by trueno | 2026-01-02 21:59:03+00:00
ive been watching the developments of sidephone closely. ive long sought the perfect dumb-ish phone and they just dont exist, the sidephone isn't perfect either but if it delivers it could be much closer. there's pieces of it im not a fan of: closed source OS (for now) and no word on if there will at least be like SDK's to build out things for it.

the biggest leap forward in smart phones to me was personally in-hand GPS navigation. that was a game changer. I really _don't_ need to be even opening internet browsers for anything. T9 phone with a week of battery life, the ability to play some mp3's and GPS navigation and.. sigh I guess some way for me to issue MFA for okta/entraid/whatever since that's so ubiquitous with workplace security now... and I'd be set.

it's wild how advanced the likes of hardware companies were over a decade ago at making miniature hardware. the last generation ipod nano (7th I think?) was this tiny touch screen device and when I hold it in my hand today it feels ... actually magic. seriously it feels mind blowing, state of the art with how small and responsive it is. like that kind of miniaturization doesn't seem to exist anymore & it's something only the hardware giants at scale seemed to be able to do since they had supply chain connections and R&D warchests to blow on designing custom components. A lot of these dumb phones rely on generalist components I think and they aren't bankrolled with bajillions of dollars to get new R&D going and tooling online to really put an impressive device together, I just never see it in these "disconnect but stay just connected enough" dumb-phones that are trying to offer an exit from the noise of modern smart phones.

i'd absolutely cherish something that had the form of the nokia xpress music 5310 https://news.softpedia.com/images/extra/MOBILE/large/Nokia_5... with gps navigation, the ability to play music, and workplace MFA capability.

that's it, i've thought about it and i seriously don't need anything else. yeah whatsapp and spotify are super ubiquitous these days but they're literally not required to get in touch with me. and for spotify, i finally did do that whole "nerd mods an ipod 15 years later thing" and it taught me something that i needed to know about myself: ADHD + spotify = bad. my last decades playlists are a mess, i listen to music _less_ because it's just an onslaught of new stuff and access to everything. something about having a collection of music i actually took time to curate into playlists..i know what's in there i know what i can listen to. it's somewhere between meditative (which is good for me) and very intentional. acquiring new music is now also very intentional, getting it onto my device is intentional. its slower, less convenient, and somehow it makes me enjoy the music experience a lot more. im listening to more music now in a way that I haven't since I was sitting on a schoolbus next to my crush and sharing a headphone with her.

all in all I've seen a few of these "dumb phones, no distraction" device manufs now like punkt here start off with a cool design and eventually just cave and fold to some full screen touch design. to me that just nixes a lot of checkboxes for me: more screen = undoubtedly more distractions and ways to be connected, i miss buttons, i just... don't want a big phone. ever. i want to be intentional about my connectivity, and that means if i need the internet i need to just go hop on my computer. if im itching to know something and im standing in an elevator or standing on a subway, i actually don't want to be able to pull my phone out and have the immediacy of an answer. i want to stay bored in my head, work on the skill of "this is important i hope i come back to it lets index that thought and come back to it later", and just learn to live with being in my own head without the constant need to have an answer or scratch a dopamine itch immediately. there's something ive completely lost over the years, basically that ability to imagine spiderman swinging from the powerlines when i was a kid looking out the window of my parents car. whatever _that_ is, i think that came with a lot of core benefits for my brain activity that generally allowed me to have a more meaningful and happier life.