Doubt.
Haven’t seen a flip phone in use in ages and I work among the public. Even the barely functional elderly on smartphones.
Who paid for this article? What’s their angle?
I will now tell people I have a millionaire’s phone plan.
No they don’t. What a rubbish clickbait article.
All they say is that there’s a (niche) trend of a few people using feature phones with expected combined sales of $2.8 million. Versus the $200 billions of iPhones alone.
They weren’t entirely wrong. The numbers don’t lie. They just don’t say what the author claims it does.
It’s directly in the headline: Gen Z is ditching the iPhone. That’s incorrect in two ways: A) it’s at best one in fifty people buying aforementioned feature phones and B) they don’t even know if all buyers replace their existing phone or buy it as an additional handset.
I had a biz partner who is a centimillionaire. He has an iPhone for data, and a flip-phone for calls.
I have both a smartphone and a flip phone.
I kept both because the flip phone lets me make phone calls from my basement and many other places that the smartphone cannot.
I have never met anyone else with this setup.
I have never met anyone else with this setup.
That’s what I mean.
the flip phone lets me make phone calls from my basement and many other places that the smartphone cannot.
Why? The smartphone supports everything the flip phone does. Honest question.
I guess the radio is a bit more efficient
Doesn’t seem very likely to me given that cheap feature phones likely use cheap older parts while flagship smartphones state of the art components.
He didn’t say his flip phone was cheap
I don’t know what to tell you. If that’s his experience…
Can you not use Wi-Fi Calling?
Yes, I could. But that allows the phone company to be lazy about coverage and building their network. The primary reason I pay a monthly cell phone bill is for a good network.
It also gets into security issues that are different from cellular network use.
And what if my internet is down and I have an emergency?
How often do you have an emergency that combines lost wifi and inability to leave the basement?
The older I get the more possible that becomes. I am not 20 and bulletproof any more.
I mean, the title is clickbaity, but what title isn’t at this point? The actual point of the article is just that there is a small but growing niche of younger people switching to feature phones. I think that’s neat, and I’m starting to consider a feature phone for my next phone myself.
Just because a lot of stuff is shitty doesn’t mean we should just a accept when things are shitty.
That’s still more than I expected. But it doesn’t look like the dramatic turn of tides.
I think it’s a fad. The moment you need a certain app or feature these feature (-less) phones become frustrating quickly.
Take the idea of taking a break from your smartphone on a vacation. You end up without a camera, without a map, without public transport apps, contact-free payment, etc.
I think you’d be surprised how easy it is to live without any of those things, even in the modern world. Also, feature phones have cameras and some basic apps. They’re not actually 80s cordless phones.
Also, feature phones have cameras
I know the camera quality of this device category. They’re all crap, no exception. And even if you buy the best of the best it will cost you as much as a sophisticated smartphone that does everything better apart from maybe stand-by battery. Which is fine for an emergencyphone.
and some basic apps.
Mostly preinstalled because no app store, non-removable, and you never have to worry about missed updates because you won’t get any.
They’re not actually 80s cordless phones.
Agree, because they’re 2003 cordless phones and they suck for the everyday life of most people.
Okay. I didn’t say they’re good for most people. I don’t think they are. The cameras are good enough for me and the preinstalled apps usually include all the things I care about.
Also, why would I care about updates? Am I supposed to be afraid someone might hack my phone to steal my call history or something? The whole point is that it isn’t being used to log into every service on the face of the Earth.
Again, I’m not advocating for everyone to get a feature phone. I just think they do most of the things I use my phone for, and it would be pretty easy to just not do the rest. The fact that it’s not what most people want is not the same thing as it being terrible.
I wouldn’t be, because smart phones didn’t exist until I was in my 30s. No fucking way am I going back to paper maps and texting only through SMS with T9.
Okay. I’m not saying everyone should get a feature phone. I like paper maps though, and hate T9 less than I hate touchscreen keyboards.
I don’t trust these numbers, I really don’t trust any article that talks about my generation.
This same BS headline happens every generation. As soon as any small trends form, the media latch onto it like it’s gonna be the next big thing…
No, feature phones aren’t gaining mass adoption again. No, feature phones aren’t going to kill smartphones. It’s just a subset of people deciding to downgrade, or who want to buy a secondary phone.
