5 ms·

People want 'dumbphones'. Will companies make them?

26 points by onemoresoop 2y ago

dgimla20 2y ago
If you already have a smartphone and your issue is addiction/time spent on it, why not just strip the phone down to a utility device? If it's a willpower issue, surely its better to try to overcome that issue and change your frame of mind regarding your phone (seeing it as a utility, rather than entertainment), just as it is for other things in your life that will demand willpower. I use my phone about 10-15 minutes a day. It sits in my pocket until I need some utility or somebody contacts me. Anecdotally, one of my friends switched to a dumbphone and loves to use "not having a smartphone" as a talking point, despite annoying myself and others with requests to check things on our smartphones for him. It's quite tiresome.
lerpgame 2y ago
i want phone that’s part of my brain so i don’t have to interface with 3rd parties.
- DaSHacka 2y ago
  Just wait until they find a way to do this and promptly bake ads right into it
  - otachack 2y ago
    Check out the YA book "Feed", it tackles that issue.
taylodl 2y ago
Companies will make them if they perceive there being a big enough market to warrant making the product - which there isn't. The biggest problem is everybody has a different idea of the minimal feature set for a dumb phone. Voice and texting? Sure, sure. Those are table stakes. Hey - email would be nice too! Okay. You know, it'd be awfully convenient to have a camera so I can snap photo and send them to my friends. Okaaaaay. And so it goes. By the time you're done you'll have re-traced the feature development of the smartphone. Here's the thing about smartphones - you can make them as dumb as you want. You can determine the set of minimal features that works for you, providing everything you need while minimizing distractions. I know, I know - crazy concept!
- JohnFen 2y ago
  > Here's the thing about smartphones - you can make them as dumb as you want Oh, how I wish that were true, but it isn't. I can certainly decide which capabilities are presented in the UI (for the most part), but the reason I want a dumbphone is to avoid the security problems smartphones have. If the advanced functionality is there, whether or not I see it, so are the additional security problems that come with it. I want my phone to be, as much as possible, limited enough in terms of hardware (processing power, memory, etc.) so as to make it incapable of advanced functionality. Personally, I want the ability to make and receive phone calls and texts, and the ability to tether. Everything else I can do on a separate pocket device that isn't on the cell network and that I can actually have complete control of.
  - tail_exchange 2y ago
    Can't you just get a plan without data, or just turn off data and wifi? If you are only using your phone for calls and sms, and don't ever turn on your network, I'm not sure what security problems you are trying to avoid. Unless you are living under a totalitarian government, this seems excessive to me, but maybe there are other things I'm missing.
    - JohnFen 2y ago
      > I'm not sure what security problems you are trying to avoid. Tracking, mostly.
  - dools 2y ago
    So get a Nokia 4g and when you want mobile computing take a laptop
- nonrandomstring 2y ago
  Modular phones is a good solution. There have been a few genuine attempts [0] - and a big win is for the environment too because modular designs are repairable. I don't much buy the "slippery slope" argument for not offering a basic voice only phone, because there is a large demand for it according to article which I take as the premise for the discussion. The reality is that one cannot make a smartphone "as dumb as you want". Well, technically I can, but I don't know many other people who have a x100 bench microscope and SMD soldering gear to rework chips. Hardware capability is the key demand here because one fundamentally cannot trust software as it is today. Also, even if disabled in the OS, many potentially insecure and power-hungry subsystems remain active. Modular phones will need to mature somewhat to meet these new needs. It's high time that physical standards for modules were solid, but in Europe we will see interoperability and environmental regulations make that a reality. Expect to see adding cameras, Bluetooth, GSM and memory be as easy as flipping in a SIM. The environment and all cellphone users will thank us for that. [0] https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/modular-phones-roundup/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/modular-phones-roundup/
ysofunny 2y ago
no, because other bigger companies will pay manufacturers more money than "people" ever possibly could this is the same logic that told me that my smartphone will never really be mine as in "my phone will work for me first of all". as an iphone user I know and understand that my wishes and intentions come second, Apple is the real owner of "my" device
toomuchtodo 2y ago
https://dumbphones.pory.app/ https://dumbphones.pory.app/ https://www.wired.com/story/dumbphones-reddit-last-good-place/ https://www.wired.com/story/dumbphones-reddit-last-good-plac...
darreninthenet 2y ago
What I really want is a dummy dumb phone that's a Bluetooth controller for my smartphone so I can call and text from it but have no other distractions. There's a little flip phone Bluetooth dialler thing that pops up on ali etc quite often but it's the size of a postage stamp.
- nehal3m 2y ago
  That sounds suspiciously like a smart watch.
  - darreninthenet 2y ago
    I suppose yes a smart watch in a "dumb phone" body with a basic screen and dial pad, and all it links to is messages and calls, no other notifications or ability to interact with any other functionality.
_8j50 2y ago
