Hacker News

I built my own phone because innovation is sad rn [video]

• 45 Comments
• "I repackaged a broken zFlip 5 into a custom enclosure with a blackberry keyboard"
  Still pretty cool though.

  By umvi 14 hours ago

• It would be interesting to see a phone made from various components hooked up to a breadboard. Maybe someone has done it already.

  By kjkjadksj 5 hours ago

• https://zacstewart.com/tags/phonium.html
  I did this a few years ago and got pretty far with a prototype. My idea was to get it to the point of being useful enough to call, text and allow me to leave my iPhone behind when I’m out doing stuff. Then I moved to Asia and we use LINE extensively for everything and there’s no (legit) way to use their APIs.

  By eloisius 4 hours ago

• Amazing work. I really do miss the OG Motorola Droids with the slide keyboard. Being able to ssh into a server with a nearly proper keyboard seems ahead of today.

  By w-ll 14 hours ago

• The OG Droid remains one of my favorite devices I’ve ever owned - it’s the closest I’ve ever felt to being in the future, and the whole vibe was intensely cyberpunk.

  By roughly 13 hours ago

• And you could swap battery packs whenever you wanted.

  By Den_VR 4 hours ago

• And what do you use these days?

  By abnercoimbre 12 hours ago

• Nothing half as interesting - the same glass coated soap bar as everyone else.

  By roughly 11 hours ago

• You can add a physical keyboard to an iPhone [0]
  [0] https://www.clicks.tech

  By supportengineer 11 hours ago

• You can also connect a Bluetooth keyboard to any phone.

  By giveita 11 hours ago

• I have one of these. It's neat and does work well. However, it makes the phone incredibly long and awkward to hold.
  If it was sliding case it would be perfect, but as it's stands the phone doesn't fit in my pocket if I use it.

  By mapontosevenths 9 hours ago

• Gosh that looks as cool as it does awkward.

  By OccamsMirror 5 hours ago

• I don’t think kids today know how nice it was to have a proper keyboard or even t9. You could text blind from within your hoodie pocket in class.

  By kjkjadksj 5 hours ago

• T9 texting in my pocket on a Nokia 330 is our generations Morse code

  By w-ll 5 hours ago

• I would love another slider keyboard phone. I had so many in the past they were great.

  By ProAm 9 hours ago

• You’d think the slider would be fragile but it was really robust. I’d use my old samsung with no case. No glass all plastic. Throw it across the room and it would be fine. If I ever found it in my parents house again I bet it’s still sliding fine. So satisfying like a fidget spinner.

  By kjkjadksj 5 hours ago

• This is cool, very much the hacker ethos. But I didn't see any evidence that it can make a phone call though?

  By Timpy 11 hours ago

• Yeah, I actually left a comment to that effect on the video when I saw it last week, because I’m pretty sure the placement of the mic / earpiece is incompatible with a traditional voice call. Although arguably traditional phone calls are the least important feature of smartphones for gen z. Even if it was important I would guess Bluetooth headsets are more common than actual holding the phone up to your ear.

  By MobiusHorizons 10 hours ago

• It's greatest quality seems to me that the whole screen looks accessible with one hand. I own an iphone 12 mini. Not sure what to replace it with when it dies.

  By cm2187 13 hours ago

• I have an iPhone 13 mini to sell you :o)

  By mstade 12 hours ago

• My new-to-me iphone mini 13 arrived yesterday. Will be upgrading soon or when my 12 mini dies.

  By eep_social 9 hours ago

• Zenfone 10 is pretty cool if you chase the form factor

  By arewethereyeta 13 hours ago

• Zenfone 10 also isn't available anymore and its software support will end long before the iPhone's, if it hasn't already.

  By alpaca128 12 hours ago

• I broke my iphone mini 12 last week. I bought a refurbished one to replace it. It cost me about 250€ with 128gb memory and a new battery.
  Definitely the way to go.

