Last month, Vodacom South Africa introduced a new type of feature phone that harnesses the power of the cloud to provide smartphone-like functionality, including video streaming. This innovative device is priced at just ~14 USD, making it an affordable option for many users.
The technology that enables this functionality is called Cloud Phone, described on its website as a groundbreaking use of cloud computing to elevate traditional feature phones into smart devices. Essentially, the phone operates as a low-spec 4G device, relying on the cloud to run applications that its internal hardware wouldn't be capable of handling.
The company behind this advancement is CloudMosa, based in Cupertino, California, which is situated in close proximity to Apple's Campus. Despite the geographical proximity, the two companies have vastly different approaches to smartphones.
Shioupyn Shen, the Founder and CEO of CloudMosa:
Cloud Phone uses cloud technologies to offload heavy lifting of processing and storage from the device itself. This architecture approach allows us to provide a rich, responsive experience and bring users the apps they want. We created Cloud Phone to address digital inclusion and created new business opportunities across the mobile ecosystem in the process.
Digital inclusion requires A), connectivity and B), affordable devices with compelling applications. Connectivity has improved, but the real challenge lies in the access to affordable devices for those with limited income. We call this the B) gap, which we aim to tackle for the billions of people worldwide that still lack crucial access to the internet and app ecosystem.
This solution is set to usher in a new era of affordable connectivity and huge opportunities for growth and innovation for telecom carriers, phone manufacturers and content providers in the transition from 2G to 4G, 5G and beyond.
Last year, Cloud Phone was introduced in India through a pilot with handset manufacturer HMD. Currently, feature phones with Cloud Phone capabilities are also accessible in Vietnam, Bangladesh, the Philippines, and Pakistan.
In terms of what a feature phone loaded with Cloud Phone can do, and its limitations compared to one of the latest iPhones designed by Apple up the road from CloudMosa, Shen mentions:
First of all, Cloud Phone is a sexy name. A more technical name would a virtual phone. So we have a virtual phone running on our cloud server, your physical phone is simply used to tap into the virtual phone. Whatever happens to the virtual phone, you can see it on your physical phone, and you can also interact with the virtual phone. So what we do is effectively give you a much more powerful feature phone where the CPU is fast, plenty of memory, the network is fast, and there is no storage constraint.
So if you really look at a virtual phone versus a physical phone, we basically say that they have the same face. When you look at that, it's identical – the screen we cannot change, but we change the brain. The brain is totally different. The virtual phone’s brain could be 100 times more powerful than a feature phone’s brain. We basically say that we can be a brain surgeon to give the feature phone a brand new brain, but we are not plastic surgeons that can give them a better face.
The current focus of the business goals appears to revolve around enhancing the user experience for individuals in underprivileged areas who are currently utilizing non-touch screen 4G feature phones. However, when questioned about the potential for future technological advancements eliminating the need for high-end smartphones with powerful internal components, Shen expressed the following viewpoint:
We are working with manufacturers that provide a touchscreen feature phone. It’s a pretty big touchscreen, and when you use it, if we don't tell you, you do not even know that this is not a smartphone. What we like to call it a smart feature phone, but it's different from KaiOS smart feature phone. KaiOS smart feature phone is feature phone functionality at a smartphone price, but for our smart feature phone smartphone functionality at feature phone price.
It is under $20… you can have a phone similar to your smartphone, probably not the biggest smartphone, but it is like the iPhone 8 kind of style… and you cannot tell the difference. Everything just works. And so this would be a truly killer device. Our feature phones are making the brain very smart, but we couldn't change the face, so the UI and interactivity are still limited by the feature phone. But the moment we have a new face – a pretty face with a super smart brain, that would totally change how people look at the smartphone.
That touchscreen based digital phone costs $20 – it's about the price of iPhone charger. Think about this, which one gives you more technology for your $20? And when you compare the price point, you would truly appreciate that this can change the world, and we will never need to show off a better phone anymore. We will let everyone, rich or poor, have similar accessibility. So sometimes I say that a fork is a fork. Rich people and poor people, they may use a fork costing 100 times difference, but the fork is a fork. That's no real difference.
The launch timeline for the Cloud Phone enabled touchscreen device is still uncertain. The execution of such a product is crucial, and many people enjoy having the latest technology in their pocket.
In theory, if a product like this were to gain traction, it could potentially disrupt the smartphone market in certain regions by blurring the lines between high-end and low-end handsets. Shen concluded by emphasizing this point.
Yes, I do believe so, we do have that potential. But at this moment in time, we are focusing on so called digital inclusion. We want to address what happens to those 1.5 billion people who are currently using feature phones. We basically say that you do not need to spend a penny more – exactly the same phone, with our software, you can access rich internet, and if you are willing to spend a little bit more with the touchscreen based official phone, you will not be treated as second class citizen, you are as first class as everybody else.
Source: telecoms