Will the cloud save ultra-budget smartphones
For several years, the authors of the Wall Street Journal , TechCrunch , Fox and other publications have been predicting the growth of a new category of devices - simple, cheap phones that are “smarter” than traditional push-button phones, but not as powerful as smartphones. However, not all so simple. Cheap iron, which is necessary to ensure a low price, does not always cope even with minimal tasks.
What are modern “smart dialers” like? Who buys them? And is it possible to cope with the limitations of budget devices using the cloud? We will tell you under the cut.
Photos - Jan Arendtsz - CC BY-ND
Smart dialers, or, in English, smart feature phones, are a special category of devices. Unlike ordinary push-button phones, they are made with the expectation that their user needs high-quality access to Internet services. Therefore, they have high-speed mobile Internet and a full browser. But, unlike smartphones, they have intentionally limited functionality. They do not promise to be able to do everything and are positioned as a new generation of simple mobile phones.
40% of residents of developing countries, in principle, do not have access to the Internet. This is partly due to the banal lack of money to buy a smartphone. For example, in some countries in Africa, average earnings are around $ 400 per year. Of course, money in this case is spent on essentials, and the smartphone is clearly not one of them. The trick-22 turns out: without the help of digital resources it is extremely difficult to get out of poverty, and access to them requires money. This category of people needs cheap devices with minimal functionality, which, nevertheless, provides Internet access.
While for developing countries, smartphones can become a ticket to the future, residents of developed countries have already become tired of them. Users are worried about a whole range of issues: from the potentially negative impact of smartphones on health to dependence on mobile applications. Those who are tired of sticking into the phone, want to buy a simple gadget with a minimum number of functions - just such as to provide communication with loved ones and maintain contacts at work.
Given the potential size of this market, it is not surprising that many companies in different years tried to capture it. But most of these attempts failed.
A case in point is Asha Platform by Nokia, which was built on the basis of MeeGo (this is an open source project). This arrangement allowed the manufacturer not to start development from scratch, but instead the operating system inherited the problems of its predecessor (for example, the shortcomings of the Java ME solution) and legacy code. The development of Asha and devices based on it began in 2011, but already in 2014 the project was closed, citing the resource-intensive development of the platform, and the company relied on Windows Mobile.
Another “lightweight” operating system, also based on MeeGo - Samsung Tizen - was born in 2012, but did not take root on smartphones, as it suffered from a lack of third-party applications. Now it can be found only on the screens of smart TVs and refrigerators.
Mozilla's answer - Firefox OS - was more promising. Under the control of this operating system, a number of budget devices came out that were sold in more than 20 countries. However, operating system support proved to be too complicated for a company that had not previously dealt with such tasks. There were problems with licensing and distribution of the product, relations within the work team deteriorated . As a result, the project lived only two years with a little.
Where Firefox OS fell short of expectations, its fork, KaiOS, succeeded. He confidently captured the Indian market segment of platforms for low-cost mobile devices and is gradually spreading to the markets of African countries. Under the control of KaiOS, a number of push-button phones with 4G support, a full browser and battery, which, according to the developers, is capable of living for a week, was released. Given that in India such phones can be purchased for only 501 rupees (less than 500 rubles), having passed their old device, the success of the devices is justified.
On the western market, solutions of this kind fall rather into the category of “premium minimalism”. Take, for example, Light Phone 2 - a small phone with a black and white e-ink screen that can make calls, send messages, show GPS navigation, act as an alarm clock and player, and call a taxi. It is touted as a phone for digital detox. But the expected price tag of the device - $ 350 - seems very overpriced given the declared functionality.
Photos - Jens Johnsson - Unsplash
Worth mentioning is Kingrow K1 , an Android phone that also uses e-ink technology. According to its capabilities, it also falls into the niche between smartphones and simple “buttons”. The low refresh rate and the lack of a Play Store will not let you play games, but according to the creators, it will hold a charge for weeks. True, you will have to pay for it as much as for just an inexpensive smartphone - all the same $ 350.
Obviously, the need for a “third category” of mobile phones (something less than smartphones, but more than primitive “buttons”) exists. But almost all of the above solutions are not very successful due to a kind of identity crisis. It's hard for manufacturers to strike a balance between functionality and performance. If the device costs more than budget Android-devices, but can do much less, such a purchase is almost impossible to justify. If the phone is cheap, but "slows down" because it is trying to do everything at once, then it is simply useless.
Even “basic” programs like cards and instant messengers consume a significant amount of resources. Browser apps have the same problem. Services on JS engines are famous for their voracity , and fashionable "one-page" web applications are often created without regard to their download speed, which does not simplify the task for smart feature phone developers.
