Thank you Jose. They send me work offers through Upwork but I also get their offers through email, which I then need to go to Upwork website to accept etc. I’ve heard of the Fiio device. I’ll look more into it.
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I came here from YT after seeing your campaign video and I think what you’re doing is pretty disruptive & freaking revolutionary. But every other comment was: I need Whatsapp, I need GoogleMaps, I need to order my Uber. Then those same people write about how they hate Big Tech surveillance. It’s like…what do you think Google, Whatsapp & UBER do?
I’m rooting for your success guys. Keep up the good work!
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Agreed! I backed a simple, Zen phone to have a simple, Zen phone.
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Well put. Truly.
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I do agree, but for some people an Internet based messenger like Signal is crucial. For a start in many countries texting is really expensive compared with data, and also for people with international friends and family it can be really really expensive.
Aside from that SMS is barely a secure means of communication. So for privacy fans a service like Signal is critical. Obviously, there are issues with all services and I think signal isn’t keen on third party apps that could compromise it, however, a cooperation with the signal foundation or even a creative internet based solution for many people is Zen, otherwise they will not be able to speak to friends and family, pay more, or have privacy concerns.
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I was introduced to Mudita recently, and as I’ve been looking through the Kickstarter, the forum, etc., I keep coming to the same question as the original poster. The market is already full of T9 phones with a wide array of configurations of GPS, chat apps, streaming services, etc., and if that’s what you want, some of them are quite good—look at some of the Nokia reboots or the KaiOS stuff or existing niche producers like Snapfon.
The Pure stands to fill what, as far as I can tell, is a genuine gap in the market. Right now, if you want to buy a phone that is truly just a phone, that unfortunately means you can’t buy a very good phone. The market leaders in that space are things like the Samsung GT-E1200 (a.k.a. Samsung Guru in some markets), which honestly isn’t a bad piece of hardware for the price, but the audio quality isn’t great on either end of the line, and it handles text messaging exactly the same as phones from the '90s. Surely we can do better. I’ve been searching for years for some company that would let me shell out for a higher-end device with quality hardware for the speaker and microphone, threaded text conversations rather than the clumsy inbox/outbox model, and decent storage space so I don’t have to go through deleting messages constantly. And the eInk screen is the feature I never knew I wanted, but I totally do—what a great idea.
The comments on this site seem to suggest that Mudita could certainly capture a slice of the T9 quasi-smartphone market with a future release that incorporated a bunch of additional features alongside the Pure’s sleek aesthetic, but personally, if they start adding things to the Pure, then that’d be the end of my interest in their project. As it stands, the Pure appears to be on track to become the best phone that’s just a phone on the market, and that’s exactly what I want.
Unlike many of the posters here, I’m not trying to switch from a smartphone whilst still clinging to its features. I already gave up my smartphone—nine years ago after only about six months of use—because I could recognise the ways in which it was changing my relationship to the world around me. I’ve been getting on just fine with the aforementioned Samsung GT-E1200 for all this time, just as I got on just fine before smartphones were a thing. But I’ve often wished for a better quality device, and I’ve never been able to find one without having to accept additional features that I don’t want. Perhaps, until now—or, well, until November.
There are a couple of things that those of you still clutching at your smartphones should keep in mind about what it’s like on the other side.
For one, you don’t need GPS. You think you do because you’ve let certain cognitive muscles atrophy, but once you give up the crutches and do a little PT, you’ll rediscover that the human brain is quite sufficient as a navigator for most purposes. I’m an immigrant, and I’ve only lived in my current city for about five and a half years (including this past year of barely leaving my flat), but I know my way around town better than any of my smartphone-addled friends, because I’m actually paying attention as I move about the city rather than just autopiloting what the synthetic lady says. Most of the time, I already know how to get to wherever it is I need to go, but when I don’t, there are plenty of simple ways of finding your way around that we all knew before smartphones took over and that still work fine today. For one, whoever gave you the destination—the friend whose home you’re visiting, the doctor whom you made an appointment to see, etc.—can probably give you clear enough directions in a few seconds for you to orient yourself sufficiently if you already have a basic knowledge of the city (e.g., “Oh, between Front St. and High St., got it!”). Looking at a map before you leave and then remembering where you’re going works for most day-to-day needs, too. But if you need something more than that, you can always write down detailed directions on a sticky note or bring a paper map for the journey. And if all else fails, a real person somewhere can surely direct you to where you need to be, either in-person or over the phone.
