Show HN: KytePhone turns any Android into a kids-friendly phone | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: KytePhone turns any Android into a kids-friendly phone

kytephone.com

166 pointsmartythemaniak69 comments

Can i get an old person version of this with big type and no distractions? My gran still has issues just making calls on a mobile phone and as much as i'd like her to be able to send and receive text messages, all attempts have failed.

I can see the reasoning for this but I cannot see the reasoning for giving older people (who have trouble with technology) smart phones.

The best option I could possibly think of for an old person that can't grasp the concept is something like Siri for sending/receiving text messages (though I haven't used it so I have no idea what the learning curve is). Otherwise just give them a phone that acts like a phone.

My grandmother (91) is still mentally sharp (though a little forgetful now, but still surprisingly unforgetful for her age) but has difficulty using the simplest of nokia phones - things like the fact that you have to press a button to dial, or to hang up, confuse her after a lifetime of non-mobile phones.

I've never seen her try a smartphone, but I imagine having a touchscreen with big buttons that say "dial now" and "end call" would be easier than dialing in a number and thinking "I know there was something else I had to do now..."

Why not detect when they've typed enough numbers and automatically connect?

libphonenumber validates numbers based on your locality: http://code.google.com/p/libphonenumber/

Never come across that before - I wonder how it does in odd situations - for example my Grandmother's home number happens to be 1 digit less than the majority of the UK (as is the case for many people in London, where she lives, and I think somewhere else too like Birmingham).

UK 020 numbers are still 11 digits. They're only a different length if you omit the dialling code, which you can't do on mobile phones anyway.

Hmm you're right, I mis-remembered and hers is correct. According to Wikipedia there are some non-11 digit numbers: "almost all geographic numbers and most non-geographic numbers have 9 or 10 national (significant) numbers after the "0" trunk code". An example being:

  (016977)  xxxx 	Brampton

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telephone_numbers_in_the_United...

Have to see how good that works in Germany.

Prefixes/area codes are different length:

+49 30 ... -> Berlin +49 221 .... -> Cologne +49 2389 ... -> Small town where I grew up

If you solve that, you'll notice that the number afterwards has the same problems on a bigger scale.

Some (especially small towns) have 3 or 4 digit local phone numbers. Big cities go up to 7 (Or more? No idea, but I know numbers from 3 to 7 digits in length). And length varies within the same area code. So (area) 1234 might be valid, as is (area) 12356.

I fail to see how that could work reliably. Thanks for the link - now I'm trying to figure out what they know that I don't. :)

Edit: Skimmed the project. They have a binary (protobuf?) file for phone number metadata which seems to be a huuuge number of regular expressions.

For the reasons listed above I claim that that way you cannot find out if a number is 'done' typing using this library. Looking plausible? Yes. But you cannot replace the dial button in DE for all I can tell.

It's obviously possible to encode all phone numberd, since, you know, your landline doesn't have a dial button, but calls connect.

Timezone data is a (smaller) mess, but that has been encoded in a library.

I very well might be mistaken. But I don't buy it.

My landline is constantly connected to the operator. My totally clueless understanding of this voodoo box called telephone is that each digit is passed on to 'the system', initiating a call when I hit a valid number (or resulting in an error tone).

I do not believe that it is possible (outside of the telephone network) to encode this information. You could create a huuuuge snapshot (a digital phone book..?) and by the time that data is on any device you care about it's already out of date.

Sorry, I don't believe you and don't think that it is obvious.

Edit: Stole the idea of checking the wikipedia link for DE from the UK sibling thread. See:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/+49

Note things like

" (0xxxx) xxxxxxx

In area codes that use four digits, newly assigned numbers (for all locations from May 2010, some cities earlier: e,g, Heidelberg already in May 2003) have a length of seven digits, also yielding a total length of eleven digits. Grandfathered numbers may be as short as three digits (seven total) in very rural areas."

Reread the last sentence. Not feasible. End of story. You know if a number is valid if you try to call it.

