Sidephone's SideOS vs Android, what's different?
Welcome back everybody. This is Returning Retro. My name is Jake, the hyper credulous interviewer as one Reddit user observed. And yeah, I got to be honest with these new production retro tech devices. I am very credulous. I am super hopeful and excited about it. As I'm sure you can probably already tell, today we sit down with Sebastian.
As those of you may have noticed with the world reveal video I had done with the sidephone team, Sebastian, the software development lead, was on the call for about half of it and then just disappeared. That was on me. My recording software had some glitches and only about half of his stuff made it on. So, he was gracious enough to offer to come and do a separate interview. So, in this video, we are going to talk all about SideOS, the operating system that Side is going to launch with. And I've put timestamps down. You should be able
to see. I tried to get all of the major questions that I asked and the discussion points that we go over into those timestamps. So, if you need to jump around a little bit, I understand it's almost an hourong video, but lot of great content. And yeah, thanks to
Sebastian. Thanks all of you wonderful viewers and supporters of both returning retro as well as the sidephone project. So, let's jump into it. Here's
Sebastian. I am so sorry that everything went haywire with the the recording. I think I think this works out like I think this works out for the best because now we're we're postrelease. There's a lot more I think clarity on some of the questions. Um, and uh, I got a good laugh out of the one comment on the video about who was that guy who My wife thought it was the funniest thing ever. Who is that guy who didn't say anything and then disappeared? They just left. They just
left. It's like, well, that was me. I I did say things. They just weren't they just didn't make it. But I'll say things now. I want to know from you, one of the founders, what has your impression been of the response, the community response to the big reveal? It's been it's been fantastic. I mean, it's been absolutely fantastic. People are super excited for
it. People love the design. I mean, like, it was so nice even before we had a design. How excited people were about the general concept of it. But it's been
awesome now that it has been released. It is even better than what a lot of people were hoping for. Like it came out better than even I was expecting, you know, at the beginning of this year. Yeah. It's like, oh, wow. Like this is really something. It's always a little bit it it was not stress. I guess
stressful is the right word leading up to it as we were still working on the design where it's like, man, is this is this going to meet people's expectations? Is this something people are going to like? Is this something they're going to be excited by? Is this something they're going to be, you know, they're going to enjoy? They're going to be proud to carry around, you know, and it it seems like to the vast majority of people it is. And that's I mean that's awesome. That's incredible to have something that we've been working on like this uh be so wellreceived. Like I've never had an experience like that. I've released things, nothing that was completely just completely custom in the way that this is. Uh it's it's been it's
been awesome. It's been it's been really encouraging too to like, oh man, people are really excited for this. We're going to make it, you know, especially on the software side. You know, the hardware people love that. Now the software, we're going to make that as good as it could be, too. We're going to make it
we're going to make it that good. And that is and that is one reason I'm really excited to be able to talk to you especially in in this setting as well like you said post uh reveal so that we can dive into some of that a little bit more because you bring a very interesting background to the project. I know that we I think barely touched on it a little bit in the the first chat that you and I and uh Chris had, but tell me a little bit more about how Ghost Phone came to be and how that has prepared you for and also how you're leveraging that in Side. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, Ghost Phone came out uh or came to be I think around three years ago now where I had been using a a flip phone for a while. I had I had been inspired. My uncle, you know, really
helped me out with that. He got me into dumb phones, you know, it was a New Year's resolution. He was like, "I'm going to use my phone less." And I was like, "Oh, man. It's a good one. I'm
going to make that one, too." And then he ended up getting I got a different one. Um, and it was great up until it broke. I dropped it. It broke. And I was like, "Man, I've I've always been software heavy, specifically Android heavy. Um, I didn't have I didn't have a smartphone until I was like 16 or 17. Um, just like house rules." and I was
fine with it. But my oldest sister had a bunch of olds. This is like when I was like 14, 15. She had a bunch of She always got Androids, always cheap ones, and they was broke. So, I got into modifying them. I got an XDA forums, you know, Lineage OS, all various kinds of ROMs and modifying that. I've been doing
that since my teenage years. So, when my flip phone broke, I was like, "Oh man, I bet you I can make like an operating system for me." You know, put it on a Pixel, see how it goes. And I had it and I showed, you know, my uncle who got me into into dump phones in general. He's
like, "Oh, hey, man. Can you make one of those for me, too?" And I was like, "Sure." And I spent I spent some time on it. Um, and I sent him one and he was like, "Hey, this is really good. You could look into selling these." And I was like, "Oh, all right." And then
obviously it took more time because like, okay, well, now it needs an update server. Now it needs all this stuff. Um, which I already had some experience in. And yeah, and so then, you know, everything sort of started to come together. you know, started using, you
know, got newer generations of pixels, got the supply chain set up for all that. Um, and yeah, um, for most of it, for most of Ghost, I've been the sole developer. Um, and that's been all oper, you know, all kinds of operating system work, app development, and it's been a few years at this point. So, yeah. Yeah. And so, coming to Side, you know, when Chris approached me all that, I was like, "Oh, yeah, this is this is awesome. This is this is the level of freedom that I've wanted building operating systems where now it's our own hardware. Now it's our own device. I
