Yeah it’s completely frivolous and won’t do what it’s claiming to. The Click’s Communicator seems like it’s designed to fulfill a niche (whether that niche actually exists is up in the air, but it...
Yeah it’s completely frivolous and won’t do what it’s claiming to. The Click’s Communicator seems like it’s designed to fulfill a niche (whether that niche actually exists is up in the air, but it can describe who its buyer is supposed to be at least). This just seems like it’s trying to manifest living in the aughts as if it was the flip-phones that created that environment, but hasn’t thought through whether aspects of flip-phone design were ever good or just the technical limitations of the price and technology and lack of imagination that came with everything being gatekept by telecom carriers.
Like why T9 texting? It was bad even back then and anyone who texted frequently got a Sidekick or a BlackBerry or something with an actual keyboard. Don’t give me this “needed friction” crap, nobody wants friction when they’re trying send their spouse a grocery list. It sucked even back when people primarily used their phones as phones, it’s going to suck even more now that people primarily used their phones to text. Your personal consumer choice isn’t going to change the cultural context around how we’ve all opted to communicate now.
I texted frequently and never got a sidekick or blackberry. T9 worked really well, and many of us could do it very quickly without looking. We wouldn't type as much on it as we do with a full...
Like why T9 texting? It was bad even back then and anyone who texted frequently got a Sidekick or a BlackBerry or something with an actual keyboard.
I texted frequently and never got a sidekick or blackberry. T9 worked really well, and many of us could do it very quickly without looking. We wouldn't type as much on it as we do with a full QWERTY, but for texting I honestly preferred a T9 with physical keys over my touchscreen keyboard. The poor display was the bigger hinderance.
The only people I knew with a blackberry or sidekick were responding to work emails from their phone, like realtors.
T9 was fantastic. I sook out T9 soft keyboards for years after moving to Windows Phone and Android, but I never found anything that hit the spot. I would pay money for an iOS implementation.
T9 was fantastic. I sook out T9 soft keyboards for years after moving to Windows Phone and Android, but I never found anything that hit the spot. I would pay money for an iOS implementation.
At the risk of presenting an idea with very annoying implications: with the current capabilities of local Parakeet/Whisper-like models on phones, a flip phone that allowed texting by voice...
Like why T9 texting?
At the risk of presenting an idea with very annoying implications: with the current capabilities of local Parakeet/Whisper-like models on phones, a flip phone that allowed texting by voice recognition would be quite feasible and convenient.
Having it activated by flip would be very amusing and probably drive bystanders mad.
The Apple Watch has a Walkie Talkie feature (that has literally never worked for me) but would probably suit this use case very well. Like, send both a transcript an audio clip for each transmission.
The Apple Watch has a Walkie Talkie feature (that has literally never worked for me) but would probably suit this use case very well. Like, send both a transcript an audio clip for each transmission.
Damn! It would have been so useful if it actually worked. I guess the voice messages basically do the same thing in a way that’s friendlier to asynchronous communication though, but having a...
Damn! It would have been so useful if it actually worked. I guess the voice messages basically do the same thing in a way that’s friendlier to asynchronous communication though, but having a transcript come with the clip so the recipient can read it if they don’t have access to their headphones or something would be nice.
I'm afraid you do know what you're saying, but you aren't confusing T9 with multi-tap/ABC mode, are you? T9 was great. Trust me, plenty of people were sending thousands of messages a month with no...
I'm afraid you do know what you're saying, but you aren't confusing T9 with multi-tap/ABC mode, are you? T9 was great. Trust me, plenty of people were sending thousands of messages a month with no issues while using T9. I think I knew one person with a sidekick or equivalent and we all thought it was weird.
Back then it was generally very short messages including lots of text shorthand. People weren’t writing multi-paragraph letters to each other like they do now.
Back then it was generally very short messages including lots of text shorthand. People weren’t writing multi-paragraph letters to each other like they do now.
Yeah I feel like people are hitting the nostalgia pipe a bit too much here. We made it work and typed fast because it was what we had not because it was remarkably great. There’s a reason it...
Yeah I feel like people are hitting the nostalgia pipe a bit too much here. We made it work and typed fast because it was what we had not because it was remarkably great. There’s a reason it didn’t survive.
Sure you could argue that combining T9 with a general scaling back on screen time could make some sense but saying it’s better than now is sentimentality to me.
