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Show HN: KytePhone turns any Android into a kids-friendly phone
- TamDenholm 15y agoCan i get an old person version of this with big type and no distractions? My gran still has issues just making calls on a mobile phone and as much as i'd like her to be able to send and receive text messages, all attempts have failed.
- ohgodthecat 15y agoI can see the reasoning for this but I cannot see the reasoning for giving older people (who have trouble with technology) smart phones. The best option I could possibly think of for an old person that can't grasp the concept is something like Siri for sending/receiving text messages (though I haven't used it so I have no idea what the learning curve is). Otherwise just give them a phone that acts like a phone.
- corin_ 15y agoMy grandmother (91) is still mentally sharp (though a little forgetful now, but still surprisingly unforgetful for her age) but has difficulty using the simplest of nokia phones - things like the fact that you have to press a button to dial, or to hang up, confuse her after a lifetime of non-mobile phones. I've never seen her try a smartphone, but I imagine having a touchscreen with big buttons that say "dial now" and "end call" would be easier than dialing in a number and thinking "I know there was something else I had to do now..."
- schiffern 15y agoWhy not detect when they've typed enough numbers and automatically connect? libphonenumber validates numbers based on your locality: http://code.google.com/p/libphonenumber/ http://code.google.com/p/libphonenumber/
- corin_ 15y agoNever come across that before - I wonder how it does in odd situations - for example my Grandmother's home number happens to be 1 digit less than the majority of the UK (as is the case for many people in London, where she lives, and I think somewhere else too like Birmingham).
- Toucan 15y agoUK 020 numbers are still 11 digits. They're only a different length if you omit the dialling code, which you can't do on mobile phones anyway.
- corin_ 15y agoHmm you're right, I mis-remembered and hers is correct. According to Wikipedia there are some non-11 digit numbers: "almost all geographic numbers and most non-geographic numbers have 9 or 10 national (significant) numbers after the "0" trunk code". An example being: (016977) xxxx Brampton http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_numbers_in_the_United_Kingdom http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_numbers_in_the_United...
- darklajid 15y agoHave to see how good that works in Germany. Prefixes/area codes are different length: +49 30 ... -> Berlin +49 221 .... -> Cologne +49 2389 ... -> Small town where I grew up If you solve that, you'll notice that the number afterwards has the same problems on a bigger scale. Some (especially small towns) have 3 or 4 digit local phone numbers. Big cities go up to 7 (Or more? No idea, but I know numbers from 3 to 7 digits in length). And length varies within the same area code. So (area) 1234 might be valid, as is (area) 12356. I fail to see how that could work reliably. Thanks for the link - now I'm trying to figure out what they know that I don't. :) Edit: Skimmed the project. They have a binary (protobuf?) file for phone number metadata which seems to be a huuuge number of regular expressions. For the reasons listed above I claim that that way you cannot find out if a number is 'done' typing using this library. Looking plausible? Yes. But you cannot replace the dial button in DE for all I can tell.
- GFischer 15y agoI came across several articles that state that the 60 to 75 age group now desire several of the same products as younger consumers: http://www.leggettdisplaygroup.com/barcode/2011/03/01/is-the-consumer-electronics-industry-going-gray/ http://www.leggettdisplaygroup.com/barcode/2011/03/01/is-the... "The iPad is the top product for all people 50-plus," she said. "The user interface is so easy. And for anyone with vision issues, the text size can be changed quite easily." "Older consumers are finding the iPad much easier to use than a personal computer. The iPad's touch-screen display and big icons beat using a computer mouse and having to find and click or double-click PC programs. Plus, a tablet can sit on your lap." http://20plus30.com/presentations/Connecting_with_older_consumers.pdf http://20plus30.com/presentations/Connecting_with_older_cons... "Marketers need to be aware that older consumers, especially those in the highest socio-economic groups, will access more of their content (and advertising) using smart devices. The apps-powered smart device is as much a watershed in the way marketers engage with consumers as was the birth of the web. Unlike the web, this new technology will be as much used by the old as the young."