Also, the question arises about local storage - more precisely, about its absence in budget devices. Owners of low-end smartphones know how easy it is to get closer to the 8 or 16 gigabyte mark by simply installing several applications, even with an SD card.
Using the cloud, you can optimize the load on the device. In this case, the phone becomes something like a terminal of the mainframe era - it performs a minimum of tasks and provides access to cloud services. Several projects have already tried to implement this concept.
The Nextbit Robin smartphone, advertised as a "cloud-first" device, tried to solve the problem with a lack of space. With its purchase, users received 100 gigabytes of cloud storage. The phone raised more than a million dollars on Kickstarter, and subsequently its manufacturer was absorbed by the famous company Razor. Now similar, albeit not identical functionality, provides Apple.
Photo - Maurizio Pesce - CC BY / Photo: Nextbit Robin
In 2019, another mobile project focused on working with the cloud was born. The Puffin OS operating system brought out not only data in the cloud, but also work with software. For example, when loading a site, all JS scripts are launched on Puffin servers, and the user sees only the final result. This significantly reduces the load on the phone itself and gives almost instant access to a large catalog of mobile applications. According to the creators, cloud-based website processing can turn a $ 100 phone into a "flagship."
At the moment, this operating system is supplied independently of phones, although work is already underway on the company's first iron product. To test Puffin OS, you need to buy a compatible phone and install it yourself. True, the experts who did just that claim that in practice they failed to confirm the “flagship speed” of the device and the responsiveness of the OS is not much different from the “trimmed” Android - Android Go .
The low cost of devices on Puffin OS will be offset by a subscription, which is necessary for their use. The manufacturer has already run such a scheme on its cloud OS for Raspberry Pi . Given that a subscription costs $ 24 a year, the offer may indeed be attractive to residents of developing countries - which the devices themselves are also likely to take on installments.
The idea of “unloading” desktop tasks through the cloud has been around for a long time. This is beneficial both for manufacturers who receive a stable income for subscribing to cloud services, and for users who in this case always have access to the necessary computing resources. Now these technologies are penetrating mobile solutions. It is likely that in the near future other developments will follow Puffin OS that will expand our understanding of the range of tasks delegated to the cloud.
What are modern “smart dialers” like? Who buys them? And is it possible to cope with the limitations of budget devices using the cloud? We will tell you under the cut.
Photos - Jan Arendtsz - CC BY-ND
Budget Internet device: who needs it ...
Smart dialers, or, in English, smart feature phones, are a special category of devices. Unlike ordinary push-button phones, they are made with the expectation that their user needs high-quality access to Internet services. Therefore, they have high-speed mobile Internet and a full browser. But, unlike smartphones, they have intentionally limited functionality. They do not promise to be able to do everything and are positioned as a new generation of simple mobile phones.
Demand for such devices appeared simultaneously from both ends of the consumer spectrum. On the one hand, poor people in developing countries need them. On the other hand, in developed countries, where people are overloaded with digital content, interest in devices is simpler.
40% of residents of developing countries, in principle, do not have access to the Internet. This is partly due to the banal lack of money to buy a smartphone. For example, in some countries in Africa, average earnings are around $ 400 per year. Of course, money in this case is spent on essentials, and the smartphone is clearly not one of them. The trick-22 turns out: without the help of digital resources it is extremely difficult to get out of poverty, and access to them requires money. This category of people needs cheap devices with minimal functionality, which, nevertheless, provides Internet access.
While for developing countries, smartphones can become a ticket to the future, residents of developed countries have already become tired of them. Users are worried about a whole range of issues: from the potentially negative impact of smartphones on health to dependence on mobile applications. Those who are tired of sticking into the phone, want to buy a simple gadget with a minimum number of functions - just such as to provide communication with loved ones and maintain contacts at work.
... and who is working on it
Given the potential size of this market, it is not surprising that many companies in different years tried to capture it. But most of these attempts failed.
The first thing companies were striving for when entering this market was to create a lightweight operating system that runs on low-cost hardware and is attractive to third-party developers. Already at this step, most projects failed.
A case in point is Asha Platform by Nokia, which was built on the basis of MeeGo (this is an open source project). This arrangement allowed the manufacturer not to start development from scratch, but instead the operating system inherited the problems of its predecessor (for example, the shortcomings of the Java ME solution) and legacy code. The development of Asha and devices based on it began in 2011, but already in 2014 the project was closed, citing the resource-intensive development of the platform, and the company relied on Windows Mobile.
Another “lightweight” operating system, also based on MeeGo - Samsung Tizen - was born in 2012, but did not take root on smartphones, as it suffered from a lack of third-party applications. Now it can be found only on the screens of smart TVs and refrigerators.