Finally—and this is far and away the most important thing from my perspective—you don’t need something to prevent boredom or any of the similar lines I’ve read again and again throughout this thread. Being bored sometimes is really good for you. It’s a bit paradoxical, because in any given moment, when presented with a range of options, no one will chose boredom over an attractive alternative. But this is one of the most insidious things about smart- and smart-esque phones. They ensure that you nearly always have an alternative to boredom. And in robbing people of their boredom, these devices are taking away something more valuable than most people realise.
There’s good research that suggests that boredom stimulates creativity and fosters long-range planning. There are even studies that purport to link boredom with increased altruism. This may be counterintuitive on its face, but we’re all familiar with evidence in support of such ideas. It’s a well-worn cliché that we have our best ideas in the shower—why might this be? In short, because it’s the one place you can’t take your damned smartphone! The typical shower is an intensely uninteresting place, and you’re in there to do a mundane, routine activity. So your mind wanders to work on problems you’ve been grappling with or to reflect on your life. Few people plan dedicated time for thinking about such things, and even when we try, it’s hard to make much progress in a world so full of distractions, but in the shower, you only have your own thoughts to keep you busy. So you let your thoughts work undistracted, and you have that flash of inspiration.
Well, I can tell you that, without a smartphone, you’ll have more of those experiences. Some of my best ideas still come in the shower, but others come while walking to work or standing in a queue or any of the other situations in which most people today would reflexively pull out their phone to alleviate their boredom. Although it may be a little uncomfortable when you’re not used to it, having a bit more time to be alone with your thoughts—and you can certainly be alone in a crowd—is hardly a bad thing. So-called boredom is just the other side of the same coin as daydreaming, and a dose of daydreaming is at least useful if not outright necessary to good mental wellbeing.
When you do need something to do to fill longer periods of time, I’d argue it’s better to be truly intentional about what you do, and to that end, monofunction devices are the way to go. If you want to read, make an intentional choice to read, and take out a dedicated reading device, whether an e-reader or a good old-fashioned book. If you want to listen to a podcast, you can make the intentional choice to upload it to the Pure ahead of time, or you can invest in a dedicated digital audio player that does that job better than a phone would anyway. But I would take care not to become one of those people who never leave home without earbuds in their ears and, as a result, never really notice what’s going on around them as they’re off in their own little worlds rather than being fully present in their surroundings.
So maybe Mudita should consider expanding their product range at some point in the future to include a second, more feature-laden phone, but adding anything to the Pure would… well, adulterate the simple purity I take it to be intended to represent. It’s right there in the name, for Pete’s sake! And its lack of those features is a major selling point that is crucial to my interest in the Pure in the first place.
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Well said.
Edit: I like the expression “monofunction device”.
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@rhysjones I can definitely see the need for a privacy-based messenger. However, other than SIGNAL, TELEGRAM & WICKR, I can’t think of any others. The problem with those is that they are either ANDROID or iOS based (I could be wrong, but I don’t think the work on any other platform). ANDROID was basically developed by GOOGLE, so if you really want to get away from BIG TECH, by still using Android, are you REALLY getting away from Big Tech? That’s why I think Mudita is so great because of the internally developed MuditaOS- which puts privacy first.