don't have to with this um you know be limited to what Google had designed it with in mind. There's there's a bit more that we can do with that especially being in software but also on the ground floor of the hardware development right has been which I imagine makes a big difference. Yes. Oh absolutely. It's like instead of like trying to find ways to do things being able to go to the manufacturer and be like hey like how can we do this? How is this going to work? Is this possible? That being able to have that level of connection just makes everything go a lot smoother. uh
and the manufacturer having in mind what's going to happen uh what the plans are for it software-wise has just been super helpful and I'm just super grateful to be uh to be working on this. Awesome. Well, I figured we could kind of do this sort of a rapid fire Q&A. Anything that you want to interject or say, "Oh, by the way, I don't want this just to be all about the questions that I have compiled." A lot of them are from
me. A lot of them are from the community places in uh Discord, Reddit, as well as just some people that I've reached out to uh via the old SMS because I know that they've been kind of following the project. Um but the big thing I I want to know is right off the top, what is going to set apart OS or side OS or I'm not really sure even what what it's going to be called. Yeah. From from Android. What's what are going to be maybe the top, you know, few big differences between run-of-the-mill Android, whether that's the Pixel version, the Galaxy version, you know, you name it, and and Side Phone OS. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We'll
call it side OS. Tentatively, Side OS, doesn't matter. It'll end up being one of those two. Probably Side OS. Sure. Side OS. I like I like Side OS first. I like Side OS, too. Plus, it's, you know,
we have a smaller screen, so we got to fit the boot logo on, you know, so side OS gets a little trickier. Side OS. That's a good point. That'll fit. Um but yes, I mean there's obviously a lot of differences that are going on especially from um any of the smartphones you would buy. More advanced
people are going to be you know adv especially people using dumb phones or anything custom for a long time are going to be more familiar with custom ROMs like Lineage OS or um I mean graphine OS which is a bit different you know allows more Google stuff going on. But so one of the big differences between side OS and the operating system running on a phone that you could buy from store um is there going to be no Google services. No Google apps, no Google services. Okay. So, no Play
Store, and we'll get into what kind of what kind of app store it's going to have um at some point, I'm sure. Um but so, yeah, which is good for a lot of things. There are some downsides. Um one of the big ones is I know people have been asking a lot about RCS. Is it going
to have RCS? Is RCS going to be think I'm sure that's one of the questions coming up. It is. And the the short answer Yeah. Yeah. And the short answer and it's related to this um is probably not at least not at release just because RCS unlike SMS MMS it's not really an open standard. I mean I I think technically it might be considered one but there's no like libraries we can go to you know software libraries notbook libraries that we can go to and oh okay this is how you implement RCS. There's a whole thing going on with servers that needs to happen. There are sometimes security concerns with that as well. We
would have to we wanted to run our own servers for that. We'd have to get a certification from the GSM association and they don't really hand those out. Like Google has one, Verizon has one.
Like we have to be a really big player to get that and run our own servers which is unlikely. There are other ways to do it like Beeper does it but even Beeper does it through um uh uh Google messages. Like it is it requires it goes through Google messages. Yeah, it's RCS
is super cool, but it is very Google centric right now and there's just not the frameworks in place to really it's top priority for us. It is something we really really want to have and will be continually looking um and and trying to implement. Uh but it's it's it's really tied to Google at the moment. And so not having Google services means we're not going to have Google messages by default. And and and Sebastian, I'm curious. I I kind of know, but for
people that maybe aren't familiar, but but why why no Google services? What why why is why are we doing a deled OS here? What's the deal? So, and so there's a couple reasons. One, it's a little bit harder to get a Google certification for a smaller device depending on the version of Android. So, there was there was always a chance that like Google would just be like, ah, hey, we're actually not going to let you do that. But the reason why we didn't want it from the get-go, regardless of that, um there's is privacy largely because Google services, they're always running in the background. They're always looking at the stuff you do. It's just it's unfortunately just a fact. Um and
also uh extended battery life and so oh people yeah so without Google services running in the background and you could find in the dumb phone subreddit and a lot of other places people talking about it like especially with uh any sort of dumb phone or flip phone like cat22 is a great example that runs Google some form of Google Android. Uh once all that stuff is disabled there's greatly increased battery life which is super big for us. Uh yes, so it's largely privacy, battery, just being more in control of the software. And with Google services, uh they they require certain apps to be installed along with it. Again, the Play Store, which especially with our device would kind of negate a lot of the dumb phoness of it. You know,
now it's oh, it's a small phone, a small phone running all that. And it's not like we have an e- in screen. We have a small screen um which provides some friction, but at that point, is it just a smartphone? And we personally think yeah at that point it kind of is if it's full-blown Google with the Play Store the Chrome kind of going against the philosophy the side phone yeah philosophy oftentimes too they require YouTube to be installed if you get you know a pixel or anything like that YouTube will be there and that again is like ah you know if there is a browser you can access YouTube maybe that's fine but probably having YouTube pre-installed there's a lot more um uh what's the word not qualifications but there's a lot more um rules as to what you can do with the operating system once Google Play Services are installed and they're all to benefit, frankly, Google, which makes sense. I mean, they've, you know, they they kind of run the show on that side of things. If we're going to use their stuff, we have to we have to include what they want us to include, but we don't want to include all that stuff.
