1y ago

Phones should have FM radio again

www.spacebar.news Phones should have FM radio again

Radio access could be a critical safety feature in the years ahead.

Android @lemmy.world

Phones should have FM radio again (as an emergency safety feature)

www.spacebar.news /p/phones-should-have-fm-radio-again

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I've come to the realization that the phone I want is a Nokia 3310 "brick".
Infinite battery life
compact size
headphone jack
indestructible
no spyware
no social media
T9 texting
no software updates
Snake
Brick Breaker
- You can buy one right now.
  
  You mean like a 20 year old one? Would it even work?
  
  Yeah. It'd probably still have charge too.
  
  I found one in the back of a drawer a few weeks ago, it turned on straight away. I didn’t have the right size SIM card to try and use it fully sadly.
  Come the apocalypse there will just be cockroaches and old Nokias.
  
  You cold dredge one up from the bottom of the ocean and it would still pick up a signal.
  
  If a signal exists. Those blazing fast 2g towers ain't super common nowadays
  
  Don't forget the twinkies!
  
  Wasn't it like 2g cellular?
  
  Many operators around the word are ditching 3g but still keeping 2g.
  It is main/backup connection in so many iot and older automation devices that it won't be going away anytime soon.
  And yes, both my 2110 and 3310 I alternate in my cars glove compartment can still call emergency services number without sim card.
  
  Even when they shut down 2G access it will probably just be commercial use but they'll keep it for emergency service. It still has excellent coverage and the infrastructure is more trouble to remove than it's worth.
  
  I mean how many g's are strictly necessary
  
  I mean as many gs as the network still strictly supports...
  
  In the US we recently shut off the 3g network so, at least 4.
  
  Well it is a Nokia so...
  
  The device itself is not the concern as much as the network connectivity
  
  Depending on where they are in the world 2G networks might still be active. In Europe they're still on for a few more years in most countries.
  
  No. I don't know of anywhere that a 2G network is still available to use. Some still operate it for emergency calls but that's it.
  
  You can deploy your own 2g base station with openbts and some cheap software-defined radio hardware. Don't crank up the signal though so you won't run afoul with the government agencies that regulate radio spectrum in your country.
  
  It's anybody's guess but if the battery hasn't crapped out it probably would.
  I have a bunch of old Nokia's whose batteries puffed up and I can't use them anymore but I also have some that are still ok.
  Oh and they'd have to also find the charger for it.
- Everyone talks about how great Nokia bricks are, but you actually do have to be careful not to drop them or you might damage the floor.
- T9, back when you could text and drive without ever taking your eyes off the road.
  
  Oh you still can with Swype 🙂
  
  You still can, and nowadays we even have a word for it: distracted driving.
- Some of these I get, but I don't get the T9 thing. T9 was so bad! It took ages to type many words. Today's predictive keyboards are miles better.
  Also, no software updates? Sure, every now and then there's a shitty update, but most updates are great. New features and especially bug fixes are amazing. Used to be that if something had a bug, you just had to deal with it. There's no guarantees it'll be fixed today, but many companies do fix their bugs at least eventually. The ability to iteratively develop is huge for software quality. These days, unless you're developing something that absolutely cannot fail (like a mars prober or radiation therapy machine), it's widely agreed upon that iterative design is superior to "waterfall" design of trying to plan it out all ahead of time. Part of why is so you can get feedback continuously instead of only after you've committed to months of tech debt.
  
  When T9 was all we had, we got real good at it.
  No software updates mean they have to get it right the first time, which they always seemed to manage.
- Dr Who vs Daleks. I think it's krobot on linux.

412 comments