Soon hipsters will be carrying wireless rotary phones.
This is a thing that isn’t happening, at least not among Gen Z. What a bullshit article.
As a millennial, the thought of ditching my smartphone is a thought that keeps coming up.
Same. I’m beginning to hate having it.
I did it for 3 months. I really enjoyed my time doing it and learned a lot about my usage. It was a cheap $50 experiment. After I went back to my smartphone, I uninstalled ALL social media apps. Turned off ALL notifications but left calls and messages as an exception. My smartphone is now essentially a feature phone. It’s not 100% the same since the big screen does lure you in to use it but my usage is still way down and because I don’t have any social media there’s no reason for me to be on my phone around other people. I wholeheartedly recommend trying it for those curious.
That reminded me how a local wanna-be influencer did a smartphone detox for a week, immediately after the completion she posted an FB story: Part 1 - Reflection, how eyeopening the experience was, how much time she suddenly had for the things that truly matter etc. Subscribe to not miss the Part 2!
Just the other day I saw an article with the exact opposite headline about how Gen z is sticking with the iPhone. Now I don’t know which one is full of shit; but it’s obviously one of them.
It was about how Gen Z are rejecting “droids” in favor of iPhones
Playing_both_sides.jpg
These articles of “Gen Z is doing X” is always wrong lol.
This I wish, but I doubt. I still have my old Garmin GPS and play with the idea of a flip phone but I’ve been spoiled by the smaller things like iMessage not dealing with MMS. It’s an idea I come back to occasionally, but I also think about going back to my Palm with AAA batteries for my PIM needs. Had one in semi-regular-use as recent as 2018!
I used to have an orange Handspring Visor PIM, which ran the Palm OS. If I’m remembering correctly the original team that developed the Palm Pilot left to start Handspring. My friend topped me by buying the phone module for hers. It seemed excitingly futuristic at the time.
I’ve considered doing this in combination with a Pine phone or other impractical but cool linux phone so that I don’t have to worry about not having at least reliable SMS and calling.
Anyone know if there is a tiny dumb phone out there that doubles as a 4G/5G hotspot?
I use a TCL Flip 2, bought it unlocked on ebay for $40. It has hotspot, mms, and emoji support (can’t remember if the included keyboard has any emoji, since I use a custom one that has some, but the system can recognize and display most emoji people send). It actually runs a slimmed down version of android and you can root it and run some stuff, though most things are a pain to use. I’ve got signal, jerboa, and adaway running on mine, though I haven’t found another browser that plays nice yet.
Personally I switched to a Qin F22 Pro to curb my smartphone addiction. Only have the essential apps installed on it. So far it has worked out well (I used to have a screen time of over 6 hours every day, now just minutes). Life feels so much more peaceful without all the notification spam I used to get, and my mind is definitely more clear now.
Isn’t the angle just to sound interesting/controversial/unbelievable so people click and see your ads? You know, clickbait?
This is one job I’m glad AI is taking over.
They all realized a $100 phone does the same shit as a $1500 phone… There is nothing they add to the expensive phones that justify the price
It’s more about wanting to take a break from looking at a screen and watching shitty ads for so many hours per day.
People need to (re)discover adblockers and alternative apps.
- Firefox+uBlock Origin takes care of nearly all ads on the web.
- NewPipe Lets you watch YouTube without ads (and lets you download videos).
- Pixelfed is like insta without the ads (or people, lets be honest, but you gotta be the change you want to see)
- Mastodon is twitter without ads
- Lemmy reddit without ads
We have the tools and technology, its just a matter of people making the move, but that’s hard because of the network effect.
If only that’s allowed as a choice.
So many places assume you have a smartphone, and so many stuffs require one
There’s no rule that says flip phones aren’t allowed to have google pay. I think it’d be cool to see what a current year not-smartphone would look like.
There is flip phones with android.
I want an Android phone with a full physical keyboard, blackberry style. Not sure if I want to ‘digital detox’ but I don’t value a lot of what our common phone design has to offer.