Maybe, but you can still call people and I've found none of my friends mind if it's time critical / somewhat important. Having access to IM apps means you can read incoming messages, and if you...
Maybe, but you can still call people and I've found none of my friends mind if it's time critical / somewhat important. Having access to IM apps means you can read incoming messages, and if you have a lot to say back and it can't wait until you get to a laptop, you have the option to call the person or leave a voice message
I've been working on a big messy project with a friend and we've been spending several hours a night on the phone and its been so refreshing. I thought I hated talking on the phone, but it really...
I've been working on a big messy project with a friend and we've been spending several hours a night on the phone and its been so refreshing. I thought I hated talking on the phone, but it really is fulfilling.
I'd say "speak for yourself." Text speak was never cool among people I knew after like 2002, and most people still don't send enough information in their texts.
I'd say "speak for yourself." Text speak was never cool among people I knew after like 2002, and most people still don't send enough information in their texts.
I think there is a market for capable and reliable phones that specifically will not do social media. Especially parents on the fence about getting their kids their first phone. I imagine they...
I think there is a market for capable and reliable phones that specifically will not do social media. Especially parents on the fence about getting their kids their first phone. I imagine they might pay a premium for that if it's from a brand they can trust.
Whether or not this phone is a good fit for that is of course debatable.
I’ve yet to see a minimalist dumbphone that seems like it’d be preferable to just having a cellular Apple Watch. And they all cost as much or more than an entry-level Apple Watch too! Like it...
I’ve yet to see a minimalist dumbphone that seems like it’d be preferable to just having a cellular Apple Watch. And they all cost as much or more than an entry-level Apple Watch too!
Like it makes calls, it receives calls, it can do turn-by-turn directions, call an uber, do mobile payments, play music or podcasts or audiobooks for you. It basically does all the phone stuff you might want to do while touching grass as long as it doesn’t involve a camera or extended stretches of reading or text input. It can technically text, email, or get into a chat app but the experience of using it to do that is so painful you’ll probably just wait unless you really have to, which is nice since you do have the option in a pinch. All that and, as an industrial design object, it’s just way smaller, more impressive, and better looking than things like this, or the Light Phone, or any of these other “minimalist phone” thingies.
There are certainly cheaper dumb phones, but this one seems to be using SailfishOS which has some android compatibility. I'd be interested if you know of any others that are similar.
There are certainly cheaper dumb phones, but this one seems to be using SailfishOS which has some android compatibility. I'd be interested if you know of any others that are similar.
Literally popped into Tildes just now, to post about this phone. Yeah, it's expensive, maybe too expensive. But it's also original. It's not a smartphone, it's not a dumbphone. It's neither iOS...
Literally popped into Tildes just now, to post about this phone.
Yeah, it's expensive, maybe too expensive. But it's also original. It's not a smartphone, it's not a dumbphone. It's neither iOS nor Android; it's a Linux phone, but not a weird techie niche thing. It has a removable battery (raise your hand if you're old enough to remember those).
It's not that original. SailfishOS has been around for a while now, but it has had very limited hardware support. This is just one more piece of dedicated hardware for it. They're basically just...
It's not that original. SailfishOS has been around for a while now, but it has had very limited hardware support. This is just one more piece of dedicated hardware for it. They're basically just using the Commodore brand to sell a device that does everything halfway.
Also, SailfishOS hasn't been available in the US in the past. I have no clue how well this will work over here because of that.
Commodore was acquired last year by a group led by Christian Simpson, best known as Peri Fractic of the YouTube channel Retro Recipes (but he's done more of course). In addition to working with...
Commodore was acquired last year by a group led by Christian Simpson, best known as Peri Fractic of the YouTube channel Retro Recipes (but he's done more of course). In addition to working with several tech and financial experts, he has built an advisory team of something like a dozen people who worked at Commodore back in the 80s and 90s, some of who in very key roles. They also include the son of Commodore's founder Jack Tramiel. In that sense, this seems to me like the first time in three decades that the Commodore brand is again legitimately "Commodore", and not just a logo that someone is using to sell stuff to people.
The direction that the new Commodore seems to be attempting is something like "the future that we were promised", an approach that many of us expected tech to take in the late 80s or early 90s, before things took a different turn. One where devices, software and services function to make our lives better and easier, not to just sell us things or to sell us to things. They also seem to lean fairly heavily on the concept of digital minimalism which Simpson has made multiple videos about in recent years.