Uh, it's not the idea behind it. So, yeah, the the level of control over what we do and don't have on the operating system is a big one. Uh, maybe the biggest one. And that actually uh while we're talking about Google services, I I I wish I should have I I want to give credit to the people that have asked these questions. This was one that I
just remember a couple people asked about, so I apologize folks, but does that mean that this will not be compatible with Android Auto? At this time, it won't. Now, there is a way to do it. uh the developers working on graphine OS have have have an implementation in place that we can look at and that we can look into providing um they also have a way of incorporating Google services kind of in a separate layer from the Android. So we'd have to find a way to do that. It would be a big it would kind of negate a lot of the pros I just mentioned of not having but I know it is a feature that a lot of people want. Um, so it is up there with things that we will be actively looking into. But yes, Android Auto does require
a lot of Google stuff that's not impossible for us to do. Again, Graphino OS have done it. Those developers, they're absolutely brilliant, but they have found a way to do it. Um, and so we could we could mirror their implementation possibly. It's going to
require a lot more on the OS side, but it's something we can do, but by release time, I wouldn't count on having it there, unfortunately. Gotcha. So, similar to RCS, would it be would it be fair to say not at launch, but definitely something you guys are going to be actively looking into going forward? Yes, absolutely. It's like especially RCS, like top and Android Auto, they're both they're both really high up there on things we want to do, but at this moment in time, I I wouldn't count on it for launch. Yeah. Okay. It's it's it's it's unlikely. It's possible, but it's it's unlikely and I don't want to mislead anybody as to as to what will be there. Gotcha. Okay. Well, and that
actually segus into another question that is similar to those being having talked a little bit about some of the, for lack of a better term, baggage that that Side OS is going to get rid of in terms of comparing it to a regular Android operating system. What are some of the things that it will have that will be unique to I mean, some of this may be secret. I don't I don't know what you could talk about right now, but I am kind of So, for example, I'm assuming it will be heavily optimized for the 2.8 in
screen. Are are there other either UI or UX things or even just apps themselves that that you guys are working on that will be unique to Side OS? Yeah, especially in like in a dumb phone context. So, obviously, yes, all the apps will be optimized for the small screen and there'll be a heavy emphasis on making everything run as smoothly as possible. We have 4 GB of RAM, 64 GB of
storage. It should be able to run everything just fine. We're going to make sure it does, especially any system app, anything that we have complete control over will be designed specifically for iPhone and I've already uh you know started on that through through you know various various development methods of Yeah. Uh but so yeah, so all that's going to be optimized, working well, working seamlessly. We have a lot of things that
that Chris and I are still in discussion with as to exactly what it's going to have like in regards to call blocking, number blocking, some stuff like that which Chris Chris and I have talked about like oh will there be a distraction-free mode that only allows certain contacts to to call and stuff like that. Um that's a little bit still more nebulous. But one of the big things and I think this is going to be very nice for um for dumb phone users. I think they'll appreciate it in particular people who have used other ones um is the app market that I know I've talked about. I mean, it's an app
app store, app market. I I say app market and this not going to be, you know, apps for purchase. So, it's not really a store. You know, everything's
going to be free to download at least, but I know there's been a lot of talk about like, oh, some people are like, oh, I want I want a browser. And some people are like, man, I really don't want a browser. And it's the same with email. It's the same with a whole bunch of things. And I, you know, I've been in the dumb phone subreddit for, I guess, a few years at this point, and it seems like that's sort of the main conflict between people is different people living different lives. And so they just
have straight up different legitimate needs to as to what they want on their phone. And there ends up being a lot of sometimes funny, sometimes like way too aggravated, I think, conflict over like, oh no, dumb phone should not have this, one should have that. With the app market, it's going to have a selection of apps um to to install. A lot of them are going to be just a lot of them are going to be utilities and all that, but it will, and this is a this is a recent implementation. I haven't fully explained how this is going to work to Chris, but we do have this um this will be there. Um you will be a because it's
based off of uh after people are familiar with that their client software. It's not pulling from the repos, but there's some there's some software um being used from there. Um but it will allow different repositories. It'll
allow users to select what repositories they want to get apps from. And we'll be running all of that on our servers. So you have the app market you can decide there'll be a default one but on the website there'll be QR codes at least this is the current implementation uh I have working there'll be QR codes you can scan to add an additional repository and then you can remove the repository if you want um from from the app market itself. So maybe you don't want so maybe there's a there's one repository you can add and that has your browser that has your email that has all the things like that right so you can add that you scan the code on the website from the phone boom you now have access to all those apps and you can install them if you want if you don't want them you simply remove the repository and then you can bring it back any other time you want and so you can and so you can you can imagine packages will be available be a very minimalist utilities driven one you know oh that's your voice recorder your two-factor authentication all of that and they'll be you one for people who do want the browser, who do maybe want calendar sync and things like that that would require a browser. And so users
will I I I think this is super cool. Users will be able to select with some degree uh with some degree of granularity what apps they want to be able to install. Now, obviously, I know it's still not a perfect implementation for everyone. I know there's some people who absolutely, you know, don't want any sort of way to install a browser or things like that, but we're hoping that adds enough friction for people who don't want certain apps while also allowing people who do want those apps access to them because if you, you know, if you if you have to go to the website, scan the code to install them, you're already on a device with a browser. So, you know,
there there's something there's something I think in there. But, yeah, I think that's going to be one of the one of the coolest features. Or maybe it's just the one I'm most proud of. I don't