Is a real dumb phone even possible? Not having apps and a touch screen doesn't make it dumb. Look at kai os for example or even symbian had apps just not nice appstores and nicer features. You still have arm cpus and running an os and apps. A phone that only makes 4g calls with a 4g baseband os that is only capable of doing calls, now that would be a dumb phone but the cost would not be low.
- adamomada 2y ago
  Iirc kai os is Firefox OS and uses html5 + js, so webapps. Now is a web app an app is a different question but I’d say no.
  - hiatus 2y ago
    > Now is a web app an app is a different question but I’d say no. Why not? The browser has a ton of access to hardware these days. What is the difference, in your view?
    - adamomada 2y ago
      There’s no platform SDK and everything you can do, you have to do through js. It’s pretty limiting compared to real binary applications running any sort of code (NDK)
- nomel 2y ago
  It's fairly easy to "enable" a "dumb mode" on a smart phone. iOS supports "guided access", where you can basically turn off everything, behind a passcode. There's also screen time, which lets you limit/disable anything, also behind a passcode. But, this requires that someone else manages your phone.
- M95D 2y ago
  It is possible, but it needs to connect to the phone network somehow and GSM chips/modules these days probably run Android inside anyway, so to have a really dumb phone means to have a separate CPU+memory+flash which doubles power usage and doesn't give any assurances that the GSM chip won't do MitM and fsck privacy of the phone anyway. See: https://hackaday.com/2023/08/03/open-source-cell-phone-based-on-esp32/ https://hackaday.com/2023/08/03/open-source-cell-phone-based...
cco 2y ago
People _say_ they want dumbphones. Will people buy them? ^quick correction to the title I'm in this camp frankly, Hisense just came out with a pretty nice e-ink smartphone-ish thing and I thought about buying it. I really like it in many respects, but would I actually use it? Or would it be in a drawer in 3 months?
- paulddraper 2y ago
  I want a phone that's meaningfully smaller than a tablet. Like the iPhone SE, back when they made that.
  - kube-system 2y ago
    The 3rd generation SE is a current in-production iPhone.
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  - taeric 2y ago
    The Samsung flip is pretty good. The closed profile is pretty small and it fits in pockets quite well.
- hiatus 2y ago
  E-ink phones are not necessarily dumbphones.
m3kw9 2y ago
People want dumb phones as much as they want to take horses to work
adamomada 2y ago
Can someone familiar with lockdown mode on iPhone tell us how close it gets to dumb?
- laweijfmvo 2y ago
  I use lockdown on my iPhone. It doesn't make it dumb, it just disables a few handy or pretty (UI) features, as far as I can tell.
- nomel 2y ago
  I think you want guided access: https://support.apple.com/en-us/111795 https://support.apple.com/en-us/111795 Or screen time, taking advantage of the content restrictions settings that let you disable most everything, including app install.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
taeric 2y ago
No they don't. People want to virtue signal that they are above the mindless masses that you can turn into easily with a modern phone. This is effectively the "I don't own a television" signaling of this decade. People want to be the kind of person that they think can "rise above" these things. They don't want to put in the ridiculous effort it would take, though. Edit: Fair critiques that I don't think it is literally all virtue signaling. I certainly think there is something to be said for people that love to discuss how they don't like phones. What I was thinking more strongly there was people confuse their declared preferences with their actual preferences.
- psychanarch 2y ago
  Hard to take your comment seriously when you immediately use a phrase like "virtue signal" and infer that everyone stating this desire is disingenuous.
  - taeric 2y ago
    Fair in that I doubt it is everyone. But, at large, people are rather happy with their phone. If a touch embarrassed that they use it so much. Though, really only if you confront them with a scenario that begs the question, as it were.
- nomel 2y ago
  Yes they do, as I am one, and it has nothing to do with virtue signaling, because I would be embarrassed to tell someone. For me, it's more about my brain keeping an undesirable tether to my phone, which appears to be a real phenomenon [1]. My experience may be different from yours, but try this if you haven't: one by one uninstall each of your social media and media apps. When I do this, I feel a tangible silence when it uninstalls. With massive amounts of addiction in my gene pool, maybe I'm wired different than you, so maybe don't come at it with such negative assumptions. [1] https://blogs.iu.edu/sciu/2023/05/20/brain-drain-smartphones https://blogs.iu.edu/sciu/2023/05/20/brain-drain-smartphones
  - taeric 2y ago
genman 2y ago
Some companies still make them.
Mesmoria 2y ago
what i want are dumb cars.
corytheboyd 2y ago
What’s so bad about having a smartphone but exercising self-control? Turning off notifications is trivial. Nobody is forcing you to use social media. Having GPS in your pocket at all times is a super power. You must have one if your employer requires 2FA but doesn’t provide a phone (smaller companies). I like the idea of a dumb phone in theory, but we have long since crossed the bridge.
- nehal3m 2y ago
  There's a few reasons. You have to be aware that you're sinking time into your phone, realise that it is a problem and then exercise constant vigilance to keep from falling back into old habits, comparable to many other addictions. There's armies of marketers and psychologists working to try and glue your eyeballs to your screen and resisting that pull is non trivial for many. A dumb phone and a dedicated GPS unit along with a paper calendar works well for me during times when I feel like unplugging; no self control required.
