The future of smartphones comes from the past, but can retro tech save us? Feat. team Sidephone!
Jake: Welcome back to Returning Retro. I'm glad you're here because boy do I have a treat for you today. I had the exquisite opportunity to sit down with the team from Sidephone and talk to them about the project, get to know a little bit about each of them individually, we talk about what Sidephone is, why it's potentially important, their motivations behind the project as a whole, where they would like the project to go long term, and I am excited for at Sidephone is. A new smartphone with very retro features that I think is perfectly in line with what we are doing here at Returning Retro.
So I'm gonna go ahead and put the timestamps here. So if you are more interested in certain parts of the discussion as you can see below, it's a long one, but it's really good. So I, I encourage you to listen to the whole thing if you can. However, if you're mostly curious about the specifics of Sidephone.
As they exist currently. Feel free to jump there to that last chapter of the video, and that'll give you more or less the, the details of how it is and, and the current state of the project as a whole. But without further delay, let's jump right into it and describe why I feel it's important for those of us with this digital minimalism, digital deliberate-ism, digital intentionalism mindset to come together to build off of each other, to share our successes, to give ideas to each other. Again, right in the line with what the team over at Sidephone are doing. So please join me for my discussion with Chris and Sebastian from team Sidephone. And so I thought, hey, I, I kind of have a little bit of a different take on this.
My take was more of instead of a digital minimalism, like as little digital influence in your life whatsoever, I come at it for more of a using what is out there deliberately and don't become dependent on it, make it more of a tool than a crutch, I guess is one way you could sort of look at it. And that's kind of where I decided to start my own thing, Returning Retro. Because for me, in the early two thousands, somewhere around 2007 was when consumer technology really became exciting. It was kind of pinnacle blackberry, but then you also had iPhone that was just around the corner and you had a couple of years where you had the technology without all of the, the baggage of social media and everyth, the always on mentality that we kind of are existing in today.
And I thought, what if we could go back to that? So that was where I kind of came up to this I, with I idea of Returning Retro, and then I sat on it for like almost a year. And then I had my conversation with Chris and he was like, no, you should do it. You should start recording. It'll be awesome. Go for it.
And he gave me this, he gave me the, the Space Jam reference, like the, the Michael's secret stuff. Chris's secret stuff. It gave me the, the, the oomph to actually start. And so yeah, that's, that's kind of what's, what's got me to here. But obviously going forward, my whole intention behind it is to either build a community or create a resource that people could use that maybe are feeling the same way, that have no idea what to do. They're like, I don't like this, I don't like what this is doing to my life.
I don't like. Where society has placed me in this tech bubble where I feel so isolated and almost feel like I have to be this way. 'cause that's the thing is it's not just the needless dependence, but it's also kind of forced on you. Anyway, I don't want to talk about me. My friends, I wanna talk about you guys and Sidephone. I am happy to just talk about whatever you guys want to discuss.
So maybe Chris, Chris: hey, Jake. I, um, man, I'm, I'm nervous. That's funny. I, I didn't expect to be nervous or I guess in, in the context of the book that I've been reading lately, anxious, that's probably the best way to describe it.
Um, what you had mentioned about starting the first video and going through it, uh, I'm very much an enabler in my friend circle, so for better, for worse, I, I definitely, um, definitely just honored to have given you that push. And also the, the videos that you've created, I've, I've been watching them and, and they're incredible. Keep it up. And, um, I. I, I think the, the conversations you're having are so
important and, um, I, I'm just honored to be here to have one with you genuinely. And, um, I, the, the reason why I wanted to have this conversation with you in particular, uh, is initially I thought we would be, um, growing together. You know, I, I know the, the platform that you're creating is, is something that's starting off.
I mean, Sidephone's very much in the same position. Uh, we, we haven't had the product launch yet. It's, it's very much in the works, but I think you and I are at the perfect point to, to have these regular conversations and, and, um, honestly, in terms of se Sebastian as well, some of the questions that I think we're gonna get into today, I haven't even heard from Sebastian as well.
So this is, this is just such a perfect melting pot of a bunch of, I, I, I would say different minds. Who have been hovering around a similar topic that haven't fully had the opportunity and the space to discuss it yet. And I think beautiful things are gonna come from this conversation and Sidephone will become a better product because of it. And, and the community that we all create is, is going to be, become stronger as well.
So I, I'm, I'm super excited. I can't wait to see where this goes. Jake: Yeah, I was actually, I, I appreciate those words, Chris. I mean, you really did give me that push off the ledge.
For better. It's for better, but I would be through, yeah. Let's, let's maybe jump into some introductions a little bit.
Um, Sebastian, if you wouldn't mind, I would love to hear a little bit of your story. I, I don't even wanna say anything that I know about you, because I would love to hear it from you sort of fresh and then Yeah, I, the, the, the same from Chris. Basically, I, I would be curious, and I think the viewers would be curious too, a little bit about yourself, but specifically what brought you here to talk to me about Returning Retro and what led you to the point, what led you to that point so far? Sebastian: Yeah. Like everything that, that, or as short as possible led up to, led up to this whole thing. Yeah.
I mean, oh gosh, I gotta think of where to start. Um, because probably, I mean, it starts with my own sort of digital minimalism journey, I guess. Which, I mean, not to, not to make it too personal or right outta the gate, right outta the, but I remember, like, for me, the actual pivotal moment, like I remember where I was like, Ooh.
Technology, phones might be a problem specifically for me. Um, so I'm part of a, I'm just throwing stuff out here that Chris doesn't even know too. Yeah, you're gonna, you're gonna get a real kick outta this Chris. 'cause he's, we've been working together for a couple months now, but there's still like a lot of stuff.
