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The Boring Phone
- FriedPickles 2y agoI love the transparent body.
- jsheard 2y agoAll sorts of products are still made with that 90s translucent plastic aesthetic... for the prison market, because they're difficult to hide contraband inside. They're usually not sold outside of prison supply chains but surplus transparent TVs, laptops, etc sometimes show up on eBay. The manufacturers are missing out by not dressing their prison tech up with 90s nostalgia marketing and selling it on Amazon.
- sebtron 2y agoToo bad my favorite local pub requires a smartphone to look at the beer list :_)
- knodi123 2y agoIt's your favorite pub, but you don't know what you like to order yet? :-P
- syntheticnature 2y agoSome of us like variety.
- sebtron 2y agoThey have around 30 different draft beers, and they rotate every month.
- ape4 2y agoQR codes were a "contactless" covid era thing. I ask for a paper menu now.
- bsimpson 2y agoThat's how they got popular, but there are definitely local restaurants that are enjoying not having to print/maintain physical menus.
- quercusa 2y agoI just love ordering off the web beer list and then being told, "Sorry, we're out".
- tomwheeler 2y agoProbably enjoy the ease at which they can raise prices even more.
- __MatrixMan__ 2y agoWhen there's somebody to ask. Sometimes it's nice to just walk up to an open table and order stuff directly to that table. I can meet the server when they show up with my drink.
- sebtron 2y agoThey have it for food, but not for beer. They have a large variety and they change the selection often (that's why I like the pub). I would really prefer a physical menu, but I understand them to an extent.
- DiggyJohnson 2y agoSad that they don't have a crappy printer somewhere in the back to do small runs of cheap paper menus. That's what the pubs around me do, at least.
- ape4 2y agoPoint at the tap
- gavinhoward 2y agoCan someone tell me what it's showing? It won't let me enter, even if I turn off my VPN.
- knodi123 2y agoFor some bizarre reason, Heineken is releasing an old-fashioned flip phone with a transparent case. Looks like it has texts, calling, and that's it.
- plus 2y agoI accidentally entered my birth year as 79xx, instead of 19xx, and it blocked me from reading the article. So that's cool.
- ape4 2y agoPeople not yet born are too young.
- IncRnd 2y agoPeople not yet born should cause a form validation error instead of the site using future data that is obviously wrong.
- egypturnash 2y ago01/01/0001 didn’t work either. 01/01/1900 did.
- taco_emoji 2y agoI entered 1/1/<year> instead of 01/01/<year> and it wouldn't enable the ENTER button. So that's the stupidest UI I've seen today.
- romwell 2y ago>I accidentally entered my birth year as 79xx, instead of 19xx, and it blocked me from reading the article. So that's cool. I'm sorry, people from the future aren't cool enough to know about this phone.
- siamese_puff 2y agoHeineken seems to have created a concept phone that is a translucent flip-phone similar to what you would use circa 2007. Seems like it introduced typical t9 styled typing with a camera. It’s unclear to me why a beer company paired up with a fashion company to make a smartphone, but the site doesn’t really explain much. I didn’t see a price, release date or specs. The site is behind an age wall and additionally an e-mail wall to receive any useful info. Overall, terrible execution on the marketing front IMO
- dartos 2y agoDo you remember the KFC game console. That's what this feels like.
- bsimpson 2y agoThe age gate is because it's hosted on heineken.com. boringphone.com is a different project with a similar concept.
- Solvency 2y agowhy in the everloving hell do age gates make you enter an exact birthdate rather than a simple yes/no button.
- moralestapia 2y agoBecause you store that as well for "data science".
- sparklingmango 2y agoI feel like this would be fun... if all of my friends used it too and it didn't feel like a "thing".
- kunle 2y agolate April fools?
- ChildOfChaos 2y agoI wish apps and phones were more customisable so I could get rid of all the crap I don't want. I very much vibe with this life and the idea behind the phone, however it still just isn't practice, I still want to have a great camera in my pocket. I still need maps sometimes or one or two apps.
- adamomada 2y agoCustomizing apps needs a jailbreak but as for the phone itself > Currently, there are 11 apps on the iPhone that you can’t delete. These apps are essential to the iPhone and deleting them could cause problems. However, you can still hide apps from the Home Screen. The apps that your can’t delete are: App Store Camera Clock Find My Health Messages Phone Photos Safari Settings Wallet
- CobrastanJorji 2y ago> Transparent body makes even a Boring Phone interesting. You already screwed it up! How did you screw it up so fast?