Personally, I think the Callback phone is a fun idea, but I wonder if there really is a market for it. The challenge, as far as I see it, is that while people often have several computers in use at the same time, leaving room for "hobby PCs," fewer people use multiple phones simultaneously. And these days, in my experience at least, a phone pretty much has to support banking apps, government services, travel applications and other similar systems, or it becomes difficult to function in society. Since this likely doesn't support any of those, I at least would find it very hard to use this phone in my day-to-day life.
Also, I'm not entirely sure I understand the "no social media" argument. I have an iPhone and I have no social media apps in it. Surely it's not that hard. Phones also have fairly robust notification and permissions settings, so attaining at least some level of "digital minimalism" isn't really that challenging, either.
That said, I hope they find customers and the brand thrives! I do like what they are doing, even if I haven't yet seen a product from them that I would buy.
It looks like it specifically does do those things no? The point seems to be to enable people to use the modern app landscape while limiting the scope to non-social media type applications. Their...
phone pretty much has to support banking apps, government services, travel applications and other similar systems, or it becomes difficult to function in society. Since this likely doesn't support any of those
It looks like it specifically does do those things no? The point seems to be to enable people to use the modern app landscape while limiting the scope to non-social media type applications. Their example is Rideshare apps.
I couldn't tell you whether that means banking apps, those are already notorious for only functioning within specific frameworks as they don't work on GrapheneOS for example.
When I used Graphene OS a couple years ago, I didn't find a single banking app that failed to work I used Starling, Barclays, Santander, YBS and Coutts. All worked perfectly. I wonder if it's a...
banking apps, those are already notorious for only functioning within specific frameworks as they don't work on GrapheneOS for example.
When I used Graphene OS a couple years ago, I didn't find a single banking app that failed to work I used Starling, Barclays, Santander, YBS and Coutts. All worked perfectly. I wonder if it's a regional thing? I never hear of much trouble with banking apps on Graphene OS in the UK.
I've used UK banks on Graphene OS (YBS for one) that aren't on this list. It's not definitive. Maybe I could have reported these, but my interactions with Graphene OS hierarchy have not always...
I've used UK banks on Graphene OS (YBS for one) that aren't on this list. It's not definitive. Maybe I could have reported these, but my interactions with Graphene OS hierarchy have not always been positive so I didn't.
While this product seems mind-bogglingly misguided , they also released a new Commodore 64 based on the Ultimate 64 motherboard by Gideon Zweiter., which is exactly the kind of thing I'd want them...
While this product seems mind-bogglingly misguided , they also released a new Commodore 64 based on the Ultimate 64 motherboard by Gideon Zweiter., which is exactly the kind of thing I'd want them to do with the brand.
The sold to Perifractic (Christian Simpson) and a group of investors about a year or so ago. He's the CEO now, and I believe it's his first experience at that level. They're definitely trying a...
The sold to Perifractic (Christian Simpson) and a group of investors about a year or so ago. He's the CEO now, and I believe it's his first experience at that level. They're definitely trying a lot of new moves to revitilize the brand. Perofractic also really does care about the retro computing community, so there is that.
As someone who has been daily driving The Minimal Phone for nearly the past year, and has researched the neo-dumbphone market I have a few thoughts: I appreciate that it is doing a mostly hardware...
As someone who has been daily driving The Minimal Phone for nearly the past year, and has researched the neo-dumbphone market I have a few thoughts:
I appreciate that it is doing a mostly hardware based restriction model. My phone relies heavily on the e-Ink screen to decentivize use, whereas the Lite phone relies entirely on software restriction. My phone has full playstore access, but that doesn't mean you will want to use every app available. This does create some issues when some apps that need to be used are not designed well for e-Ink. Whereas the Lite phone does software locking down of the system, which creates a very smooth software experience. However, with the Lite phone you are restricted to what the developers think are essential apps, and if your use case falls outside of that, you are out of luck. The Commodore Callback for the most part seems to be relying on the flip phone form factor to reduce usage, which I think will work well.
There is currently other flip phones on the market, and this one is not priced competitively. I remember looking at other flip phones about a year ago, and decided to not go that route. However, for a quarter of the price to the Commodore, the other options are better value even with the drawbacks on those models.
Doing the price comparison when they are including earphones feels a bit dishonest. They are the same price as the Clicks and the Minimal Phone, but to make themselves look better they add an extra $40 to those listings to account for the headphones they throw in.
