People have stopped caring about smartphones, wrote my colleague Anton D. Nagy a few days ago. A part reason for this behavior, he says (and with which I totally agree), is that smartphones have become boring, and there is nothing exciting about the upcoming smartphones. There is very little innovation in the smartphone space right now, and even though there are some companies taking some steps to change the perception, the notion is largely the same.
To compete with big players like Apple and Samsung, new companies often have to take a different approach so as to position themselves distinctly and bring the feeling of innovation. Nothing, the company founded by OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei, will soon launch an Android smartphone with over 900 LEDs on the back — it acts as a notification light, charging indicator, and whatnot. Similarly, OSOM, a startup established by former Essential employees, announced earlier this year that it would release a privacy-focused smartphone called OV1 in Q4 2022.
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At the time, OSOM revealed that its OV1 smartphone would offer a private experience. Though we never got to know what the company meant by private experience, it did reveal that the OV1 smartphone will be powered by a Snapdragon 8 chipset and come with a Privacy Cable that will come with a flip switch that will allow users to turn off ‘ data collection’. And, in a massive turn of events, it seems that the company has changed its plan.
The company is no longer marketing the OV1 as a privacy-focused smartphone. In fact, it seems that the company has scraped off the OV1 project altogether. Instead, OSOM has partnered with Solana, a public blockchain company, to launch a new smartphone called Solana Saga. Solana says that Saga is a Web3-focused smartphone. But what will Solana Saga exactly offer, and how is it different from other Android smartphones? Let’s break it down for you.
What is the Solana Saga smartphone and what will it offer?
The company is marketing Saga as a smartphone that will offer unique functionality and features tightly integrated with the Solana blockchain. It is a Blockchain smartphone that will make it easy and secure to transact in web3 and manage digital assets. It will be powered by Android, but instead of featuring Google Mobile Services (GMS) — the tool Google provides developers to support apps across multiple different versions of Android — the Solana Saga will feature Solana Mobile Stack (SMS).
The Solana Mobile Stack will allow users to store their cryptocurrency wallet keys on the device securely on a “Secure Element”. It will also help developers with the tools required to build secure wallets and Web3 apps for Solana Saga. And oh, for those looking for specifications, as you would expect from a $1000 smartphone, the Solana Saga would offer high-end specs. Solana says that the Saga will feature a 6.67-inch display, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 processor, 12GB of RAM, and 128GB of fast internal storage.
With the Saga smartphone, it seems that Solana wants to take the lead in the upcoming space and let developers build the whole world of web3 apps and cryptocurrency wallets. It will provide developers with …….
Source: https://pocketnow.com/solana-saga-blockchain-smartphone