- ConfusedDog 2y agoI honestly can't remember if I spent any less time on my flip phone over a decade ago. I sent a lot of texts with it, used computer for social networking sites, email, etc., used iPod for music, used a digital camera for photos. Now you just get all of them in one smartphone. Add them together, it's probably about the same tbh... with less "device transition time" I suppose.
- ethbr1 2y agoThe difference for me (two decades ago) was presence in social moments. Texts, with an ugly interface, are inherently less "sticky" in terms of attention than modern apps/notifications. You still had people texting at parties, but phones generally stayed in pockets more, because they were... boring!
- EvanAnderson 2y agoI would spend less time using a flip phone because I could type much faster. >smile< T9 w/ physical buttons is so much nicer than a touch screen keyboard. I can also type w/o looking at the phone. I sent so many texts one-handed w/ my Nokia 1100 back in the early 2000s.
- droptablemain 2y agoHere's a radical idea: cultivate some self-discipline when it comes to smartphone use. Mine is a glorified iPod. I don't know where it is half the time.
- mulmen 2y agoAddiction is not a moral failure. Your experiences may not translate to others.
- ghusto 2y agoI don't think he was suggesting it's a moral failure, but I'd agree if he meant (and I think he did) that it's a personal failure. This idea that nothing is anybody's fault any more and nobody is to blame, logically leads to nobody being responsible, even for themselves.
- mulmen 2y agoIt depends on of you care about outcomes or blame. It’s easy to say “you use your phone more than me, you should just use it less” which is completely ineffective at anything except making the person feel inadequate and hopeless. Suggesting how to use a phone less would be far more constructive but also more difficult because it requires engagement rather than drive by commenting. Telling someone “you should be more responsible” is an ineffective way to get them to act responsibly.
- jpm_sd 2y agoSome better coverage: https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/16/24132479/hmd-boring-phone-heineken-bodega https://www.theverge.com/2024/4/16/24132479/hmd-boring-phone... https://www.wired.com/story/hmd-the-boring-phone-heineken-bodega/ https://www.wired.com/story/hmd-the-boring-phone-heineken-bo...
- romwell 2y agoHMD? OMG, so on top of it all, it's a Nokia. Excellent.
- thih9 2y agoAfter becoming reliant on apps - for banking, for 2fa, for checking opening hours, navigation, public transport, etc - I doubt I could use a simpler phone today. I do still like the idea.
- ethbr1 2y agoFair, but this seems like tail wagging the dog. Wouldn't the more logical approach be to expose these services (even in parallel!) in simpler form that could be interacted with in text form? For all the apps you mentioned, I don't think of a fundamental UX reason they couldn't be.
- thih9 2y agoThey could be but it’s just as likely as html only web (most popular platforms require js / apps / tech used by the majority).
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y agoHow do you even use 2fa from the phone, are you really eyeballing it and typing it in on the keyboard? My password manager does that (took me forever to realize it), so I've de-2-factored my stuff and I can log in directly with my laptop.
- thih9 2y agoI press “ok” in a dedicated authenticator app required by a provider. It’s still annoying.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 2y agoLike, that app is the only one you're allowed to use? Because it seems like most or all password manager apps provide the functionality.
- goatforce5 2y agoUseful for people who primarily use their phone for phone calls.
- p1mrx 2y agoLooks like marketing fluff with no specs, but I will be impressed if they actually figure out how to build a 4G LTE flip phone with a monochrome LCD. Are there any monochrome LCD phones that work on a modern cell network?
- computator 2y agoHow is this site maintaining state? It's age restricted, so if you enter an age less than 21 or 18 years or something, it'll block you and continue blocking you even if you clear cookies, cache, history, offline website data, and literally everything that Firefox allows you to clear. Interestingly, however, it'll let you try again if you quit and restart the browser.
- adamomada 2y agoFirst guess, based on IP with a short time limit
- computator 2y agoIt's not it. I tested it. Waiting several minutes after clearing everything in Firefox doesn't make it forget. But shutting down the browser and restarting allows you to try again.
- semolino 2y agoIt fingerprinted you based on <canvas> profiling. Your browser updated during the restart. (Hope I'm wrong)
- yjftsjthsd-h 2y agoWhat about another browser or a private window?
- illwrks 2y agoThe keypad etc suggests it's a version of a Nokia 2720. Perhaps with a clear shell, and a custom theme. https://www.hmd.com/en_gb/nokia-2720-flip?sku=16BTSB01A08 https://www.hmd.com/en_gb/nokia-2720-flip?sku=16BTSB01A08 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_2720_Flip https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_2720_Flip
- adamomada 2y agoPretty cool that Firefox OS lives on somewhere
- ChrisArchitect 2y agoLink can probably be: https://www.heineken.com/global/en/theboringphone https://www.heineken.com/global/en/theboringphone