- JohnMakin 2y ago
  Lack or possession of self control has little to do with the aggressive amount of tracking and data collection your phone does without your consent.
  - hiatus 2y ago
    What tracking specifically are you referring to? Is it apps tracking location, or browsing history? If it's just location tracking by the carrier, that's done regardless of phone type.
    - JohnMakin 2y ago
      Pretty much any modern webpage you visit in your phone’s browser is going to fingerprint and identify you to an extremely granular degree. Tons of popular applications farm and sell data to a crazy degree. Yes, one can not use them, but the list of apps that do not do this is vanishingly small and certain ones like facebook or whatsapp are sometimes completely unavoidable. The mobile ecosystem facilitates this in a way that is much harder to avoid on a mobile device than on a laptop, especially not for the non-advanced user. The iphone for instance tracks your location pretty much constantly to give you “helpful” reminders in maps to tell you that you successfully parked at work (which i never told them was my work). Just one example.
JohnMakin 2y ago
My very first programming gig was converting these terrible, predatory flip-phone games that targeted the elderly into ios/android applications. How ironic if my career would end with converting ios/android apps back to flip-phone.
laweijfmvo 2y ago
I recently embarked on a journey to make myself a "dumbphone". I started with an iPhone 12 mini, removed every app possible and kept Phone, Contacts, Messages, Camera, Photos, and Safari with a 15 minute daily limit. My main motivations for going with iPhone were 1. Get to keep iMessage 2. Get to keep a good camera with easy photo syncing 3. Browser when really needed 4. App store for emergencies 5. I eventually added Bitwarden (for passwords) and iCloud Files, for when I need email attachments (PDFs) without access to email. I also enabled lockdown (didn't contribute much to the dumb experience) and black & white color filter. It's fine, and I do use it a lot less when out and about, but I've had many inconvenient moments in the first couple months 1. Rented a Uhaul, which basically required a smartphone to complete the checkout process. Got away with not having it because Uhaul seems to have lots of issues even with smartphones and let me slide 2. I should probably add Maps back, for obvious reasons. 3. Having to ask everyone I communicate with through an app (via website these days) for their number before leaving the house, otherwise there's no way to get in touch. Burned me a couple times meeting up for bike rides etc. (no Strava on phone) 4. Having to tell someone I'll pay them back (Venmo etc) "when I get home" is awkward at best. 5. Haven't needed an Uber yet, but will probably have to install that at some point. 6. Will have to go back to paper boarding passes and such, I suppose Overall I use the phone less... recently had a Dr appointment and was flabbergasted to be the only person in the waiting room who didn't look at their phone once, let alone stare at it the entire time. But that said, I had already removed all social media from my phone for many many years. So the improvement was marginal and the inconveniences have definitely been there. Ultimately, I think removing any app that causes you to scroll mindlessly (social media obviously, but also any news, video, etc.) and setting screen time limits for need to haves like Browser will be as far as most people should go.
- mo_42 2y ago
  > I recently embarked on a journey to make myself a "dumbphone". I started with an iPhone 12 mini, removed every app possible and kept Phone, Contacts, Messages, Camera, Photos, and Safari with a 15 minute daily limit. My main motivations for going with iPhone were I did the same with Android. I even removed the browser. All the installed apps fit on a single screen and three of them are basically authenticator apps.
RcouF1uZ4gsC 2y ago
>Bullitt, the licensed manufacturers of the CAT S-22 I purchased, folded the day before my phone arrived. Despite the news, I tried the hardware for about a week. It let me call, text and access the messenger functions of a couple of apps I used to stay in touch with friends and family. My total web use dropped to just an hour a day. I was better able to concentrate on my surroundings, books and music. But I missed my library app. People may say they want dumbphones. But their actual choices reveal something different, which is why dumbphone manufacturers don't make money.
pavon 2y ago
I replaced my dumbphone last year. I was both surprised at the large size of the selection, and disappointed at the quality of the selection. HMD is still selling Nokia-branded S30+ phones, nearly frozen in time, which is good and bad - the main downside is that MMS support is just as limited as it has always been. KaiOS which I once hoped would become a strong competitor is still quite sluggish and most phones running it have all sorts of advertising built into the phone UI. There are some AOSP based phones like Sonim that are pretty decent, but their battery life isn't as good as old dumb phones. Then there are all the hip new minimalist phones (that are the subject of this article), which cost way more than I wanted to spend. The biggest disappointment to me was the lack of 5G. Not because I need the improvements 5G brings on a dumbphone, but because the reason I was replacing my old phone was because all the 3G towers have been shutdown. It would have been nice to have some future-proofing.
nindalf 2y ago