Dead in the water at that price. I'm sure they'd love to have it be cheaper, but in no world is this anything but a boutique item. My wife struggles with being addicted to her phone (me as well,...
Dead in the water at that price.
I'm sure they'd love to have it be cheaper, but in no world is this anything but a boutique item.
My wife struggles with being addicted to her phone (me as well, but less so, given I don't use social media), but she'd rather spend the $137 on the Moto G 2024 we just bought her and try to mitigate her phone overconsumption herself. At least she can use Kindle, Libby, play a variety of games, use maps, etc on her phone. Yeah it's still using her phone, but it's not falling into a rabbit hole and it's doing so much more for her at 1/4 of the price.
You can get a new smartphone with decent specs for less than this, not just used ones. I have the Moto G 2026, I think it was $300? The problem I see here is that it offers just enough friction to...
You can get a new smartphone with decent specs for less than this, not just used ones. I have the Moto G 2026, I think it was $300?
The problem I see here is that it offers just enough friction to break casual users out of scrolling loops, but it's odd enough to not attract casual users. Since it can run Android apps, you can install a normal browser via an apk file. I just don't see this hitting its mark, and definitely not for the price it goes for.
Edit: the FAQ states there is a system-level block that prevents installing a browser at the system level. I don't know how they'll enforce that, but I'll take their word on it for now.
Practicalities aside, I am so very tired of this "clearly the solution is to just not have social media" attitude all the minimalist-phone manufacturers seem to have. This isn't the first time...
Practicalities aside, I am so very tired of this "clearly the solution is to just not have social media" attitude all the minimalist-phone manufacturers seem to have. This isn't the first time I've seen it.
It's a communication device! Banning one of the main ways I communicate with people makes it useless to me!
I don't need or want protection from myself, I want protection from companies trying to override my preferences for their own reasons.
Does anyone actually communicate on Twitter or Instagram? Maybe in the old days but now I just see people scrolling mindless short form video and ragebait political posts. People communicate on...
Does anyone actually communicate on Twitter or Instagram? Maybe in the old days but now I just see people scrolling mindless short form video and ragebait political posts. People communicate on instant messaging apps now.
From my experience that isn’t entirely true. I think there’s roughly an even split between Instagram, Snapchat and WhatsApp, with the one used being dependant on the group. Nonetheless, I’m able...
From my experience that isn’t entirely true. I think there’s roughly an even split between Instagram, Snapchat and WhatsApp, with the one used being dependant on the group. Nonetheless, I’m able to get by only using WhatsApp and having people be aware of the fact
Twitter and Instagram aren't the only kind of social media. We're having a conversation on a social media site right now. There are several people I primarily communicate with on Fedi/Mastodon....
Twitter and Instagram aren't the only kind of social media. We're having a conversation on a social media site right now.
There are several people I primarily communicate with on Fedi/Mastodon. Turns out Twitter-style feeds aren't so bad when you have the ability to curate them.
But also, I have little faith that people won't try to put e.g. Discord in that group, just because it's closer to that line than most IM apps are.
This is exactly the kind of communication I'm fine with being laptop only. When I'm out of the house I need time critical messages from my friends/family only. When I'm at home on my laptop I have...
This is exactly the kind of communication I'm fine with being laptop only. When I'm out of the house I need time critical messages from my friends/family only. When I'm at home on my laptop I have time to discuss things with strangers on forums.
This product might not appeal to you, but I quite like the idea of a phone that lets me do the stuff I absolutely need like call my friends or book an uber, but removes everything I don't need.
It lets you sideload apps. Except browsers and social media. It's based on Sailfish OS which has its own compatibility layer for Android apps, seems to be based around Linux containers with a lot...
It lets you sideload apps. Except browsers and social media. It's based on Sailfish OS which has its own compatibility layer for Android apps, seems to be based around Linux containers with a lot of glue.
Jolla's November 2022 whitepaper claimed a 99.4% pass rate on the Android Compatibility Test Suite, at about 97% of the performance of an Android Open Source Project environment.
So what are they using to detect browsers and social media? If you trust your users to sideload it's oddly infantilizing to add a "patent pending" method of detecting two arbitrary app categories
So what are they using to detect browsers and social media? If you trust your users to sideload it's oddly infantilizing to add a "patent pending" method of detecting two arbitrary app categories
Also, since it's Linux-based, what's stopping me from installing the right toolchains required to compile and install something like surf or dillo? I'm sure Tildes will run fine on those, possibly...