  By d--b 6 hours ago

• Also very impressive (and delivered with great humor)
  !!Con 2015 - Kevin Lynagh: I made a cell phone! (DON'T TELL THE FCC KTHX!)
  https://youtu.be/FlRa-iH7PGw?si=8OlGBQNcQRo_biuU

  By ume 11 hours ago

• Cool.
  I suggest watching this on 2x playback speed.

  By RandomBacon 14 hours ago

• It was interesting but at the end of the day the phone he created is not compelling in any way to me. He says "give us something other than a rectangle" multiple times (to phone makers) but the phone he cannibalized is a zFlip 5 which was already not (just) a rectangle. Also, I actually like my rectangle phone.
  I fully expected this to be some kind of fully custom phone but it's just a nerfed android phone. No knock on what he accomplished, it's impressive as hell, but "built my own phone", eh...
  It's cool but past making it for this video and maybe carrying it for a month or two I predict this is destined for a junk drawer.

  By joshstrange 13 hours ago

• its content to make the creator money based off interests they have, the subscriber audience they've cultivated, and the sponsorship deal they were offered, then turning 8 paragraphs of text into 30 minutes of confused interest for millions of viewers who aren't sure why they are watching what they are watching. in summary, youtube

  By ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 11 hours ago

• What does the “rn” in the title mean?

  By tempodox 9 hours ago

• Right now. At least, I think.

  By christophilus 9 hours ago

• It is indeed “right now”

  By pinkmuffinere 4 hours ago

• I’ve had this same idea, down to the functionality and even using a Samsung FlipZ (I believe it’s possible FlipZ phones support Linux) foldable chip to achieve it!
  I was just revisitng the idea yesterday but building a foldable clamshell Gameboy SP like case instead.
  IMO you only really need a 4-inch square screen. Now I know it’s possible. I would even take a 4-inch screen device without a keyboard or cellular modem.

  By righthand 12 hours ago

• ctrl+c ctrl+d ctrl+v are all too important for me to drop any keyboard.
  but, i did get me a tiny 6 key and a knob keyboard i can bring around with my phone, and it gets 95% of what id otherwise use my keyboard for

  By 8note 8 hours ago

• 0:30: An AI-generated clip that appears to show people in Nazi prisoner uniforms.
  What?

  By rafram 13 hours ago

• They googled or generated a video with "sad workers making phones"?

  By jonny_eh 13 hours ago

• Definitely just factory worker outfits. Why would you assume those were Nazi prisoner uniforms?

  By Mogzol 13 hours ago

• The vertical strikes are pretty distinct. Either way you can't say "definitely". The AI probably wasn't even prompted in this way; without any specific investigation, and just because I exist in the symbolic world, I would guess that there is proximity between the embeddings for "factory worker" and "camp prisoner". That is the common rhetoric, isn't it?

  By incr_me 13 hours ago

• Alright that's my bad I was watching in low quality and did not see the stripes, I thought they were just solid white.

  By Mogzol 10 hours ago

• Because factory workers don't wear uniforms that look like that, ever since they picked up a bad association circa 1945. Google it - you won't find any photos of factory workers dressed like that.

  By rafram 13 hours ago

• I think the clip is possibly (and hopefully unintentionally) problematic, but I wouldn't go so far as to say Nazi. If you google "Paddington prison" you'll see a similar striped outfit. So prison labor.. still not awesome, but not necessarily Nazi. And, well, maybe relevant to mass electronic goods manufacturing in certain countries.
  That said, he works at Midjourney.. so it's a weird blind spot, if it's a blind spot.

  By browningstreet 13 hours ago

• > If you google "Paddington prison" you'll see a similar striped outfit.
  Those are horizontal stripes, not vertical.

  By latexr 13 hours ago

• Yup, hence "similar". Benefit of the doubt.. as the creator is also young.

  By browningstreet 13 hours ago

• https://auschwitz.net/coleccion/prisoner-uniforms/

  By latexr 13 hours ago

• TIL my kiddie pyjamas were modelled after Auschwitz prisoner clothing. /s

  By fakedang 4 hours ago

• this vocal fry is peak genz rizz

  By 0xbadcafebee 2 hours ago