- pilom 15y agoIs there any way for a developer to make a new UI for it? That seems like it would be the perfect answer. Make a UI for kids, a UI for the elderly, a UI for people with visual disabilities (high contrast and audio announcements when you drag over each button). Can I use siri with it? i.e. can you launch siri from inside kyte and then have the call use the kyte UI?
- petepete 15y agoI believe the Big Launcher might be of interest to you. I installed it on my old phone, which I gave to my dad. Now he can gamble from the bathroom; he's very happy indeed. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=name.kunes.android.launcher.activity https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=name.kunes.and...
- martythemaniak 15y agoThat's an interesting idea and one of our friends actually used it to give it to her grandpa, despite the kids interface. We'll definitely have to look into this.
- wittjeff 15y agoI (accessibility consultant) was going to suggest the same thing, along with some tweaks to the color scheme for people with vision impairments. Email me if you want some guidance.
- paulsilver 15y agoYou'll probably be interested in Threedom Phone, which is about to launch their beta. It's an App / extra layer for Android. Unfortunately Ribot, the team behind it, seem to have removed the information about it from their website, but from what I've seen of very early versions, it'll be a good match for what you want. There's a few details about some of the places they've demoed it for older people on their Twitter stream: http://threedomphone.com/ http://threedomphone.com/ https://twitter.com/#!/ThreedomPhone https://twitter.com/#!/ThreedomPhone I know there aren't many details on there, but Ribot are a very interesting company who have made a lot of very good apps for a variety of mobile platforms, and it's well worth keeping an eye on this project.
- GFischer 15y agoThere's still a huge untapped market for apps and hardware for the elderly. Last year I did a marketing project, and got some fairly nice insights. For example, most people between 60 and 75 in developed countries don't consider themselves "old" and are mostly self-reliant “Seniors do not think about their age in general. Unless extremely tired or depressed, older people do not think of themselves as old. Advertising that talks to the silver citizen’s active lifestyle rather than to or about his age are preferred” (www.brandchannel.com). People in that age range now desire several of the same products as younger people, like iPads or iPhones and Kindles. Our specific product failed in the customer validation stage, but there's a huge untapped market out there. Heck, I've almost talked myself into trying again :)
- ryandvm 15y agoThis is a really good execution. I had a similar idea except it was for old smartphones without data service. There are millions of them floating around out there that would make perfect household mini-tablets for kids.
- vyrotek 15y agoAs the father of two kids who beg to play on my phone all day I think this is a great idea! I have an old Android phone which I would love to let them play games and take pictures on. Maybe there are even some specific kid friendly wifi apps they could use. (Send pictures to grandparents?)
- martythemaniak 15y agoThe nice thing about Kyte is that it doesn't mess with any of the phone's data. This means you can install it on your own phone, log in and give your phone to your kids. When you need it back, you just log out and have your phone back.
- vyrotek 15y agoI don't think Kyte solves quite the same problem for kids from 1-6 years old or so. I never let my 4 year old out of my sight with my current phone. So I don't really need a 'kids mode' for it. I'm more worried about what they'll do physically to it :) I'm more interested in turning an old deactivated phone into a toy that I don't have to care about if it gets flushed down the toilet.
- martythemaniak 15y agoIn it's current state, I think Kyte is great for kids ages 6-10, ie, those who are ready for their first phone, but who would have to get a dumbphone right now because their parents don't feel comfortable giving a full smartphone. Over time, I hope we'll get Kyte to a stage where it's useful for kids both older and younger than this age range.
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- estel 15y agoJust wondering why it's seemingly limited to US only at the moment? (Or at least, not the UK).
- martythemaniak 15y agoThat was my bad in the developer console, it should be available world-wide now.
- bearwithclaws 15y agoI love this. But the landing page looks like some interstitial ad which my first reaction is to look for a "skip this ad" link on top.
- derekeder 15y agowhats to prevent the kid from turning the phone off and on again to exit the program and get normal access?
