Can 4G feature phones rise again on the back of QVGA, thin clients, and remote browsers?

It's hard to get excited about feature phones with 320 x 240 resolution, but Shioupyn Shen thinks precisely such devices are about to bring millions of people to the web in a new way. Shen is CEO of CloudMosa – a developer that for over a decade has offered a remote browser named Puffin. Remote browsers see devices connect to …

[blu3b3rry]

Sounds grrat

....But much like a thin client, completely reliant on it's server.

If all phone functions rely on the cloud service then you're never far away from having a literal potato in your pocket. Also feels like there's a nice potential for data theft if their service ever gets hacked....

[Mike007]

Re: Sounds grrat

> His interest in doing so stems from the fact that smartphones remain out of reach for hundreds of millions of people who lack the financial resources to acquire them or live in places where network coverage is scarce or spotty.

Because the solution to scarce or spotty network coverage is to do everything remotely, so literally nothing works when the connection is interrupted...

[Kevin O'Rourke]

Everything old is new again. This is just Opera Mini (from 2005). Unless their thin client is basically VNC they'll have problems with getting the modern Javascript-heavy web to work on it, which is probably why they're focusing on developer outreach and specially-designed sites.

[john.jones.name]

exactly

there used to be an entire TLD .mobi targeted at mobile devices with these spec's

a few sites serve dedicated HTML depending on the user agent which I personally think is a good thing as long as its valid HTML

[Jou (Mxyzptlk)]

160x120

is enough for doom. I played in that size on a 386sx16...

Or the start button of Windows 11 + the scrollbars when remoting. Man I miss the "small buttons" option...

[Missing Semicolon]

Somebody else's browser.

Which means that plugins are not a thing, and so no ad-blocking.

Imagine a world where all of the Big Content services are actually streaming mini-browsers, showing you the content *they* want you to see.

[An_Old_Dog]

Re: Somebody else's browser.

Big Content and governments' desire to control what end-users see on the web are the only forces likely to overcome developers' natural, "Yeah, I'll fork my websites and update the forks to support your proprietary new, special web format-of-the-month on ... hmm ... the 12th of Never." reaction.

[Xalran]

I-Mode vibes

It has all the vibes of 3G early days I-Mode...

- websites that have a special *mobile phone compatible mode* - check

- low res browser - check

- most of it dealt with by *stuff in the network* (it wasn't called *cloud* at that time) - check

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I-Mode vibes

"It has all the vibes of 3G early days I-Mode..."

It would be more accurate to refer to the 2G/GPRS early days of WAP ("https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Application_Protocol").

WAP launched around the same time as i-Mode (which was Japan-only for its initial years) and WAP had far more Mobile Operator deployments around the world.

[Michael Strorm]

Re: I-Mode vibes

WAP was *exactly* what I thought of when I read "[helping] coders prepare a website to run on its hosted browsers and stream at feature phone size".

A throwback to 25(!) years ago.

Remember the idea that we were not just going to have entire sites designed/redesigned to run on a Nokia 3310-sized c. 5-line screen (*), but that the 1999/2000-era idea of the mobile Internet would use a mostly-different stack of tech and protocols designed around the limitations of such devices?

Yeah, no.

(*) Literally- the Nokia 3330, effectively a 3310 with WAP support was one of the first WAP phones. Also, since the 3330's data was circuit-switched (basically dial-up, not even GPRS), you effectively paid for a call all the time you wanted to access the Internet that way.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: I-Mode vibes

"(*) Literally- the Nokia 3330, effectively a 3310 with WAP support was one of the first WAP phones."

Depends on how precise you want to be regarding "one of the first". The 3330 appears to have been announced in March 2001 (not sure how soon afterwards it actually appeared in stores).

The Nokia 7110 was the first WAP phone (Wikipedia says available in October 1999, sounds about right), we had prototypes of it for about 1 year beforehand and it was buggy as heck. People often referred to the 7110 as "the Matrix phone" even though the phone in that film was a Nokia 8110i with the slider modified to be spring-loaded (Trivia: apparently when the 7110 was sold in USA the spring was removed to avoid people suing for injuries).

