The Birth of John’s Phone.

In 2005 John Doe Amsterdam launched the brand From The Supermarket. From The Supermarket is a no-nonsense brand, it doesn’t pretend to be anything more: it’s a good and honest product packed in a stylish and contemporary design. The attractiveness of the products is based on their quality and fresh appearance.
The first of a range of products was Water From The Supermarket; it enjoyed national and international popularity.

Soon we extending with new products like T-shirt From The Supermarket, Juice From The Supermarket all had the same promise: back to the basics.

The From The Supermarket products got the ball rolling. We thought, you know what, let’s challenge ourselves. Let’s make the most basic phone ever.

We have many years of experience working for telecom companies. Our strengths, our skills, our experience and our unique perspective will see us through this challenge.

We’ve always wondered why most affordable phone looks so dull and boring.
All cell phones are great high-tech product we like to use every day. Why not spend more time in designing. It’s the things we don’t see that are the most essential to creating a great design. A great design is a present.Why not make yourself happy with a present everyday in your pocket.

When we started designing our phone the smart phone market grew impressive. Mobile phones are more than just convenient communication tools: They allow you to sync with the calendar on your PC, dial a number by the sound of your voice, look up breaking news on the Internet, take photos, play games, send text messages, listen to music, and more.

The first design did not have a display for energy reasons.

A sample of our design from 2005. Phone without display but with led lights.

But not everybody wants to be in contact all the time. And sifting through the sea of features and cool extra aspects can be difficult to just do what you want do with a phone to make a call. For those needing a break break from today’s technology , John’s Phone is  ideal. True, you won’t get your email or text messages, you won’t be able to find out where you are, there is no gps, or play the latest games… but you know what? It feels good to go without sometimes.

Win a Golden John’s Phone.

The Golden John’s Phone is special designed by John Doe Amsterdam for all your golden moments. The Golden John’s Phone is good for unexpected celebration moments to wish good fortune, wisdom, and a successful future. To have a Golden John’s Phone is the best guarantee for a bright future.

You can be the lucky one and become one of the first callers with the limited edition Golden John’s Phone. Just take part in this contest:

Win a Golden John’s Phone.
How to win the golden John’s:

1. Follow @johndoeams and send this tweet from your Twitter account:

I WANNA HAVE A GOLDEN JOHN’S PHONE.
See it here: www.johnsphones.wordpress.com
#goldenphone #johndoeams

2. Retweet this message from @johndoeams.

3. Do both; tweet and retweet. (option 1 and 2) but you have to follow @johndoeams in order to win.

But remember there are only 10 winners and if you are not one of them don’t be sad you can still have a Golden John’s Phone later. Buy one and it’s yours! Good to remember it is not important how you become a winner, but how you get a Golden John’s Phone.

Or (NEW):

4. Tweet an original message about John’s Phone and hashtag it with: #goldenphone #johndoeamsterdam

Other requirements for this contest.

You must send the tweet from an account that is not protected. If we can’t see the tweet because it is deleted or protected, you can’t win.

The winners will be announced weekly on Twitter by @johndoeams. So every week 1 or 2 winners.

The exact date of the contest will be announced on Twitter by @johndoeams.

So start following John doe Amsterdam to win the Golden John’s Phone.

Maybe you will get lucky.

UPDATE [27th Oct]:
Friday 29, we announce the first winner of one of the 10 golden John’s Phones on Twitter.
Stay Tuned.

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UPDATE [30th Oct]:
First winner of the first Golden John’s phone is announced on Twitter. 9 more phones to go. NOTE! Twitter message will change next week!

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UPDATE [Nov. 4]:
Two more winnersof the Golden John’s phone announced on Twitter. 7 more phones to go.
NOTE! NEW EXTRA RULE ADDED!

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UPDATE [Nov. 15]:
3 more golden phones to win! Be original…

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COMPETITION IS CLOSED. WE’VE GOT 10 WINNERS OF A GOLDEN JOHN’S PHONE. THANK YOU ALL AND SAY TUNED FOR THE NEXT COMPETITION.

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John's golden phone is about the color gold and not the metal. John's Phone is designed by John Doe Amsterdam and assembled in China. Copyright John’s Phone. A trade name of Phone from the Supermarket BV.

John’s gift for non John’s users.

John’s wants to make the Non John’s Users happy as well.

So for all the people who rather use an I phone  instead of  a John’s phone we have a special gift:

John’s phone-iphone-wallpaper to make your iPhone feel a little bit like John’s.

Stay tuned and see when other goodies are uploaded on this website. Thanks to MiXthepiX for the wallpapers.

John’s Phone is not only very basic…

It is also very soft.

What is happening in Mexico with the few people that have a John’s phone? Follow us on Twitter

John’s Journey to the Netherlands.

John’s journey takes a bit longer than expected. It’s a hard journey. We received a few photos from John’s journey and we think it will arrive shortly.

The long- awaited dumb Phone arrived in the USA.

First ‘What’s in the box’ pictures.

Hot News · Watch NOS Headlines · Expert’s opinion on John’s Phone.

(Sorry, only in Dutch…)

More than 200 display designs in the most simple phone.

True simplicity has to be more than skin deep, more than a façade.
Does our mission statement fit the every component of the phone?
Our mission statement is just a simple and functional phone which does what it promises: calling wherever you are. Every component/ aspect of the phone is simple.

Design should not only look great but it should also fit its purpose. That is why we designed John’s Phone very user friendly what means very practical and easy.
Although you can not text with John’s you can see the incoming/outgoing numbers.

John’s Phone has a special designed screen on top of the phone.
For this screen we designed over 200 graphics. Graphics carefully designed for a particular screen size. In the screen you meet Fony. Fony is John’s character, who shows up in your screen to say welcome, hello, bye and much more.
Fony represents all kind of different aspects of John’s; Fony makes John’s a friendly phone.
For instance while the phone is charging you see Fony getting electrocuted. Or while the phone is stand-by you see Fony sleeping in his bed.

Not in every screen you see Fony, we designed many screens without Fony
Like the screen for to pre-program your John’s phone with phone numbers.
Your favorite numbers can be pre-programmed and saved under each numeric button. A little animation with stars shows you that you saved a number under the chosen key-button.

My favorite feature is John’s Energy.

The battery is a unique feature on John’s phone. We wanted the battery life as long as possible to fits is promise of most simple phone.
In order to have a great energy capacity it was necessary to make the display as small as possible. But on the other hand the display should be clear and useful. All the graphics should be readable.
As battery icon we chose to use John’s logo. The logo gets smaller and bigger depending how much energy is left in the phone.

Designing the display screen was a great deal of work as it only uses 128 x 32 pixels. We wanted the display to be white with black graphics so it has a clean and graphic feel.

Hidden secrets
Some graphics are hidden and can only be found by a few lucky people.

Bright.nl has the most respected ‘hands on’ review of John’s Phone.

Links:

Dutch link.

English Translated.