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Posted by microflash 6 days ago

Clicks Communicator(www.clicksphone.com)
421 points | 260 commentspage 4
throwawayExSUSE 6 days ago|
I had my fair share of exposure to the super-hyper start-up scene. Did these every-smiling people just re-invent the blackberry, and practiced the pitch for a month? Does anyone ever tell them "no, don't do this"?
twalichiewicz 6 days ago||
Reminds me of the old Peek: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peek_(mobile_Internet_device)
paxys 6 days ago|
The only thing I remember about Peek is how they sold "lifetime service" with the device for an extra $300 or so and a couple years later went "sike! Your device isn't supported on our network anymore".
reconnecting 6 days ago||
It looks more like hype than a real product.

What makes me suspicious is the Gmail icon instead of a generic email app.

So if I have my own email server, does that mean no mail? Or would there be one Gmail app and another separate email client? Unclear.

microflash 6 days ago||
It is supposed to run Android, so if you need another client, it might be as easy as installing it through an APK.
8organicbits 6 days ago||
If it's android, presumably you'd just install via the Google Play Store?
reconnecting 6 days ago||
I found out that it's sister product of keyboard accessory company, so most probably this will be usual android with keyboard as accessory.
muppetman 6 days ago|||
The Gmail app on Android supports 3rd party email servers via IMAP and has done for as long as I can remember (I have Gmail accounts but my primary account is a self hosted one and I use the Gmail app for all the accounts)
jeroenhd 6 days ago|||
The Gmail app supports POP, IMAP, MS Exchange, and (though it got bugged into re-downloading the entire mailbox every day) even old-fashioned MS ActiveSync.

You can disable the Gmail app and install something like Thunderbird seeing as this is just a normal Android phone (which, of course, will also show you your Gmail emails if you set it up to do so).

dbgrman 6 days ago||
The website shows no additional screens. hard to make up my mind about it.
novoreorx 6 days ago|
same idea here
thecrumb 6 days ago||
Can wait to get my Clicks jeans with 18 pockets for all my devices. Or my Clicks sport coat which includes a hood.

Also find it ironic how all these things are starting to look more and more like my old Palm Pilot.

jama211 6 days ago||
Cool, I have a friend who always mourned the loss of his physical keyboard, I will tell him. I wish it could run standard Linux though (perhaps it can) - would make it a sweet little cyberdeck…
spenczar5 6 days ago||
I feel like I see an independent low-noise phone project like, every 3 months. Clearly there is some latent demand here. I wonder why the big players (Google, Apple, Samsung, HTC) haven't made a big-corp product for this market.

I am always reluctant to jump on with these independent ambitious projects. The first version is understandably rough, and the company seems to fold before they get to a second or third version.

But maybe advances in manufacturing in China are making high-quality, small-batch products like this more tractable?

jrmg 6 days ago||
I feel like I see an independent low-noise phone project like, every 3 months. Clearly there is some latent demand here.

I don’t know - it feels to me that this is evidence that there _isn’t_ sufficient demand to sustain a successful product like this.

altairprime 6 days ago|||
Same reason Acura stopped making small cars like the Integra/RSX: costs scale more slowly than revenue as car size increases, so selling to the small car market segment results in unearned potential profits — even if the small car segment is a majority, it’s better to make a higher profit per unit on fewer unit sales if your most primary goal is to min/max labor/profit.

(Small phones, unlike small cars, also have costs in UI development to maintain their form factor’s OS support, which can create an additional pressure to withhold devices for a viable and profitable market.)

cptskippy 6 days ago|||
> I wonder why the big players (Google, Apple, Samsung, HTC) haven't made a big-corp product for this market.

Because it impacts ARPU. It's really not that difficult, you're the product being sold.

rchaud 6 days ago|||
Big corps were the ones to move away from Blackbery en masse towards a BYOD system. Before that, Samsung and Nokia both had a series of keyboard phones running Windows Mobile 6 or SymbianOS. I had the Samsung Blackjack II in 2008.
mystifyingpoi 6 days ago||
> Clearly there is some latent demand here

No, there demand is negligible. It's just typical hacker news people who want to suddenly become productive Silicon Valley trope hustle style, or people who want to change their damaging habits in a day, so instead of uninstalling TikTok which takes 15 seconds to do, they will spend money a separate device.

Although the keyboard may be useful.

kgwxd 6 days ago||
I have fond memories of my LG enV2, so much that I tried a hardware keyboard again a few years ago. Hardware solves the tactile problem but the most painful part of mobile typing is cursor navigation, basic editing, and tiny text areas. So, now I can feel the keys, but it does nothing to enhance navigation, or basic editing; I get a smaller screen for text areas (and all other non-typing related tasks); and if any of those tiny keys breaks, the entire device is useless.
stormed 6 days ago||
I'm interested in getting that standalone magsafe Clicks keyboard they also announced. I have the original Clicks keyboard case for my iPhone 15 and almost never use it because of how goofy the size is + I dislike hate that soft touch plastic that gets stuck in my pocket. The slide out keyboard looks way more appealing in comparison. Not sure how people lived using the keyboard case with any plus sized iPhone-- It's basically a weapon!
aduwah 6 days ago|
It would be nice to have something like this with a privacy OS
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