Um, so I'm part of a, I'm part of a pretty big family, um, which I think has been confusing for Chris. 'cause I'll keep mentioning my brothers. I have four brothers, um, and four sisters. I'm one of nine kids.
Jake: Wow, Sebastian: I'm on the, I'm on the older end of it, but, uh, yeah, it's, it's all, it's like, I keep saying like, oh, it's my brother's birthday, it's my other brother's birthday. And I feel like in the back of Chris's mind, he's like, he's either making all this up or there's like a, like a lot this stuff happening that, but yeah. And I remember I probably was 16 or 17, which is right about when I got a, for a little while, umprobably. A maybe six months before, but before this particular day, it had my sparkle, maybe a year. Uh, one of my youngest sisters, uh, had been diagnosed with an inoperable stomach tumor. Like she had, she had seized out one day I was there.
It was, you know, it was pretty crazy. They're like, we actually can't do anything about this. We don't know. And she's fine now. She's fine now.
I mean, it's still there, but you know, she's, it all seems, it's all pretty good. But, um, and one day I was just, I was just on, I was just in my bed on my phone as, as you would expect, uh, a, a teenager to do. My mom came into my room.
She was like, what are you doing? Like, you, you have this, because, you know, this is right after we'd heard the diagnosis, all this, she's like. If you have a free moment, go read. 'cause she was like three or four years old at the time. She's like, go read your sister her story.
We don't know how long she's gonna be here. We don't like that. And that, that really did stick with me. I was like, oh shoot.
Like what? I think I was scrolling Twitter. Like, what, how, how is this more important to me? Or how have I become so attached to this? That, that there's, that my own sister's, you know, downstairs, I'm not making an effort to, to communicate her there any way when she, you know, she has this condition. Uh, that was, and it was a few years later, um, after college, after. Um, and then even after that, it's my stuff for a while, um, where I had been experimenting with various other dumb phone products. Uh, my uncle too, who's always kind of been a mentor to me, uh, he had made the move to, uh, he had tried a couple different products too. And he's like, man, yeah, these just aren't working.
These just aren't working. And I had, I had a flip phone. I was like, yeah, just, it's just missing a lot. And I've always been into. Always been into software.
I've always been into Linux, Android. I've been doing Android stuff, like messing around with it since my teenage years. Uh, you know, always big into custom operating systems and all that.
And I was like, yeah, I bet I could make a phone. I bet I could just make a phone. Like I bet we could.
I bet I could just do that. And of course I didn't make it. I took pixel hardware, uh, but I made my own operating system and I sent one of my uncle. I was like, oh, I made this.
You'll love it. You got it. He's like, Hey, I really think you can sell these. And then that blossomed into, into the whole, uh, Ghost Phone thing.
I don't know if Chris has mentioned, which is which, what I currently do. And then through that, Chris reached out to me. I think it was, correct me if I'm wrong, Chris, uh, looking for a name for your phone? Uh, well, for Sidephone you came across Ghost Phone and that led to my website and all that. And he reached out. He like, Hey, uh, you know, I don't know what you guys do.
I don't know that, but if, you know, maybe there's a collaboration here on the software side, because I know softwares, you know, the specialty here. Yeah, I've wanted to do hardware for so long, and the fact that Chris was like, oh yeah, I wanna make hardware. I was like, oh, I'm all in.
I'm all in. I've always wanted to make software for a custom hardware product. Um, and yes, that, that's kind of, I guess in short, you know, obviously it all started, you know, started when I was born, but most recent history, uh, to now. Chris: Sebastian just for, for context and, and for the viewers, Jake, for yourself. I, um, I was definitely a little odd. The first thing that I did when I decided I wanted to start creating a, a cell phone was I reached out to every single competitor I could think of, and I just introduced myself and said, Hey, I, um.
I think the product that you guys are building is so important and, and I, I wanna jump into, um, something similar and if there's an opportunity to cowork, let me know. I could learn from you. Uh, and, and, um, maybe I could be of service. And, and Jake, that was very similar to the conversation we had as well. It was the same mentality.
It was, it was, uh, just how could I help basically, and, and, and how could we work, uh, off each other. I just, I truly don't think that there's competition in a landscape like this. I think there's only more organization, vocalization, people coming together to build something great for, for the world, truly. So that was the first thing I did, and that's how I met Sebastian.
And the moment we started talking, probably five, 10 minutes in, it just had clicked and I'd realized that I am speaking to my better half right here. This is incredible. I, I just, it was, it was, it was incredible. And, um. I'm very fortunate and grateful to have Sebastian working on, on, on the project right now.
Uh, in terms of my introduction, I, I was trying to figure out how to start this because, you know, I think just sort of opening up and, and being candid as well. I think a lot of it started with what, what's wrong with me? That's how I internalized it. And, um, you know, the, the, the book that I'd been reading also explained a lot of that too. I think just for context, I'm, I'm in the later part of my twenties and, um, throughout that period in time it was very interesting because, uh, early in your twenties, of course you, you go through a period where every single year you do something, the next year you look back at the prior year and you say, wow, I'm in such a better place than I was last year. I can do so much more.
For me, I guess mid into my twenties, it just all started to feel like it had plateaued. And then to the later end of my twenties, it came to a point where I actually felt like every year I was declining. I was, I was, I, I was learning less. I knew less my vocabulary, my, my vca. That's a perfect place to mess up a word on vocabulary. But yeah, that's just, um, that's the perfect point to do it.
