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> I think everyone wants this. You asked for it. I don't want that. I don't want an "integrated experience" and "flagship quality". The first sounds juvenile a

> I think everyone wants this. You asked for it. I don't want that. I don't want an "integrated experience" and "flagship quality". The first sounds juvenile and the second sounds unnecessarily expensive and probably containing shit I don't need, like fancy cameras to look good on my nonexistent socials. What I want is a simple, slow, old, efficient, simple phone with the interface of an 80s era 8bit computer that can actually, imagine this, make and, to complicate matters even further, even take calls. I basically want an open source dumb phone. Do these exist? If not, why not focus on this first? Why go for fancy cameras and apps when we can't even make calls? Looking at your PinePhone.

ForHackernews 2y ago
These do (or did) exist: feature phones shipped with FirefoxOS. Almost no one bought them and the effort was widely seen as a failure, although KaiOS enjoys ongoing success in the developing world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Firefox_OS_devices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Firefox_OS_devic... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KaiOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KaiOS
- rjsw 2y ago
  I am using a KaiOS phone, a Nokia 6300 4G. It works well as a 4G WiFi hotspot for a laptop and as a small phone for making calls and sending texts. Have a few apps on it for mapping as well as using the browser occasionally. The KaiOS WhatsApp app will stop working next year though.
  - normie3000 2y ago
    Wow. Whatsapp struggles on my iphone 13; how's performance on your Nokia?!
    - rjsw 2y ago
      Works fine to receive text messages and a few pictures.
      - lapinot 2y ago
        I beg to differ. Tried to use a kaios nokia 800 tough. Firefox/KaiOS using a stupid kind of webview for every UI, you get two consequences: first, everything is ugly: wrong padding everywhere, complex layout with non-integer number of list items fitting on screen (this is important, vertical list is the primary widget on small screen dumbphones). And second: everything is sluggish. My true "series 30" nokia launches app instantly, whereas i'm sure the SoC is order of magnitudes slower. So the UX definitely shows complete absence of culture of design in this kind of space (eg gameboy UI design, classic dumbphone UI, ...). Small screens need very simple widgets (most importantly grid and vertical list), hand made paddings and proper space optimizations, most likely some bitmap font tailored to the resolution.. You can't just slap some dynamic layout and expect it to work nicely on such a small screen. Everything vectorized will be both costly and of dubious rendering quality, etc.. And of course these things only have "decent", but definitely not "1 month scale" battery life. I guess LTE is the real culprit here.
ninetyninenine 2y ago
>I basically want an open source dumb phone. Do these exist? If not, why not focus on this first? Why go for fancy cameras and apps when we can't even make calls? Looking at your PinePhone. Your dream is achievable and has been achieved. PinePhone for example. I obviously don't mean everyone everyone. More like the overwhelming majority of people.
- whyowhy3484939 2y ago
  I have one and it very much struggles to make and especially to receive calls and is still trying to be smart. PinePhone is definitely not a dumb phone. It's expensive as well. To me a simple, dumb, open source device that can easily be manufactured in all kinds of conditions all over the world sounds like a dream for actual, practical purposes. Like, for example, again, calling. To some degree I have the same issues with "smart watches". Simple, open source, dumb smart watches with just a smidge of 8bit CPU goodness to display, say, something simple like a word or even a letter on the screen would be quite useful. I know there is some movement in that arena using ESP32s but I am not particularly impressed. Alas, alas. Why do we as a civilization tend to go for the extremes and not just get our basic shit together first? I was being slightly obtuse and I understood perfectly well that you meant all reasonable people. If I can't be obtuse and pedantic on HN though, where else?
dmd 2y ago
> that can actually, imagine this, make and, to complicate matters even further, even take calls Showing how different different people are. I've probably made... 20? ish? phone calls in the last decade. (I'm 46.)
- MaXtreeM 2y ago
  Holy moly, you must have very different life than most people I guess. I am from the younger generation which supposedly avoids making old-style phone calls as much as possible and I don't think I know anyone who has made less than 100 calls in the last decade.
  - wiz21c 2y ago
    I always wonder why your generation avoids such calls... Voice calls are so much more efficient to get the things you want from the person you call...
    - testermelon 2y ago
      I think those very total attention expected during phone calls, and the speed at which it happens, contributes to a higher level of anxiety compared to texting. The younger generation hate these elevated stresses and prefer more async communication
- anonzzzies 2y ago
  Same for me, I am 50 and would happily carry a phone sized tablet without call caps at all. I never need to call or receive call; send me an email or hit me up on a chat channel.
MisterTea 2y ago
I half agree. I dont need the bullshit bells and whistles. However a good camera doesn't mean you want to post on instagram or tiktok - maybe you just want a memory of a trip you went on or technical detail of something you want to document. People took pictures before social media. Most every phone can already do what we want but the hardware is undocumented or locked behind NDA and the firmware is hostile. Without those locks the gigacorps cant keep you in the data-mining garden. We wont have open phones until this thinking changes. Keep dreaming until then.
numpad0 2y ago
LTE set that back by a lot. For years there were no VoLTE implementations in common use other than stuffs on Android. Even those had compatibility issues and lots of carriers still block unapproved clients trying to register on VoLTE. For 3G, you could always do that. You only needed the right modem module with voice call support and audio I/O, like bare PCM pins, and a host micro to handle AT commands.
- Nextgrid 2y ago
  > there were no VoLTE implementations in common use other than stuffs on Android What's wrong with the Android one - is it not permissively licensed? I think the biggest problem of Linux phones is the community's obsession with trying (and failing) to reimplement (multiple times, in parallel) things that Android does really well and can be used as-is. That's why the PinePhone or Librem 5 still can't even match the usability (at basic things like phone or camera or battery life) of a 2010-era Android phone, despite having similar hardware. You want a Linux phone that actually works? Start with an AOSP-based phone and provide manufacturer-approved root and escape hatch such as first-party terminal and Wayland/X server app to run Linux apps. Over time, you can slowly replace Android components with their Linux desktop counterparts when they're ready (or the other way around - the Android bits can just be the commonly-accepted solution to specific problems in Linux - even desktop - distros), but at least you're starting from a solid base.
  - joecool1029 2y ago
    > What's wrong with the Android one - is it not permissively licensed? It is not, AOSP based distributions have to kang it from vendor builds. Qualcomm's is mostly standardized but Samsung wrote their own stack and voLTE/voNR won't work on any custom roms. > That's why the PinePhone or Librem 5 still can't even match the usability (at basic things like phone or camera or battery life) of a 2010-era Android phone, despite having similar hardware. They most certainly do NOT have similar hardware. You're wrong on thinking it's a software problem when the hardware being interfaced with is notoriously proprietary. The PinePhone and Librem phones are using self-contained quectel modems connected via different interfaces. They are nothing like the integrated soc's of nearly every other device on the market. This dramatically impacts battery life and stability and I don't think it will ever be a solved problem when building devices this way.