You could say 'aaah, but new numbers follow scheme X so lets just have a database (phonebook) of all current numbers first and fallback to the rule later'. No idea if that would work and how it reacts to someone canceling his contract for one of these gazillion 3 or 4 digit numbers.

I came across several articles that state that the 60 to 75 age group now desire several of the same products as younger consumers:

http://www.leggettdisplaygroup.com/barcode/2011/03/01/is-the...

"The iPad is the top product for all people 50-plus," she said. "The user interface is so easy. And for anyone with vision issues, the text size can be changed quite easily."

"Older consumers are finding the iPad much easier to use than a personal computer. The iPad's touch-screen display and big icons beat using a computer mouse and having to find and click or double-click PC programs. Plus, a tablet can sit on your lap."

http://20plus30.com/presentations/Connecting_with_older_cons...

"Marketers need to be aware that older consumers, especially those in the highest socio-economic groups, will access more of their content (and advertising) using smart devices. The apps-powered smart device is as much a watershed in the way marketers engage with consumers as was the birth of the web. Unlike the web, this new technology will be as much used by the old as the young."

Is there any way for a developer to make a new UI for it? That seems like it would be the perfect answer. Make a UI for kids, a UI for the elderly, a UI for people with visual disabilities (high contrast and audio announcements when you drag over each button). Can I use siri with it? i.e. can you launch siri from inside kyte and then have the call use the kyte UI?

No Siri; this is for Android phones.

Whoops thanks!

I believe the Big Launcher might be of interest to you. I installed it on my old phone, which I gave to my dad. Now he can gamble from the bathroom; he's very happy indeed.

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=name.kunes.and...

Who makes this? Launchers have access to way too much for me to feel good about trying one out on a lark without knowing a little about who made it.

It's made by Cofis http://www.cofis.cz/cz/

That's an interesting idea and one of our friends actually used it to give it to her grandpa, despite the kids interface. We'll definitely have to look into this.

I (accessibility consultant) was going to suggest the same thing, along with some tweaks to the color scheme for people with vision impairments. Email me if you want some guidance.

You'll probably be interested in Threedom Phone, which is about to launch their beta. It's an App / extra layer for Android. Unfortunately Ribot, the team behind it, seem to have removed the information about it from their website, but from what I've seen of very early versions, it'll be a good match for what you want. There's a few details about some of the places they've demoed it for older people on their Twitter stream:

http://threedomphone.com/

https://twitter.com/#!/ThreedomPhone

I know there aren't many details on there, but Ribot are a very interesting company who have made a lot of very good apps for a variety of mobile platforms, and it's well worth keeping an eye on this project.

There's still a huge untapped market for apps and hardware for the elderly.

Last year I did a marketing project, and got some fairly nice insights. For example, most people between 60 and 75 in developed countries don't consider themselves "old" and are mostly self-reliant

“Seniors do not think about their age in general. Unless extremely tired or depressed, older people do not think of themselves as old. Advertising that talks to the silver citizen’s active lifestyle rather than to or about his age are preferred” (www.brandchannel.com).

People in that age range now desire several of the same products as younger people, like iPads or iPhones and Kindles.

Our specific product failed in the customer validation stage, but there's a huge untapped market out there. Heck, I've almost talked myself into trying again :)

This is a really good execution.

I had a similar idea except it was for old smartphones without data service. There are millions of them floating around out there that would make perfect household mini-tablets for kids.

As the father of two kids who beg to play on my phone all day I think this is a great idea! I have an old Android phone which I would love to let them play games and take pictures on. Maybe there are even some specific kid friendly wifi apps they could use. (Send pictures to grandparents?)

The nice thing about Kyte is that it doesn't mess with any of the phone's data. This means you can install it on your own phone, log in and give your phone to your kids. When you need it back, you just log out and have your phone back.

I don't think Kyte solves quite the same problem for kids from 1-6 years old or so. I never let my 4 year old out of my sight with my current phone. So I don't really need a 'kids mode' for it. I'm more worried about what they'll do physically to it :) I'm more interested in turning an old deactivated phone into a toy that I don't have to care about if it gets flushed down the toilet.