Uh, but my vocabulary I felt like could have used improvement and I just, I kept looking at myself and my surroundings and, and, and wondering what, what's wrong? I. How do I get back to a point where I am green and growing? And the first thing that I did to, to, to go on this quest was I looked at my life and the vice that I had, and I cut out every single addiction I could think of to the point where I, I became obsessed with the idea of it. And I didn't even drink coffee. Even to this day, I don't drink coffee. It's, it's, it's not a habit that I have.
But there's one thing that I, I, I looked at as I did this audit throughout my life, and by the way, all of these things that I did, removing alcohol, removing, uh, any sort of substances or, um, including coffee for my life, all of these things, getting better sleep, it didn't, it didn't really help. I was still caught in this phase that I couldn't explain, and I didn't know what was wrong with me. And then I realized there's this one thing that I didn't change. I'd always had a mobile phone on me at every point.
I had this habit going to bed, check my phone, wake up, check my phone. I, I, to me, it was this excuse where if I didn't have it, I wouldn't be able to communicate with others. If I didn't have it. I wouldn't be able to know what's going on in the world.
Uh, if I didn't have it, I wouldn't be able to go to events. It's so. Pervasively ingrained in our society that I just felt like it couldn't have even been something I could consider as a problem or an addiction to grapple with and, and try and address. So I shut it outta my mind until this point last summer where I said, what if I go without it? And, and, and, and what if I lose contact with, with my, my friends and family for a bit and just sort of go rogue and see what that's like? And it had happened. First experience, interesting.
E en enough was at a, um, a music festival with friends. And I told some people, I, I sort of whispered it to them. I said, I, I really wanna disconnect.
And, and of course in a sea of festivals. Now I don't have anything to share, unfortunately. But I think we can all imagine those photos or those personal experiences we have of being at a festival, looking out at a sea of people, and all you see are phones. I had made a promise to myself that I'm gonna go to a festival and completely disconnect and not even have a device on me and just rely on.
Oh, it sounds so silly, but just, just fate and energy that I'm gonna find my friends at the end of the day and that they're gonna be there. And when I had done that, it was the most beautiful experience. At first. There was a lot of anxiety, there was a lot of, oh shoot, how am I gonna do this? This is impossible. But then as I got through it, it was the most empowering thing. And then I decided to take that experience and apply it to daily life.
So I, when I would go to work, I just wouldn't have my device with me. When I would go for errands around, I wouldn't have my device on me. And after doing that for a few months, that was the only thing that I found personally that actually kicked me out of that phase into now this opportunity where I really felt like I was more present.
But I also felt like I was back to a point where I. I had hit my baseline and I'm at a po, a point where I can start being green and growing again. Uh, so it worked for me.
It worked for me. One of the things that I eventually decided was, you know, how can I maintain this, this lifestyle, but also continue to have contact with, with friends and family? How can I still have the services that I need on a certain, um, at a certain point in time? And to me, I looked at every single solution that existed in the market and I'm, I'm, I'm super analytical by nature, and, and I'd like to think I'm logical too. And I looked at every single possible thing that I could do personally to, to, uh, find the best balance in my life. And I'd found if I decided I wanted to keep my smartphone, I could use services that, um, not to name names, but I'm sure we could all think of a few app launchers that we could put on our phones to make it all black or to just launch, um, certain, certain applications or, or lock them. There are also NFC tags and, and, and items that you can tap to lose access to your apps.
I explored a lot of things like that, which would allow me to continue to have my smartphone, but a, uh, a locked version of it, I guess a, a healthier version of it. And personally, I found those to be nonsensical. Uh, I didn't wanna feel like I was paying more for less. I, I didn't, I didn't want to have a device that I'd spent thousands of dollars on that I'm now constantly using in a compromised state. Uh, what I di, what I determined was best for me was to set that aside and time box used to it, to a point in time, I know won't affect my life. And, and that for me was maybe one.
Two hours a day max. And that would be for business use. When I, when I go onto the device, I'm using it for an intended purpose and I almost have this mindset shift. So I, I'm not using it as a consumer necessarily. Uh, I go into it for a particular purpose.
I go in and out and that, and, and, and with that in mind, having those, those other alternatives, like the app launchers, they, they didn't make sense for me because they would've just slowed me down to do what I need to do in that time box moment. And every other instance of time, I decided I would have a more minimal option. And at the time, I'd used a Cat S 22 to do this, uh, which I had simplified.
I I'd actually, it's funny, I, I'm sure there's some videos floating around the internet, but. Um, again, very analytical. I, I decided I wanted to figure out what the best smart, um, the best dumb phone would be, the best alternative phone. Um, so I actually bought probably 15 or 20, and I did these comparisons and tests on my own, and I just really wanted to see, um, which one would be the best for me.
And I feel like a lot of people in the community do the same thing. There's like this collector's mindset and there's just this curiosity of going back to the past and, and, and trying to see and even support the people who are doing this. Um, and I, I was one of those, I was very involved.
I bought several devices and I found that the cat S 22 was the best for my purpose and what I needed to do. It, it became a daily driver. Um, but there were some things that I. Didn't love and I
didn't like how bulky it was. I, um, personally I would've preferred if it was, uh, a little bit more simplified if it didn't have the, the, the, the default Android go, um, uh, screen. I, I know there, there's ways to change that, but I, I just, I found that there were opportunities to change that device and I'd reached out to the manufacturer and I'd asked them, uh, if, if, if they would be, that in and of itself was a bit of a, a lift, um, 'cause 'cause they, CAT or I guess the company who had been working with CAT to build the phone had gone outta business. So I had to trace all the way through to figure out who actually makes the device. Um, and I ended up finding the manufacturer and I reached out to them and said, Hey, would I be able to, uh, adapt this to a smaller form factor? And they said, sure. And that's where the origins of, of Sidephone had begun.
