A new jailbreak for a new era

Re:A new jailbreak for a new era by teddyh on Monday November 23, 2020 @06:30PM (#25193206)

I’ve got a policy: If something is a general-purpose computer for someone else, but not for me, that is not a device for me. iPhones fall squarely in that category: They’re general-purpose computers for Apple, but not for the ostensible “owners” of these devices.

Of course (as I wrote here three years ago¹), a non-programmable dumb/feature phone without updateability would also be adequate for my personal needs for what I need a phone for.

1. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15358342#15366260

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Re:A new jailbreak for a new era by tptacek on Monday November 23, 2020 @06:41PM (#25193307)

I don't understand the logic here. You seem to be saying that it's better to have a featurephone than a modern phone if you can't load arbitrary code on the modern phone, but that logic, applied broadly, would serve almost no consumers well.

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Re:A new jailbreak for a new era by teddyh on Monday November 23, 2020 @06:49PM (#25193393)

I said nothing of the kind. I expressed a personal policy and preference, and I did not mention “consumers”.

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Re:A new jailbreak for a new era by m4rtink on Monday November 23, 2020 @06:54PM (#25193444)

Actually, I can imagine a modern "dumpphone" being a preaty nice think - make it say in a classic candybar shape and make sure it has good time on battery & can be used as wifi hotspot/mobile modem over USB.

Application could be very basic (calendar, address book, calculator, alarm, etc.) - by default. Or users could make their own simple apps - nothing fancy, Arduino like cooperative multitasking, simple screen drawing, maybe a few widget helpers.

I can imagine this being a fun thing to use & play with. :)

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Re:A new jailbreak for a new era by c22 on Monday November 23, 2020 @08:19PM (#25194127)

You want the Nokia 8110 "banana phone" [0], a re-release of the phone Neo uses in The Matrix. Unfortunately there's no US version :(

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Nokia-8110-TA-1067-2-45-inches-Unlock...

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Re:A new jailbreak for a new era by dane-pgp on Monday November 23, 2020 @11:55PM (#25195388)

It's the best, beats the rest, cellular, modular, interactivodular.

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Re:A new jailbreak for a new era by yjftsjthsd-h on Monday November 23, 2020 @08:26PM (#25194178)

So are you intentionally hinting at the Light Phone, or is it news to you that someone has implemented exactly what you're describing? :) (https://www.thelightphone.com/)

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Re:A new jailbreak for a new era by m4rtink on Thursday November 26, 2020 @11:56AM (#25221622)

First time seeing that, but it comes preatty close!

Still, being able to write your own apps for it would be nice. Even if very low level APIs & you would have to handle distribution yourself if you wanted to share them would be fine. But I don't see any information about that after quickly checking their page.

BTW, a simple mobile terminal with cellular connection that you can program could be preatty useful in comparison to hacking a regular Android phone to only do what you need could be useful as well. For stuff like single use online terminals to give to field crews.

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