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Seems like trend-chasing that got behind schedule, and now they missed the fad. Imagine if all the effort that went into this thing would have been directed to

Seems like trend-chasing that got behind schedule, and now they missed the fad. Imagine if all the effort that went into this thing would have been directed towards getting Signal or WhatsApp onto a dumbphone.

mrweasel 2y ago
A lot of the HMD/Nokia phones have WhatsApp. All those running KaiOS I believe, but not Signal :-( Edit: Looking more at the specs and the promotional material, this starts to make a little more sense. Barbie brand the phone, in an attempt to make it trendy, so that young girls will want it. Avoid adding the social media, so not to expose the girls to an environment which we know to be bad for them. It actually makes a little sense, but sure if young teens are that into Barbie though. I'd love to see the sales numbers next year.
- MainanTagonist 2y ago
  Whatsapp has been disabled for new registration as of June this year, and will be disabled for all registered users from January next year. So these phones are mostly useless going forward. Fancy, but under powered, and unable to pull off instant messaging in a reliable enough manner. My son used a Nokia 7880 for the past 3 years, i unsuccessfully tried switching to a nokia 800 tough from January to May this year and intended for my daughter to have her own flip Nokia phone, to no avail. We reluctantly had them switch to secondhand smartphones over the summer...
The_Colonel 2y ago
The lack of social media is a (IMHO valid) selling point of this phone.
- ryukoposting 2y ago
  I don't know about WhatsApp, but Signal doesn't meet my definition of "social media."
  - throwaway74354 2y ago
    It has stories, therefore it's a "social media" /s Anyway, Signal doesn't approve use of the third-party clients. Tough luck. Dumb-phone-with-Signal has to be a collaboration with Signal-the-company.
    - ryukoposting 2y ago
      > It has stories, therefore it's a "social media" Congratulations, you made my skin crawl. I'm quite familiar with Signals opposition to third-party clients. I maintained my own fork of their app for about a year in order to keep SMS support. Eventually my fork got so wildly out-of-sync with upstream that I just couldn't keep up anymore.
    - The_Colonel 2y ago
      > It has stories, therefore it's a "social media" /s Why /s? Stories is exactly an example of a feature being toxic (especially, but not exclusively) for children.

mrweasel 2y ago

A lot of the HMD/Nokia phones have WhatsApp. All those running KaiOS I believe, but not Signal :-( Edit: Looking more at the specs and the promotional material, this starts to make a little more sense. Barbie brand the phone, in an attempt to make it trendy, so that young girls will want it. Avoid adding the social media, so not to expose the girls to an environment which we know to be bad for them. It actually makes a little sense, but sure if young teens are that into Barbie though. I'd love to see the sales numbers next year.

MainanTagonist 2y ago
Whatsapp has been disabled for new registration as of June this year, and will be disabled for all registered users from January next year. So these phones are mostly useless going forward. Fancy, but under powered, and unable to pull off instant messaging in a reliable enough manner. My son used a Nokia 7880 for the past 3 years, i unsuccessfully tried switching to a nokia 800 tough from January to May this year and intended for my daughter to have her own flip Nokia phone, to no avail. We reluctantly had them switch to secondhand smartphones over the summer...

The_Colonel 2y ago

The lack of social media is a (IMHO valid) selling point of this phone.

ryukoposting 2y ago
I don't know about WhatsApp, but Signal doesn't meet my definition of "social media."
- throwaway74354 2y ago
  It has stories, therefore it's a "social media" /s Anyway, Signal doesn't approve use of the third-party clients. Tough luck. Dumb-phone-with-Signal has to be a collaboration with Signal-the-company.
  - ryukoposting 2y ago
    > It has stories, therefore it's a "social media" Congratulations, you made my skin crawl. I'm quite familiar with Signals opposition to third-party clients. I maintained my own fork of their app for about a year in order to keep SMS support. Eventually my fork got so wildly out-of-sync with upstream that I just couldn't keep up anymore.
  - The_Colonel 2y ago
    > It has stories, therefore it's a "social media" /s Why /s? Stories is exactly an example of a feature being toxic (especially, but not exclusively) for children.