In it's current state, I think Kyte is great for kids ages 6-10, ie, those who are ready for their first phone, but who would have to get a dumbphone right now because their parents don't feel comfortable giving a full smartphone.

Over time, I hope we'll get Kyte to a stage where it's useful for kids both older and younger than this age range.

I use an android phone without service. It doesn't require anything different. You can delete the dialer shortcut if it bothers you.

This looks like an excellent implementation of a great idea. It's actually somewhat similar to what we do at Famigo (see http://www.famigo.com/sandbox/), though we're much more about content management and recommendations than GPS and telephony features.

With respect to the location feature, AT&T actually offers a somewhat similar service called AT&T Family Map for a monthly fee of $10-15. I believe that's a white-labeled version of an existing app (it might be Life360, not sure) with some integration into their back office APIs. I really encourage the Kyte folks to do some investigation here; other carriers might be looking to solve similar problems with respect to family location. That is, after all, the carriers' most lucrative market segment.

I love the idea and would be interested in encouraging people I know to try this out, but I need to know who the customer is for this product... the privacy of children is something that seems extra important to protect rather than sell to advertisers or whoever is paying the bills for this product.

Yeah, I wish they mentioned their business model somewhere. Without an explicit mention we need to worry that they are selling kids info, possibly including GPS location since that is obviously sent to their website.

This is definitely something we need to address on the site, and we'll update it in the next few days.

We think showing ads to kids or selling their personal information is completely unacceptable and will never do that. The way we plan to make money is though the classic fremium model - the basic features (including the ones we have right now) will be free, but we'll ask parents to pay for premium features.

Right now, carriers charge $10/month for GPS and $5 for call limits. We want to give these away for free and provide parents with real value they feel good about paying.

So, I have a stable of old android phones I will try this on. Quick q -- my gnexus claims it is not compatible with kytephone. Why is that?

Incompatible with ICS, maybe?

I suspect so because you cannot get rid of the onscreen system bar along the bottom.

I wish Google would create a security permission for apps to be able to turn this bar off.

Allowing it would create security issues; nothing to stop the app from showing a fake system bar that appears to let you out of the app, but actually keeps you in and snoops information. And having no hardkeys means there's no 'safety hatch' that you know will get you out of the app (like Flash's "esc to close" warning)

But don't the controls that overwrite handling of the hardware back/back buttons apply equally to the software buttons? And if there's no other way back out of it, the multi-tasking app should be redundant by default.

Right now, we've only tested the app on 2.2 and 2.3, which we thought was a good compromise between getting it out there and covering a decently large chunk of the market.

We're definitely going to get it working with Honeycomb and ICS though!

I love this. But the landing page looks like some interstitial ad which my first reaction is to look for a "skip this ad" link on top.

My wife and I were actually just talking about something like this a couple days ago. Great idea, and looks like a great implementation! Great to have a way to limit what the kids can do and with whom, so the phone remains a tool and doesn't become a distraction and/or addiction for the kids. Maybe I should put this on my own phone! :)

I feel bad for any kid who's forced to use this instead of a real phone.

It could be worse.

(http://www.matobmobile.co.uk/index.php?id=doro_handleplus_ph...)

Kyte is currently aimed at young kids, around the ages of 7-10. At that age, no parent feels comfortable giving a full smartphone, so kids either end up with no phone or at best a dumbphone, if they really need to stay connected.

Our intent is not to censor or limit kids, but the exact opposite - we want to make a product that gives parents peace of mind so they'll be able to get their kids the smartphone they want.

I suggest you not try to speak for every parent. Also, it'd be best if you didn't use euphemisms for censorship.

I'll bite - no _good_ parent.

Actually, as a parent, with a small child, who has experimented with giving him my phone to play with, I feel sorry for any young kid who doesn't use it.

The default android environment, provides all sorts of complexities that land up just frustrating kids. For example some games display adds to install other apps. Because young children's motor skills are not as good as adults, they occasionally land up clicking them, which takes them to the app store. They then click around randomly until they eventually get frustrated and give the phone back to me to 'fix'.