One big caveat to this - the difference between people's stated and revealed preferences. They say they want one thing, but when push comes to shove they choose differently. Here's an example specifically with phones. Consumers in surveys and on social media would constantly say that they wanted small phones. They were insistent that Apple listened and made a fantastic mini version of the iPhone 11. It was universally praised by reviewers as a perfect small phone. And ... it underperformed heavily. Somehow Apple, a company that prides itself on its supply chain and ability to predict demand for its products overestimated the demand. Consumers didn't actually buy the phone like they said they would. No matter, maybe it was a one-off. Maybe enough people hadn't heard of it. Maybe they weren't in the right point of the upgrade cycle. People still say they want it! So Apple tried again. iPhone 12 mini. Universally praised. Again, heavily underperformed. Apple never made a mini phone after that. You know what they did do? Added a larger Plus version. So when he article says "People want dumbphones", take that with a pinch of salt. Instead it should say "People say they want dumbphones."
- fsagx 2y ago
  iPhone 13 mini does exist. But I haven't seen one since.
  - webworker 2y ago
    It was iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 13 mini. OP is N-1 on his model numbers. I had the iPhone 13 mini. It was a great phone, but interfaces aren't being designed for that small of a canvas any more. It increasingly got cramped over time, I gave up in futility and joined the big phone club.
- yowzadave 2y ago
  I bought the mini and returned it, not because it wasn’t great, but because it got worse battery life than my already-years-old iPhone, and also because my eyesight is getting worse as I get older, and I’d been in denial about it until seeing text on the smaller iPhone made it impossible to ignore.
- raspyberr 2y ago
metalforever 2y ago
The problem is that no one will sell me one with a keyboard or way to text people back. A second major issue is that most of them are running google on the back end, either android or a dumbphone OS. I want to get away from that stuff, that's why I want to use the dumb phone .
gertrunde 2y ago
I'm not sure if the issue being described actually exists tbh... Within the last few months, I've bought a Nokia 2660 Flip, a fairly basic 4G phone, with big buttons for an older relative. Admittedly I was originally after a candybar style one, but the 4G variant seemed to be out of stock everywhere, and very difficult to find. So "Will companies make them?"... they already are. The article seems fairly badly researched in general, and based on false assumptions. It bemoans dumbphones being 2/3G, when most recent releases are 4G.
- gertrunde 2y ago
  After further thought, I wonder if the article is more about companies trying to sell 'premium'/hipster dumbphones for $300-700-ish, and being confused when people don't buy them over a <$100 phone?
dtnewman 2y ago
> People want 'dumbphones'. Will companies make them? Yes, they will. You just have to google "dumbphones" and you will come up with a number of options on the first page. If you go to Amazon, you will find even more, ranging from ~$25 to several hundred. I have even seen phones geared towards very niche communities, such as ultraorthodox Jews, where uber and waze are acceptable, but instagram and facebook are not, so the phones enforce this at a relatively low level (making it hard for a somewhat savvy teen to circumvent)... just Google "kosher phones". I have seen phones for the elderly, with oversized keys and a dedicated panic button. There's lots of existing stuff on the market, so this headline makes no sense.
r0ckarong 2y ago
Does anyone make a dumb screen these days? I have looked at so many options but I dread the day I have to buy a new TV.
hammycheesy 2y ago
I had a Sonim XP3 "dumb phone" that I used for a year and successfully drove my screen time down from 1-2 hours per day to <10min. The key for me was that the input (T-9 keyboard) and output (tiny non-touch display) modalities were so constrained that any task that wasn't completely trivial was made so painful that I would put it off until I was in front of a computer, if I did it at all. This was a great way to filter out tasks that weren't truly important enough to work on immediately in the moment. The downfall was my new job which required travel for work, which meant needing a phone capable of managing flights, navigation, and coordinating with my coworkers. If my circumstances change, I fully intend to switch back to the XP3 or something similar. I do wish there was something available that could perform those tasks I need for work, but not give me the "full throughput" to get distracted.
paradox460 2y ago
People SAY they want dumbphones. But they don't buy them. You can go get a Nokia dumbphone right now. No one does
0max 2y ago
I honestly really want an updated version of a keitai like the Samsung Folder 2 but I have doubts that there's a large enough audience for those kinds of phones out there right now.
1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago
No Javascript needed: https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20240515-the-dumbphones-people-want-are-hard-to-find https://www.bbc.co.uk/future/article/20240515-the-dumbphones... Tested with text-only browser that has no Javascript engine: x=/future/article/20240515-the-dumbphones-people-want-are-hard-to-find links -dump https://www.bbc.com/$x links -dump https://www.bbc.co.uk/$x
M95D 2y ago
Some people probably want dump phones for privacy. I'm one of them. None of these "dumb" phones are dumb enough to offer that. I still use a Nokia N86 for that. 3G network is already gone and it will be a very very sad day when 2G is taken offline. Luckily, 2G is still used here for various car/truck fleet trackers, and fire/burglary alarms and it doesn't use the same frequency as 3G/4G/5G, so there's probably little reason to take it offline in the next 10y or so.