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@sleinjinn Thank you for taking the time to give us your feedback. I really LOVED reading every FREAKING word! Everything you said is valid. I feel like people just THINK they need all those features because they have gotten so used to them. It’s like everything else in life. When I moved to Poland from the US, I was SHOCKED most apartments didn’t have a separate GAS/ELECTRIC CLOTHING DRYER. I mean, who doesn’t love warm, fluffy towels smelling of fake spring meadows? But since those appliances are really not a “thing” in Poland, I was forced to do without. And guess what…I don’t miss it anymore. I haven’t had a dryer in YEARS & my world hasn’t collapsed 
my clothes stay newer for a longer period of time, they don’t pill & instead of fake spring meadows, my towels now smell of sunshine & rainbows 
It’s the same thing with technology, we THINK we need it, because we’ve always had it & we don’t know any other way. However, once we experience the other side, we can see what life is really all about
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There is no requirement necessarily for the client to be android or iOS based. For example, there is a Signal Client for Linux. Mudita would have to develop its own client in tandem with the Signal Foundation. There are many services out there and I am sure one will be amenable to working with Mudita. Even though its a different kernal, I am sure there is potential for collaboration with many people in the Linux world, Librem, Pine, KDE Foundation etc for cooperation. There is also the opportunity to develop an in-house alternative to signal, Mudita messenger. However, this would be a lot more work as you’d have to develop apps for Android and iOS to ensure it was useful. Therefore there is no reason not to try. SMS is also fundamentally insecure. For a start, your mobile carrier can intercept any of them. I trust Verizon, AT&T, Vodafone, EE, T-Mobile just as little if not less than I trust Google and Apple. So not having an encrypted messaging platform is against Mudita’s ethos of avoiding big tech, and protecting privacy.
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@rhysjones: Thank you for that discussion about Signal. I have never used it, but, given your discussion about carriers’ access to SMS messages, I’m more interested!
This line on the Signal home page caught my eye:
“Signal uses your phone’s data connection so you can avoid SMS and MMS fees.”
This line is meaningless to me in the USA because American carriers nowadays do NOT charge SMS and MMS fees but DO charge for cellular-data usage (unless one is on a truly “unlimited” plan).
This line is puzzling to me vis-à-vis the Mudita Pure because the Pure is designed such that one can access one’s data plan only through Mudita Desktop.
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There is indeed a c library for the signal secure protocol which I guess would be possible to compile for the pure. It seems it has some dependencies though, openssl beeing one. But apparently wolfssl, which is a slimmed down version specifically for iot and low power devices, is compatible with both signal and freertos. https://www.wolfssl.com/wolfssl-use-with-signal/
So with enough interest to and patience it might be a possibility with a signal client in the future.
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The phone will still have a data connection though, as it can tether to a laptop. Therefore, you are not incorporating anything inappropriate or counter to the mudita ethos into the phone, it already has them. It just depends on whether the data gets routed via an SMS protocol (less secure, less private, more risk of data exposure to big tech firms, governments, and bad actors, as well as less flexible), or an internet protocol such as decentralised XMPP or Signal Protocol. Fundamentally though, both an SMS and Internet message contain exactly the same data, its just whether you want that data sent in an envelope via cell towers or an uncrackable lockbox. If the encryption is end-to-end (as with signal), even if the government were to obtain a court warrant, it still wouldnt be able to track your messages, whereas with SMS it would be trivial. I should say, I really dont have a problem with the government doing it, they can fill their boots, but I do have a problem with companies doing it.
It is also relevant in the US still as many Americans have international friends, family, and business contacts, which will likely be using an internet protocol as carriers do charge for international SMS. Also, the data used by an internet based service like Signal is so low, even on a low end plan you would never notice, not unless you text so continuously you dont sleep, eat, drink, and have greyhounds for fingers.
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That is fantastic news, great spot! Has the mudita team considered something such as this?
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Great follow-up. Thanks!
So, are you saying that Signal messaging through Mudita Desktop and NOT directly on the Pure would be sufficient for Signal fans?
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Or rather using Pure for internet tethering and simply use Signal on your desktop computer.
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Thanks for this! We’ll look into it.
The problem with these ‘home-made’ Signal clients is that they often stop being maintained or don’t have the official support of Signal. Is this C library ‘officially acknowledged’ by the Signal team?
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I think this is definitely a step in the right direction. However, I think integration into the phone itself should be at least the desired end-goal. I need to be able to message my friends and family in other countries fairly regularly, often when I am out and about too. It wouldn’t need to be particularly fancy, just a very simple text system. It could help many people replace their smartphone altogether rather than risk the mudita pure becoming a backup detox device, which I really dont think it deserves based on the released materials, excellent backer updates and so on.
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I can’t speak for them, of course. But on the signal website, under “developers”, there is a link to this github site with the libsignal-protocol-c.
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