#dumb smartphone

[kall-me-yours]

We all have that minimum amount of battery percent on which we can go amd enjoy our day....who needs a full charge...70% all the way

[attila]

Concept: The Dumb-Smartphone

I have been thinking for some time that things do not add up on the Android front. This has been emphasized by [Horace Dediu](asymco.com) in several posts about market share and internet usage share, and there's a piece from [Business Insider](http://www.businessinsider.com/low-commerce-and-web-usage-on-android-2012-11) that summarizes well the questions I have. In one sentence: if Android is indeed winning, where are the users? Without any further analysis, we are led to one conclusion: Android-based phones have replaced dumb phones, but the users switching from dumb to smartphones have not switched their habits. Meaning, they use their smartphone just as their old phone. And they certainly may find it less convenient than the old (dumb) phone. Based on that lemme, let me introduce a new phone model. It would be a smartphone in the sense that it executes apps, for instance will let you communicate on Skype of FT if you're on Wi-Fi, will choose the right messaging service for you, be smart-touch enabled, have your contacts in a good enough cloud-based database, etc. But that's all. Here's the picture:  I'm working on a iOS course and skinned in 10 minutes the main interface with the 4 buttons (that's the AutoLayout chapter by the way). The Dumb-Smartphone has 4 functions plus one hidden function. Phone takes you to the dial screen, Message takes you to the SMS (or email, the app should choose by itself, and not display any choice menu) screen, the Contacts button take you to your address book, and the Valet button calls a Siri-like or live help. The hidden function is obtained by long-press on the Valet button, or maybe any button, and I call it the "Oh! Shit!" button. Meaning you launch the "Oh! Shit!" function and it calls 911 for you, while communicating your location, name and picture (option to call either police or ambulance?). Why a dumb-smartphone? Well, my father-in-law, when he heard that Nokia was discontinuing the dumb phones and their spare parts pretty much everywhere, went out and bought 5 or 6 of them. He figured that this will be enough to last for the rest of his life. And definitely does not want to use anything that is more complex than 2 buttons to 1) phone and 2) SMS. That's it. Back to the picture: I've also but a case around the screen, which is how I'd envisage the rest of the phone. Square-like shape, one ON/OFF button à la Apple in the top right, a bit fat square button in the top left corner to act as a universal back button (no space for fancy things like a UINavigationBar), and volume buttons. For the latter, I did hesitate 30 seconds because it would be so easy to have a swipe up and down to adjust the volume, but that essentially prevents the user from doing it while he/she is phoning. That's also why, given the size of the device, I'm placing them in the middle of the left side, as they will be harder to hit accidentally. I just realize that I've probably inverted the sizes of the two grids for the speaker and the microphone, but I'm too lazy to do so. The typical size is smaller than a 3.5" iPhone, with a square touchscreen with a diagonal of just 3". Anyway, anyone interested to make one? I'm sure that there is a huge market for it. Another $1 phone (with subsidy) that costs less than $100 to make. I'm making an app based on that interface, I'll probably open-source it as a tuto next September when I've put things together. Credits are due for the icons. They all come from [The Noun Project](thenounproject.org), and were authored by Dmitry Baranovskiy (phone), Alexandre Mendes (Room Service), Romeo Barreto (Mail) and dsathiyaraj (contacts).