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The dumbphone boom is real

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Re: The dumbphone boom is real

#31

Post by mxuribe »

mingus88 wrote: post #23
retrocryptid wrote: post #15

I wanted a dumbphone so I could avoid the crapware in android. But then I saw the Punkt MP01 with it's 4G hotspot and lust filled my heart. So then I had a smartphone with android crapware and a very bad UI. It did keep me from doomscrolling at the bus stop, so there is that. I suspect the "iPhone of modern dumbphones" hasn't been invented yet. My gut feeling is there are about as many reasons people want to use dumb…

Jobs did his thing with the iPhone. He took a complex and indecipherable phone market and removed pretty much all choice. It worked brilliantly and if your phone is not a featureless slab of glass you have an insignificant niche of a market. This idea of “one dumb phone to rule them all” is what every carrier in the world was trying to do in 2005 and we ended up with hundreds of ambitious and doomed designs. What I m…

> ...every carrier in the world was trying to do in 2005 and we ended up with hundreds of ambitious and doomed designs...

However, one could also note that such an admittedly messy period was needed to arrive at a more fit approach - not so different i suppose conceptually to evolution in general. Also, i suppose that to Apple's credit, their iphone popularized the concept of "phone apps" - whether those exist as websites or actual mobile apps as we know them today - and that explosion of mobile apps triggered more evolution...i feel however that evolution has stagnated a bit and more recently there is an emergence of different changing environment, which may trigger either a new evolutuon...or who knows maybe create a more permanent a split - where one set of users will stick to the conventional smart phones, while the other fork of the split will create a new market of new type of phone users (sort of like current dumbphones but with at least a little more functionality)...and i woiuld guess mobile providers - both manufactureres as well as cellular providers - will choose to meet the market demands or choose to ignore this market. I for one hope to be a customer of some sort of smart phone that is NOT how the current smart phones offerings exist on the current marketplace. I myself want a smaller phone, but i also still like using websites and a few other "smart" features (e.g. camera, mapping, etc.)...and i also want that phone to last many years (do not want to buy a phone every 2 years)...etc. ;-)

Re: The dumbphone boom is real

#32

Post by tocs3 »

jonahrd wrote: post #24

I used a string of KaiOS devices mostly as my primary device from ~2017-2023. I loved the battery life, the lack of distraction, the size and portability. I liked KaiOS because I could still chat via Facebook, Whatsapp, check email, maps, when I needed to. But it was annoying enough that I didn't spend much time in them. I loved/hated the physical T9 keys. I could text while not even looking, but it definitely was ne…

i have a phone with KaiOS. The trouble I have is texting. Everyone wants to text but if I need to reply it takes three different button for each letter. I am looking some t writing a custom keyboard. does any have any ideas?

Edit: Maybe (just now looking at KaiOS development stuff) I could write a morse code keyboard.

Re: The dumbphone boom is real

#33

Post by veunes »

NiagaraThistle wrote: post #4
BadHumans wrote: post #3

My love for the dumbphone has nothing to do with disconnecting from distractions. I just want a small fucking phone again.

i love my iphone 12 mini for this very reason. It's still small enough to fit 'mostly' comfortably in my pocket, even a shirt pocket. I hate how large most phones are now and everyone i know that sees my phone makes fun of me/it. I just don't get why (or how) one uses such huge devices as their phones now.

Love my iphone 12 mini too. I was so disappointed when I found out they wouldn't be releasing mini versions anymore

Re: The dumbphone boom is real

#34

Post by silent_cal »

This has worked pretty well for me on iPhone:

1. Pacific Block app to block images and videos on the web

2. AdBlock Pro

3. Text Font Extension to make all fonts the same on Safari

4. Delete all social media apps

5. Block social media URLs

Surprisingly getting rid of pictures, videos and fonts goes a long way towards making the web less addictive.

Re: The dumbphone boom is real

#35

Post by veunes »

bee_rider wrote: post #21
cjk2 wrote: post #14

I quite like a smartphone. But I am capable of limiting my use. Perhaps that's the problem no?