So that's my long-winded intro and how I came about it. Jake: that is way, that is way cool. I hadn't, I hadn't realized that little bit there at the end, but yeah, that's, I think that's fantastic. And one thing that kept coming to mind, and I think Sebastian, I'll turn it to you after this.
It's interesting to me to hear you two describe that because as me, myself as probably the oldest, I have a little bit of a different experience in that the, the, the epitomal smartphone, which iPhone I think could probably arguably be called the entryway into the modern smartphone that we have today, didn't even launch until I was, I want to say 17 or 18 years old. And so everything before that was either Blackberry if you were super rich or I. A flip phone, just a basic phone or maybe a feature phone where you had a couple of apps, maybe internet access.
That was really basic. And so what you had just described, Chris, of this concert going experience without it, that was what my upbringing was like all the way through my teenage years. Nobody had smartphones.
And the handful of people that did have a cell phone, it was a basic phone. It was calls or texts, and usually you wanted to ignore it because those were gonna be from your parents. This was before the big. I can still remember where in the US when SMS.
Plans came out for phones and people started texting each other for the first time and that all of a sudden you're not calling anyone, you're just texting. And nowadays it seems like people don't even text. They use whatever app is, whatever social media app is their favorite. But it's, it's neat for me to be able to see that. It sounds like two of you that never had that history of seeing what it was like before and wanting to harken back to it, which is the whole idea of Returning Retro are also sort of hearing that call of, Hey, we've, we've gone a little, we've gone beyond the pale here, friends, we're going too far a certain direction and we need to take steps to course correct. So I just think that's, that's really, really neat to see people that never experienced it also see the value in it.
Chris: It's, um, it, it's definitely, definitely something special. And, and, and I'm seeing it more and more personally. I don't know if we've, if we've glorified what it was to have, uh, retro devices in our life, I'm sure it came with a lot of challenges and I'd be curious to know more, uh, about what those were. Jake, but for at least my generation, and I'm sure younger folks as well, the, the idea of it is very alluring just because we know of the damage of having the devices we currently have on us at, at all times. Um, but I, but I am curious to know what, what, um, what daily life was like and, and, and just errands going around navigating. I'm sure I, I, I remember in my childhood, I have fond memories of, uh, and Jake, I think we talked about this last time.
Uh, every, every year my family would take a, a cross continent road trip. And I, I remember just sitting in the back of the van and in front of me. I couldn't even see the road if I wanted to, there would just be a giant paper map.
So, so that's what I remember in, in, in my childhood, and I've got fond memories of that. Um, and that's part of the reason why I, I like the idea of returning retro. It reminds me of those days, uh, which, which I just had whispers of when I was very, very young.
Probably I would say 5, 6, 7 in the back of a minivan. Um, and, and that's when some of the best experiences had happened, coincidentally as well. Um, things that you couldn't plan if you wanted to. It's taking the wrong turn. It's ending up in a, in, in, in a detour path that, um, you need to problem solve your way out of. I think those experiences were so beautiful and.
That idea of saying, Hey, you know what, if I can get a retro device that now puts me in those situations on a daily basis, walking through the city, finding a bagel shop, I would've never known because maybe the owner didn't wanna invest in being the first person on Google Maps so that they can get eyes and attention, but maybe they just make a really good bagel and there's someone that would be fantastic to talk to. And by having a retro device, I'm able to walk through the street and discover it spontaneously. I, I think that's the life to me that I wanna live. Uh, and, and, and that's what I think, I would hope that devices we're, we're all building would, would help to inspire. Jake: A word that you just used there a couple of times, I think that is so important.
And then Sebastian, I, I want to hear your thoughts here. Uh, discover, I think that that is such a, a great word that could be used to describe that environment. And it's not that tech use. Leads you not to be able to discover, but the nature of your everyday life is so, so different when you don't have that constantly plugged in, constantly online resource of, well, let's see what the best bagel shop is here. Well, oh, let's see what, what? I mean, fill in the blank. As far as what Google, allowing Google to tell you what the best thing is or allowing whatever search engine or nowadays more and more chat, GPT or large language model chat bots or whatever.
But you yourself were, you were in your surroundings and you were aware of your surroundings and you would just find things. And that is such a, I, I was thinking about as you asked, what are some of the differences? What are the things that were challenges or there, there were some challenges, but at the time they weren't because you didn't know what was coming and so you didn't know that you were without it. But I just think the biggest probably was the way people interacted with each other.
If you were talking to someone that you weren't in the room with, it was with a phone call for the most part. I mean, even still when phones were becoming more and more common where maybe you could say more of my friends had cell phones, mobile phones, I'm talking about than not. You still were, we were calling each other primarily when you weren't around getting in touch with each other, but the majority of the time was spent together. You would get together with your friends and you would go and discover. You would go and you didn't know what you were gonna do.
You just said, Hey, let's, let's get together and, and do something. What are we gonna do? I don't know. Okay, sure. And you would all get together and whether it was, you know, building bike ramp, I mean, I guess this is going a little bit younger, but, you know, bike ramps and seeing who can get, get the most air off of a jump or, you know, sCATeboarding, longboarding, snowboarding, paintball. I mean, there's a number of different things that I could list off from my own childhood that I feel like kids nowadays. Would never discover because they more and more commonly have been, had a screen placed in their hands from the time that they could even identify different colors and flashing objects.
