I'm not saying that I'm approving this company or their products, but I can definitely get behind the idea of paying for OS updates.

Part of the premium we pay for an iPhone or a Mac is to finance the development of iOS/MacOS. We get the updates for "free" but we actually already paid them when we paid the device.

Meanwhile, here it's clear: you pay the device, and then you pay for the OS.

The opposite being the product like with Microsoft/Google.

Or relying on the goodwill of other people (FOSS).

If I take the example of Kagi, I saw how much impact as a customer I have/had on the product.

Meanwhile Microsoft/Google/Apple don't care.

And on FOSS I could _just_ do the things myself, but I'm not an OS dev and I already spend some time on other FOSS projects (I'm writing this message on an Linux computer). Donations are great but they are not reliable/predictable and they don't give you more power to influence the product.

Regarding your question "Why do I need to pay to retain data that is on my own device?", according to their FAQ: "Without an active subscription, certain core services and privacy features will be limited. To keep your MC03 fully functional, secure, and up to date, an active subscription is required." https://www.punkt.ch/products/mc03-premium-secure-smartphone

So the phone won't brick itself and you won't lose access to your data.

But the company itself give me a bad feeling, like Proton, trying to surf the hype and doing lots of virtue signaling.

Yeah, this is the opposite of being your device. This is pretending to own a device as a service.

I'm building a portable pbx on a raspberry pi with some power banks I stick in a backpack and a dual sim 5g unlimited internet hotspot, and switch over to starlink 5g when that happens. I'll throw a media server in there (pirate everything), and use a small portable wireless streaming touchscreen. There are all sorts of useful UI and linux tools that can make it a far better experience than android or phones. If I need a camera, I'll buy a camera. I've got earbuds and bluetooth for peripherals.

2026 is the year I leave "phones" behind - not playing the subscription device game anymore. I left Windows last year. I'll get better service, real control, and no enshittification treadmill.

It's too bad it takes an inordinate amount of tech savvy to break out - Linux is well beyond good enough for grandma or the average user at this point. There's no reason beyond exploitation for profit for the kafkaesque intrusion into people's lives and data. If you've got the capability, break out.

This product is not breaking free. Same walls, different garden.

>> They heavily marketed it as being based on GrapheneOS

Claim not found in article. If it was so heavily marketed, that would be in the announcement since they're mentioning other partners (Threema, Proton, the extra app store it ships...), and definitely on the product page (no mention of /graph.*/ there either)

Edit: found the specs button. It says the OS is based on AOSP (Android open source project)

Most people seem to be subscribing to a cell phone already. Not us techies, but most normies seem to have expensive phones on three year ”plans” while locked to an expensive network.

Yep, SAR stands for "specific absorption rate". These sensors are typically used to change how the antennas on the phone transmit (like how much power they use) by detecting whether the phone is held close to your body vs. sitting somewhere like on a table.

Most phones have them.

It's almost like we're being punked.

Pixel 8 or 9, from 10 it's getting iffy due to Google restrictions. 11 probably won't even be supported

I was also thinking about Crypto AG because the punkt website goes a long way to not mention a single name of a human being who is involved with the company. For example the imprint in the footer and the about page does not list who is CEO of the company.

It's probably to pay for all the things Google provides for free, app store hosting, review, curation, backups, synced data, etc.

yeah, it seems like the target market for a privacy-focused device like this are the nerds who could do it themselves and be more confident of the results

I'm an European no-Whatsapp guy and so are my friends that I go on holiday with so no issue.

Meanwhile at the last work retreat they did everything through Whatsapp and it was so relaxing to be out of the loop.

I just checked with my roommate in the morning to get the planning for the day, and I wandered as I wished.

I missed a lot of impromptu events, sure. I also missed a few official events that changed place at the last minute. I went walking on the beach instead.

And for the events I was expected to be active in, organizers just made sure that I was where I needed to be when I needed to.

So I was able to completely relax and enjoy my stay.

In the end everybody was exhausted while I was refreshed like after actual personal holiday!

Enjoy your Whatsapp!

When you say "Europe" where exactly do you mean?

My experience of not having a Whatsapp account and being in Europe is that I don't miss it.

I'm not in a few group chats with people that won't use Signal but that's it. I've never had an issue contacting any business or any indivdual.

Funny, I am european and i never have used Whatsapp, and i can comunicate with everybody i need. There's also good old sms, that i think all phones still use. Anyway, doesn't he know how to make a simple phone call? Why are all comunications restricted to Whatsapp?

I don't understand - how could they not get in touch with anyone? Surely SMS would have still worked if they were available on WhatsApp?

This is not a dumbphone and it runs Whatsapp (and any other android app) just fine.

A physical keyboard like a Treo/Palm Pre, enough storage to store all my photos and say GrapheneOS and I would be in.

Yes, I'm in the exact same location.

Also the site attempts to get a geo ping from your browser. Icky, to say the least. Makes their claims surrounding privacy seem a tad dubious.

I'm not sure if you find it genuinely surprising that the Hacker News populace is not moved by a device that you not only have to pay rent for, but that also seemingly does not support custom ROMs/firmware.

Besides that, the software that they expect you to pay rent for is a fork of LineageOS/AOSP, but it doesn't seem to mention anywhere on the site whether they donate any of the rent to their upstreams.

I think the distaste is for rent being charged on a device that you've supposedly bought out right.

Charge a subscription or sell the phone outright but don't do both.

I feel the same way about cars where you pay for the engine or the heated seats but can't use them without paying rent.

So if you dislike Google's business model you have to love John Deer's?

Yes. Don't listen to what people say they will do, pay attention to what they actually do.

People are willing to pay for value delivery and innovation, neither of which are even attempted in this device-, this is just reskinning and rent-seeking.

No, not yet.

I really wonder what the hell that is even about. It doesn't just seem like unfortunate messaging.