- kevinpet 15y agoGood question. Maybe in the long run they'll be able to bundle this with kid-targeted hardware that's locked down.
- ConnorWGarvey 15y agoI don't know how they would disable that and the home button on a non-rooted phone.
- there 15y agoThe home button sends an intent that this application would just act as the default receiver for (just like the Amazon Fire tablet does for its custom homescreen), though if they are still giving access to the Market, a kid could install another launcher that responds to that intent and switch out of this app.
- just_testing 15y agoYes, but the intent of Kyte Phone is to make the phone simple. If the kid can replace the default launcher, she does not need an special UI in the first place. (If all you want to do is micromanage your kid's life through GPS monitoring, is it possible to install a hidden GPS tracker?)
- nooneelse 15y agoIf the permission system for apps is a whitelist of installed apps the parent has approved, then installing an app from the market wouldn't necessarily allow the newly installed app to run. The new app would just show up on the device-administration page for the parent to see and decide on. Now, if the kid uses the market to uninstall the Kyte launcher itself... then I'm guessing the stock launcher or a pop-up asking what launcher to use would come up.
- codypo 15y agoThis looks like an excellent implementation of a great idea. It's actually somewhat similar to what we do at Famigo (see http://www.famigo.com/sandbox/ http://www.famigo.com/sandbox/), though we're much more about content management and recommendations than GPS and telephony features. With respect to the location feature, AT&T actually offers a somewhat similar service called AT&T Family Map for a monthly fee of $10-15. I believe that's a white-labeled version of an existing app (it might be Life360, not sure) with some integration into their back office APIs. I really encourage the Kyte folks to do some investigation here; other carriers might be looking to solve similar problems with respect to family location. That is, after all, the carriers' most lucrative market segment.
- vessenes 15y agoSo, I have a stable of old android phones I will try this on. Quick q -- my gnexus claims it is not compatible with kytephone. Why is that?
- Zikes 15y agoIncompatible with ICS, maybe?
- Rabidgremlin 15y agoI suspect so because you cannot get rid of the onscreen system bar along the bottom. I wish Google would create a security permission for apps to be able to turn this bar off.
- ConstantineXVI 15y agoAllowing it would create security issues; nothing to stop the app from showing a fake system bar that appears to let you out of the app, but actually keeps you in and snoops information. And having no hardkeys means there's no 'safety hatch' that you know will get you out of the app (like Flash's "esc to close" warning)
- estel 15y agoBut don't the controls that overwrite handling of the hardware back/back buttons apply equally to the software buttons? And if there's no other way back out of it, the multi-tasking app should be redundant by default.
- martythemaniak 15y agoRight now, we've only tested the app on 2.2 and 2.3, which we thought was a good compromise between getting it out there and covering a decently large chunk of the market. We're definitely going to get it working with Honeycomb and ICS though!
- mhd 15y agoWhile I think that the general idea is great, I'm a bit torn about the monitoring. Not so much about the location, more about what they did with the phone. To stay within the realm of flying devices, it does sound a bit helicopter-y to me. Is it really healthy for either party to go through usage logs to find out how long they played Angry Birds etc.?
- kevinpet 15y agoIt's all about how old the kids are. To me, this is clearly not appropriate for teenagers, but entirely okay for younger kids. I don't think it's targeted at teenagers either -- restricting the numbers called is something they wouldn't go for.
- mhd 15y agoI got that, my concern isn't about the privacy, but about micro-managing your kid's life. The fact that this is in the intro video makes it appear to me as an essential feature. No "oh, by the way, if you really want to you can check what your kid did today", but having it as a prominent feature of your web management platform. My worries isn't "should parents be allowed to know that", but "should parents care to check that all the time".
- webwanderings 15y agoWould this work for Android tablet as well?
- drivebyacct2 15y agoIt's a standard replacement launcher with a GPS reporter and some remote tools built in. It's a very simple thing to do, but this is very well done at the same time. In short, yes, all standard Android fare, should work fine on a tablet.