know. Well, and I think that's I think that's really cool. And this whole concept of friction, you know, for for viewers or listeners that aren't familiar, it's this idea of adding either extra steps or or extra requirements in interfacing with your your hardware or your software in an effort to make your use more deliberate and less distracting. And so I think as
you're describing that like that is so genius to in order to add those repositories or those app sources I guess you could call them. Yeah. You can't just go in and and start typing like you'd have to oh nope got to go get on a browser on you know a desktop or laptop or whatever scan the QR code now have access like it just makes it so much more of a uh an effort required to do it. I I think I think that's really really neat. Um yeah, so yeah, I'm I'm excited is um so that's another one and and we had kind of discussed this a little bit on the the footage that disappeared of yours. Um lost footage
sideloading. This has been something a lot of people have so people oh I'll just put on Aurora store and be able to put whatever I want and I'm like ah but will you be able to? So can you talk to that a little bit? Are there going to be some things that you you can sideloadad, some things that will be restricted, or is it just going to kind of be wild west? If you know how to sideloadad, you'll be able to do whatever you want. Yeah, that's still that's one of the things that's a little bit up in the air. Uh we have the ability to uh prevent again that's something I've also uh worked on in the ghost phone uh for a while now is having stuff built into the package manager of the device that prevents certain packages from being installed. We can do that. Um it's it's still that's one of the things that's still up for discussion. It's it's unclear. It's
unclear if there's there's always that there's that fine line that we have to walk that kind of go kind of leads into the app store and all of that where like it is we want we want people to have a distraction-free experience but we do want people to have the freedom as well. So really it's like ah if you're sideloading anyway does it matter then because then what we run into and this is a concern this might be I think right now where we're at you will probably be allowed to sideloadad almost anything just to sort of leave it open only because and again this could change this is one of the things that could change um we haven't fully set this in but as soon as we start to lock in um oh it there's no way to do this there's no way to do that and somebody finds a way, people will be upset. People will be mad at us. It's just it's just what's going to happen because people buy a device with expectations and they find a way around it. And I mean that is I think true of almost almost any dumb phone. Like I
know in a lot of them that don't have brows or anything like that, you can access the Android layer and you can technically do it. It's a lot of work. There's a lot of friction there, but it can be done. And so as soon as we go into the territory of, oh, you can't do this, we better make sure that you really can't or or then it's not then not that not that that would be a lie from us because we really tried and we really thought that you couldn't, but it gets us into some some murkier waters where where we maybe don't want to be as as a company with advice where it's like, oh, we made this promise that there was no way to do this. Oh, but you could do it from the terminal of your computer if you know how to do it with ADB because it's actually fairly difficult to to block that on a device while still because of the way software upload process works when it's being flashed. Whole all kinds of very
technical things get involved and especially for me as a developer, I usually know the ways around it and I wouldn't want to be caught in a situation where it's like, oh shoot, we actually can't fully stop somebody from doing this, but we're telling them that they can't. Um, and so yeah, it will probably be a little bit more open, actually quite a bit more open on the sideloading side, especially with the app market. We think there'll kind of be no need to. Um, at some point it's ah,
do we just do we just let people do that? Yeah. You know, you know what I mean? I'm again, you could you could you could find yourself you could find yourself between a rock and a hard place real quick. Especially if you, you know, made commitments that you fully, according to the knowledge at the time, expected to be able to live up to and then all of a sudden, oops, you know, some, you know, 14year-old figured out how to crack the or, you know, whatever the case may be. Exactly. Yeah. That's so that's that's just a situation we don't want to be. And we think with the app market and all the things like that just won't be necessary.
Well, and I imagine with with the size of the screen, uh, so many apps you wouldn't even really I mean, even if you did sideloadad it, getting into it, you might be like, "Oh, this is not a great experience." Exactly. The device itself is self is built with that. Like on the ghost phone, there's no browser. There's not going to be on that because it's it's a smartphone form factor, you know, it's based on pixel hardware. Um, and so then then yeah, there there's there's zero friction once you have it there for anything you want to do with that. But with the side phone, it is it's built into the hardware of, oh, okay, this isn't like, woohoo, I'm I'm going to do all these all these things on it. It's
designed purposely to limit that in some capacity. And so we can we can allow more things like that. Like the whole browser discussion and all that is open because of the form factor. Gotcha. So
speaking of hardware, this is something a question of mine. I haven't someone may have asked it somewhere, but I haven't seen it yet. biometrics. Is there going to be I don't think I saw a fingerprint scanner. Is there going to be any kind of face unlock? Anything in that regard? There's going to be no biometrics. Um yeah, with this with this
particular edition. And it's possible we could add them. There could be a biometrics tile. I think um I think that's technically possible. There are some limitations. I know Chris has
talked about um I don't think that that falls under them. I mean, he can correct me. I could put a comment down um if I'm wrong. So it could be but at release and you know focus. Yeah, probably no biometrics. You'll be able to input like
your pin from the keypad. So now you have a lock screen. You have a lock screen. You'll have a lock screen. It'll work just like any other Android with the lock screen. Biometrics would be super cool. Um but yeah, we're
just we're just too restricted on on just sort of the ways to implement that unfortunately. Yeah. Well, and I think honestly in in my own experience that to me is just another one of these layers of friction that we talk about where you know with a fingerprint or a face unlock it's it's boom you're there, boom, you're there, boom, you're there. Whereas a pattern or or a pin or whatever, it just adds a little bit more inconvenience to accessing that device and hopefully would help you be less distracted by it. At least that's the way that I I kind of view it. So, um, yeah, let's see. Okay, got to do a little shout out to a Discord um friend.