ForHackernews 2y ago

These do (or did) exist: feature phones shipped with FirefoxOS. Almost no one bought them and the effort was widely seen as a failure, although KaiOS enjoys ongoing success in the developing world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Firefox_OS_devices https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_Firefox_OS_devic... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KaiOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KaiOS

rjsw 2y ago
I am using a KaiOS phone, a Nokia 6300 4G. It works well as a 4G WiFi hotspot for a laptop and as a small phone for making calls and sending texts. Have a few apps on it for mapping as well as using the browser occasionally. The KaiOS WhatsApp app will stop working next year though.
- normie3000 2y ago
  Wow. Whatsapp struggles on my iphone 13; how's performance on your Nokia?!
  - rjsw 2y ago
    Works fine to receive text messages and a few pictures.
    - lapinot 2y ago
      I beg to differ. Tried to use a kaios nokia 800 tough. Firefox/KaiOS using a stupid kind of webview for every UI, you get two consequences: first, everything is ugly: wrong padding everywhere, complex layout with non-integer number of list items fitting on screen (this is important, vertical list is the primary widget on small screen dumbphones). And second: everything is sluggish. My true "series 30" nokia launches app instantly, whereas i'm sure the SoC is order of magnitudes slower. So the UX definitely shows complete absence of culture of design in this kind of space (eg gameboy UI design, classic dumbphone UI, ...). Small screens need very simple widgets (most importantly grid and vertical list), hand made paddings and proper space optimizations, most likely some bitmap font tailored to the resolution.. You can't just slap some dynamic layout and expect it to work nicely on such a small screen. Everything vectorized will be both costly and of dubious rendering quality, etc.. And of course these things only have "decent", but definitely not "1 month scale" battery life. I guess LTE is the real culprit here.

