BARCELONA,
Spain –– Perhaps you aren’t impressed by the cavalcade of rectangular
smartphones available to you. Might we suggest the Runcible (see above)?
Created
by the startup Monohm, the Runcible is a circular smartphone that’s
made to provide you with notifications, updates, and phone calls only
when you want to receive them.
The
Runcible never rings or beeps when you receive a notification. Instead,
it remains quiet, only alerting you to a new message or update when you
check the phone on your own.
Monohm
co-founder and CEO Aubrey Anderson explained that the Runcible is made
to hark back to a time before every man, woman, and child was
obsessively responding to smartphone notifications.
“Connectivity
is awesome, and we can’t go back, but [the Runcible] is about
constraining that connectivity to give you part of your life back,”
Anderson said.
“It’s designed to manage your digital life instead of your digital life managing you.”
Everything
about the Runcible’s style is meant to evoke a simpler world. Its name,
in fact, is a nonsense word first used in Edward Lear’s 1871 poem “The
Owl and the Pussycat.” (We checked, and Lear never once used the term
“iPhone” in his verse.)
The
handset’s rear panel is made of real wood and sits pleasantly in the
palm of your hand. Anderson said it’s supposed to feel as smooth as a
worry stone when you run your fingers over it.
But
at its core, the Runcible is a smartphone, and as such, it will offer
all of the functionality you’d expect of a high-end device when it comes
to market. That includes a screen with a higher resolution than the
iPhone’s Retina display’s, not to mention 4G LTE connectivity, Wi-Fi,
Bluetooth, and NFC.
The
Runcible runs on Mozilla’s Firefox OS, which means it doesn’t have
access to Google’s Play Store or Apple’s App Store but instead relies on
Web-based apps.
Anderson said he doesn’t even want
the Runcible to run entire apps. Instead of the full Facebook or
Twitter app versions, he wants the phone to simply see your basic
notifications. Doing so, he believes, will make people put the handset
back in their pockets faster, letting them get back to the real world.
According
to Anderson, the Runcible’s rear camera will be one of its most
important features. Monohm, he said, is currently in discussions with a
major camera developer — he couldn’t name names — and hopes the handset
will have a camera on par with the iPhone’s.
One
of the more interesting things about the Runcible is how accessible it
will be for do-it-yourselfers. Anderson explained that the entire
handset will be easily repairable and even upgradable at home.
He
said that Monohm wants owners to be able to create their own add-ons
for the Runcible. One example he gave was an owner creating a lid for
the phone that, when opened, could serve as a screen with a camera that
would let the owner make video calls.
The
Runcible is still in development, but Anderson said he hopes to have
the handset available in Japan this year. Monohm, he explained, is still
working on plans for a global launch.
Pricing
for the Runcible isn’t yet finalized, but Anderson said it will likely
be in the ballpark of an unlocked iPhone (upwards of $800).
Still, if you’re the type of person who wants a smartphone but yearns for simpler times, the Runcible may be worth checking out.
source: yahoo.com
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