Also, since it's Linux-based, what's stopping me from installing the right toolchains required to compile and install something like surf or dillo? I'm sure Tildes will run fine on those, possibly sites like HN, Lobste.rs, and maybe old Reddit too.
I'd suggest compiling Firefox but I don't want to know how long that would take on that hardware, and cross-compiling for a new platform can be a bit messy.
You are not the target audience. If people buy a phone that forces them to disconnect, they will not compile things to get around that. If they even could. Your example is beyond most people.
what's stopping me from installing the right toolchains required to compile and install something like surf or dillo?
You are not the target audience.
If people buy a phone that forces them to disconnect, they will not compile things to get around that. If they even could. Your example is beyond most people.
The page says that it supports "even iMessage". I wonder how?? I use OpenBubbles on my Fairphone, but that required access to a physical Mac to set up initially (and in order to be able to send...
The page says that it supports "even iMessage". I wonder how?? I use OpenBubbles on my Fairphone, but that required access to a physical Mac to set up initially (and in order to be able to send numbers to/from my phone number on iMessage, I needed to do a crazy SIM swap dance with my old, physical iPhone, which has to stay powered on, online, and on airplane mode).
I like the transparent shell and removable battery. It does seem like an odd product to slap the Commodore name onto. I didn't grow up in Commodore's heydey era of computing so the brand name...
I like the transparent shell and removable battery. It does seem like an odd product to slap the Commodore name onto. I didn't grow up in Commodore's heydey era of computing so the brand name carries no nostalgia/weight to me. I guess the new owners are just throwing anything at the wall and seeing what sticks.
It's definitely an expensive gadget, $500 is quite steep for what you get but also inline with other new-age phones meant to curb social media usage/doomscrolling. I can complain endlessly about the super odd limitations that this thing has but I also guess that's part of the point of it. The product shots and tech overview/specifications really look AI generated to me. I get they're a small team but having some actual photos of the device would be nice.
Nothing about specs as far as I can tell. It'd be fine if it didn't take minutes to boot any app. If this thing doesn't have snappy handling it'll be a chore to use.
Nothing about specs as far as I can tell. It'd be fine if it didn't take minutes to boot any app. If this thing doesn't have snappy handling it'll be a chore to use.
£370 is an egregious price for what it is. Basically paying for a logo. Stinks.
Yeah it’s completely frivolous and won’t do what it’s claiming to. The Click’s Communicator seems like it’s designed to fulfill a niche (whether that niche actually exists is up in the air, but it can describe who its buyer is supposed to be at least). This just seems like it’s trying to manifest living in the aughts as if it was the flip-phones that created that environment, but hasn’t thought through whether aspects of flip-phone design were ever good or just the technical limitations of the price and technology and lack of imagination that came with everything being gatekept by telecom carriers.
Like why T9 texting? It was bad even back then and anyone who texted frequently got a Sidekick or a BlackBerry or something with an actual keyboard. Don’t give me this “needed friction” crap, nobody wants friction when they’re trying send their spouse a grocery list. It sucked even back when people primarily used their phones as phones, it’s going to suck even more now that people primarily used their phones to text. Your personal consumer choice isn’t going to change the cultural context around how we’ve all opted to communicate now.
Also, we had way cooler looking phones back in the day than this. Motorola had one that flipped open like a switchblade. Use your imagination designers! It’s what you’re paid for!
I texted frequently and never got a sidekick or blackberry. T9 worked really well, and many of us could do it very quickly without looking. We wouldn't type as much on it as we do with a full QWERTY, but for texting I honestly preferred a T9 with physical keys over my touchscreen keyboard. The poor display was the bigger hinderance.
The only people I knew with a blackberry or sidekick were responding to work emails from their phone, like realtors.
T9 was fantastic. I sook out T9 soft keyboards for years after moving to Windows Phone and Android, but I never found anything that hit the spot. I would pay money for an iOS implementation.
It took me a few re-reads to spot that you’re looking for past tense of “seek out” — I think “sought out” might be the words you’re looking for?
At the risk of presenting an idea with very annoying implications: with the current capabilities of local Parakeet/Whisper-like models on phones, a flip phone that allowed texting by voice recognition would be quite feasible and convenient.
Having it activated by flip would be very amusing and probably drive bystanders mad.
