205
Kendrick Lamar's company just dropped a limited-edition 'dumb' phone. It's already sold out.
(www.businessinsider.com)
this post was submitted on 04 Nov 2023
205 points (87.5% liked)
Technology
71998 readers
3152 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It's $299, which isn't ridiculous for a phone, but this is kind of gimmicky with its Magic 8-Ball thing and, of course, its celebrity backing. I don't know, I guess it's not the worst price point, but considering you can get low-end Android phones for that with more functionality, I'm also guessing the people buying it are not really worried about the price.
Why not get a phone that can take, send, and receive pictures and video. It would also have maps, GPS, encrypted messaging, streaming music, audiobooks, e-books, home automation apps, ride hailing, food ordering, decent browser, etc.
Then, stay with me here, don't install social media apps. The lengths people go to so they can avoid social media when it is extremely avoidable is crazy to me.
What you're doing here is subtly shifting the burden of phone addiction from software companies and phone manufacturers back onto end users.
You're glossing right over the fact that these teams have the very best software engineers, mechanical engineers, marketers, ad people, psychologists, and doctors for the purpose of making these endlessly scrolling apps as addictive and hard to avoid as possible.
I read your comment and think about the people who say "why are you depressed? Just go lift some weights. It all comes down to you"
It's more like "Why are you smoking cigarettes, stop buying cigarettes." It's addictive, well marketed and cool, and totally avoidable with some self discipline.
I wouldn't joke about people with an actual illness by telling them to toughen up, but we're not talking about that.
I thought you were being satirical at first but then I realized you genuinely believe an individual has zero personal responsibility whatsoever. Lemmy is filled with children.
This isn't the housing market or alcohol, just don't install or doom scroll social media. Jesus Christ, nanny state garbage.
Of course the burden is on both
Are you being serious?
Yes, saying "don't install social media apps if you don't like them" is the same as saying "lift weights to stop being depressed bro".
Your brain is too advanced and I cannot follow the steps you took to reach this conclusion.
But what am I going to do while I'm pooping!? Read the news!?
Probably the biggest draw that the OC was missing.
Original Commenter
kind of like telling a heroin addict to just stop doing heroin.
Facebook is baked into everything. Everything passes through Google. The only way to avoid them is to stay off the web.
That's flat out false. Other than using messenger to chat with family, I haven't had to use Facebook for anything for the 5 or so years since I stopped actively using it.
As for "everything passes through Google", that's just an optional login protocol and a shitload of blockable ads.
Also, Google isn't social media. You could argue that YouTube has social media aspects, but those aren't mandatory for internet participation either.
Shit, you can buy a phone for £15 and I bet it's got snake on it
Make 100,000 of that phone and it will cost a lot closer to £15.
The bulk discounts on components and the PCB itself are pretty huge once you get up into the 10,000 qty. I've never had that pleasure. Only thing I've been involved with was a few hundred units.
Do a run in the 100k range and I imagine you're calling chip makers directly and making some insane deals.
But at only 250 units your PCB and expensive components like display and shell will still be quite expensive.
This is a Litephone 2 with a logo etched on the back. I don't know their overall numbers, but it's not just the 250 for this marketing gimmick.
Ok, didn't realize that. Knowing this, now, it sounds super stupid lol
I mean, you're quite clearly paying for the lack of features here.
Which makes the 8 ball even dumber.
Yeah, the 8 ball bothers me, as does the 'it's a dumb phone, but you can add a bunch of apps,' which is... a regular smartphone with no apps installed for the most part. The e-ink screen is unusual and interesting for a phone and I can see the appeal there, but the rest is kind of odd.
I'm guessing the majority of the phones were bought by people who are big fans of Kendrick Lamar. I sort of understand. An (impossible) equivalent to me would be if Stanley Kubrick came out with some piece of tech. I'd be sorely tempted to buy it just because I love Stanley Kubrick.
but you can't add a bunch off apps.
Sure sounds like you can to me.
many dumphones have these functions.
calculator and GPS is not what most people think of from the phrase "a bunch of apps"