The LoFone is marketed as a minimalist 'dumbphone' that comes with an economical E Ink display and completely dispenses with distractions such as social networks. Unlike most direct competitors, apps such as WhatsApp and Spotify will still be available.
I don’t really see the issue. Minimalism is a sliding scale.
Just because the design goal was for it to be more minimalist than a typical Android/iOS phone doesn’t mean they have to go full-on “NO. It’s only for phonecalls and maybe SMS!”
Playing music isn’t particularly “maximalist”, and WhatsApp certainly isn’t (people in the US need to understand that WhatsApp is basically SMS for most of the world). Maybe maps is, but it’s optional anyway so who cares.
This device looks very cool to me. But there’s no way it won’t cost an absolute fortune, which kills it IMO.
Even in USA nobody ever SMS me. Messenger and insta are primary with WhatsApp and signal sometimes being relevant and wechat for the Chinese community.
Unencrypted is not the thing that bothers me - after all, Telegram is so popular, so not like most people even care. What bothers me is that you still need to pay for each one! You have to edit the texts to fit into a tiny arbitrary character restriction or else you’s be charged for a second message! Why is data do relatively cheap, but those messages are still overpriced?
Mobile plans as standard here (in the UK) offer SMS for free, can’t remember when they used to routinely charge tbh. But I think I only text my dad as he’s very old school, everyone else is Signal/WhatsApp/Telegram
I don’t really see the issue. Minimalism is a sliding scale.
Just because the design goal was for it to be more minimalist than a typical Android/iOS phone doesn’t mean they have to go full-on “NO. It’s only for phonecalls and maybe SMS!”
Playing music isn’t particularly “maximalist”, and WhatsApp certainly isn’t (people in the US need to understand that WhatsApp is basically SMS for most of the world). Maybe maps is, but it’s optional anyway so who cares.
This device looks very cool to me. But there’s no way it won’t cost an absolute fortune, which kills it IMO.
Even in USA nobody ever SMS me. Messenger and insta are primary with WhatsApp and signal sometimes being relevant and wechat for the Chinese community.
Crazy, most people use SMS with Messenger as the go to for big groups for me (in USA). No one I know uses WhatsApp
Seems weird to me to use an unencrypted ancient format
I’m just giving anecdotal evidence, just like you gave 🤷♂️ I’m not promoting one way of communicating vs another.
Unencrypted is not the thing that bothers me - after all, Telegram is so popular, so not like most people even care. What bothers me is that you still need to pay for each one! You have to edit the texts to fit into a tiny arbitrary character restriction or else you’s be charged for a second message! Why is data do relatively cheap, but those messages are still overpriced?
Mobile plans as standard here (in the UK) offer SMS for free, can’t remember when they used to routinely charge tbh. But I think I only text my dad as he’s very old school, everyone else is Signal/WhatsApp/Telegram
Huh I haven’t met anyone on telegram yet. Agreed if you somehow didn’t have infinite SMS in your plan you are taking an L
Unlimited SMS here are rare, and my carrier in particular does not have them at least on the lower-end plans. I rarely notice though.
Telegram is popular here, especially among youth - my university groupchats are there, for example. Whatsapp is still probably bigger though.
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