4 ms·

Blloc – A Minimalist Smartphone

60 points by state 7y ago

petee 7y ago
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
- thecrumb 7y ago
  And after scrolling for 5 minutes discover it isn't supported on my carrier anyway :(
- isubasinghe 7y ago
  Technically it is pretty impressive, I would love to learn how to build pages like this, but it is horrible UX.
robotbikes 7y ago
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.
Mathnerd314 7y ago
https://shop.blloc.com/pages/networks 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 https://shop.blloc.com/pages/faq
dang 7y ago
A thread from 2018: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16914772 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16914772
jonathanwall 7y ago
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.
- dkatri 7y ago
  Blackberry used to be able to do something similar. Obviously without any of the smarts, but you could view all of the conversations that you'd had with a contact across multiple services all in one place. It was handy to have.
- axolttl88 7y ago
  Sounds a bit like what Apple are doing with the Siri face on watchOS. It surfaces what it believes are relevant tiles/cards in a timeline based on your interests, appointments, interactions, current location, and daily activities.
gqcwwjtg 7y ago
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.
JohnJamesRambo 7y ago
The phone is too big. A 5.8 inch screen is way too big for this minimalist. iPhone SE size would have been perfect.
- knubie 7y ago
  Even the very first photo of it in-hand looks incredibly uncomfortable.
- dicknuckle 7y ago
  The battery size doesn't make up for the size either. My Pixel 1 XL is 5" with a 3450mah battery while the Blloc is 5.8" with a 3000mah battery.
amac 7y ago
Smartphones help people do more. Why would anyone buy one to do less is not that clear to me.
- m-p-3 7y ago
  Not necessarily do less, but focus on what is important to them.
  - limomium 7y ago
    Chatting about news and weather in monochrome, apparently. That's all the impression I got from this presentation, anyway.
chenzhekl 7y ago
That reminds me of Windows Phone.
farisjarrah 7y ago
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.
- harshalizee 7y ago
  Wouldn't LineageOS suffer from the same problem ?
  - farisjarrah 7y ago
    That's the point though, the device manufacturer wouldn't have to maintain their own Android fork. They could rely on and work with the the LineageOS team to get a consistent version of AOSP on their devices and then the hardware manufacturer could just focus on making the hardware as good as they can(which is also a monumentally difficult problem, even for Google and Samsung). LineageOS is already made and kept up to date by community maintainers, adding new device support for LineageOS would be orders of magnitude cheaper and easier then developing their own Android fork.
Wowfunhappy 7y ago
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?
kerkeslager 7y ago
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 https://imgur.com/JLHhp8Y 2. A lack of material: https://imgur.com/kfF2lb9 https://imgur.com/kfF2lb9 3. A lack of branding: https://imgur.com/ZkuuICZ https://imgur.com/ZkuuICZ 4. A lack of size: https://imgur.com/TLgrf5v https://imgur.com/TLgrf5v 5. A lack of structure: https://imgur.com/LoGBK5x https://imgur.com/LoGBK5x 6. A lack of possessions: https://imgur.com/WSuR1Hg https://imgur.com/WSuR1Hg 7: A lack of technology: https://imgur.com/KDOmoTl 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21289101 2. A lack of possessions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21290867 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 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.
kerkeslager 7y ago
When is this slated to be available in the US?

60 points by state 7y ago

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

thecrumb 7y ago
And after scrolling for 5 minutes discover it isn't supported on my carrier anyway :(
isubasinghe 7y ago
Technically it is pretty impressive, I would love to learn how to build pages like this, but it is horrible UX.

robotbikes 7y ago

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.

Mathnerd314 7y ago

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

dang 7y ago

A thread from 2018: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16914772 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16914772

jonathanwall 7y ago

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.

dkatri 7y ago
Blackberry used to be able to do something similar. Obviously without any of the smarts, but you could view all of the conversations that you'd had with a contact across multiple services all in one place. It was handy to have.
axolttl88 7y ago
Sounds a bit like what Apple are doing with the Siri face on watchOS. It surfaces what it believes are relevant tiles/cards in a timeline based on your interests, appointments, interactions, current location, and daily activities.

gqcwwjtg 7y ago

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.

JohnJamesRambo 7y ago

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

knubie 7y ago
Even the very first photo of it in-hand looks incredibly uncomfortable.
dicknuckle 7y ago
The battery size doesn't make up for the size either. My Pixel 1 XL is 5" with a 3450mah battery while the Blloc is 5.8" with a 3000mah battery.

amac 7y ago

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

m-p-3 7y ago
Not necessarily do less, but focus on what is important to them.
- limomium 7y ago
  Chatting about news and weather in monochrome, apparently. That's all the impression I got from this presentation, anyway.

chenzhekl 7y ago

That reminds me of Windows Phone.

farisjarrah 7y ago

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.

harshalizee 7y ago
Wouldn't LineageOS suffer from the same problem ?
- farisjarrah 7y ago
  That's the point though, the device manufacturer wouldn't have to maintain their own Android fork. They could rely on and work with the the LineageOS team to get a consistent version of AOSP on their devices and then the hardware manufacturer could just focus on making the hardware as good as they can(which is also a monumentally difficult problem, even for Google and Samsung). LineageOS is already made and kept up to date by community maintainers, adding new device support for LineageOS would be orders of magnitude cheaper and easier then developing their own Android fork.

Wowfunhappy 7y ago

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?

kerkeslager 7y ago

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 https://imgur.com/JLHhp8Y 2. A lack of material: https://imgur.com/kfF2lb9 https://imgur.com/kfF2lb9 3. A lack of branding: https://imgur.com/ZkuuICZ https://imgur.com/ZkuuICZ 4. A lack of size: https://imgur.com/TLgrf5v https://imgur.com/TLgrf5v 5. A lack of structure: https://imgur.com/LoGBK5x https://imgur.com/LoGBK5x 6. A lack of possessions: https://imgur.com/WSuR1Hg https://imgur.com/WSuR1Hg 7: A lack of technology: https://imgur.com/KDOmoTl 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 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21289101 2. A lack of possessions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21290867 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 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.

kerkeslager 7y ago

When is this slated to be available in the US?