26 points by onemoresoop 2y ago

If you already have a smartphone and your issue is addiction/time spent on it, why not just strip the phone down to a utility device? If it's a willpower issue, surely its better to try to overcome that issue and change your frame of mind regarding your phone (seeing it as a utility, rather than entertainment), just as it is for other things in your life that will demand willpower. I use my phone about 10-15 minutes a day. It sits in my pocket until I need some utility or somebody contacts me. Anecdotally, one of my friends switched to a dumbphone and loves to use "not having a smartphone" as a talking point, despite annoying myself and others with requests to check things on our smartphones for him. It's quite tiresome.

lerpgame 2y ago

i want phone that’s part of my brain so i don’t have to interface with 3rd parties.

DaSHacka 2y ago
Just wait until they find a way to do this and promptly bake ads right into it
- otachack 2y ago
  Check out the YA book "Feed", it tackles that issue.

taylodl 2y ago

Companies will make them if they perceive there being a big enough market to warrant making the product - which there isn't. The biggest problem is everybody has a different idea of the minimal feature set for a dumb phone. Voice and texting? Sure, sure. Those are table stakes. Hey - email would be nice too! Okay. You know, it'd be awfully convenient to have a camera so I can snap photo and send them to my friends. Okaaaaay. And so it goes. By the time you're done you'll have re-traced the feature development of the smartphone. Here's the thing about smartphones - you can make them as dumb as you want. You can determine the set of minimal features that works for you, providing everything you need while minimizing distractions. I know, I know - crazy concept!

JohnFen 2y ago
> Here's the thing about smartphones - you can make them as dumb as you want Oh, how I wish that were true, but it isn't. I can certainly decide which capabilities are presented in the UI (for the most part), but the reason I want a dumbphone is to avoid the security problems smartphones have. If the advanced functionality is there, whether or not I see it, so are the additional security problems that come with it. I want my phone to be, as much as possible, limited enough in terms of hardware (processing power, memory, etc.) so as to make it incapable of advanced functionality. Personally, I want the ability to make and receive phone calls and texts, and the ability to tether. Everything else I can do on a separate pocket device that isn't on the cell network and that I can actually have complete control of.
- tail_exchange 2y ago
  Can't you just get a plan without data, or just turn off data and wifi? If you are only using your phone for calls and sms, and don't ever turn on your network, I'm not sure what security problems you are trying to avoid. Unless you are living under a totalitarian government, this seems excessive to me, but maybe there are other things I'm missing.
  - JohnFen 2y ago
    > I'm not sure what security problems you are trying to avoid. Tracking, mostly.
- dools 2y ago
  So get a Nokia 4g and when you want mobile computing take a laptop
nonrandomstring 2y ago
Modular phones is a good solution. There have been a few genuine attempts [0] - and a big win is for the environment too because modular designs are repairable. I don't much buy the "slippery slope" argument for not offering a basic voice only phone, because there is a large demand for it according to article which I take as the premise for the discussion. The reality is that one cannot make a smartphone "as dumb as you want". Well, technically I can, but I don't know many other people who have a x100 bench microscope and SMD soldering gear to rework chips. Hardware capability is the key demand here because one fundamentally cannot trust software as it is today. Also, even if disabled in the OS, many potentially insecure and power-hungry subsystems remain active. Modular phones will need to mature somewhat to meet these new needs. It's high time that physical standards for modules were solid, but in Europe we will see interoperability and environmental regulations make that a reality. Expect to see adding cameras, Bluetooth, GSM and memory be as easy as flipping in a SIM. The environment and all cellphone users will thank us for that. [0] https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/modular-phones-roundup/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/mobile/modular-phones-roundup/

ysofunny 2y ago

no, because other bigger companies will pay manufacturers more money than "people" ever possibly could this is the same logic that told me that my smartphone will never really be mine as in "my phone will work for me first of all". as an iphone user I know and understand that my wishes and intentions come second, Apple is the real owner of "my" device

toomuchtodo 2y ago

https://dumbphones.pory.app/ https://dumbphones.pory.app/ https://www.wired.com/story/dumbphones-reddit-last-good-place/ https://www.wired.com/story/dumbphones-reddit-last-good-plac...

darreninthenet 2y ago

What I really want is a dummy dumb phone that's a Bluetooth controller for my smartphone so I can call and text from it but have no other distractions. There's a little flip phone Bluetooth dialler thing that pops up on ali etc quite often but it's the size of a postage stamp.

nehal3m 2y ago
That sounds suspiciously like a smart watch.
- darreninthenet 2y ago
  I suppose yes a smart watch in a "dumb phone" body with a basic screen and dial pad, and all it links to is messages and calls, no other notifications or ability to interact with any other functionality.