And it just leads to a completely different upbringing, a screen-based childhood and upbringing as opposed to, in my day, it was one of discovery, adventure, unknown, but really from a very positive side. Sebastian: Yeah. And it's very, it's very comforting.
Um, I, I, I guess I would say, for lack of a better word, um, to hear you talk about it, uh, Jake actually, you know, being an adolescent, uh, in those times, because I'm in the same boat as Chris, where like I remember as a kid things being different, but sometimes it gets, it's almost difficult to tell if that's, well, is that because I was a kid or was it because there was something actually just very different about the way people interacted? Um, and my parents were always way behind on, on technology adoption. They were, the main family computer was running Windows xp I think, until 2016 when I helped to replace it. Like, it was ridiculous.
And that's not even secure. Um, and like my dad had a flip phone up until about the same era, and now he has an iPhone. You know, he's never, he's never going back. But it's just so interesting. And, and being technically, I think, older, end of Gen Z for me, I'm, I'm 23. Um.
Feeling like, like, like there is something, I remember faintly that things were better, that this was different, and now there's this, you know, almost dystopian future, um, at least not good with all the devices and everybody my age, especially younger, my younger siblings, their friends, and just the, just how the whole interaction has changed because I can, again, I can still remember and I still, I would like to think that spiritually I'm part of like a, a pre smartphone generation. Like, I didn't get one till I was 16 or 17. That, so like, it didn't hit my development quite as much. Both with my younger siblings, with the people they know, with even some younger people I know it has. And it's just very strange to be in a place where it feels like this future was thrust upon us.
Like, I, I didn't ask for smartphones when, when the iPhone came out, like my baby brother was born right around the same time, like I was six years old. I was worried about other things. Uh, not like, oh, hey everybody, we should be using these and we should be doing that. Like, I, I think there's a whole, uh, generation that.
Feels like, uh, at least the way I feel, um, we weren't asked that society would be built, uh, on this framework. Now the social interaction would be built entirely online. Nobody asked me. And I, I feel terrible too. I mean, uh, bring it up as example. I know this is controversial or not, but, uh, like, like online dating.
I, I didn't meet my wife online, you know, thankfully, it's just, that's not how it worked out for me. But a lot of my friends, a lot of my friends are still single. It's like, and they're like, Hey, we didn't ask for this, or like, we don't like it. But we didn't, we didn't get a say at all in the way things were trending. Uh, this, just, this whole world that we are now in was developed without us.
And it's not entirely clear for a lot of people, well, how can we go back or move forward? In, in, in a better way. How can we go back to that while moving forward of, of actual social interaction and stuff like that. I think for so many people it's just not clear.
How do you do that at, at scale? Um, they're all things we're trying to figure out. Like, like generationally speaking. I mean, obviously it goes across generations 'cause now everybody older as well is experiencing the same things. Chris: there are definitely feedback loops and, and one of the things that, that, um, Jonathan mentions in the anxious generation is he, he talks about the feedback loops that are, that, that, that come up. And one example for, for phones is we, we all start to use them. So companies start to build solutions around them.
The assumption will always have them, so then we get stuck into them. And now, Sebastian, to your point, there's no way out of it. And, and no one was asked.
It's just, it was thrust upon us. And it's, we're starting to find out that it has come with a lot of negative consequences. And I don't actually think we're gonna see all of the consequences for another decade because the generation to have gone through it at the most pivotal point. Haven't come to the point in their life, in their late twenties, uh, where a lot of the, the, the damage I think would start to manifest truly. So it's really a lagging.
What we're seeing now, particularly with myself, with my generation, um, is uh, I would say a lagging indicator of what's to, to come. And if we were to stop it right now, uh, we would be helping things for a future generation. Jake: Well and I think a thought that keeps coming to my mind is, I'm not sure if, if you have, either of you have read or watched the original Jurassic Park film or novel, but there's a very memorable scene that has become a part of just pop culture in general, where Ian Malcolm, this kind of very eccentric mathematician, he almost gets into an argument, not quite, but almost an argument with the creator of, of Jurassic Park, the guy that's running the whole thing and he talks and the owner is talking about, yes, but progress. Yes.
But look at these advancements that we've made and he, he delivers the classic. Line, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether they could, they never stopped to think whether they should. And I just feel like, I mean, I'm a big fan. You guys might notice in the background there are several Jurassic Park memorabilia, dinosaurs and things. But just that concept in and of itself, progress technologically for the sake of it, for simply driving things forward without pausing to think, wait, do I need chat GPT to do my thinking for me? Is that actually something that is necessary? And then taking it one step further, and if it's not necessary, is it even actually a good option? Do I want that? Does our society want to be one like, like you guys have very eloquently said. Do I want to thrust that on my, on, on upcoming generations because they have no say in it.
And anyway, kind of rambling a little bit, but I, I, that's something that I've, that I, that I keep thinking about and, and I think that it's something that we don't see a lot of it's, it's just forward for the sake of forward and, you know, old is automatically bad . Chris: No, no, that's fantastic. I, there were, there were a couple notes that I had taken as well as we were having our, our, our conversation. The first was around spontaneity and, and how I feel like there's an alert to it and. Companies are capitalizing on it by trying to fake it. They're trying to fake a web experience that makes you feel like you've spontaneously arrived upon a site, um, or, or a particular place in the, in the world. But what you're actually seeing is a very insidious ad. You're seeing an
engineered placement of that, so you can go there and, and that's why I think one of the ways it manifests itself is there are a lot of places you can go in the world right now, and on Instagram it looks perfect, but you turn around and there's hundreds of people right behind you who have just come for the exact same thing that they saw on the internet, but now they're hiding it. They're hiding that experience from everyone else. It becomes this, this sort of trap.