The Apple Watch has a Walkie Talkie feature (that has literally never worked for me) but would probably suit this use case very well. Like, send both a transcript an audio clip for each transmission.
Funnily enough the walkie talkie feature has disappeared from the beta version of WatchOS 27, so it's days may well be numbered.
Damn! It would have been so useful if it actually worked. I guess the voice messages basically do the same thing in a way that’s friendlier to asynchronous communication though, but having a transcript come with the clip so the recipient can read it if they don’t have access to their headphones or something would be nice.
I'm afraid you do know what you're saying, but you aren't confusing T9 with multi-tap/ABC mode, are you? T9 was great. Trust me, plenty of people were sending thousands of messages a month with no issues while using T9. I think I knew one person with a sidekick or equivalent and we all thought it was weird.
Back then it was generally very short messages including lots of text shorthand. People weren’t writing multi-paragraph letters to each other like they do now.
Yeah I feel like people are hitting the nostalgia pipe a bit too much here. We made it work and typed fast because it was what we had not because it was remarkably great. There’s a reason it didn’t survive.
Sure you could argue that combining T9 with a general scaling back on screen time could make some sense but saying it’s better than now is sentimentality to me.
People used to call each other to communicate that kind of thing. I think we lost something important when people stopped talking to each other.
Yeah but that cultural shift isn’t going to roll back because you, individually, bought a T9 flip phone. That’s my entire point.
Maybe, but you can still call people and I've found none of my friends mind if it's time critical / somewhat important. Having access to IM apps means you can read incoming messages, and if you have a lot to say back and it can't wait until you get to a laptop, you have the option to call the person or leave a voice message
I've been working on a big messy project with a friend and we've been spending several hours a night on the phone and its been so refreshing. I thought I hated talking on the phone, but it really is fulfilling.
I'd say "speak for yourself." Text speak was never cool among people I knew after like 2002, and most people still don't send enough information in their texts.
I think there is a market for capable and reliable phones that specifically will not do social media. Especially parents on the fence about getting their kids their first phone. I imagine they might pay a premium for that if it's from a brand they can trust.
Whether or not this phone is a good fit for that is of course debatable.
I’ve yet to see a minimalist dumbphone that seems like it’d be preferable to just having a cellular Apple Watch. And they all cost as much or more than an entry-level Apple Watch too!
Like it makes calls, it receives calls, it can do turn-by-turn directions, call an uber, do mobile payments, play music or podcasts or audiobooks for you. It basically does all the phone stuff you might want to do while touching grass as long as it doesn’t involve a camera or extended stretches of reading or text input. It can technically text, email, or get into a chat app but the experience of using it to do that is so painful you’ll probably just wait unless you really have to, which is nice since you do have the option in a pinch. All that and, as an industrial design object, it’s just way smaller, more impressive, and better looking than things like this, or the Light Phone, or any of these other “minimalist phone” thingies.
I don’t disagree, but you can get phones that achieve the same outcome for significantly less than this!
There are certainly cheaper dumb phones, but this one seems to be using SailfishOS which has some android compatibility. I'd be interested if you know of any others that are similar.
A Linux phone is nothing new.
Not familiar with sailfish, but it’s unlikely much different under the hood than most other Linux phones.
Sailfish is basically the oldest Linux phone OS, unless we count Android. It's different enough.
Literally popped into Tildes just now, to post about this phone.
Yeah, it's expensive, maybe too expensive. But it's also original. It's not a smartphone, it's not a dumbphone. It's neither iOS nor Android; it's a Linux phone, but not a weird techie niche thing. It has a removable battery (raise your hand if you're old enough to remember those).
Color me intrigued.
It's not that original. SailfishOS has been around for a while now, but it has had very limited hardware support. This is just one more piece of dedicated hardware for it. They're basically just using the Commodore brand to sell a device that does everything halfway.
Also, SailfishOS hasn't been available in the US in the past. I have no clue how well this will work over here because of that.
Well, it does claim "Worldwide network compatibility".
Kind of seems like whoever owns the Commodore name has no idea what to do with it.
Commodore was acquired last year by a group led by Christian Simpson, best known as Peri Fractic of the YouTube channel Retro Recipes (but he's done more of course). In addition to working with several tech and financial experts, he has built an advisory team of something like a dozen people who worked at Commodore back in the 80s and 90s, some of who in very key roles. They also include the son of Commodore's founder Jack Tramiel. In that sense, this seems to me like the first time in three decades that the Commodore brand is again legitimately "Commodore", and not just a logo that someone is using to sell stuff to people.