Mozilla's answer - Firefox OS - was more promising. Under the control of this operating system, a number of budget devices came out that were sold in more than 20 countries. However, operating system support proved to be too complicated for a company that had not previously dealt with such tasks. There were problems with licensing and distribution of the product, relations within the work team deteriorated . As a result, the project lived only two years with a little.
Where Firefox OS fell short of expectations, its fork, KaiOS, succeeded. He confidently captured the Indian market segment of platforms for low-cost mobile devices and is gradually spreading to the markets of African countries. Under the control of KaiOS, a number of push-button phones with 4G support, a full browser and battery, which, according to the developers, is capable of living for a week, was released. Given that in India such phones can be purchased for only 501 rupees (less than 500 rubles), having passed their old device, the success of the devices is justified.
On the western market, solutions of this kind fall rather into the category of “premium minimalism”. Take, for example, Light Phone 2 - a small phone with a black and white e-ink screen that can make calls, send messages, show GPS navigation, act as an alarm clock and player, and call a taxi. It is touted as a phone for digital detox. But the expected price tag of the device - $ 350 - seems very overpriced given the declared functionality.
Photos - Jens Johnsson - Unsplash
Worth mentioning is Kingrow K1 , an Android phone that also uses e-ink technology. According to its capabilities, it also falls into the niche between smartphones and simple “buttons”. The low refresh rate and the lack of a Play Store will not let you play games, but according to the creators, it will hold a charge for weeks. True, you will have to pay for it as much as for just an inexpensive smartphone - all the same $ 350.
What is wrong with smart feature phones?
Obviously, the need for a “third category” of mobile phones (something less than smartphones, but more than primitive “buttons”) exists. But almost all of the above solutions are not very successful due to a kind of identity crisis. It's hard for manufacturers to strike a balance between functionality and performance. If the device costs more than budget Android-devices, but can do much less, such a purchase is almost impossible to justify. If the phone is cheap, but "slows down" because it is trying to do everything at once, then it is simply useless.
The functionality of these devices should be limited so that there are enough applications, but at the same time they do not "press" on low-power hardware, and this is a very difficult task.
Even “basic” programs like cards and instant messengers consume a significant amount of resources. Browser apps have the same problem. Services on JS engines are famous for their voracity , and fashionable "one-page" web applications are often created without regard to their download speed, which does not simplify the task for smart feature phone developers.
Also, the question arises about local storage - more precisely, about its absence in budget devices. Owners of low-end smartphones know how easy it is to get closer to the 8 or 16 gigabyte mark by simply installing several applications, even with an SD card.
How the cloud can help
Using the cloud, you can optimize the load on the device. In this case, the phone becomes something like a terminal of the mainframe era - it performs a minimum of tasks and provides access to cloud services. Several projects have already tried to implement this concept.
The Nextbit Robin smartphone, advertised as a "cloud-first" device, tried to solve the problem with a lack of space. With its purchase, users received 100 gigabytes of cloud storage. The phone raised more than a million dollars on Kickstarter, and subsequently its manufacturer was absorbed by the famous company Razor. Now similar, albeit not identical functionality, provides Apple.
Photo - Maurizio Pesce - CC BY / Photo: Nextbit Robin
In 2019, another mobile project focused on working with the cloud was born. The Puffin OS operating system brought out not only data in the cloud, but also work with software. For example, when loading a site, all JS scripts are launched on Puffin servers, and the user sees only the final result. This significantly reduces the load on the phone itself and gives almost instant access to a large catalog of mobile applications. According to the creators, cloud-based website processing can turn a $ 100 phone into a "flagship."
At the moment, this operating system is supplied independently of phones, although work is already underway on the company's first iron product. To test Puffin OS, you need to buy a compatible phone and install it yourself. True, the experts who did just that claim that in practice they failed to confirm the “flagship speed” of the device and the responsiveness of the OS is not much different from the “trimmed” Android - Android Go .
The low cost of devices on Puffin OS will be offset by a subscription, which is necessary for their use. The manufacturer has already run such a scheme on its cloud OS for Raspberry Pi . Given that a subscription costs $ 24 a year, the offer may indeed be attractive to residents of developing countries - which the devices themselves are also likely to take on installments.
The idea of “unloading” desktop tasks through the cloud has been around for a long time. This is beneficial both for manufacturers who receive a stable income for subscribing to cloud services, and for users who in this case always have access to the necessary computing resources. Now these technologies are penetrating mobile solutions. It is likely that in the near future other developments will follow Puffin OS that will expand our understanding of the range of tasks delegated to the cloud.
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