And, um, it's, I hope that doesn't sound like a conspiracy theory, but it's just, it's, it's one of the observations that I've seen. It's, it's, why not just be spontaneous? Why, why go through all of these loops to fake it? Why not just. Be spontaneous and, and abandon it entirely. And, and one of the things you said, Jake, which I actually really like and I wrote this word down, is unknown. I think unknown when someone hears it. It sounds scary.
It sounds like it could be a bad thing, but what if unknown wasn't a bad word? What if unknown was growth? What if unknown was spontaneity? And I think that would be a really cool context shift as well. One of the things that, that I wanted to do and, and why I personally wanted to continue to have conversations with you, you, Jake, is because I think the hardest, uphill battle we're going to find isn't trying to figure out how to actually physically build a device. I think that's the easy part, unfortunately. Um, I think the hard part here is how do you create change at a societal level because no company has been able to do that.
Every company who has been clouded by profits has built. Devices that we now, now know to be quite detrimental to human health. So how can, how can we build a healthy device and get people to use it? That I think is, it's might not be a million dollar question. Maybe there's no money in it.
Maybe you actually lose money in it, but the world becomes a much better place and that's the question that I think we're uniquely positioned to solve. And it's, I think, a beautiful problem to work on. Jake: I think that's actually a great, a great segue into, I would love to talk about Sidephone itself. I, I have a number of questions about it specifically to introduce my, my viewers or and listeners to the, the product that you and Sebastian are envisioning that you're developing. But I think that you, you make a very good point. I don't think that you can do it without that.
Corresponding mentality shift at the individual level and broader shift at the society level. It comes down to values, it comes down to principles. And companies are gonna do, I mean, I hate to say it and I am a big, a big proponent of the free market capitalist model that, that, that we have in the west, but companies are going to follow the profits.
And so it's almost our responsibility as people and then also as those of us wanting to make a difference to show companies that that is what we want. And I think we are seeing, and, and Chris Sebastian, I, I would love to hear your thoughts on this specifically as we talk a little bit more about Sidephone. I think we're starting to see people showing that, that that is something that they want. They want a device that bucks the trend and. In my case, hearkens back to something that once was, and maybe in you guys' case is something that is just better that you would like to experience broadly For the first time I.
Chris: Absolutely. I, um, I was looking at the show notes earlier and, and one of the questions that had come up was for, for those who haven't heard of Sidephone yet, how would we describe it in a nutshell? And I've got, I've got an answer here, Sebastian. I'm kind of curious before I, I give mine away. I was, was curious to know off the cuff how we've been working together for a few months now. Not to put you on the spot, and you could pass this back to me if you'd like, but I'm kind of curious to know, based off of our conversations, what, what, um, how you'd describe Sidephone. Sebastian: Yeah.
I'll, you're probably gonna say something way better than I say right after, right after I talk, but I'll go for it. Um, I think the core idea behind Sidephone is a device, te technology. It can, it can augment our abilities in a lot of ways. Like, like there's a lot of things we could do with technology that we can't do normally. And so I think Sidephone kind of encompasses everything that, that, that augments everything, that, that gives us more flexibility, the ability to just do more things and doesn't have any of the things that are just kind of the antithesis of that, where it's, you know, like it's, we're an interesting point with social media and a lot, you know, especially like short form video and all that, where we watch things.
To experience or as much as we can, what it's like to not be on your phone, if that makes sense. Like we never watch videos of people on their phones. We watch videos of people doing things like I'm a big car motorcycle guy. You know, that's kinda stuff that gets me.
It's like all people are put, you know, engine swaps and all this, like, wow, but I'm on my phone. I'm not doing those things. And so I think sort of the core, um, driving factor behind Sidephone is what can't you do without a device that is good? Like, I can't right now, call my dad, you know, just like telepathically communicate with my dad, but I can call him and that's fine. And that doesn't, that doesn't detract anything. Uh, it it, it increases our ability to connect and just be able to, and, you know, be safe when we're out and, you know, all that, like, same with GPS, things like that. Things that.
Help us to do more, but aren't just sucking our time, sucking our energy, uh, none of those things. So, yeah, I guess, uh, Sidephone is at its core, I would say, uh, a purely augmentation device, which, which, that sounds terrible. I put it in words like, I can't think of a better phrase, uh, on the spot, but I think that's kind of the, the core thesis. But Chris, I wanna hear, I wanna hear what you have to say on that. Chris: If someone had asked me what Sidephone is and they had no prior knowledge, I would answer with one word. It would just be a lifestyle that's two words, but it would be lifestyle.
And, um, that that's, I, I truly mean that. I, I, and, and, and it's, Sebastian might hate me for this, but, but, um, one of the things that I've always said, and, and the way that we're gonna approach selling the product soon is we're not gonna be in your face and convince you to buy the product. We're, we're, it's a lifestyle that we're encouraging other people to have, and there are other ways to get it. What we're encouraging is the conversation to encourage, as Jake, you've put it, the return to retro.
I'm not here to say buy this device in particular and, and, and talk it up. I think we're putting a lot of conscious effort. Sebastian and I are putting a lot of conscious effort and strategic thinking in how to build what we think is the best possible product to achieve the lifestyle. But ultimately.
The lifestyle is, is is what we want to promote and just basically let people know it's not impossible. There's this feeling right now of anything other than life with a smartphone is impossible. Not having Apple pay is impossible. Not having Spotify or, or streaming.
It's impossible. Um, I I, I think it would be very cool to not only create a alternative lifestyle, but but demonstrate and, and, and, and show just how beautiful it can be. That would be really cool. And, um, that's how I would approach that.
