The Commodore Callback 8020 flip phone looks like it’s from decades ago but its price was definitely a sign of today’s times. That’s changed, with Commodore’s announcement today that it will drop the price $100 for most models before pre-orders start next week.
The phone caused a stir when it was announced a week ago. First, there was the thrill of 80s computing legend Commodore making a phone. Then the phone being retro in both look and function caught attention, with a flip-phone form factor combined with a focus on privacy. But one of the most unique features of the Callback 8020 is that it runs Android apps on Linux-based Sailfish OS instead of Android. Among all of the praise though, was criticism that a $500 starting price for the basic models was too high.
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Remember when Steve Jobs announced the iPhone and that’s exactly what it was: beyond a handful of essential built-in tools, the only way to develop for it was web apps using the desktop-class browser engine?
Then they were like, haha, fuck you, you can only develop our apps for our phone using our PCs and you’ll pay for the privilege at every step? Yeah, fuck Steve Jobs. Fuck Apple.
Android also started out looking like the ideal “PC in your pocket” phone. It was open source, used the Linux kernel, had full slide out keyboards, etc. Both of them started out at nicer extremes and then slide into enshittification.