People want phones that don’t cost $1000+, lack basic features and constantly prey on their personal data. That’s what they want. Some express that by saying they want “dumb phones”, but the first part is the larger driver here.
I want those things and I want a phone that’s easy to use, doesn’t constantly advertise to me, and is more of a helpful tool than a distraction.
I think that last bit is more of a ‘what you make of it’ situation, regardless of how smart or dumb a phone is.
Unfortunately the manufacturers want the data and advertising revenue, and they’d only be persuaded to offer an alternative if they made the same amount of money.
If each sale of a $900 smart phone gives them $100 of ad revenue over a couple years, I’d bet my bottom dollar they would charge $200 for the ‘dumb’ version.
I think the distractions are partially a user issue and partially a company issue. Companies make their programs noisy with notifications by default that I only change it once I’ve found it annoying. They also make their program so bloated that they are slow to load and execute. By the time the app loads, I’ve lost my flow and now the tool is a nuisance. My mind is already cluttered. I don’t need tech to slow it down.
I see what you mean. People use their devices at different levels. That may not be the best way to put it.
My meaning is that a portion of the users will be the type to spend a couple hours digging through each setting on a new device to set it to their needs. Another group will use the device with minimal initial adjustments, and tweak things as they find things they don’t like. Then there’s a third group that will almost never open a preferences panel and just use a device by its factory settings, likely to never consider potential improvements to their user experience.
From what you’ve said, I imagine your in that second group. I myself am in the first one I described; I look at the options of any hardware I purchase or software I download before I actually begin to use it.
Unfortunately - in the context of this post - the number of people in that third group I imagine outnumber us by multiple orders of magnitude, and therefore companies with shareholders to appease will always manufacture devices with as much bloat and advertising and invasive data mining as they can be paid to put in.
People want phones that prey on personal data?
A big part of the markup is simply the proprietary systems that run the phone. Apple’s restrictive OS, combined with the planned obsolescence strategy for older units, corral their customer base into buying newer models every 3-5 years.
Android’s open system allows for competitor brands to compete alongside the bigger publishers - Samsung and Sony and Lenova and Motorola. But even then, we’ve lost the more modular phone design to a hobbyist-hostile manufacturing strategy that precludes people from swapping out old batteries or doing basic repairs.
This, combined with data providers that try to bake the price of new phones into the subscription service (AT&T, Verizon, and Tmobile all offering “free” phone upgrades on painfully expensive plans) make the industry this extractive rent-seeking mess.
I don’t want a dumb phone. I want a circa 2014 smart phone that is not expected to replace my laptop and serve as a constant data stream for corporations. I want to be able to visit a website on my phone and not have it try to get me to download an app, be ads on 70% of the screen, or just be unreadable formatting. Let me call, text, do a basic online search, play a stupid flash game, and take my money. Stop being greedy and trying to make everything I do monetizable
Dumb phones don’t help you for tickets, boarding passes, tap to pay, etc. those things require strong security, not the latest tech. I’ve got a few teenage kids and even for them it’s not very practical to exist without a smartphone.
I’m starting to miss my iPhone 4
I loved my LG v10 and galaxy s5. Those phones just worked and worked great for a long time.
I wonder why companies can’t just make something as good as these again.
As long as you didn’t hold it wrong.
I got it long after the Antennagate problem got fixed. I believe iOS 4.3 was out when I first bought it.
Was Antennagate fixed? Or did people just learn not to hold it in the wrong place?
I thought it was about physical placement of the antenna, I’d be surprised if a software update fixed it.
It’s probably a mix of both.
I want to be able to pull up an 80% version of a website on my phone, and have a button to open the full website on my computer for when I get home.
Firefox can do something like this with the “send tab to device”, not sure it is what you want
2014 phones also fit in my hand. I miss that size, you can’t even find them now.
This is why I want a Raspberry PI based PDA and a Tablet. Nothing fancy, even if its somewhat thick and not water proof, etc… It should be modular and repairable. Put a flavour of Linux on it and configure it to be secure. Then have a dumb phone which I can use as a modem if I want but otherwise call and text and turn off when I don’t want it.
They exist
https://www.thelightphone.com/
https://techless.com/pages/home
I think people say they want them by don’t really want them.
The prices are ridiculous
+1 For the Light Phone. Owned both their Kickstarter edition and their latest generation, and makes travel, camping, and more easy when I forward my calls/texts. Great battery life with still some creature comforts we have all gotten used to, smart phone wise.
No, I rather have a smarter phone without all the current day B.S.
I’m pretty sure that dumb phones, aka feature phones, are still a thing.