Will it have any Google services whatsoever being based on AOSP, will there be any Google any link to Google at all? No, not Google. No, no Google whatsoever. The browser will not be a Google browser. It'll probably search
engine will probably be duck.go by default, I think. Um um for for the browser, but yeah, nothing nothing Google won't be anywhere on the device. There will be no uh telemetry between the device and us either. This is going to be just none of that. And yeah, no Google because if we have one Google thing, we have to have them all and we're not going to do that. Um so yeah,
there'll be nothing. There'll really be no weird things running in the background. It's at this moment. There isn't going to be any sort of signin required on the device. Again, you'll have your lock screen and all that, but there is no like, oh, you need an account to log into this or do that.
It'll be very similar to the flip phones of your uh which is oh it is a phone like you take this and it is a phone and again you can lock it you can do all sorts of things like that but it's not linked to any account now apps can be linked to your account and so you could have like a cloud backup that's linked to you you know that you sign into you know proton drive or anything like that that you can do like you'll be able to do that but the device itself will not have any sort of overarching sign in um or and does that include does that include the app market so for example downloading apps updating apps apps, that type of thing. I know, you know, on the Apple and the Google, you have to be signed in, but yeah. No, you won't have to be. You will not have to be signed in and you won't be able to sign in. They'll be there'll be no account. It's a very it's very u I would say bare bones. I don't want people to think that
it's like it's going to look terrible or anything like that, but it's very I guess I guess pure. It's it's going to be very open and honest. It's like these are apps and then when you get an update, it's like okay, these are the apps that have updates. Very simple,
very very clean, I think. I love it. But yeah, so none of that required. None of that will be required. Um, again, it's it's maybe something that we could look into at some point. There might be a
version. This is probably like a a phone v2, you know, or something like that where there is. I know I know light has it. I know there's some other companies where they do have something and that allows you to manage online on your dashboard and all that and all that.
There's trade there's convenience about that, but we won't have that um at at this at this time and most likely not uh for this device. Um just especially given if it's sold without that, we don't want to add that to people, add that to the device. It's like I need an account, all that. We would like to just avoid that entirely. Cool. Um okay, another one a user submitted. This is from uh Reddit Retro
Re-Imagined had asked, "Can you give any specifics about the querty keyboard teased in the recent graphic? And will the phone launch with it? Also, what kind of battery life can we expect? All good questions. Uh, Querty, we would like to launch with the Querty. So, right now, the one tile that we do have that will be launching it and we want to be very clear on this um is the T9. That is the tile that is actively being worked on by the manufacturer and we are we want to launch with more than one tile, but that is the guaranteed one. That is the one that is guaranteed at this moment in time is the T9 tile. And
there will 100% be others, but at launch, that is the guaranteed one. We're gonna we're gonna absolutely, we already are, I guess, is the way to say it, working on more tiles, but that's the guaranteed one for right now. Um, the certy one, uh, I don't I can't really give more information on it since it's not at the same level of development as the T9 one is. Sure. Um, so it's Yeah, it'll it'll look like I I'm with you on the shirt type, Jake. I want the shirt type, Jake. I want that
gets a little bit trickier um just because of the way Android works and the way it handles keyboards. That's going to have to be some custom some custom software because you know Android super easy to be like hey here's um here's here's a keyboard because it recognizes the tiles as keyboards the one the ones we've suggested it recognizes them as keyboards. um here's a keyboard and this is its layout and then it's like oh cool yeah I know what to do with this and Android knows what to do with cert you know regular certy or certy style keyboards um you know single button single input keyboards and it knows what to do with T9 and a few others um out of the box you know within the operating system with sure type since it's like two characters per that's kind of in between both and it would probably end up being me write custom code to handle that which I'm into I'm into if I have the resources I have the time I would like that. It would work very well with the form factor. It's going to be a little bit of a tossup. Like that is something that we can totally do. Um
it's going to be a tossup between that or awerty because we do want a text input in some form that isn't a T9. Um and sure type would be super cool and would work perfectly in that form factor. It's just writing the software to be able to do that. It's not handled natively by Android. Right. Well, and that's something that I I've, you know, as I've engaged with people, I've actually kind of been surprised. I I
thought that I was the only person left alive that likes the shore type, but in in in YouTube and Reddit, I've said, "Yeah, the shore type, sure type." Um, one thing that I personally worry about is, you know, someone I even responded to their comment like, "I'm I'm 6 foot, 215 lbs. I grew up on a cattle ranch. Like, my fingers are huge, Sebastian."
