Light Phone Is Making Its Dumb Phone More Useful With Third-Party ‘Tools’
Light Phone Is Making Its Dumb Phone More Useful With Third-Party ‘Tools’
Light Phone 正在通过第三方“工具”让其极简手机变得更加实用
Time and time again, owners of dumb phones—or minimalist phones—turn to their niche communities asking for extra features for their pared-down devices: an authenticator app, Uber, or a way to view hiking trails. They turned to these phones to reduce the time spent staring at a smartphone screen and cut the anxiety driven by the modern attention economy from their lives, but turns out we still need apps.
“I cannot tell you how many people come back to us saying that, ‘Hey, if only you had this thing for QR code scanning; if only you had this localized app,’ that they’d be able to use the Light Phone more often,” Kaiwei Tang, CEO and cofounder of Light Phone, tells WIRED. “We’re a smaller team, we’re not Apple. We don’t have app stores with millions of apps.”
一次又一次，功能机（或称极简手机）的用户们向其小众社区寻求额外功能：身份验证器应用、Uber，或者查看徒步路线的方法。他们选择这些手机是为了减少盯着智能手机屏幕的时间，并摆脱现代注意力经济带来的焦虑，但事实证明，我们仍然需要应用程序。
“我无法统计有多少人回来对我们说：‘嘿，要是你们有这个二维码扫描功能就好了；要是你们有这个本地化应用就好了’，这样他们就能更频繁地使用 Light Phone 了，”Light Phone 的首席执行官兼联合创始人 Kaiwei Tang 对《连线》（WIRED）杂志表示，“我们是一个小团队，我们不是苹果公司。我们没有拥有数百万款应用的应用程序商店。”
But now the Brooklyn company is taking a step to close that gap. Light Phone is launching a developer program in May for LightOS, the operating system powering its new Light Phone III. Now anyone interested in the platform can more easily create “Tools” they want to use on the phone.
但现在，这家位于布鲁克林的公司正采取措施来缩小这一差距。Light Phone 将于五月为其新机型 Light Phone III 所搭载的操作系统 LightOS 推出开发者计划。现在，任何对该平台感兴趣的人都可以更轻松地创建他们想在手机上使用的“工具”。
Light Phone is one of the more prominent companies in the niche minimal phone market, which saw many new players in 2025, like the Minimal Phone or the Mudita Kompakt. Light has been making its utility-focused devices since 2014 for people who feel overly reliant on technology. The first Light Phone could only make and receive phone calls, and the second added perks like turn-by-turn directions. The latest iteration, the Light Phone III, greatly modernized the hardware while staying true to its bare-bones nature.
Light Phone 是小众极简手机市场中较为知名的公司之一，该市场在 2025 年涌现了许多新玩家，例如 Minimal Phone 或 Mudita Kompakt。自 2014 年以来，Light 一直在为那些感到过度依赖科技的人们制造以实用为导向的设备。第一代 Light Phone 只能拨打和接听电话，第二代增加了逐向导航等便利功能。最新的迭代产品 Light Phone III 在保持其极简本质的同时，极大地实现了硬件现代化。
But for the people who still want their basic dumb phone to do that one little extra thing, the ability to add Tools is good news.
但对于那些仍然希望自己的基础功能机能多做一点点额外事情的用户来说，能够添加“工具”无疑是个好消息。
The Light Phone community has already been modding and hacking the company’s hardware. While Light only offers a handful of first-party Tools, such as a Calculator, Alarm, Calendar, and Podcasts, community members have made their own, including a Spotify client, an app to store passes—like gym membership cards—and even an app to check bus and train schedules.
Light Phone 社区此前就已经在对该公司的硬件进行改装和破解。虽然 Light 官方仅提供少数几种第一方工具，如计算器、闹钟、日历和播客，但社区成员已经制作了自己的工具，包括 Spotify 客户端、用于存储通行证（如健身房会员卡）的应用，甚至还有查询公交和火车时刻表的应用。
Now, with an official software developer kit, it will be much easier for interested parties to make the apps they want. You don’t even need a Light Phone III to create a Tool for the platform, though these third-party Tools are only available on the latest handset, not older Light Phone models.
现在，有了官方的软件开发工具包（SDK），感兴趣的开发者制作他们想要的应用程序将变得容易得多。你甚至不需要拥有一台 Light Phone III 就能为该平台创建工具，尽管这些第三方工具仅适用于最新的手机，而不支持旧款 Light Phone 型号。
“This is an invitation for a lot of users we’ve heard from over the years who haven’t made the plunge because they want this kind of customization,” says Joe Hollier, cofounder of Light Phone. “In light of Android locking down its platform even further for developers, this is a great opportunity to kind of do the opposite.”
“这是向多年来我们听到的许多用户发出的邀请，他们因为想要这种定制化功能而一直没有入手，”Light Phone 的联合创始人 Joe Hollier 说，“鉴于安卓系统进一步收紧了对开发者的平台限制，这是一个反其道而行之的绝佳机会。”
Hollier is referring to a recent announcement from Google that it will require developers who publish their apps outside of the Play Store to submit verification, citing security reasons. It will require them to provide their real names while paying a fee to Google, changing the open nature of side loading apps to Android phones, which is when you install an app from an unofficial source.