- webwanderings 15y agoWhat is the age-recommendation?
- martythemaniak 15y agoIt only works on Android 2.2 and 2.3 right now, but we will get it working with tablets and 4.0 phones soon. We've heard from parents that they hate it when their kids mess around with their tablets, so I think it'll work well on tablets.
- Tichy 15y agoI only hate all the annoying popups that mess up the experience for my kid (18 months). I just want him to be able to stick to one app, maybe even just scroll and zoom around (I have no dedicated children's app, used Google Maps for example - or even the Touch Screen test app which displays colorful circles where you touch the screen). There are too many elements on the tablet that trigger some overlay over the current app and that are not easy to get rid off (for example the close button doesn't work while you touch some part of the app behind it).
- K_O_G_I 15y agoMy wife and I were actually just talking about something like this a couple days ago. Great idea, and looks like a great implementation! Great to have a way to limit what the kids can do and with whom, so the phone remains a tool and doesn't become a distraction and/or addiction for the kids. Maybe I should put this on my own phone! :)
- j_s 15y agoI love the idea and would be interested in encouraging people I know to try this out, but I need to know who the customer is for this product... the privacy of children is something that seems extra important to protect rather than sell to advertisers or whoever is paying the bills for this product.
- bostonvaulter2 15y agoYeah, I wish they mentioned their business model somewhere. Without an explicit mention we need to worry that they are selling kids info, possibly including GPS location since that is obviously sent to their website.
- martythemaniak 15y agoThis is definitely something we need to address on the site, and we'll update it in the next few days. We think showing ads to kids or selling their personal information is completely unacceptable and will never do that. The way we plan to make money is though the classic fremium model - the basic features (including the ones we have right now) will be free, but we'll ask parents to pay for premium features. Right now, carriers charge $10/month for GPS and $5 for call limits. We want to give these away for free and provide parents with real value they feel good about paying.
- prezjordan 15y agoSecond startup this week I've seen involving kites. Same typeface too ;) Looks great! Plans for monetizing it?
- prezjordan 15y agoSecond startup this week I've seen involving kites. Same typeface too ;) Looks great! Plans for monetizing it?
- DavidSJ 15y agoI feel bad for any kid who's forced to use this instead of a real phone.
- DanBC 15y agoIt could be worse. (http://www.matobmobile.co.uk/index.php?id=doro_handleplus_phone http://www.matobmobile.co.uk/index.php?id=doro_handleplus_ph...)
- martythemaniak 15y agoKyte is currently aimed at young kids, around the ages of 7-10. At that age, no parent feels comfortable giving a full smartphone, so kids either end up with no phone or at best a dumbphone, if they really need to stay connected. Our intent is not to censor or limit kids, but the exact opposite - we want to make a product that gives parents peace of mind so they'll be able to get their kids the smartphone they want.
- luke_s 15y agoActually, as a parent, with a small child, who has experimented with giving him my phone to play with, I feel sorry for any young kid who doesn't use it. The default android environment, provides all sorts of complexities that land up just frustrating kids. For example some games display adds to install other apps. Because young children's motor skills are not as good as adults, they occasionally land up clicking them, which takes them to the app store. They then click around randomly until they eventually get frustrated and give the phone back to me to 'fix'. Under Kyte, it seems they wont have access to the app store, so this particular annoyance will be stopped. Fundamentally though, Android just isn't designed for small children, with limited reading skills and poorer motor skills and it shows up in a whole number of places.
- pkamb 15y ago> Your name so we know what to call you. The name of the person who's setting this up? Or the kid's name?
- martythemaniak 15y agoThat's the parents name. By default, it'll create and add that contact when the phone is first activated.
- luke_s 15y agoI was actually looking for something like this recently - this look great! I'll definitely try it out with my son when he gets a little older. One feature I would love to see is the ability to set time limits on gaming - like you can have 1 hour of playing games per day, or 5 hours per week. I've tried looking around for apps which would do that and there is nothing good.