We need your help designing our new phone!

At Mudita, our aim is to deliver mindful technology products which enrich the human experience.

Currently our team of designers and engineers are on a mission to design the next generation of Mudita phones, but we need your help!

As we strive to create functional, unique, and intuitive technology solutions, we would like to ask you to take a moment to let us know what you look for in a mobile device and which features are important to you.

We value your feedback and we would really love to hear back from you, so that we may create a device that is meaningful, innovative, yet functional and affordable.
Here’s the link to the survey:

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Thank you, @urszula! Mudita emailed an invitation for me to take the survey, so I will not take it a second time.

But, I’ll post here more comments about group messaging (GM).

I cancelled my Pure order because of lack of GM. The value of GM became obvious to me earlier this year while on a trip during which friends and I were using GM to coördinate when we would leave a hotel in the morning, etc.

Now, though, I have multiple opinions about MMS.

  • Good: MMS enables GM.
  • Good: Most cellphones support MMS.
  • Nice: USA-based carriers’ plans typically charge nothing extra for MMS.
  • Not-Very-Important: MMS enables sending of photos.
  • Not-as-Good: MMS is not as private as, say, Signal (or, better, Session).
  • Not-Good: MMS lets someone send a GM with a seemingly unlimited number of recipients, which can lead to seemingly unlimited follow-up responses.

If I could wave a magic wand for MMS, then I would:

  • Limit the GM audience in MMS to no more than 3-5 recipients.
  • Allow photo sharing by MMS only when it is 1-to-1 messaging, not GM.
  • Allow responses to a GM to go ONLY to the GM’s sender.

On that last point: Yesterday I got a GM from a friend. When I responded, I accidentally sent individual (1-to-1) messages to each recipient of the GM. I was trying to tell the GM’s sender that I could not talk then; instead, I accidentally sent my response separately to each individual. Yes, this was “Operator Error” on my part, as I apparently missed the option to choose only the original sender as my response target. But, because of my error, I further interrupted friends whose day already had been interrupted by the GM’s sender.

Regarding photos and videos sent by MMS: I would love for the next Mudita cellphone to auto-respond with an SMS message to the MMS message’s sender, saying something such as “Could you please email that to me? I don’t receive photos or videos on my phone.” or “I can look at that later, if you would like to email it to me.”. – This idea comes from a feature of the “talk-only” F1 Dandelion model from Sunbeam Wireless: “Optional automatic notice to anyone attempting to send you a text message explaining that the phone does not receive text messages”

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I think you should work on the OS more and not on a different device made with Mudita OS. If it’s android, fine, that’s already made, but you need to make MuditaOS better IMO. Anyways, hope to see what’s next

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@Jose_Briones Thanks for the feedback. Many people LOVE MuditaOS. It’s very unique, yet very simple.

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I love Mudita OS, but I’m with Jose in that I’d be more interested in focus on the present device. I understand releasing V2 of the hardware to address limitations caused by the low SAR antennae, but most of what’s keeping me from relying on my Mudita pure is little anomalies or things that are underdeveloped. I really do like the device for what it is and I think others do, too. I really think you’re not giving yourselves enough credit if you go back to the drawing board.

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I completely agree with you! Part of why I’m holding out on buying a Mudita Pure is that I’m waiting on software updates to resolve some of the known issues with US networks as well as the lack of predictive texting/T9 and possibly even group texts. Don’t get me wrong, the Mudita Type definitely appeals to me as I would love a QWERTY “dumbphone” (of which there are very few, if any, in the US market), but I would prefer to see Mudita focus on making Mudita OS stable enough in order to appeal to as many people as possible and have a strong foundation to build upon.

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I am really a Mudita fan, but are you really serious?
Instead of asking what you want for the existing Pure, or working through the list first, are you planning a new phone?
Please get the Pure working properly before you start a new project.
Yes, most of us can now use the Pure in everyday life, but there is still so much missing. There are still little crashes from time to time (yes, they are all reported and logs have been sent) and it just needs a lot of work. The media player, for example, is a disaster. It doesn’t fast-forward or rewind, it doesn’t remember where you stopped listening, it doesn’t sort tracks by artist, etc… The calendar has no possibility to save appointments… No T9 and no dictionary when writing SMS… The list is long.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy with the Pure now, because the important things like calling and texting work now and I can understand that you want to win back the people you lost with the Pure with a new phone, because they simply couldn’t use it. But do you really think that people like me who paid over €300 for the Pure and still don’t have a fully functional phone, or one where all the features don’t work as promised, are going to buy another phone?
I don’t think that’s the right move. Join forces and work on the Mudita OS. If it all works well, then you can plan a second phone at some point.

