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Commadore C77

Q

Quagmire

Veteran Member
Joined
Sep 23, 2008
Messages
7,658
 
I think I'll remain content with plastering random pony stickers on my Tandy 1000 SUX. Let's me pretend it's from my own bleak Cyber/Steam/Lisa-Frankpunk post-apocalyptic future.
 
 
Plasma said:
Well at least it's better than their $400 censorship phone that looks like a cheap toy.
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FWIW, that’s the(*) other Commodore based in… Italy? Different company. I wonder if the OEM phone chassis is the same one Jitterbug uses for some of their locked-down grandma phones in the US, looks familiar, and not in a good way.

(Asterisk after “the” because I’m not sure they’re the only other entity that has some justification to claim they hold the Commodore trademark at least in a particular region. It was a very distressed asset they paid for.)
 
Eudimorphodon said:
FWIW, that’s the(*) other Commodore based in… Italy? Different company. I wonder if the OEM phone chassis is the same one Jitterbug uses for some of their locked-down grandma phones in the US, looks familiar, and not in a good way.

(Asterisk after “the” because I’m not sure they’re the only other entity that has some justification to claim they hold the Commodore trademark at least in a particular region. It was a very distressed asset they paid for.)
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Nope, it's Perifractic's pet project.

Commodore.inc is the Italian Commodore.
 
Plasma said:
Nope, it's Perifractic's pet project.
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Holy cow, I stand corrected.

You can understand my confusion here, given this is minimally different from the stupid garbage that he criticized the other compan(y/ies) of doing. I’m going to double down on that comparison to Jitterbug phones; their whole deal is maintaining toxic financial relationships with their elderly customers by encouraging technophobia. I guess leveraging cult-level nostalgia to reel in Gen-Xers and older Millennials is a unique vector for turning them into premature Boomers…
 
Eudimorphodon said:
Holy cow, I stand corrected.

You can understand my confusion here, given this is minimally different from the stupid garbage that he criticized the other compan(y/ies) of doing. I’m going to double down on that comparison to Jitterbug phones; their whole deal is maintaining toxic financial relationships with their elderly customers by encouraging technophobia. I guess leveraging cult-level nostalgia to reel in Gen-Xers and older Millennials is a unique vector for turning them into premature Boomers…
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I would say it's worse than both the Italian Commodore products and Jitterbug. You can install whatever apps you want on the Jitterbug smartphone. It just has a simplified UI. The Commodore Callback is intentionally crippled.

At the OS-level, Simpson says Commodore has “patent-pending” technology that blocks the ability for users to install or side-load internet browsers and social media apps. This is designed to be a distraction-free phone through and through. The company is even pitching it to schools that ban smartphones, so having a way to block the installation of these services is crucial. Commodore has permission from Meta to preinstall WhatsApp, though.

If the Commodore Store is missing an app a user wants, like a home security app or an authenticator, there's a whitelist process to get it. Simpson says people can submit requests to sideload an app, and these are vetted and approved through an AI system. If the AI has trouble deciding whether to allow it, a human steps in. Not every app will be granted access, as the company wants to maintain the Callback’s raison d'être.
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“We're not saying it has to replace the smartphone—I still use an iPhone when I have to,” Simpson says. “It can be the weekend phone, it can be the evening phone, the going-out-with-family phone. You make an intentional decision about that.”
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Apparently the target audience is people with no self control who want to pay $400+ for a second phone. I don't have social media on my phone because I didn't install it on my phone. Funny how that works.
 
Facebook used to pay $10 per unit to have their client preinstalled. That made it difficult to avoid. I don't understand the whole turning a smartphone into a dumbphone except with access to only a specific social media site that the developer likes and paying an extra $200 for someone to curate the lineup. Seems weird that a whole bunch of companies have decided to go for the same narrow market segment.

As far as distressed computers, well, I hope it gives the buyer joy even after the whole Cyperpunk 2077 frenzy dies out.
 