And I think of like the the width of side with a full querty. I mean, some people would probably be able to do it and love it, but I and I would try to if that's, you know, what what is what is available, but I'm just like remembering those. Dude, I could get smoking with a short type. I have to look. Anyway, so
I'm I'm glad. No, no, I get it. I don't think my hands are as big as yours. I never worked on a cattle ranch, but I'm 6'1, if that means anything. I have I
have uh this little guy here that my neighbors gave me when I helped them move in. They was like, "You do stuff with bones." They gave me this. I was like, "All right, awesome. Perfect." But I was just messing around with it. Um, and yeah, these are a little small.
These are a little small. I like I was trying with it. I'm like, I could get there. These are a little small. And I don't know exactly what sizes we'd be looking at. That is the thing with the querty and why. Um, I don't want to say
we'll have it at launch. We're going to we would love to. Um, again, that's one of those things top priority. A lot of the stuff's going to get more clear um in May as we get into May as we actually especially once I get sort of the uh the early prototypes and stuff to start doing with the software and the sizing and all that. A lot of stuff which is something I meant to preface this with like a lot of stuff is going to get a lot more clear very soon. Um but that's a big thing with the query is we want to make sure it's actually usable. We want
to make sure oh you could type on it. It makes sense to with any sort of configuration we do as well because it won't be able to you know be a full wide keyboard. So now it's going to be, you know, shorter and and we'll find a good system for it, but it has to be real. And I was going to ex and I was going to show So I've got I've got my my uh Bold 9700 here, and this is significantly wider than Side Phone. And these I I don't I got to where I could be pretty good at typing with with this, but these are very small. I mean, these are much
smaller than what I feel like a lot of BlackBerry people even now, like it's much smaller than the Key 1 or the Key2. much smaller than the Q10 or the Classic. Even the 9900 was a little bit bigger than this. And so anyway, I I I'm all for it. I see why people want it, but as as someone that has kind of lived on both sides of the the big shift to these huge phones, I'm like, guys, a full cordy quarterty on something that's Anyway, um sorry. So, the other thing, um just just to kind of keep moving it along. Um but I'm glad you're with me on
the short time. Um yes, battery life. Uh so, we talked about this a little bit. do you know what have you guys done any I don't as as much as you can I know you don't have prototypes yet it's fairly difficult yeah without without a prototype um and without really a a clear analog uh that exists without any sort of real comparison to there are some phones that have a battery around that size but they are also running Google services which is a pretty massive drain on battery on most devices so not it'll definitely last through a full day we're like that that's a guarantee that I can make. Outside of that, it's really going to be testing. We would like to see and we can make some optimizations on the OS side. We'd
like to see a couple days. Obviously, it's, you know, 1,800 milliamp hours is is is a reasonable battery size, especially with the smaller screen. A lot of it's going to depend on just various other factors like RF, you know, signal, whether it's searching, Wi-Fi, all that. So, I don't want to make any promises on that end, but it will be better um for sure than something like a like oh gosh, what was the really small palm I think that correctly? Like that had like the notoriously bad battery life because that was like a 600 millah hour battery like a 27 minute battery life. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just I was exaggerating but it was it was I remember it being notorious like not even a full day use. Yeah. And so we're looking for I I can at least say at a minimum standard battery life at a minimum like it's not going to be like draining while you're using it type of thing. Um given the screen size, the
battery, but all we have really right now are estimates. Uh again, that's something that we should be able to clear up next month. We'll actually really get some some real world testing in and let people know. But yeah, given from our talk to the manufacturer with the chipset, battery, all that. It
should be um it should be it should be good. It should be acceptable. I I'm not going to promise anything again at this juncture like a week, it's not going to be like that um with an LCD screen and you know, all the things going on. It's not going to be unfortunately like the old Nokia where it just lasts forever. It's just very difficult to do that with 4G. It's kind of why phones haven't been
able to do that because there's just so much more power required just for it to exist and for it to connect to networks because a phone, you know, if you're getting calls, it always has to be connected to the network. True. Um, and so yeah, and so, you know, for just requires more power to do that. Um, but it I I don't know what the word use then. It it should be reasonable and we'll let you know. Gotcha. Well, and I think I think too and and and this is something that that I've seen pop up a lot and I know it's kind of been addressed, but just here in this in this setting, will people be able to if they want to use this as a standalone device? Will it will it be able to or is it going to be something like a battery life or functionality or whatever? You would want to have a primary device to use alongside this? Yeah. Uh no, it
should be despite the name side, it it will be daily drivable. That's that's my intended use case and you know here I am the developer. Um again if you need all the things a smartphone has then no but that's kind of the the thing with dumb phones anyway. I was going to say paradox, but
I guess it's not. Maybe it's paradox, but um um if you needed to do absolutely everything what you're looking for as a smartphone, but if you need two-factor authentication, if you need to call people, if you need to text people, if you want to listen to music, all the basics I and and sort of like the the basic plus, the basic premium uh things that people need, again, up to including things like web browser, all that, it'll be perfectly fine as a daily driver. Again, if you especially if you're going in with dumb phone expectations. Yes,
absolutely. And we're looking to get people who this is their first dumb phone. we want it to work well for them and all that. So, it will absolutely be
usable as your device as as as your daily driver. It's always recommended with a dumb phone that you have a computer or some other device around. That's always kind of I think the the caveat with dumb phones is there's um some expectation of there being another device available even if you want to you know if you know if you need to get certain things to log into certain apps or whatever first time like logging into a you know Gmail account or whatever how often you know they require a code sent very I mean I guess you get the text code you you know what I'm saying where sometimes it is nice to have a computer with any dumb phone um I'm trying to think even like light phone you know the dashboard on the computer You obviously can't access that from the phone, all sorts of things like that. But yes, I guess short answer, yes, you can use it day-to-day. It'll be fine with the caveat being slightly dependent on your use case. If you're looking for a smartphone, it is not a smartphone, but it's going to be pretty darn good.