Jake: I like that. And I think that, that those two perspectives really go well together where Sebastian talked about a, a device that can augment or enhance your ability to do things. But Chris, talking about it being more of a means to, something greater than the end in and of itself to, to help you seek out that simple, but dare I say, efficient or, or productive. Uh, 'cause for me, one of the big, the core tenets of, of Returning Retro is to eliminate the waste, the compulsiveness, the. Eating away of your time without you sometimes even realizing it. I guess I didn't really introduce my sort of wake up moment that that led to all of this, but one time I just remember reaching for my phone for no reason at all.
I had no control over it. It was an instinct. It was a reflex. I, I found myself holding it and then just didn't even realize what I had reached for it, for no notifications, no buzz or ring or whatever.
And I thought to myself, wow, I am one that has gone through. I didn't use to have this type of a device. And now I do. And if I am compulsively reaching for my phone randomly for no reason, what kind of a lifestyle have I not only accepted, but do I foster in myself? And obviously then I got all philosophical, broader society and all of that. I. But I think that the two things that you two said, uh, a device that helps enhance our ability to do things, but not at the cost of throwing a healthy lifestyle away, and it being the means to the end rather than the end of self.
Chris: The, the, the reason why lifestyle in particular is important to me and, and something that I wouldn't wanna lose sight of is because as soon as we turn it into a focus on the device and selling the device, it becomes to me, close to now trying to compete with, with others and trying to sell it more by focusing on the lifestyle, there's only room for others to join and, and I think that's a really powerful shift as well. Uh, I don't think that the. The market is zero sum where for us to win, others have to lose. I think the conversation in and of itself, in the wake up call will cause everyone to win. And, and I think that that keeping that as a core tenant of, of the product and the company that we're we're building is, is gonna be pretty powerful.
And I think, um, it's an experiment. I mean, we could fail. We could potentially lose tons of money.
It's the risk that we've decided we're going to take. But what if it shows something so much more beautiful? What if it shows that you don't have to have this pervasive and this toxic growth at all times that leads you to do unethical things. What if you can have a symbiotic relationship between humans and technology that truly helps people? What if you can create a device that amplifies the innate human capabilities that we have and doesn't detract from them? Because right now there are teams of scientists, people who have gone through years and years of study who have now.
Put their time and attention to trying to get people hooked on a screen so that they spend eight or nine hours on it so that they can sell them product. I don't think that is fantastic, and I don't think anyone would really agree with it. Logically speaking, it's, it's just not normal. It's not right. So that's why I say lifestyle is the most important thing.
And, and, and it's sort of my, my guiding and moral compass. Sebastian: Yeah. And cut me off if I, if I, if I say anything we're not aligned on here, Chris, but I, I think one of the, like, like you mentioned, like Chris mentioned, um, about not being super in your face about product, product, product or buy, buy, buy. Like there, there's a, with so many brands and with so many products, um, a lot of, a lot of the marketing and just a lot of the idea behind it is like, oh, I buy this product because I'm aligned with their mission. Right? Like, oh, I, I wear this shirt because it's from a performance company or that, and we would really like to sort of flip that on its head where you buy Sidephone, not because you align with us, not because this sort of, because we're dreams.
I mean, obviously the whole idea. Yes. But because. Are invested in yourself because it's about, it's not, you are aligned with our dream. You're buying into our dream and our brand's mission, but you are getting into your own dream and your own mission, and we're just there to facilitate that. Chris: It is true.
It's true. It's, it's, it's being a product that once you buy it, you've made a commitment to yourself. To go onto this path of, of growth and self-development. It's kind of like what I was explaining in my introduction.
I, I, I was in my twenties and I realized I stopped growing. I realized that, you know, if I stayed the course and I continue doing what I'm gonna do, I know exactly what my life is gonna look like in 20 years. I can calculate it, I can project it because it's so sure, but what if I go to the unknown? And what if I continue growing? There's no limit to where I could go. And to have a device that could help you get back on that track, I think would be very, very cool. And Sebastian, feel free to interject if I say something. I know we're, we're still, we haven't even started selling the device yet, which is the funniest part about this conversation.
You're literally the first person we've spoken to about what we've, what we've been, what we've set out to do. We've basically jumped on a ship. We've realized we wanna solve this problem for society.
And we think we're gonna solve it in a beautiful way, but the solution isn't even shown yet. We're just literally talking about the, the, the, the core mechanics of it. So, um, what I'm about to say here, um, is not final whatsoever. We may change and, and these are ongoing conversations, but one of the things that Sebastian and I were considering was, what if we take this year to not do a giant launch for the phone at all, but instead make it extremely, extremely exclusive in the sense that we just, it, it almost becomes an application. And what we seek out are people who believe that they've been damaged by devices, who want a, who want a different lifestyle, who want to set themselves on this path of self-development.
And what if we create a perfect device for that person? So we don't know how many devices we'll have this year, it's to be determined. But what we do know is that Sebastian and I. Could create them without any external investment. We don't need to do a Kickstarter. We wouldn't even ask of that. What, what would it look like if we just spent this year taking a group of people who wanna do something different and we built a perfect device for them.
And we don't even think about scaling beyond that. Um, it's something, something to think of, but it, it's, it's, I think it would flip the whole idea of launching a product on its head. Jake: I think that's a very intriguing idea, and I think that you would get some feedback that you probably. That some of these larger companies with completely different motivations than what you just described Chris would ever consider in designing a product, creating a product. And that honestly sounds kind of exciting to me.
