumb phones? It has been an interesting market to try to navigate and research.

I actually spent some time looking into dumb phones a couple years ago. My favorite would be the motofone. It's got an e-ink display, which is great for battery and sunlight, and 2 antennas which is also great if you heaven forbid make actual calls with it. Also, pretty sturdy, small, and light.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Fone

Beware though, if you txt a lot, you won't like it. Not enough real estate for the crazy font they use.

There are also these printed cell phones showing up. Do a google for "card phone". Pretty interesting.

Re: An App Platform for Dumb Phones

#10

Post by nedwin » Thu, May 23, 2013, 3:11 AM UTC

bryogenic wrote: post #4

Slightly off topic, are there actually any good (i.e. recommendable) dumb phones? It has been an interesting market to try to navigate and research.

I lived for the last 2 years with a Nokia 1610. Highly recommend but they discontinued in January and a new model came out with a camera (which was against my minimalist ethos at the time).

I ended up breaking the chain and switching back to an iPhone 5 but this app store has got me pining for the simpler days of pure sms and voice based comms.