If the Commodore Store is missing an app a user wants, like a home security app or an authenticator, there's a whitelist process to get it. Simpson says people can submit requests to sideload an app, and these are vetted and approved through an AI system. If the AI has trouble deciding whether to allow it, a human steps in...
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Wow. So... it's not like I've ever really been tempted before, but it's official, this man and his slop-**s company is never getting a single cent from me.
 
krebizfan said:
Facebook used to pay $10 per unit to have their client preinstalled. That made it difficult to avoid.
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Even if you couldn't uninstall the app, nothing forced you to sign in.

I will say that as a whole, the new Commodore is doing better than I expected. The C64 Ultimate sold over 25K units and looks like a solid product (granted the actual hardware is not their design). I'm pretty sure it surpassed even the total Spectrum Next sales. They've got an improved TAC-2 joystick and 64C Ultimate coming out soon. So they are doing some things right.

The timing on the Commodore 77 seems odd. The game came out 5+ years ago. But if enough people are willing to pay $77 premium for a 13 MHz bump and dingy color scheme, then Commodore might as well sell it to them I guess.

Speaking of which, apparently they've sold over 10K Callback phones. I really can't understand who wants those things. Maybe it's just brand fanatics buying everything new Commodore, I don't know...
 
Plasma said:
Even if you couldn't uninstall the app, nothing forced you to sign in.
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However the application is installed in base and has enough permissions to throw more personal data at Facebook than when you hit a public FB link from an average browser. There are services running in the background too.
 
Zare said:
However the application is installed in base and has enough permissions to throw more personal data at Facebook than when you hit a public FB link from an average browser. There are services running in the background too.
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I agree it's not good to have the FB app forced on you. But it's still only a "distraction" if you choose to make it one. The Callback phone seems to be for people who can't control themselves and need their hand held.
 
Plasma said:
Even if you couldn't uninstall the app, nothing forced you to sign in.

I will say that as a whole, the new Commodore is doing better than I expected. The C64 Ultimate sold over 25K units and looks like a solid product (granted the actual hardware is not their design). I'm pretty sure it surpassed even the total Spectrum Next sales. They've got an improved TAC-2 joystick and 64C Ultimate coming out soon. So they are doing some things right.

The timing on the Commodore 77 seems odd. The game came out 5+ years ago. But if enough people are willing to pay $77 premium for a 13 MHz bump and dingy color scheme, then Commodore might as well sell it to them I guess.

Speaking of which, apparently they've sold over 10K Callback phones. I really can't understand who wants those things. Maybe it's just brand fanatics buying everything new Commodore, I don't know...
Click to expand...
In defense of CyberPunk77, I've had it from day one when it was released on GOG with more bugs than you could count. There were quick fixes and it remains one of the top games today and is a joy to play if you have the right hardware setup.
 
Plasma said:
Speaking of which, apparently they've sold over 10K Callback phones. I really can't understand who wants those things. Maybe it's just brand fanatics buying everything new Commodore, I don't know...
Click to expand...
I can understand the marketing on this. My wife loves her smartphone, but hates that she just doom scrolls some nights on it. So I think the market is geared towards that. However, choosing to go with a flip phone with the smaller screen is...a choice.

I could see wanting to get away from social media and having access to apps such as GPS or an MP3 player without needing separate devices.

I however, will continue to rock my flip dumb phone, carry my modded 7th gen iPod Classic with me, and breaking out my TomTom only when I need it.

I did buy a Starlight 64 Ultimate when it was announced as I do enjoy the modern conveniences of Gideon's Ultimate Elite board, am a sucker for clear tech with RGB lighting, and I did like Perifratic's vision of bringing together all of the community projects that kept the C64 alive, especially how easy he wanted to make licensing the name, so I bought it out of support for that.

That being said, I did also preorder a C77 because I think the unit looks cool, Cyberpunk 2077 is one of my top 3 PC games (Fallout: New Vegas and Stardew Valley rounding out that list), and when they mentioned that it is just not the unit but that they also redid the user guide, menus and the Kernal to fit the esthetic, I wanted one, and I am a grown adult that makes his own money and could afford it. I hope that the box is redesigned as well.
 
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