_8j50 2y ago

Is a real dumb phone even possible? Not having apps and a touch screen doesn't make it dumb. Look at kai os for example or even symbian had apps just not nice appstores and nicer features. You still have arm cpus and running an os and apps. A phone that only makes 4g calls with a 4g baseband os that is only capable of doing calls, now that would be a dumb phone but the cost would not be low.

adamomada 2y ago
Iirc kai os is Firefox OS and uses html5 + js, so webapps. Now is a web app an app is a different question but I’d say no.
- hiatus 2y ago
  > Now is a web app an app is a different question but I’d say no. Why not? The browser has a ton of access to hardware these days. What is the difference, in your view?
  - adamomada 2y ago
    There’s no platform SDK and everything you can do, you have to do through js. It’s pretty limiting compared to real binary applications running any sort of code (NDK)
nomel 2y ago
It's fairly easy to "enable" a "dumb mode" on a smart phone. iOS supports "guided access", where you can basically turn off everything, behind a passcode. There's also screen time, which lets you limit/disable anything, also behind a passcode. But, this requires that someone else manages your phone.
M95D 2y ago
It is possible, but it needs to connect to the phone network somehow and GSM chips/modules these days probably run Android inside anyway, so to have a really dumb phone means to have a separate CPU+memory+flash which doubles power usage and doesn't give any assurances that the GSM chip won't do MitM and fsck privacy of the phone anyway. See: https://hackaday.com/2023/08/03/open-source-cell-phone-based-on-esp32/ https://hackaday.com/2023/08/03/open-source-cell-phone-based...

cco 2y ago

People _say_ they want dumbphones. Will people buy them? ^quick correction to the title I'm in this camp frankly, Hisense just came out with a pretty nice e-ink smartphone-ish thing and I thought about buying it. I really like it in many respects, but would I actually use it? Or would it be in a drawer in 3 months?

paulddraper 2y ago
I want a phone that's meaningfully smaller than a tablet. Like the iPhone SE, back when they made that.
- kube-system 2y ago
  The 3rd generation SE is a current in-production iPhone.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
- taeric 2y ago
  The Samsung flip is pretty good. The closed profile is pretty small and it fits in pockets quite well.
hiatus 2y ago
E-ink phones are not necessarily dumbphones.

m3kw9 2y ago

People want dumb phones as much as they want to take horses to work

adamomada 2y ago

Can someone familiar with lockdown mode on iPhone tell us how close it gets to dumb?

laweijfmvo 2y ago
I use lockdown on my iPhone. It doesn't make it dumb, it just disables a few handy or pretty (UI) features, as far as I can tell.
nomel 2y ago
I think you want guided access: https://support.apple.com/en-us/111795 https://support.apple.com/en-us/111795 Or screen time, taking advantage of the content restrictions settings that let you disable most everything, including app install.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

taeric 2y ago

No they don't. People want to virtue signal that they are above the mindless masses that you can turn into easily with a modern phone. This is effectively the "I don't own a television" signaling of this decade. People want to be the kind of person that they think can "rise above" these things. They don't want to put in the ridiculous effort it would take, though. Edit: Fair critiques that I don't think it is literally all virtue signaling. I certainly think there is something to be said for people that love to discuss how they don't like phones. What I was thinking more strongly there was people confuse their declared preferences with their actual preferences.

psychanarch 2y ago
Hard to take your comment seriously when you immediately use a phrase like "virtue signal" and infer that everyone stating this desire is disingenuous.
- taeric 2y ago
  Fair in that I doubt it is everyone. But, at large, people are rather happy with their phone. If a touch embarrassed that they use it so much. Though, really only if you confront them with a scenario that begs the question, as it were.
nomel 2y ago
Yes they do, as I am one, and it has nothing to do with virtue signaling, because I would be embarrassed to tell someone. For me, it's more about my brain keeping an undesirable tether to my phone, which appears to be a real phenomenon [1]. My experience may be different from yours, but try this if you haven't: one by one uninstall each of your social media and media apps. When I do this, I feel a tangible silence when it uninstalls. With massive amounts of addiction in my gene pool, maybe I'm wired different than you, so maybe don't come at it with such negative assumptions. [1] https://blogs.iu.edu/sciu/2023/05/20/brain-drain-smartphones https://blogs.iu.edu/sciu/2023/05/20/brain-drain-smartphones
- taeric 2y ago

genman 2y ago

Some companies still make them.

