You’re glossing away a lot of important details here with “phone that doesn’t do things”.
So, I’m very much in the market for what the Light Phone 2 is going for: not a phone that doesn’t do anything but make calls and text, but a phone with “the essentials”. The problem is that not everyone who wants such a phone has the same set of essentials.
The single biggest issue that I have with feature phones is that they lack a qwerty keyboard. I’ve tried a couple in the past few years, and I just can’t go back to texting on a numeric keypad. Texting today is very different from what it was in the 90s and early 2000s. So many conversations you would have today, you cannot meaningfully participate in with a numeric keypad. You find yourself immediately going back to the terseness that gave birth to the various forms of texting shorthand, because text input is so slow.
The second biggest issue is that I need a transit map. I live in NYC, and I’m not going to memorize all the different subway lines and stops and schedules. You can actually get Google Maps on a KaiOS phone, and it’s slow but it more or less works. Problem is, you’re still stuck with the numeric keypad. (You can use voice dictation via Google, but I don’t like using Google.)
Third, while I don’t need it often, I do sometimes need to use a ride-hailing app.
On top of all this, I don’t want a browser or social media apps or games or movies or music.
That’s just me, though. Someone else may want music, or a note taking app, or a calendar.
A lot of this stuff is on the roadmap for the Light Phone 2, but until it actually hits my set of essentials, it doesn’t work for me.
I was going to say the same thing, not from personal long-term experience with the NYC subway system, but from regular experience with the London Underground, which is quite similar in terms of size and passenger numbers.
Then I had a look at the subway map and I can see why one might refrain from memorising the various lines and relevant stops: There are few significant features for distinguishing the lines, even the colours are very similar in some cases, and the stops often have cryptic or very similar names.
The London Underground map on the other hand is incredibly well-designed: The colours for the different lines are optimised for recognisability to the point they're almost iconic. On seeing a pink colour on the underground for example you can immediately tell "Hammersmith & City".
The lines and stops usually have easily memorable, often quirky names, too. This of course is in part due to London's long history, rather than a deliberate design decision.
However, usability still seems to have played a role when individual stops were named. For example, "Elephant & Castle" could've been easily named a far less memorable "London Rd." as well.
> On seeing a pink colour on the underground for example you can immediately tell "Hammersmith & City".
I just wish they'd strictly adhere to matching the livery and the line colour, though. It's SUCH a good idea, but with trains sharing the same track on different lines, it causes no end of confusion!
You can get a cheap smartphone, put just the basics on it, and have someone else activate parental controls and keep the password from you so you are restricted to those basics.
So, I’m very much in the market for what the Light Phone 2 is going for: not a phone that doesn’t do anything but make calls and text, but a phone with “the essentials”. The problem is that not everyone who wants such a phone has the same set of essentials.
The single biggest issue that I have with feature phones is that they lack a qwerty keyboard. I’ve tried a couple in the past few years, and I just can’t go back to texting on a numeric keypad. Texting today is very different from what it was in the 90s and early 2000s. So many conversations you would have today, you cannot meaningfully participate in with a numeric keypad. You find yourself immediately going back to the terseness that gave birth to the various forms of texting shorthand, because text input is so slow.
The second biggest issue is that I need a transit map. I live in NYC, and I’m not going to memorize all the different subway lines and stops and schedules. You can actually get Google Maps on a KaiOS phone, and it’s slow but it more or less works. Problem is, you’re still stuck with the numeric keypad. (You can use voice dictation via Google, but I don’t like using Google.)
Third, while I don’t need it often, I do sometimes need to use a ride-hailing app.
On top of all this, I don’t want a browser or social media apps or games or movies or music.
That’s just me, though. Someone else may want music, or a note taking app, or a calendar.
A lot of this stuff is on the roadmap for the Light Phone 2, but until it actually hits my set of essentials, it doesn’t work for me.