By: Spencer Burnstead
I have been in a decade-long battle with smartphones. I’ve always been suspicious of them and the so called “convenience” that they sell. If they were so convenient, why is it that we’ve become so much more reliant on them? Why has screentime gone collectively up and up and up? Shouldn’t devices of convenience actually save us time and allow us to experience the richness of life even more? Well, this has not been my experience. And I suspect most people will admit the same for themselves. It’s true that individual willpower plays a role in curbing screen time, but I think that lets the purveyors of our most used technology off the hook. Malicious design that ratchets up the burden of self-regulation is a genuine problem. For me, I have desperately wanted an alternative for about a decade and have found it mind-boggling that no such thing really exists. In this world of
seemingly infinite magical technology, how are there no alternatives that are more intentionally designed? In an odd bit of irony, we have smartphones that serve us endless options, but we don’t have other options for smartphones.
In order for us to have products that truly serve us, we need companies that actually have a strict set of values. Companies that have an ethos and actually adhere to it. I think, at long last, those companies are beginning to show up. The human spirit might finally be pushing back a bit... I’ll get to that part later.
I’m still not sure we appreciate the profound shift that has occurred these past 15 years or so from the advent of the smartphone. Almost every single one of us walks around with a supercomputer in our pockets. But has that supercomputer really been designed to serve us and enhance us? I’m not so sure. And what would it look like if The Phone was created with that imperative in mind rather than designed to diminish us? It’s a worthy question to ponder. I don’t think the smartphone in its current form is necessarily made to intentionally diminish us, but it’s hard to argue against that notion when looking at the reality of our current relationship with it. The app stores for both Google and Apple offer about 2 million apps for people to download. It’s a staggering number. Especially when you consider that the creator on the other end of each of those apps desperately wants you to use their app. And at this point, it seems like the only way to make a killer app is to hack engagement via behavioral addiction tactics. Our attention is truly under attack. If we view the battle for our attention in actual battle terms, we are a lone infantrymen exposed and surrounded by enemies everywhere we look.
Does this sound like human-centric product design? And why don’t we do more to protect our attention, the faculty that connects us to the world? Why don’t we demand more from our devices?
I think many of us are intuitively starting to understand the paradox of choice. There’s something not quite right about the idea that “more options = better”. In our age of abundance, we will simply drown in options if we don’t exercise some form of discipline. In our age of information, we will drown in infinite feeds if we don’t turn off the information spigot.
A life spent deciding if you aren’t careful. A life spent refreshing and scrolling.
This is where we get into product design. I believe that in many ways, discipline is freedom, and if there is no discipline in product design, that will spill over to the user experience. Our attention is on sale at all times. Is it really freedom to have every app humanly possible on offer to us? The answer is clear to me. So, why do we reward a product that relentlessly offers up our attention and personal data to external actors? It seems like the answer is because people believe they have no other choice. We’ve shrugged our collective shoulders and accepted our fate. Because of that, we are a captive audience, as these devices have wriggled their way into so many aspects of life. Whether it’s 2FA or QR codes, many people actually need the device to function in work and life. It’s not an option for them.
There must be another way...
There’s a meme going around right now where people will say, “you can just do things”. And I actually love it because it is this hyper simple promotion of self-agency. My hope is that it extends to the products we use every day in our life and that it works in the negative as well. You can just not use products that have no respect for you as a person and obliterate your attention span. Like, we can just use better products. We can just do things.
This leads me to the optimistic purpose of this post. The better product. The Phone. The SLEKE. Phone. A product that gives me hope. I found it about a month ago and was sold when watching Austin Boer, one of the co-founders, do an interview at CES 2025. He has already been using the phone for a while and talked about having a day where he had 8 minutes of screen time. Music to my ears. That’s what actual freedom sounds like. There have been other attempts to unseat the smartphone, but this one has me more excited than any of them. They are designing this phone based on a foundational set of values and an ethos of respecting the user and making a device for the user.
It is not a new revelation, but we all know that the most successful products on the app stores of Apple and Google are not made for us. In these apps (all of social media, most mobile games, etc.), we are the product. They are made to sell our attention and our eyeballs to corporate customers. They are sophisticated, addictive, and they are made to sway us and sell us stuff. They have no respect for our time or our humanity. SLEKE. shuns these apps from their phone. For good reason.
What makes SLEKE. so cool is that their product can accomplish all the annoying little necessities that have been inserted into the life of so many of us. There is now a viable alternative to the smartphone. Whether its 2FA, email, maps, or QR codes, the SLEKE. phone can seemingly handle all of this. What makes it special is their intentional design. On their site, they state that “the phone includes communication and utility-oriented features and excludes anything that is meant to pull us away from living our real lives.” Simple, yet profound. They have created their own app store, and this app store adheres to a strict approval process. No social media, no infinite feeds; only applications that are deemed necessary for daily life. Obviously, this will at times be a subjective endeavor, but I’m confident that they will abide by their ethos and their values in providing a product that puts the user first. A principle of good design is just as much about what to omit as what to include. That’s worth paying for.
I think there’s a real opportunity right now for companies to distinguish themselves as genuinely user-centric companies. And I get excited when I think about the opportunity for companies that actually care. Companies can find perpetual success without bending the knee to short-termism, growth for growths sake, and “shareholder interest”. A company that is user-centric can and will be successful in the future. Economic choice theory doesn’t mean we should be picking the product with the most optionality. We actually need to make more sophisticated decisions as users. We should pay for a product that aligns with our own values. A product that respects us.
The answer to our smartphone problem isn’t some sort of regulatory intervention. The answer is a vibe shift. The answer is “you can just do things”. You can use products that don’t have planned obsolescence as a business strategy. You can use a product that is intentionally designed to serve you. I hope The SLEKE. Phone is that product.
Go forth and “do cool stuff”.
*Spencer wrote this blog post for us. If you would like to read more of Spencer's blogs feel free to check out his Substack.