I don't remember which WAP phones came out immediately after the Nokia 7110 (likely at least a few Ericsson, Siemens and Alcatel models) but I personally don't remember the 3310 as being "one of the first WAP phones" especially as it came out at least 1.5 years after the 1st mobile operator launched WAP services: https://www.wapforum.org/new/Sonera_1999_09_01.htm

"Also, since the 3330's data was circuit-switched (basically dial-up, not even GPRS), you effectively paid for a call all the time you wanted to access the Internet that way."

Operators started to offer GPRS-based WAP services not long after the 3330's launch (i.e. later in 2001). I worked on pre-launch "tuning" of WAP-over-GPRS performance at two OpCos in 2001.

[Michael Strorm]

Re: I-Mode vibes

Ah, fair point, maybe my description was pushing it. I mentioned the 3330 because it was the one I best remembered from that early era- albeit as you note, never *the* first- and the most relatable description of what WAP would have been like if we'd all ended up using it as planned ( since most people remember roughly what the 3310 was like).

Not sure whether WAP might have been a bigger success if GPRS had already been available for those earlier models. I suspect it was also the victim of overselling as it might have been useful for what it was, but not really a mobile version of the existing Internet experience the hype led many to expect?

Though I suspect you know more about that than I do!

[trevorde]

Killer website

Pr0nhub, of course

[Anonymous Coward]

Linux

So I'd like to understand what the company is offering, so I thought I'd try installing their browser and see what it shows. But among eight downloads for six operating systems, there's nothing I can install on linux :( So I guess I'll have to continue using FF after all.

[JulieM]

Re: Linux

eight downloads for six operating systems

What was ever wrong with one download for all operating systems and processor architectures anyway?

[doublelayer]

Re: Linux

Invent a way to do that and we'll tell you what's wrong with it. So far, the attempts to do that tend to require you to have a runtime installed, and that was the thing that required a different version for your operating system. For instance, you have something that'll run in a JVM, which means you already have to have one of those, you have JVM overhead*, and you may have JVM version compatibility issues. Or you use the cross-platform .NET versions, which are actually pretty good nowadays, but for a while the non-Windows versions were very restricted or broken and you still get version compatibility issues.

If you have a great idea for how we fix that, it could be really successful. It's not a simple problem to solve though.

[JulieM]

Re: Linux

I don't have to, because it has already been done.

It's called a tarball; and the only thing "wrong" with it seems to be that it's perceived as "old-fashioned".

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, but does installing apps via a tarball works on Windows?

Ditto.

[doublelayer]

Re: Linux

I don't think we're talking about the same thing. A tarball is an archive. It takes multiple files and puts them together and makes them smaller. It does literally nothing to deal with different processor architectures. It does nothing to deal with systems where you have a library installed and want to use one, ones where you don't have a library installed but want to install one, and ones where you don't have a library installed and want the program to bring its libraries with it. It does nothing to deal with different dependencies you might have. That is why multiple files get produced. What do you think a tarball does to fix any of this? Because unless you're planning to put all eight of those files into one archive so you have to download all of them in order to select the one you'll actually use, I don't think it will.

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh!! 4G......

My 2G feature phone (cost = £25) is good till 2030 in the UK.

And before you ask....2G survives that long because of the monumental screw up with so called "smart meters".

Yup....some time in 2029 or 2030 I might buy a new mobile!

P.S. See https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09S9WT8YX?tag=reviewmobility-21&linkCode=ogi&th=1&psc=1&keywords=big%20button%20mobile%20phones

[Anomalous Cow Herd]

If there is an option to choose the country and provider of the service, then there are really great opportunities for this so long as basic telephony, messaging, and perhaps ewallet are secured to the phone, and address book/diary and replicated down to the phone. Imagine if different providers provided locked down access appropriate to their market, a child-friendly guaranteed porn-free service, an enterprise could host it's own service for company phones, a gaming focussed service for gamers /teens, a essentials service with big letters and buttons for my mum - but will need a modern smartphone screen resolution and camera to be attractive to users

[Anonymous Coward]

And About Those "Great Opportunities".....