Mesmoria 2y ago

what i want are dumb cars.

corytheboyd 2y ago

What’s so bad about having a smartphone but exercising self-control? Turning off notifications is trivial. Nobody is forcing you to use social media. Having GPS in your pocket at all times is a super power. You must have one if your employer requires 2FA but doesn’t provide a phone (smaller companies). I like the idea of a dumb phone in theory, but we have long since crossed the bridge.

nehal3m 2y ago
There's a few reasons. You have to be aware that you're sinking time into your phone, realise that it is a problem and then exercise constant vigilance to keep from falling back into old habits, comparable to many other addictions. There's armies of marketers and psychologists working to try and glue your eyeballs to your screen and resisting that pull is non trivial for many. A dumb phone and a dedicated GPS unit along with a paper calendar works well for me during times when I feel like unplugging; no self control required.
JohnMakin 2y ago
Lack or possession of self control has little to do with the aggressive amount of tracking and data collection your phone does without your consent.
- hiatus 2y ago
  What tracking specifically are you referring to? Is it apps tracking location, or browsing history? If it's just location tracking by the carrier, that's done regardless of phone type.
  - JohnMakin 2y ago
    Pretty much any modern webpage you visit in your phone’s browser is going to fingerprint and identify you to an extremely granular degree. Tons of popular applications farm and sell data to a crazy degree. Yes, one can not use them, but the list of apps that do not do this is vanishingly small and certain ones like facebook or whatsapp are sometimes completely unavoidable. The mobile ecosystem facilitates this in a way that is much harder to avoid on a mobile device than on a laptop, especially not for the non-advanced user. The iphone for instance tracks your location pretty much constantly to give you “helpful” reminders in maps to tell you that you successfully parked at work (which i never told them was my work). Just one example.

JohnMakin 2y ago

My very first programming gig was converting these terrible, predatory flip-phone games that targeted the elderly into ios/android applications. How ironic if my career would end with converting ios/android apps back to flip-phone.

laweijfmvo 2y ago

I recently embarked on a journey to make myself a "dumbphone". I started with an iPhone 12 mini, removed every app possible and kept Phone, Contacts, Messages, Camera, Photos, and Safari with a 15 minute daily limit. My main motivations for going with iPhone were 1. Get to keep iMessage 2. Get to keep a good camera with easy photo syncing 3. Browser when really needed 4. App store for emergencies 5. I eventually added Bitwarden (for passwords) and iCloud Files, for when I need email attachments (PDFs) without access to email. I also enabled lockdown (didn't contribute much to the dumb experience) and black & white color filter. It's fine, and I do use it a lot less when out and about, but I've had many inconvenient moments in the first couple months 1. Rented a Uhaul, which basically required a smartphone to complete the checkout process. Got away with not having it because Uhaul seems to have lots of issues even with smartphones and let me slide 2. I should probably add Maps back, for obvious reasons. 3. Having to ask everyone I communicate with through an app (via website these days) for their number before leaving the house, otherwise there's no way to get in touch. Burned me a couple times meeting up for bike rides etc. (no Strava on phone) 4. Having to tell someone I'll pay them back (Venmo etc) "when I get home" is awkward at best. 5. Haven't needed an Uber yet, but will probably have to install that at some point. 6. Will have to go back to paper boarding passes and such, I suppose Overall I use the phone less... recently had a Dr appointment and was flabbergasted to be the only person in the waiting room who didn't look at their phone once, let alone stare at it the entire time. But that said, I had already removed all social media from my phone for many many years. So the improvement was marginal and the inconveniences have definitely been there. Ultimately, I think removing any app that causes you to scroll mindlessly (social media obviously, but also any news, video, etc.) and setting screen time limits for need to haves like Browser will be as far as most people should go.

mo_42 2y ago
> I recently embarked on a journey to make myself a "dumbphone". I started with an iPhone 12 mini, removed every app possible and kept Phone, Contacts, Messages, Camera, Photos, and Safari with a 15 minute daily limit. My main motivations for going with iPhone were I did the same with Android. I even removed the browser. All the installed apps fit on a single screen and three of them are basically authenticator apps.

RcouF1uZ4gsC 2y ago

>Bullitt, the licensed manufacturers of the CAT S-22 I purchased, folded the day before my phone arrived. Despite the news, I tried the hardware for about a week. It let me call, text and access the messenger functions of a couple of apps I used to stay in touch with friends and family. My total web use dropped to just an hour a day. I was better able to concentrate on my surroundings, books and music. But I missed my library app. People may say they want dumbphones. But their actual choices reveal something different, which is why dumbphone manufacturers don't make money.

pavon 2y ago

I replaced my dumbphone last year. I was both surprised at the large size of the selection, and disappointed at the quality of the selection. HMD is still selling Nokia-branded S30+ phones, nearly frozen in time, which is good and bad - the main downside is that MMS support is just as limited as it has always been. KaiOS which I once hoped would become a strong competitor is still quite sluggish and most phones running it have all sorts of advertising built into the phone UI. There are some AOSP based phones like Sonim that are pretty decent, but their battery life isn't as good as old dumb phones. Then there are all the hip new minimalist phones (that are the subject of this article), which cost way more than I wanted to spend. The biggest disappointment to me was the lack of 5G. Not because I need the improvements 5G brings on a dumbphone, but because the reason I was replacing my old phone was because all the 3G towers have been shutdown. It would have been nice to have some future-proofing.

