from Hacker News

Blloc – A Minimalist Smartphone

by state on 10/17/19, 10:24 PM with 23 comments

  • by petee on 10/17/19, 10:30 PM

    Minimalist smartphone, so I find it ironic that they decided to go 180 degrees opposite with the website-- another way too animated frustration fest.

    Scrolling three times only made the words smaller, and the links don't go to the phone itself...took a minute to figure out that i need to scroll furiously to make any headway and actually see the phone

  • by robotbikes on 10/18/19, 2:01 AM

    So this is a Android phone with a monochrome minimalist skin and its setup to work by defaukt without Google services setup. I think it is a cool concept but I wish it was smaller, the 5.8" screen seems overly large for a phone focusing on minimalism. I wonder if the code for the theme is being shared anywhere.

  • by JohnJamesRambo on 10/18/19, 6:23 AM

    The phone is too big. A 5.8 inch screen is way too big for this minimalist. iPhone SE size would have been perfect.

  • by gqcwwjtg on 10/18/19, 6:00 AM

    If you like the greyscale and use an iPhone, you can set it up with color filters and toggle it with the power button in accessibility shortcuts.

  • by dang on 10/18/19, 2:36 AM

  • by farisjarrah on 10/18/19, 3:41 PM

    Maintaining an operating system is hard, like real hard. Monumentally hard. Them trying to roll their own android distribution does not inspire much confidence in the project. I'm really hoping a company can just come out with like... just a basic phone with hardware kill switches on the radios and ships with LineageOS as a default. Seems like there would be a decently sized niche for that market.

  • by Mathnerd314 on 10/18/19, 2:14 AM

    https://shop.blloc.com/pages/networks

    In the US it has 1 Sprint LTE band and a few 3G bands with AT&T / T-Mobile.

    In Germany where the company is based all networks are supported, and in consequence most/all of Europe since the bands are standardized.

    Perhaps it's interesting to someone in the US with Project Fi but the target is primarily Germany/Europe. Also it doesn't ship to the US: https://shop.blloc.com/pages/faq

  • by kerkeslager on 10/18/19, 5:00 PM

    The comments in this thread highlight the risks of using the word "minimalist" for marketing.

    Minimalism means so many things. Just looking at clocks as an example, it could be:

    1. A lack of lines: https://imgur.com/JLHhp8Y

    2. A lack of material: https://imgur.com/kfF2lb9

    3. A lack of branding: https://imgur.com/ZkuuICZ

    4. A lack of size: https://imgur.com/TLgrf5v

    5. A lack of structure: https://imgur.com/LoGBK5x

    6. A lack of possessions: https://imgur.com/WSuR1Hg

    7: A lack of technology: https://imgur.com/KDOmoTl

    ...and many more. Each of these types of minimalism has a community built around it which disagree if you say something is minimalist that doesn't fit their ideology. Examples:

    1. A lack of size: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21289101

    2. A lack of possessions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21290867

    I'd argue this phone obviously fits some definition of minimalist, though it's a bit hard to describe what's been removed (a lack of noise or visual complexity, perhaps?). But because it doesn't fit some people's definition, they get alienated and defensive.

    Minimalism is obviously a highly-effective design strategy, but marketing yourself as minimalist explicitly opens you up to a lot of criticism. The criticism actually doesn't make much sense, but it's pretty hard to explain why.

    Imagine if this guy: https://imgur.com/BRCJlIB had marketed the iPhone as being minimalist. The hypocrisy of a minimalist selling a consumerist object! But, the iPhone actually was minimalist in a lot of ways, just not that one.

  • by jonathanwall on 10/18/19, 3:07 AM

    There's a bigger UI here that that I've been thinking about for a while that seems very interesting to me - and that's putting all the apps UI into a single timeline view. That teamed up with some helpful AI / ML to surface what you need at the right times would be super interesting.

  • by kerkeslager on 10/18/19, 5:33 PM

    When is this slated to be available in the US?

  • by chenzhekl on 10/18/19, 2:31 PM

    That reminds me of Windows Phone.

  • by amac on 10/18/19, 12:42 PM

    Smartphones help people do more. Why would anyone buy one to do less is not that clear to me.

  • by Wowfunhappy on 10/18/19, 4:20 PM

    If you're going to go minimal, you don't need much screen. Maybe it's just because the monochrome UI reminds me of my Pebble, but, I kind of wish this was a standalone smartwatch.

    There's no reason a watch (with some guts in the strap) can't make phone calls and take pictures. Heck, even for light reading... I wrote an RSS Reader for my Pebble thinking it would be useful under rare circumstances, but I've found myself using it much more than I'd expected. For most things, I still move to different devices, but isn't that the point?