Awesome. Well, that's um you had mentioned something there that I think is relatable to two. We had two users that had pretty much the same question. So, shout out to cats are cute 2020 and tech bees. Um, unlockable bootloader. Unlockable bootloadader is unfortunately a no. It is something we really wanted, but with the MediaTek chipsets, um, which are just what we just what we're using. It's what we have to use.
Anything else, you know, Qualcomm or anything that would maybe allow that is is prohibitively expensive at this moment in time. Uh, MediaTek just doesn't really allow that. Gotcha. I I wondered about that myself is what is it? Cuz I know some devices do have a very easily unlockable bootloader and some of them don't not really having any major background in software. That's what it is then. It's it's it's the
chipset some kind of licensing restrictions or something because in order to unlock the bootloader or really in order to be able to unlock it and do anything with it, I guess is also because like um oh gosh, I'm trying to think what do I have? I got as I got a while back just like as a sample just to see what I could do with this was before a side phone. one of the Ulophone or one of the other, you know, like Chinese manufacturers, you know, typically for use within China. Um, it did allow me to unlock the bootloader, just didn't allow me to do anything else. Like, oh, it was like, oh yeah, sure, unlock it. What are you going to do? Nothing. Because you
also have to give people if they're going to do anything meaningful with it, which is which is pretty much always uh a different operating system, custom operating system. You really wanted the operating system to be open source, that is what we wanted. It's just not possible. uh we have to give people uh a lot of the device firmware, a lot of the vendor files and stuff like that and MediaTek licenses don't allow us to do that. So even if you could unlock it, if it was like something you could toggle so it's technically unlocked, there's not really going to be anything that anybody can do with that unfortunately. Again, maybe maybe a
different device into the future. It's something we really want. It fits with the ethos of the company, right? But at this juncture, it's just not something that we can do. Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. Which pains me. It pains me very much. I want I want everybody to know.
So, let me even while we are talking here, Sebastian, I've got another couple of questions coming in. Okay, so this is this one is from Art Crimes. How will activation work? What are some recommended cell phone providers if you are establishing a new phone number? Okay, so this one is another one that's a little not up in the air. Um, we haven't, you know, we're working on certifications with different carriers. Um, it should be as simple as putting your SIM card in. So, we're not going to
support eSIM at this time. Again, that's kind of bound up with some Google stuff that's not quite open source. So, um, basically, yeah, you're going to pop your SIM card in. Um, and that might require some depending on the carrier. I know Verizon could be a little bit funkier. Um, I personally have used on the Ghost Phone. I've used, this is not
like an endorsement. This is not advertiser or anything. I've used US Mobile. They're fine. I can switch in and out as it goes. Again, this is this is me as a US individual, personal experience. Um, but if you already have
your your SIM card, it should go right into the device and be fine. Again, if if your carrier requires you to let them know that you've added a new device, you know, with the IMEI number or anything like that, you'll have to enter that there. It's going to be per carrier. Again, I only have US experience with carriers, but I know that's typically how that works. It's going to be like any other phone, any other smartphone where it'll have an IMEI number that identifies it to the cellular network. Um, and you can give that number where needed to your carrier. Um, but it it shouldn't be anything weird. It
shouldn't be anything non-standard for people who are already used to who already have a phone and at some point had to put a SIM card in it, I guess, is the way to put it. And uh, we did discuss, now this is coming back to me um, on the reveal video. Chris had mentioned that if there is enough interest from the community actually getting carrier certification for some of the you know uh AT&T I know is a is a tricky one, Verizon as well. Um so that'll I think help with that. But for the most part what you're saying if you have an active SIM just pop it in and you should be good to go in most cases.
Yes. And that's again what I know now. If that changes we will let people know. Um, but like before and a lot of the stuff is like before pre-orders, before we do anything like that, before we take anybody's money, we will have an answer for you, right? But yeah, right now it's not going to be anything particularly weird. Gotcha. Um, and so yeah, uh, carriers recommend. I also I I don't know at this point in time. Um, that's
something we'll test and maybe we'll get some user feedback on like, oh, it works really well with this, same as with that. Um, but right now, yeah, it should work. It should work with with pretty much any carrier. Um, but that's going to require uh just a bit more time and a bit more testing to figure out and figure out, you know, oh, we'll have on the website when we're able to like, oh, we've tested it with these carriers and it works with these carriers. If you want a good experience, these carriers and then, yeah, you go to the carriers website, you'll get your SIM card mailed to you, pop it in, activate it, that should be fine. Um but yeah, I can't unfortunately I can't I just can't make any re recommendations at this point because we don't have um uh any models that are already running the software checking the networks anything like that. So it's like ah I can make some
guesses but I'm not going to do that. I don't want I don't want to lead people astray at this moment in time. No worries. So this next one Sebastian I this this is awesome and I I have to thank um Fluffy_D5877. What asurances will we have that the phone/OS will be supported years into the future? We will have control over the updates all that we will keep it updated and we're not going to have so I guess because people are thinking like worst case scenario they bought the phone and then we go under and then side no longer exists and now you have a phone. What can you do with it? Will it work? Um I mean there's always like a I know with Pebble like there's things going on with that where things are kept alive after um and I don't know if at that point we could release the source code. I don't know.