It’s just that nobody talks about that stuff.
Sometimes they’re marketed as a “senior phone”… Because you know old people. I guess?
Dumb phones exist though?
Drop all the corporate inclusions and youll sell more
I rather go with something like this:
https://unplugged.com/products/up-phone
At the very least a degoogled phone.
I don’t think people really want dumbphones, I think they just want apps that better support their self-control. Digital Wellbeing on Android is a start, but it’s way too easy to bypass.
I want people to stop thinking that their little quip to me is of the utmost importance. I want people to wait a few hours to tell me something instead of calling me while I’m driving and act insulted when I tell them to hurry up because I’m either driving or pulled over.
Ew, people call you? All my friends text, because they know we are busy adults, I’ll get to the chat when I can get to the chat. Little monster stays on vibration only or complete silence until I decide so. I control the damn thing not the other way around. Everybody who knows me or I give my phone number knows that phone call means someone died, there’s blood everywhere, or the building got set on fire. Nothing else requires phone call level urgency.
Phone calls are for urgency and very often I do need to respond quickly. I also expect and am disappointed when people don’t answer calls from me because I only call for urgent matters.
Even if my father knew how to send text messages, his fat, dry fingers can’t use the on screen keyboard.
If you don’t like being disturbed while driving you should use do not disturb while driving.
I’m a farmer. There’s always the chance the someone is hurt in a field and is calling for help.
I wager some people want “dumbphones”. A phone you open and just dial into without scrolling through apps. A phone with a simple screen that doesn’t just gobble down battery life. So, like, a smartphone could fit this need with the right interfaces available.
I mean, yeah, but that’s a different desire than this article is talking about because they’re more or less talking about flip phones.
I thought I wanted a dumber phone. Not a flip phone necessarily, but not a pocket supercomputer. I looked at the majority of options out there and concluded that (ignoring the ones that are basically just running Android) they’re all missing a feature or two I really like, like the Light Phone looks great but I listen to audiobooks on Libby all the time. So then I just decided to delete a bunch of stuff from my iPhone, and then I didn’t get around to that so I still just have the same phone. 🤦♀️
Person: has problem
Person: attempts to fix
Person: fails
Person: attempts band-aid fix.
Person realizes they have no motivation, and just lives with the problem.
This is where we’re at America.
Most dumb phones aren’t.
Dumb, that is. Virtually all of them have some version of Android or KaiOS or some other full-fat OS cosplaying as something “simple”. Litmus test: does your “dumb phone” come with a map app? A Facebook app? Can you install apps from an external source? If so, you don’t have a dumb phone.
The hallmark of a dumb phone is the lack of an OS that boots. You turn it on, and everything should be instantly and immediately available, loaded from ROM. No boot sequence, no waiting for anything to load.
The only truly “dumb phone” out there - as something “new” and not actually vintage - is the Rotary Un-Phone.
The problem with dumb phones is that the entire world pushes people towards smartphones. For a lot of adults, it’s really hard to move to a dumb phone.
Have a security system for your house? Need an app. Router? App. Bank? App. Payments? App. Doctor appointment check in? App. Texting? WhatsApp. Fucking menus? App. Refrigerator? Believe it or not, also App.
My bank is so shitty that sometimes the website doesn’t work, but their mobile app does.
You can’t always opt out of using an app. I tried setting up my new ISP’s router last week and it required an app. No other way to do it.
Currently, I’m thinking something like the Jelly Star might be the best compromise. Has maps and other tools, but the tiny screen prevents them from trapping you.
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Disclaimer: The below rant does not include things like healthcare where choice in the market is either not a thing or not possible. Lest someone think I am being absolutist. It is purely railing against the average consumer widget, not grandmas oxygen tank refills.
That depends on how many people want them.
Companies will make, or stop making/doing, nearly anything if the money for doing it goes away. But not enough people want “dumbphones” bad enough to stop buying “smartphones”.
Just like not enough people want small phones to stop buying the big ones. Or not enough people want the price of Netflix to go down to stop paying for Netflix, etc. Consumers in general need to learn the power of and build up the mental discipline to do without when the available options aren’t what they want. Apple, Google, etc can’t force you to buy it from them after all.
Companies prey on the inability of the consumer to go without when they find the terms of the deal distasteful to great success. Large chunks of every companies marketing department think about nothing else.
The real “sin” in all of this is there not being enough smaller players around to fill those smaller segments, because we kept buying from the company that bought up all of the competition years ago despite finding those practices distasteful.
Companies, and politicians, have figured out that the average majority is all bark and no bite. And the average majority would be wise to start to figure that out.
