John's Phone is advertised as an incredibly simple cell phone. It doesn't text, e-mail, or browse the internet. It doesn't even store phone numbers (instead, the phone comes with a little compartment to store a small address book for you to write your phone numbers in). GOOD just ran a video of someone unboxing a John's Phone:


While I don't think this is going to take off like wildfire or anything, I think there is a growing market for single-purpose devices that do their job exceptionally well. Sometimes when Android is laggy, I wish I just had a phone that just worked as a phone. As I've said a few times before on Slog, I love my AlphaSmart Neo, which is a single-purpose word processor that is sturdy, simple, and runs forever on a few AA batteries. It's a way to write—virtually anywhere, anytime—without all the distractions provided by a laptop. There will be more devices like this, and some folks are going to get very rich by capitalizing on this market.