If enough people do have a problem with a thing, the cause could either be seen as the thing, or human nature. But we aren’t changing human nature, so we can only really go after the thing.

Also we can work on self-improvement

Re: The dumbphone boom is real

#36

Post by michaelbuckbee »

NiagaraThistle wrote: post #4
BadHumans wrote: post #3

My love for the dumbphone has nothing to do with disconnecting from distractions. I just want a small fucking phone again.

i love my iphone 12 mini for this very reason. It's still small enough to fit 'mostly' comfortably in my pocket, even a shirt pocket. I hate how large most phones are now and everyone i know that sees my phone makes fun of me/it. I just don't get why (or how) one uses such huge devices as their phones now.

The reason the market has shifted to larger phones is that for many people outside the HN crowd, phones are their _primary_ computing device.

Reading books, watching videos, social, etc. but also interacting with webforms, etc. are all easier on a larger device and screen.

Re: The dumbphone boom is real

#37

Post by jareklupinski »

> So many hours of each day are lived through our portable, glowing screens, but the Internet isn’t even fun anymore.

I'm in the process of "de-apping" my entertainment: I replaced TV/Streaming with a stack of DVD's and hard drives, and Music apps with cassette tapes.

I'm thinking there's something to the "tactile experience" that vinyl lovers want from their collection, but I just don't have that much room...

Things like Taxis/Maps/Work will be impossible to remove from my smartphone, but this way at least my free time is fully mine again

Re: The dumbphone boom is real

#38

Post by Rinzler89 »

withinboredom wrote: post #30
BadHumans wrote: post #3

My love for the dumbphone has nothing to do with disconnecting from distractions. I just want a small fucking phone again.

My first Afghanistan deployment, I left with an old nokia and came back to find the world had invented smart phones. My second deployment, I left with a new iPhone 4, and came back to find people walking around with tablets. I miss my iPhone 5, that thing was so tiny. It was amazing.

>and came back to find people walking around with tablets

Well, if the majority of people voluntarily chose with their hard earned cash to walk around with tablets instead of small phones, then it's just the free market at work, and there's not much you as an individual can do about it.

Apple in the days of Steve Jobs was notoriously opinionated about small phones being the best and preaching on how they're much better for ergonomics, as a response to the assault of Androids with much larger OLED screens, but even they shamelessly caved in and adopted the larger screens against their own previous rhetoric, since you can only piss against the wind for so long before you get wet(as in loose sales and market share to competitors who offer what customers really want, larger screens).

Re: The dumbphone boom is real

#39

Post by withinboredom »

Rinzler89 wrote: post #38
withinboredom wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My first Afghanistan deployment, I left with an old nokia and came back to find the world had invented smart phones. My second deployment, I left with a new iPhone 4, and came back to find people walking around with tablets. I miss my iPhone 5, that thing was so tiny. It was amazing.

>and came back to find people walking around with tablets Well, if the majority of people voluntarily chose with their hard earned cash to walk around with tablets instead of small phones, then it's just the free market at work, and there's not much you as an individual can do about it. Apple in the days of Steve Jobs was notoriously opinionated about small phones being the best and preaching on how they're much bett…

> If people voluntarily chose with their hard earned cash to walk around with tablets instead of small phones, it's just the free market at work.

Just surprising. From my perspective, I missed all the marketing. I remember getting off the plane and someone pulling out their massive android and me being like WTAF is that?

Maybe I like smaller phones since I missed out on being told I wanted bigger phones on TV. By the time I got back, nobody was trying to convince me I wanted bigger, just cameras and stuff.

Re: The dumbphone boom is real

#40

Post by ChrisRR »

BadHumans wrote: post #3

My love for the dumbphone has nothing to do with disconnecting from distractions. I just want a small fucking phone again.

Exactly. I've wanted a small phone for years now. I even bought the Qin 3 mini but the hardware is a bit crap (and I'm suspicious of the software)

Now I have an S23 which together with the Zenfone is considered the only real "small" phones, and yet they're still almost the size of a normal phone

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