That would be nice a nice gesture. Um there's nothing on the device. There's no services at this moment in time planned that would stop if side no longer existed. So you get the phone, it has all the stuff. It's a 4G device. It should work for a long like the hardware should be relevant for a number of years into the future. And there's no services that require us to exist again at this moment in time. Maybe there'll
be a few things like the GPS app is going to be, you know, we're gonna have to we're going to most likely be using here maps APIs for all that. And so then if we're not doing this and we're not paying for the API use or anything like that, maybe that would stop. But yeah, so worst case scenario, and you know, I don't think this is going to happen. The side phone goes out, the device is still going to work. There's going to be like we're not going to do there's going to be no Spotify with like the car the car thing literally called the car thing that they had where they sent out an update and pricricked them all. Still not because they didn't want to like keep it connected to their services and all that. There's none of that on side and
Oh, I had I did not know that's how that went down. That's how that went down. I knew that it happened but I didn't know that's how it went. Oh, they ota bricked them. I'm like 90% now. Okay, now I got
to double check that. But I'm pretty sure that's what they did. And people still found ways around it. Um and I'm sure that clever people again like Pebble is a great example. Now they have
the the new ones coming out and all that where people were still kind of finding ways to do that. But yeah, I guess the biggest assurance is there's nothing on it that would stop if we stopped. Once you have the device and once you have the software, it will still be functional. There's no core functionality. Again, there's no services in the background. It's like, oh man, like oh man, I'm keeping this any keeping this up anymore. They can't
do this and it goes down. Which I assume that's what they're asking, right? So let's let's and in case they're asking kind of the flip of that, what is actually the the plan going forward in terms of um you know security updates or even just OS um updates themselves? How what what's the plan there assuming maybe not the worst case scenario but sort of if if Yeah. The best case or even just the the ship keep sailing scenario. How does that look? Yeah. Yeah. So we have really no plans at this point um to to move to a separate device. We have this, we have this device, we have this iPhone. There's
been a lot of work going into this with the just just we're not going to like, oh, and now there's here's version two and version one we're just going to completely forget about. And none of that none of that's going to go on. Um, again, this isn't official. I don't want to say this is official, but I know Chris has talked about this. We're
looking at five years, looking at keeping things going for five years. And the nice thing is, um, we are are going to be in charge of the updates in the update servers. And so even if like Google were to stop supporting, you know, any of the security patches and stuff for Android that they still do for our for our version of Android, um which is probably going to be Android 12, um at at this that's what it's looking like. Full transparency, Android 12, not
the newest, unfortunately. That's what we have to do with the chipset and the manufacturer. Um but there are security updates for that. We will have the software and we will still be able to manage that, backport things to that, and send out the updates ourselves.
We're not relying on anybody else to do that. So, it's like, oh, Google doesn't support this anymore. Because that's what happens with a lot of smartphone manufacturers is they're like, oh man, you know, Google's not kind of doing this and we're not putting the work in to keep this going, but this is our product and this is what we do, so we will keep that going. And feature updates, too, are like something we can always send out. We can always send out a feature update. Things like that. It's
like, oh man, it got left behind. I guess the the assurance is we're in charge of all the updates. It's our software. It's our operating system. That's one of the other perks of it being uh AOSP Android open source project is like we have total control over that. So we're going to keep that
going. We're going to keep adding, you know, new useful things, fixing anything that we see issues with because that's this is the ball's entirely in our in our court and we want to make it the best possible. I I hope I answered that well. Yeah, I think so. And and I honestly, you know, I I think that there's a very refreshing, in fact, I even I even uh messaged Chris about this kind of taking this approach of sort of a five-year versus a annual release cycle. I don't it's I'm almost in there. is like, okay, so this
is like this is like a gaming console type of a thing where where you've got this period where there there are refinements to the software, there are more, you know, enhancements, there are more, you know, obviously games for for gaming systems, but in this whether it's the tiles, which I can I am so excited about the tiles, Sebastian, I cannot but but but also even just refinements to the software or app availability or some of the um I don't want to say digital well-being, but maybe more like mindful mindfulness or or digital intentionalism aspects to the software. I know Chris has talked about that quite a bit. I think when you have a five-year cycle as opposed to an annual cycle, you just have so much more room for refinement and making it such a a a fine-tuned wellsharpened experience compared to some of these other ones. Not to not to name any names that you know they they release and then the the software that came on it is what you have the the entire time it can turn on.
Exactly. And that's and one of I think the coolest things about the tiles too is like there could be an improvement to a tile within the core devices lifespan. So it's like oh there's a T9 possibly find a better way to do a T9. You know maybe there&
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