Under Kyte, it seems they wont have access to the app store, so this particular annoyance will be stopped.

Fundamentally though, Android just isn't designed for small children, with limited reading skills and poorer motor skills and it shows up in a whole number of places.

Go ahead, touch the cornballer, you know best!

I was actually looking for something like this recently - this look great! I'll definitely try it out with my son when he gets a little older.

One feature I would love to see is the ability to set time limits on gaming - like you can have 1 hour of playing games per day, or 5 hours per week. I've tried looking around for apps which would do that and there is nothing good.

While I think that the general idea is great, I'm a bit torn about the monitoring. Not so much about the location, more about what they did with the phone. To stay within the realm of flying devices, it does sound a bit helicopter-y to me. Is it really healthy for either party to go through usage logs to find out how long they played Angry Birds etc.?

It's all about how old the kids are. To me, this is clearly not appropriate for teenagers, but entirely okay for younger kids. I don't think it's targeted at teenagers either -- restricting the numbers called is something they wouldn't go for.

I got that, my concern isn't about the privacy, but about micro-managing your kid's life. The fact that this is in the intro video makes it appear to me as an essential feature. No "oh, by the way, if you really want to you can check what your kid did today", but having it as a prominent feature of your web management platform.

My worries isn't "should parents be allowed to know that", but "should parents care to check that all the time".

Just wondering why it's seemingly limited to US only at the moment? (Or at least, not the UK).

That was my bad in the developer console, it should be available world-wide now.

> Your name so we know what to call you.

The name of the person who's setting this up? Or the kid's name?

That's the parents name. By default, it'll create and add that contact when the phone is first activated.

Second startup this week I've seen involving kites. Same typeface too ;)

Looks great! Plans for monetizing it?

whats to prevent the kid from turning the phone off and on again to exit the program and get normal access?

Good question. Maybe in the long run they'll be able to bundle this with kid-targeted hardware that's locked down.

I don't know how they would disable that and the home button on a non-rooted phone.

The home button sends an intent that this application would just act as the default receiver for (just like the Amazon Fire tablet does for its custom homescreen), though if they are still giving access to the Market, a kid could install another launcher that responds to that intent and switch out of this app.

Yes, but the intent of Kyte Phone is to make the phone simple.

If the kid can replace the default launcher, she does not need an special UI in the first place.

(If all you want to do is micromanage your kid's life through GPS monitoring, is it possible to install a hidden GPS tracker?)

If the permission system for apps is a whitelist of installed apps the parent has approved, then installing an app from the market wouldn't necessarily allow the newly installed app to run. The new app would just show up on the device-administration page for the parent to see and decide on.

Now, if the kid uses the market to uninstall the Kyte launcher itself... then I'm guessing the stock launcher or a pop-up asking what launcher to use would come up.

Kids don't have access to the Market and parents have to explicitly white-list an application, so there's not much danger there.

I assume this installs itself as a replacement launcher. In which case it'd be the first thing that come up every time the phone boots. I'm pretty sure the "login" step they show is just on initial install.

As others have mentioned, Kyte replaces the default home screen, so whether kids turn off the phone, pull the battery or the app crashes, it'll just restart. The only way to exit is for the parent to put in their password.

Would this work for Android tablet as well?

It's a standard replacement launcher with a GPS reporter and some remote tools built in. It's a very simple thing to do, but this is very well done at the same time. In short, yes, all standard Android fare, should work fine on a tablet.

What is the age-recommendation?

It only works on Android 2.2 and 2.3 right now, but we will get it working with tablets and 4.0 phones soon.

We've heard from parents that they hate it when their kids mess around with their tablets, so I think it'll work well on tablets.

I only hate all the annoying popups that mess up the experience for my kid (18 months). I just want him to be able to stick to one app, maybe even just scroll and zoom around (I have no dedicated children's app, used Google Maps for example - or even the Touch Screen test app which displays colorful circles where you touch the screen).

There are too many elements on the tablet that trigger some overlay over the current app and that are not easy to get rid off (for example the close button doesn't work while you touch some part of the app behind it).

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