Smartphone makers will soon face an unlikely competitor. Concerns about the impact of social media are driving demand for old-school Nokia brick-like handsets…
I heard about the Light Phone recently and I think it’s a decent bridge between the old brick phones and modern smartphones. It has navigation and music functionality that a brick phone wouldn’t, but doesn’t have all the rest of the attention thieving bloat of a smartphone.
It would be nice to have music streaming capability and alternative messaging apps (Signal) and perhaps a web browser, though.
Just disable everything on your phone right now down to the essentials. If you’re on Android, there’s a lot of really minimalist 3rd party launchers like Niagara launcher that can improve the minimalist experience as well. You’d basically mimic the light phone at that point while still having every upside and be able to selectively enable and disable what you’re asking.
You don’t need to pay for an overpriced phone to take your choices away. You can find the will power to just disable it on your current phone.
It’s a easy fix with software, exactly like flight mode they can introduce focus mode for school.
Brick is a combination of software and (add-on) hardware and imo a better solution.
My company did a similar 3rd party app on their phones for truck drivers, to cut down on driving distractions and within days they had all figured ways around the software and were back to watching videos while driving.
If people (or kids) want a way around they will find it. There have been too many examples that can be found already of them getting around similar software.
Best go with the ‘non smart’ phone to begin with the simply eliminate the issue altogether.
That looks like a 3d printed shell over some sort of scannable chip that pairs with an app on a smart phone to require a physical action to unlock the full phone experience.
A printed QR code paired with an similar app would serve the same function.
Good point. Reminded me of this alarm app, where you scan a QR code to disable the alarm:
Can I just have a modern Motorola Razr so I can pretend to be Captain Kirk again, please?
I think flip phones are more likely. I’ve contemplated several times of turning my phone in for the old flip phone. Might just be the nastalgia talking though.
If your serious, Straight Talk has flip phones that work on Verizon networks. I saw one at Walmart just the other day.
Signal as in the secure messenger Signal. My bad for not being clearer on that :)
Oh, oh, oh! Can I finally do the Celebi event in Pokemon Crystal. For those who don’t know, the only way you could get a Celebi in the original Pokemon games is if you had a Japanese flip phone (I’m pretty sure that included the Keitai) and went to a Pokemon Mobile phone system thingy, then did some stuff in the Pokemon Center and one of the nerses will give you the GS ball. But this system only worked on Japanese cartridges.
I would take an old school Nokia that runs Signal any day over an Android or iOS phone.