@Anomalous_Cow_Herd

....I see you are COMPLETELY unconcerned about so called "surveillance capitalism".

[Blackjack]

He is aware that would need fast and reliable Internet, right? Otherwise people just end with a mostly useless phone.

[doublelayer]

I'm not sure what he thinks this needs. Many sites someone is going to try to load are going to use inefficient scripts, which I gather is what the cloud servers are for: they execute that and only send the document model to the phone. However, that introduces an extra point of latency, especially if that script is frequently changing the model. I assume this isn't sending a picture of the browser because that would increase bandwidth needs significantly. Operating those servers is going to add cost as well, and I'm not sure where the money to cover that is coming from.

In comparison, nearly all these devices already have a browser on them. Usually, it's a Gecko-based KaiOS browser or a Chromium version on something running a stripped Android build. Those browsers aren't great, and the small amounts of RAM available to the browser and the low-end processor aren't helping, but it can browse any site you want with no server in the middle. Somehow, his service has to compete with that, and I'm not sure how easy it is to sell a faster browsing experience.

[Roland6]

For the vast majority of users who don’t normally room, they probably would not notice the difference (other than speed of loading) between a local browser and one hosted by their Mobile operator.

Thus the obvious market for this is to mobile operators as it would significantly reduce the garbage traffic that is clogging the mobile networks to the detriment of all users.

[Roland6]

No different to “full fat” 4/5G phones…

There are way too many apps and services that rely on a performant Internet connection, because it’s a much simpler app than one actually designed for unreliable Internet….

[Anonymous Coward]

The desire for mobile-specific websites

I can remember coding websites to switch to WAP/WML (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Application_Protocol) on mobile devices in the early 2000s.

And before that I even dabbled in TTML for Nokia phones in the late 90s.

Damn I'm feeling old.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: The desire for mobile-specific websites

"I can remember coding websites to switch to WAP/WML (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Application_Protocol) on mobile devices in the early 2000s.

Damn I'm feeling old."

I worked on the infrastructure for WAP before it's launch in the late 1990s, damn I'm feeling even older

[Roland6]

Re: The desire for mobile-specific websites

One of the really good things about WAP was that it was very simple to add a reader and spoken interface on top of it and thus gaining spoken access to a website.

[Bill Gray]

DumbOS?

Hmmm... I kinda like the idea of a phone that connects to a server (i.e., my server), and sends data on where I've touched/swiped on the screen, and sends back data on which pixels have changed. Essentially, as simple and stupid and thin-clientish as the phone can possibly get.

Meanwhile, the server end runs the browser and interprets the touches/swipes sent by the phone, and sends the pixels that changed back to the phone.

If the phone is simple and open enough for such fiddling about, such that I'm not locked into a particular cloudy vendor's solution, it might be an appealing alternative. (I do realize that there's nothing in The Fine Article to suggest that the Cloud Phone "solution" allows one to do such things.)

[doublelayer]

Re: DumbOS?

That approach is not very likely because sending pixel changes, even compressed, takes a lot more bandwidth than sending text and letting the local application turn that into pixels. This is being sold to countries where people can't buy low-end smartphones, even though you can get some very cheap ones these days. I don't think the users who are buying them have unlimited data plans. In many ways, the best thing this cloud browsing thing might do for the users is find ways of radically compressing everything they send so that users can browse without running out of their allotment in a couple hours. Downscaling or eliminating images could save plenty, and elimination is the only one you can do from the phone itself.

The pixel approach is also tricky in many ways. For example, if there is an email address in a website and I activate it, the browser can open my mail client and enter the address because that's already present in text form. For one that's only operating on images, there is no access to the text, so it would have to do a round trip just to confirm that what I clicked on was clickable and you'd have to implement protocols for giving it the necessary information to act on the thing it clicked on.

[Kevin McMurtrie]

Can one select which cloud service it uses? I bet not.

We had perfectly good mail clients, browsers, and photo editors over 10 years ago. Don't tell me that basic features need premium hardware today. A cloud phone a tight leash held by the maker, their rabid marketing department, any maybe the maker's government too.