極簡手機 未來新潮流 The phone with no messaging no camera and no internet

Joe Hollier, a 25-year-old former skater turned technology entrepreneur, describes the moment of transcendental calm when he gave up his smartphone. Mr Hollier had started “going light”, leaving behind his high tech pocket companion and disconnecting from a world defined by ready access to the internet.

喬攠利耶(Joe Hollier)今年25歲，曾經是一名滑板運動員，現在則是一名科技企業家。他將放棄智能手機的那一刻稱爲超覺平靜時刻。奧利耶開始“變輕”，將自己的高科技隨身設備拋之腦後，與一個以隨時接入互聯網爲標誌的世界割斷聯繫。

It was not easy, he admits. “There is an initial anxiety,” he says. “It’s quite intense. You start tapping your pocket and fidgeting. But then there is this feeling of huge relief.”

他承認，這並不容易。奧利耶表示：“最初感到焦慮。這種感覺相當強烈。你開始拍打口袋，感到坐立不安。但隨後就是這種如釋重負的感覺了。”

New York-based Mr Hollier and his co-founder Kaiwei Tang used the experience as the basis for a subversive mobile phone being launched this summer: revolutionary not for all the advanced features but for the lack of any at all.

居住在紐約的奧利耶及其聯合創始人唐開偉（音譯）利用這種體驗來推介將於今夏推出的一款顛覆性手機：它的革命性不在於什麼高級功能，而是在於它什麼高級功能也沒有。

The Light Phone allows you to make or take calls, but nothing else. There is only enough storage in the phone for 10 numbers. No messaging, no camera, no internet.

你可以使用Light Phone接打電話，但除此之外什麼都不能做。這種電話裏只有存儲10個號碼的空間，不能發短信、沒有攝像頭，更不能上網。

The design is important: it is simplicity itself in a plastic shell the size of a credit card on which the numbers glow using a dot matrix screen. The recharging grind of most modern smartphones is avoided through a 20-day battery life.

設計非常重要：它的塑料殼是簡潔的體現，只有信用卡那麼大，點陣屏幕上面的數字發着微光。電池一次可以使用20天，不用像大多數現代智能手機那樣經常充電。

“We tested out the concept,” says Mr Hollier, who met Mr Tang at a Google-run tech incubator. “We found that the value was not in what it can do but in the lack of it. We were offering the maximum disconnection with the minimum of choice.”

奧利耶表示：“我們測試了這種概念，結果發現，價值不在於它能做什麼，而在於它不能做什麼。我們用最少的選擇來儘可能地割斷聯繫。”奧利耶在谷歌(Google)運營的一個科技孵化機構遇到了唐開偉。

Mr Tang had been working for a smartphone company but found that the annual cycle of minor product improvements had become “gratuitous and wasteful”, according to Mr Hollier.

據奧利耶表示，唐開偉之前爲一家智能手機公司工作，但他發現，年復一年的產品小改進“毫無意義而且浪費”。

In a market where even the cheapest smartphones have the processing power of a basic personal computer, the Light Phone is partly a protest against the digital age. But Mr Hollier hopes it can become more than that: a way for its users to cut out distractions.

在一個即便是最廉價的智能手機都擁有基本個人計算機處理能力的市場裏，Light Phone在一定程度上是對數字時代的抗議。但奧利耶希望它的意義不止於此：它還可以讓其用戶減少分心。

“Solitude and boredom are two of my favourite things,” he says, pointing to the opportunity for creativity. “Pulling out the phone while waiting for a train had become a nervous habit. The side effects were surprisingly severe.”

他說：“獨處和無聊是我鍾愛的兩件事。”他指出迸發創造力的機遇。“等火車的時候拿出手機已成爲一個緊張兮兮的習慣。其副作用嚴重得令人意外。”

The pair raised $415,127 from 3,187 backers on the Kickstarter platform to develop the phone. The device is still at a prototype stage but a company in China has begun manufacturing handsets to be shipped in June. They have taken pre-orders for $100 but say the exact retail price is not yet fixed. The first Light Phone is white; a black version is planned.

這兩人在Kickstarter平臺上從3187名支持者那裏籌集了41.5127萬美元以開發Light Phone。該手機目前仍處於樣機階段，一家中國公司已經開始生產，準備在今年6月發貨。他們以100美元的價格接受預購，但表示最終的零售價格還沒有確定下來。首款Light Phone是白色的，計劃今後推出黑色版本。

The device has found unexpected fans. Mr Hollier, who has had an array of jobs from running his own skateboarding company to film-making and graphic design, assumed that people a bit like him would want the phone: younger users who might not want to take their expensive technology to the beach or to go skating. But the device has found special resonance with business users over 45 years old, he says, who enjoyed the days before the constant distractions of the smartphone. “They remember the importance of sitting on a park bench and just thinking.”

Light Phone還發現了出乎意料的粉絲。奧利耶幹過許多工作，從經營自己的滑板運動公司，到電影製片和圖形設計。他原本認爲，和他差不多的人將會想要這種手機：那些較爲年輕的、可能不想拿着昂貴手機去海灘或者玩滑板的用戶。但他表示，45歲以上的商界人士也對該手機產生了特殊的共鳴，這些人懷念沒有智能手機持續干擾之前的平靜生活。“他們記得坐在公園椅子上只是靜靜思考的重要性。”

He says there has been a surprisingly warm reception in Asia, perhaps a backlash against the popularity of “phablet” phones designed primarily for access to the internet and watching video.

他說，這種手機在亞洲受到了意外熱捧，這或許是對主要用於上網和觀看視頻的“平板手機”盛行的反彈。

Mr Hollier admits that most people will also want a smartphone, which can be linked to the Light Phone to forward calls. As a companion device, he says, the Light Phone is useful as an emergency fallback or for carrying when doing physical sports or on an evening out.

奧利耶承認，大多數人還是想要智能手機，而Light Phone可以把智能手機接收的呼叫轉接過來。他說，作爲一個隨身設備，Light Phone可以用於緊急備用手機或者在運動或者晚上外出時攜帶。

But in trying to create a device purposely designed to be used as little as possible, Mr Hollier and his partner may have stumbled on something that could turn out to be used rather a lot.

但就試圖創造一個目的是儘可能不用的設備方面，奧利耶及其合夥人可能創造了一款可能被用得相當多的產品。