I, um, I did want to ask, I, I hope this doesn't shift gears too much, but you're kind of getting to the point where, what is Sidephone in terms of the device itself? What makes it different than. Any old smartphone? Is it a smartphone? Would you call it something different? Would you call it a, I don't know if, if you two are familiar, if you saw the video I did on it, but I, on Returning Retro, I kind of talk about phones that would fall into four different categories. Being a basic phone, which is pretty much calls and texts, a feature phone, which maybe has that plus a little bit extra functionality. You might have a couple of built-in apps, but there's not an app store. It's, it's not what you would call a smartphone, which would be something with an app store with, with faster internet in a retro smartphone. Some of those older characteristics like a, a keypad or a physical keyboard or a black and white screen, or, I'm sure you guys have seen the one that are, they're really small.
Like the, the, the screen on the device is only like two or three inches, well, not two, that's crazy, but like three, three or four inches we will say. And then you've got modern smartphones, which are your, your your this year's model of, of Samsung or, or iPhone. What is Sidephone exactly, where does it fit into that and what makes it different in terms of this conversation we're having of, of living a more deliberate life digitally and hearkening back to productivity and simplicity as opposed to the, you know, constantly scrolling on the screen all day long. Chris: For sure.
There, there are literal ways we can answer this question and then there are more philosophical ways. I'll, I'll touch on a little bit of both and I'll also bridge, uh, a little bit about what we were speaking about just now to this question and, and the first part. Another sort of, um, uh, another point in the direction of making an application only type of device to start would be, uh, to really create a product for humanity. And we've sort of set out on this goal, but it's impossible to do without actually having a large, vast group of people from around the world contributing and offering suggestions.
The reason why I wanted to start with that was because the answer that I'd give you of what the device is currently right now can be changed. It can be changed, and it should be changed based off of the group of people who help us bring it to market this year. Um, what, what we have right now is a hunch based off of all the research we've done, all the things that we've seen, all the people we've talked to of what we think the the best first step should be. But it could adapt and it should adapt based off of what our initial, uh, our initial community helps us with. And, um. The literal answer to what it is.
And Sebastian, keep me honest here, the literal definition, if you were to look at it and see it on a table, it would be a T9 phone. It would be a technically a smartphone if you were to, if you were to sort of, um, look at the, the, the inner workings of it, the technology behind it. Um, but it's completely modified so that what it truly is to Sebastian's point is an augmentation. It's the, what we've done is we've taken the essence and the beauty and the, the, the, the fun, the personality of devices from the early two thousands, and we've incorporated modern technology to it. And that's why I, I deliberately used the word smartphone, which we've all, in this call said, comes with a lot of negative consequences as well.
I, I, I, I've, I've used that word because we've needed to bridge the old within you. Because otherwise we couldn't literally have it in the network of current society. It wouldn't be able to work in some cases on the 4G um, services that we have.
So there are certain things we've incorporated in it to bridge the gap, but our intent is to slowly change the fabric of society and, and flip the script so that the second, the third device could quite literally bring us back in time. And, and that that, that, that would be my answer right now. And, and I could even speak to why we've chosen T9 particularly.
I think that's an interesting conversation. I know one of the questions I, that, that, that had come up previously was what did we consciously choose to add and remove from the device? And everyone loves the idea of a QWERTY keypad. There. There are thousands and thousands of people and there are lots of companies that will build successful products if they add QWERTY to a phone that's.
It's a, it's a beautiful device. It would be beautiful to look at, be beautiful to use. I'm sure the reason why we've consciously chosen at this point in time to not go with that immediately is because keeping augmentation in mind as the goal and, and sort of looking around being present in your surroundings. The QWERTY keypad does imply a little bit more use than we would want at this point in time. It's not that it would never change.
If again, we decide that maybe this is a good tool to get someone to bridge over to a simpler lifestyle, maybe a, a a first step in. It's something that will definitely consider it. Maybe you move to a T9 over time, but the T9 form factor is, is fantastic. And, and the advantages you can get from a lifestyle with it are, are great. It's, it's, to Sebastian's point, it's being able to call your friends, your family and, and have those conversations in real time.
Um, you know, one thing I was thinking of, I. This might be completely wrong. Uh, and I'm sure you can, um, you can quote examples where maybe it's, it's not exactly correct, but, um, I, I, I, I try to think back to the idea of personal development, becoming the best person you possibly can. And I try and think of people who, in history have really changed the world. And I think that the, the, the, the best leaders of our generation, they've, they've done that through speeches, through long form communication, through blogs, it's through speaking communication.
Uh, it's, it's not through quick messages you would've wrote on your phone and texts and short form content like that. Um, I, I, I think a T9 would help push people to the healthier things that truly amplify their abilities. Sebastian, I'm curious to know your thoughts. Sebastian: Um, is it, is it cool if I get a little bit into the software specifics? Um, at least as they stand.
I, I know hardware, hardware was, we're, we're kind of waiting to reveal a whole bunch of things in that, though. We'll be super cool. Chris: Yes. Sebastian: putting a lot of, a lot of work into that. It, it's, it's, which is the thing about, I think I can speak in very, very general terms of when it comes to the design of it.
I mean, the whole thing about continu form factor is it's not just a glass slab. Like there's a lot more fun to be had with that. It just, it, it. Brings it back to being a device.
Like the problem with the phone is it doesn't look like anything, so it can be anything. And that ends up being a problem. Something with a T9, something with buttons is a specific device that's meant to be used in a specific way. And that just, just from a visual 'cause we're, you know, we're, we're humans. We're very visual. Visual.
Having
2025-03-23 12:12