The direction that the new Commodore seems to be attempting is something like "the future that we were promised", an approach that many of us expected tech to take in the late 80s or early 90s, before things took a different turn. One where devices, software and services function to make our lives better and easier, not to just sell us things or to sell us to things. They also seem to lean fairly heavily on the concept of digital minimalism which Simpson has made multiple videos about in recent years.
Personally, I think the Callback phone is a fun idea, but I wonder if there really is a market for it. The challenge, as far as I see it, is that while people often have several computers in use at the same time, leaving room for "hobby PCs," fewer people use multiple phones simultaneously. And these days, in my experience at least, a phone pretty much has to support banking apps, government services, travel applications and other similar systems, or it becomes difficult to function in society. Since this likely doesn't support any of those, I at least would find it very hard to use this phone in my day-to-day life.
Also, I'm not entirely sure I understand the "no social media" argument. I have an iPhone and I have no social media apps in it. Surely it's not that hard. Phones also have fairly robust notification and permissions settings, so attaining at least some level of "digital minimalism" isn't really that challenging, either.
That said, I hope they find customers and the brand thrives! I do like what they are doing, even if I haven't yet seen a product from them that I would buy.
It looks like it specifically does do those things no? The point seems to be to enable people to use the modern app landscape while limiting the scope to non-social media type applications. Their example is Rideshare apps.
I couldn't tell you whether that means banking apps, those are already notorious for only functioning within specific frameworks as they don't work on GrapheneOS for example.
When I used Graphene OS a couple years ago, I didn't find a single banking app that failed to work I used Starling, Barclays, Santander, YBS and Coutts. All worked perfectly. I wonder if it's a regional thing? I never hear of much trouble with banking apps on Graphene OS in the UK.
It has been steadily improving but for the longest time most banking apps didn't work. Even now, if your bank is not on this list, it doesn't work.
I've used UK banks on Graphene OS (YBS for one) that aren't on this list. It's not definitive. Maybe I could have reported these, but my interactions with Graphene OS hierarchy have not always been positive so I didn't.
While this product seems mind-bogglingly misguided , they also released a new Commodore 64 based on the Ultimate 64 motherboard by Gideon Zweiter., which is exactly the kind of thing I'd want them to do with the brand.
The sold to Perifractic (Christian Simpson) and a group of investors about a year or so ago. He's the CEO now, and I believe it's his first experience at that level. They're definitely trying a lot of new moves to revitilize the brand. Perofractic also really does care about the retro computing community, so there is that.
To be fair it was bought by a YouTuber.
As someone who has been daily driving The Minimal Phone for nearly the past year, and has researched the neo-dumbphone market I have a few thoughts:
I appreciate that it is doing a mostly hardware based restriction model. My phone relies heavily on the e-Ink screen to decentivize use, whereas the Lite phone relies entirely on software restriction. My phone has full playstore access, but that doesn't mean you will want to use every app available. This does create some issues when some apps that need to be used are not designed well for e-Ink. Whereas the Lite phone does software locking down of the system, which creates a very smooth software experience. However, with the Lite phone you are restricted to what the developers think are essential apps, and if your use case falls outside of that, you are out of luck. The Commodore Callback for the most part seems to be relying on the flip phone form factor to reduce usage, which I think will work well.
There is currently other flip phones on the market, and this one is not priced competitively. I remember looking at other flip phones about a year ago, and decided to not go that route. However, for a quarter of the price to the Commodore, the other options are better value even with the drawbacks on those models.
Doing the price comparison when they are including earphones feels a bit dishonest. They are the same price as the Clicks and the Minimal Phone, but to make themselves look better they add an extra $40 to those listings to account for the headphones they throw in.
Dead in the water at that price.
I'm sure they'd love to have it be cheaper, but in no world is this anything but a boutique item.
My wife struggles with being addicted to her phone (me as well, but less so, given I don't use social media), but she'd rather spend the $137 on the Moto G 2024 we just bought her and try to mitigate her phone overconsumption herself. At least she can use Kindle, Libby, play a variety of games, use maps, etc on her phone. Yeah it's still using her phone, but it's not falling into a rabbit hole and it's doing so much more for her at 1/4 of the price.