ninetyninenine 2y ago

>I basically want an open source dumb phone. Do these exist? If not, why not focus on this first? Why go for fancy cameras and apps when we can't even make calls? Looking at your PinePhone. Your dream is achievable and has been achieved. PinePhone for example. I obviously don't mean everyone everyone. More like the overwhelming majority of people.

whyowhy3484939 2y ago
I have one and it very much struggles to make and especially to receive calls and is still trying to be smart. PinePhone is definitely not a dumb phone. It's expensive as well. To me a simple, dumb, open source device that can easily be manufactured in all kinds of conditions all over the world sounds like a dream for actual, practical purposes. Like, for example, again, calling. To some degree I have the same issues with "smart watches". Simple, open source, dumb smart watches with just a smidge of 8bit CPU goodness to display, say, something simple like a word or even a letter on the screen would be quite useful. I know there is some movement in that arena using ESP32s but I am not particularly impressed. Alas, alas. Why do we as a civilization tend to go for the extremes and not just get our basic shit together first? I was being slightly obtuse and I understood perfectly well that you meant all reasonable people. If I can't be obtuse and pedantic on HN though, where else?

dmd 2y ago

> that can actually, imagine this, make and, to complicate matters even further, even take calls Showing how different different people are. I've probably made... 20? ish? phone calls in the last decade. (I'm 46.)

MaXtreeM 2y ago
Holy moly, you must have very different life than most people I guess. I am from the younger generation which supposedly avoids making old-style phone calls as much as possible and I don't think I know anyone who has made less than 100 calls in the last decade.
- wiz21c 2y ago
  I always wonder why your generation avoids such calls... Voice calls are so much more efficient to get the things you want from the person you call...
  - testermelon 2y ago
    I think those very total attention expected during phone calls, and the speed at which it happens, contributes to a higher level of anxiety compared to texting. The younger generation hate these elevated stresses and prefer more async communication
anonzzzies 2y ago
Same for me, I am 50 and would happily carry a phone sized tablet without call caps at all. I never need to call or receive call; send me an email or hit me up on a chat channel.

MisterTea 2y ago

I half agree. I dont need the bullshit bells and whistles. However a good camera doesn't mean you want to post on instagram or tiktok - maybe you just want a memory of a trip you went on or technical detail of something you want to document. People took pictures before social media. Most every phone can already do what we want but the hardware is undocumented or locked behind NDA and the firmware is hostile. Without those locks the gigacorps cant keep you in the data-mining garden. We wont have open phones until this thinking changes. Keep dreaming until then.

numpad0 2y ago

LTE set that back by a lot. For years there were no VoLTE implementations in common use other than stuffs on Android. Even those had compatibility issues and lots of carriers still block unapproved clients trying to register on VoLTE. For 3G, you could always do that. You only needed the right modem module with voice call support and audio I/O, like bare PCM pins, and a host micro to handle AT commands.

Nextgrid 2y ago
> there were no VoLTE implementations in common use other than stuffs on Android What's wrong with the Android one - is it not permissively licensed? I think the biggest problem of Linux phones is the community's obsession with trying (and failing) to reimplement (multiple times, in parallel) things that Android does really well and can be used as-is. That's why the PinePhone or Librem 5 still can't even match the usability (at basic things like phone or camera or battery life) of a 2010-era Android phone, despite having similar hardware. You want a Linux phone that actually works? Start with an AOSP-based phone and provide manufacturer-approved root and escape hatch such as first-party terminal and Wayland/X server app to run Linux apps. Over time, you can slowly replace Android components with their Linux desktop counterparts when they're ready (or the other way around - the Android bits can just be the commonly-accepted solution to specific problems in Linux - even desktop - distros), but at least you're starting from a solid base.
- joecool1029 2y ago
  > What's wrong with the Android one - is it not permissively licensed? It is not, AOSP based distributions have to kang it from vendor builds. Qualcomm's is mostly standardized but Samsung wrote their own stack and voLTE/voNR won't work on any custom roms. > That's why the PinePhone or Librem 5 still can't even match the usability (at basic things like phone or camera or battery life) of a 2010-era Android phone, despite having similar hardware. They most certainly do NOT have similar hardware. You're wrong on thinking it's a software problem when the hardware being interfaced with is notoriously proprietary. The PinePhone and Librem phones are using self-contained quectel modems connected via different interfaces. They are nothing like the integrated soc's of nearly every other device on the market. This dramatically impacts battery life and stability and I don't think it will ever be a solved problem when building devices this way.