nindalf 2y ago

One big caveat to this - the difference between people's stated and revealed preferences. They say they want one thing, but when push comes to shove they choose differently. Here's an example specifically with phones. Consumers in surveys and on social media would constantly say that they wanted small phones. They were insistent that Apple listened and made a fantastic mini version of the iPhone 11. It was universally praised by reviewers as a perfect small phone. And ... it underperformed heavily. Somehow Apple, a company that prides itself on its supply chain and ability to predict demand for its products overestimated the demand. Consumers didn't actually buy the phone like they said they would. No matter, maybe it was a one-off. Maybe enough people hadn't heard of it. Maybe they weren't in the right point of the upgrade cycle. People still say they want it! So Apple tried again. iPhone 12 mini. Universally praised. Again, heavily underperformed. Apple never made a mini phone after that. You know what they did do? Added a larger Plus version. So when he article says "People want dumbphones", take that with a pinch of salt. Instead it should say "People say they want dumbphones."

fsagx 2y ago
iPhone 13 mini does exist. But I haven't seen one since.
- webworker 2y ago
  It was iPhone 12 mini and iPhone 13 mini. OP is N-1 on his model numbers. I had the iPhone 13 mini. It was a great phone, but interfaces aren't being designed for that small of a canvas any more. It increasingly got cramped over time, I gave up in futility and joined the big phone club.
yowzadave 2y ago
I bought the mini and returned it, not because it wasn’t great, but because it got worse battery life than my already-years-old iPhone, and also because my eyesight is getting worse as I get older, and I’d been in denial about it until seeing text on the smaller iPhone made it impossible to ignore.
raspyberr 2y ago

metalforever 2y ago

The problem is that no one will sell me one with a keyboard or way to text people back. A second major issue is that most of them are running google on the back end, either android or a dumbphone OS. I want to get away from that stuff, that's why I want to use the dumb phone .

gertrunde 2y ago

I'm not sure if the issue being described actually exists tbh... Within the last few months, I've bought a Nokia 2660 Flip, a fairly basic 4G phone, with big buttons for an older relative. Admittedly I was originally after a candybar style one, but the 4G variant seemed to be out of stock everywhere, and very difficult to find. So "Will companies make them?"... they already are. The article seems fairly badly researched in general, and based on false assumptions. It bemoans dumbphones being 2/3G, when most recent releases are 4G.

gertrunde 2y ago
After further thought, I wonder if the article is more about companies trying to sell 'premium'/hipster dumbphones for $300-700-ish, and being confused when people don't buy them over a <$100 phone?

dtnewman 2y ago

> People want 'dumbphones'. Will companies make them? Yes, they will. You just have to google "dumbphones" and you will come up with a number of options on the first page. If you go to Amazon, you will find even more, ranging from ~$25 to several hundred. I have even seen phones geared towards very niche communities, such as ultraorthodox Jews, where uber and waze are acceptable, but instagram and facebook are not, so the phones enforce this at a relatively low level (making it hard for a somewhat savvy teen to circumvent)... just Google "kosher phones". I have seen phones for the elderly, with oversized keys and a dedicated panic button. There's lots of existing stuff on the market, so this headline makes no sense.

r0ckarong 2y ago

Does anyone make a dumb screen these days? I have looked at so many options but I dread the day I have to buy a new TV.

hammycheesy 2y ago

I had a Sonim XP3 "dumb phone" that I used for a year and successfully drove my screen time down from 1-2 hours per day to <10min. The key for me was that the input (T-9 keyboard) and output (tiny non-touch display) modalities were so constrained that any task that wasn't completely trivial was made so painful that I would put it off until I was in front of a computer, if I did it at all. This was a great way to filter out tasks that weren't truly important enough to work on immediately in the moment. The downfall was my new job which required travel for work, which meant needing a phone capable of managing flights, navigation, and coordinating with my coworkers. If my circumstances change, I fully intend to switch back to the XP3 or something similar. I do wish there was something available that could perform those tasks I need for work, but not give me the "full throughput" to get distracted.

paradox460 2y ago

People SAY they want dumbphones. But they don't buy them. You can go get a Nokia dumbphone right now. No one does

0max 2y ago

I honestly really want an updated version of a keitai like the Samsung Folder 2 but I have doubts that there's a large enough audience for those kinds of phones out there right now.

1vuio0pswjnm7 2y ago

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M95D 2y ago

Some people probably want dump phones for privacy. I'm one of them. None of these "dumb" phones are dumb enough to offer that. I still use a Nokia N86 for that. 3G network is already gone and it will be a very very sad day when 2G is taken offline. Luckily, 2G is still used here for various car/truck fleet trackers, and fire/burglary alarms and it doesn't use the same frequency as 3G/4G/5G, so there's probably little reason to take it offline in the next 10y or so.