You can get a new smartphone with decent specs for less than this, not just used ones. I have the Moto G 2026, I think it was $300?
The problem I see here is that it offers just enough friction to break casual users out of scrolling loops, but it's odd enough to not attract casual users.
Since it can run Android apps, you can install a normal browser via an apk file.I just don't see this hitting its mark, and definitely not for the price it goes for.Edit: the FAQ states there is a system-level block that prevents installing a browser at the system level. I don't know how they'll enforce that, but I'll take their word on it for now.
Oh my GOD. They want 860nzd before tax??? Are they insane?
??????
Practicalities aside, I am so very tired of this "clearly the solution is to just not have social media" attitude all the minimalist-phone manufacturers seem to have. This isn't the first time I've seen it.
It's a communication device! Banning one of the main ways I communicate with people makes it useless to me!
I don't need or want protection from myself, I want protection from companies trying to override my preferences for their own reasons.
For what it's worth, I think a lot of people do what protection from themselves. You may just not be the target audience.
Does anyone actually communicate on Twitter or Instagram? Maybe in the old days but now I just see people scrolling mindless short form video and ragebait political posts. People communicate on instant messaging apps now.
Instagram is the primary chat app for younger people. They give out their Instagram handles rather than giving out their phone numbers.
From my experience that isn’t entirely true. I think there’s roughly an even split between Instagram, Snapchat and WhatsApp, with the one used being dependant on the group. Nonetheless, I’m able to get by only using WhatsApp and having people be aware of the fact
Twitter and Instagram aren't the only kind of social media. We're having a conversation on a social media site right now.
There are several people I primarily communicate with on Fedi/Mastodon. Turns out Twitter-style feeds aren't so bad when you have the ability to curate them.
But also, I have little faith that people won't try to put e.g. Discord in that group, just because it's closer to that line than most IM apps are.
This is exactly the kind of communication I'm fine with being laptop only. When I'm out of the house I need time critical messages from my friends/family only. When I'm at home on my laptop I have time to discuss things with strangers on forums.
This product might not appeal to you, but I quite like the idea of a phone that lets me do the stuff I absolutely need like call my friends or book an uber, but removes everything I don't need.
Instagrams direct messaging is pretty much a standard instant messaging app nowadays and fairly widely used among the teenage to 20s crowd
It lets you sideload apps. Except browsers and social media. It's based on Sailfish OS which has its own compatibility layer for Android apps, seems to be based around Linux containers with a lot of glue.
So what are they using to detect browsers and social media? If you trust your users to sideload it's oddly infantilizing to add a "patent pending" method of detecting two arbitrary app categories
Also, since it's Linux-based, what's stopping me from installing the right toolchains required to compile and install something like surf or dillo? I'm sure Tildes will run fine on those, possibly sites like HN, Lobste.rs, and maybe old Reddit too.
I'd suggest compiling Firefox but I don't want to know how long that would take on that hardware, and cross-compiling for a new platform can be a bit messy.
You are not the target audience.
If people buy a phone that forces them to disconnect, they will not compile things to get around that. If they even could. Your example is beyond most people.
The page says that it supports "even iMessage". I wonder how?? I use OpenBubbles on my Fairphone, but that required access to a physical Mac to set up initially (and in order to be able to send numbers to/from my phone number on iMessage, I needed to do a crazy SIM swap dance with my old, physical iPhone, which has to stay powered on, online, and on airplane mode).
At the very bottom of the page, they mention it's done through OpenBubbles actually haha.
Oh, I missed that! Deep in the FAQ haha
Eliding the hard part a bit, I suppose but :shrug:. OpenBubbles is really impressive software, though!
I like the transparent shell and removable battery. It does seem like an odd product to slap the Commodore name onto. I didn't grow up in Commodore's heydey era of computing so the brand name carries no nostalgia/weight to me. I guess the new owners are just throwing anything at the wall and seeing what sticks.
It's definitely an expensive gadget, $500 is quite steep for what you get but also inline with other new-age phones meant to curb social media usage/doomscrolling. I can complain endlessly about the super odd limitations that this thing has but I also guess that's part of the point of it. The product shots and tech overview/specifications really look AI generated to me. I get they're a small team but having some actual photos of the device would be nice.
Nothing about specs as far as I can tell. It'd be fine if it didn't take minutes to boot any app. If this thing doesn't have snappy handling it'll be a chore to use.