That’s my opinion on the subject :slight_smile:

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I’ll happy with Mudita v2 only if recent users of Pure can get 99% discount :smiley: Other than that:

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I also agree the focus should be on the connectivity, perhaps a NON-SAR version?

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Mudita Compact! :+1:t2:

Notes and calendar are important to me.

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I feel like there is a group of people out there, who would like a device, that offers some of the modern conveniences, such as a physical qwerty keyboard or touchscreen, Messenger Apps like Signal or Whatsapp, Navigation, Dictionary, Camera etc., while still excluding the features, that are most distracting, such as Social Media, Browser, Games, Application Stores, Video Streaming and Email.
I personally never even considered the Mudita Pure, because of its lack of support for messenger apps. Everyone in my vicinity communicates via Whatsapp or Signal, so missing out on these and having to find ways around this, would be just too cumbersome over time. So a new take of the “minimalist phone” could definitely be interesting.
But then again, if I had a Mudita Pure and the development of such a device would take away resources from improving the current phone, I’d be really upset too. Your customers paid a premium price, had to be patient for a long time, only to receive a device that in some cases wasn’t even able to perform its most basic functions, calling and texting, and still does not work a 100 % reliably. I’d say, wait with the development of a new phone, until the Mudita Pure functions properly.

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It would be nice to see the Pure v.1 made to work properly and reach its full potential but if v.1 were to be abandoned I would expect to receive the v.2 phone at a 90%-100% discount or a full refund on the v.1 phone if I didn’t want the v.2 phone because of some of its features.

Sean

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@marko We understand where you are coming from & we are aware that current Mudita Pure users are still waiting for improvements to be made to the original device. However, as we communicated previously, and in this survey, there are some hardware limitation which we will not be able to overcome- namely the network connectivity issues, due to the Ultra-low SAR antenna & some of the audio issues, due to the placement of the speaker in the device.
The MuditaOS team is still working on improving the MuditaOS, however, our hardware & industrial design teams don’t work on operating system software, (I’m not sure they know how to program code, to be perfectly frank). Therefore we’re definitely not taking away any necessary resources from working on improving the first gen Mudita Pure.
T9/ predictive texting is definitely still coming. So is a revamped music player, in addition to ongoing bug fixes.

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As a product designer in Mudita, I can confirm - we don’t know how to write a code :slight_smile: There are a few teams specialized in different fields in Mudita. There is a hardworking software team and our devs are still focusing on improving both MuditaOS and Harmony, while other teams including the design team are working on future products. We’re asking you today about what would you find interesting and helpful, but in reality, the R&D process of designing and industrialization of a new product takes time, years even as you may already know from experience with a Pure. We would like to stay in touch and keep an eye on the market, innovations, and needs. Production of goods especially electronics needs to be more conscious and sustainable, and we need to be well prepared for new products to make them better (both hardware and software), for our users and the planet.
Hope you find my answer helpful,
BR
Martyna

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@martynapiasciak Thank you for chiming in :smiley: I’m sure our community members would love to hear more from our design team :smiley:

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It would be nice to hear from the people behind the products as to why each one was designed the way it was. I would find that interesting.

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Hi,
Let me know what you’re interested in, I’ll try to answer your questions (the way I could as the whole design is confidential).

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Would definitely like to see a) the ability to store/play podcasts and purchased music and b) the ability to import said files from a computer via wire (i.e., the charging cable that comes w/ phone).

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@martynapiasciak I did the survey and I was interested to know what the inspiration behind the Mudita Type phone was. Would it also we e-ink?

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Hi,
Mudita Type would be a variation of the feature phone line-up. The qwerty keypad has been with us since the 1870s and had been introduced in phones as you know - earlier in the form of a physical keypad, now displayed in a digital way. The biggest success of a physical qwerty keypad was a series of Blackberry phones and many people are still using them (Blackberry Classic and other models) as a second phone, for instance for mailing, as they did not find a digital substitute that comfy to use.

We would like to provide a new option for those people. To draw from the nostalgia of phones with a qwerty keyboard and create a device with extraordinary typing comfort and the convenience of looking at the E Ink screen. This phone as the other upcoming Mudita products would be designed and produced in line with circularity and sustainability that is incredibly important, and missing in many devices that are already on the market.

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