Hollier 指的是谷歌最近的一项公告，即出于安全考虑，谷歌将要求在 Play Store 之外发布应用的开发者提交验证。这要求他们提供真实姓名并向谷歌支付费用，从而改变了安卓手机侧载应用（即从非官方来源安装应用）的开放性质。
Light Phone will do its own vetting for its official Tool Library—what Light calls its app store of sorts, launching this fall—though it’s completely optional whether a developer wants their Tool to be part of the official roster. Light Phone owners will be able to browse the Tool Library and install vetted apps, though if one of these tools isn’t allowed in (or doesn’t choose to be a part of the Library), users still have the option to enable a developer mode to side load whatever they want.
Light Phone 将对其官方“工具库”（Tool Library，Light 称其为一种应用商店，将于今年秋季推出）进行审核，尽管开发者是否希望将其工具纳入官方名单完全是自愿的。Light Phone 用户将能够浏览工具库并安装经过审核的应用；如果某个工具未获准进入（或开发者选择不加入工具库），用户仍然可以选择开启开发者模式来侧载他们想要的任何内容。
“If someone creates a Tool that doesn’t feel aligned, we’re not going to bless it in our library,” Hollier says. That could be because the Tool goes against the idea of a minimal phone, for security reasons, or even legal reasons. Hosting a Spotify client on its platform, for example, could land the company in legal hot water.
“如果有人创建了一个感觉不符合理念的工具，我们是不会将其纳入我们的库中的，”Hollier 说。这可能是因为该工具违背了极简手机的初衷，或者是出于安全原因，甚至法律原因。例如，在其平台上托管 Spotify 客户端可能会使公司陷入法律纠纷。
While some users have also clamored for a way to check emails, Light may still not approve it for the Tool Library, as that’s what smartphones are for. That said, Tang says there are different ways to build email tools that are less noisy and distracting, so he’s excited to see the creative possibilities.
虽然一些用户也强烈要求提供查看电子邮件的方法，但 Light 可能仍不会批准将其加入工具库，因为那是智能手机的功能。话虽如此，Tang 表示，有不同的方法可以构建干扰性较小、不那么令人分心的电子邮件工具，因此他很期待看到这些创造性的可能性。
Tang says the Tool Library differs considerably from the app stores run by Google and Apple. There are no ads, and the company doesn’t sell people’s data. The Tools are all free, though the company may add a way to tip creators. The team also wants to make developing for LightOS simple enough that you do not need to be a veteran app developer to build a Tool, and it could even be a great way for kids to get some experience building apps, parents permitting.
Tang 表示，工具库与谷歌和苹果运营的应用商店有很大不同。这里没有广告，公司也不会出售用户数据。这些工具都是免费的，尽管公司可能会增加一种打赏创作者的方式。该团队还希望让 LightOS 的开发变得足够简单，即使不是资深应用开发者也能构建工具；如果家长允许，这甚至可能是孩子们获得应用开发经验的好方法。
So what kinds of Tools could you expect to see? Hollier says he’s already seen the community build apps like guitar tuners, metronomes, trail apps for hikers, and even a weather app. You can imagine that with official support, it’ll be easier to get those on your own device through the Tool Library, if the company approves them. Other things people have been asking for include two-factor authentication apps and public transit apps. Light is also building new first-party Tools to test the developer kit, including a Signal Tool that would allow Light Phone III owners to use the encrypted messaging client.
那么，你可以期待看到什么样的工具呢？Hollier 说，他已经看到社区构建了诸如吉他调音器、节拍器、徒步旅行者的路线应用，甚至天气应用等。可以想象，有了官方支持，如果公司批准，通过工具库将这些应用安装到自己的设备上会更容易。人们要求的其他功能还包括双重身份验证应用和公共交通应用。Light 也在构建新的第一方工具来测试开发工具包，包括一个允许 Light Phone III 用户使用加密消息客户端 Signal 的工具。
As for the Light Phone III itself, Tang says tariffs last year slowed the phone’s launch, but the company is getting to a moment this summer where it will have inventory to ship immediately to anyone who purchases one. (Until now, it has been selling out immediately.)
至于 Light Phone III 本身，Tang 表示去年的关税影响了手机的发布进度，但公司在今年夏天将达到一个节点，届时将有库存可以立即发货给任何购买者。（在此之前，它一直处于售罄状态。）
“What we’re seeing on a user basis is that the retention is much higher than the Light Phone II, meaning that a user who tries to go light with the Light Phone III is having more success because of the bigger screen, camera, improved functionality, and some of the features we’ve rolled out,” Hollier says. “It’s really encouraging.”
“从用户层面来看，我们发现留存率比 Light Phone II 高得多，这意味着尝试使用 Light Phone III 追求极简生活的用户取得了更大的成功，这得益于更大的屏幕、摄像头、改进的功能以及我们推出的一些新特性，”Hollier 说，“这真的很令人鼓舞。”