Internet-safe iPhone for children goes on sale for £99 a month
A neutered iPhone, stripped of web browsers and social media apps, is going on sale to parents worried about their children’s phone use, but the “peace and freedom” its creators promise will come at a steep price,The pared-back version of the top-selling handset, which will not allow internet searches, gaming or downloads of Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat and other social media, is being offered in the UK for £99 a month by a US company that wants children to “reconnect with real life, not just reduce screen time”,At more than double the price of a typical two-year iPhone contract, Sage Mobile, an iPhone 16 handset loaded with custom software, will be a pricey way to avoid online harms,But it reflects growing parental dilemmas over the best way to start their children’s digital lives,Research has shown children with problematic smartphone use are twice as likely to experience anxiety and almost three times as likely to experience depression compared with those whose use did not resemble addiction.
The launch of the device has been timed to coincide with the enforcement of strict new UK rules requiring robust age verification to access online pornography, starting on Friday next week.Chris Kaspar, founder of Techless, the US company launching the phone, said the default settings on most smartphones, which allow widespread access to apps and the internet, were “dark”.“Right now they are selling cars without seatbelts,” he said.“We want the defaults to be safe and healthy.”The devices will include an app store that is curated by Sage Mobile and will only allow users access to apps for tasks like banking, public transport, schooling, calendars and weather.
Experience with a similar device sold in the US showed children used it for between 15 minutes and an hour a day, instead of average screen time in the UK of almost three hours a day among eight to 14-year-olds,Kaspar said children lose interest in it because “it’s not as magical, it’s not as fun”, resulting in many reclaimed “life hours”,But due to the high price it looks set to be a product sold in the thousands rather than millions,The cost results from a contract that can be cancelled at any time and the removal of the full app store and browsers, which create lucrative revenue streams,“Until now, this is still a niche market and people, especially parents, are not ready to pay a significant premium for a dumb phone,” said Thomas Husson, principal analyst at Forrester, a market research company.
The product hopes to find demand among parents pushing back against pervasive smartphone use among children.Primary schools in Hampshire became the latest to ban devices this week.Similar devices sold under the Pinwheel and Balance brands are also available.Daisy Greenwell, co-founder of the Smartphone Free Childhood campaign, said it was very hard to find an effective way of stripping a phone back to make it fully safe for teens who were ingenious at finding new ways of getting around blocks.“There is real demand for something like this from parents, especially of teens who don’t want to be lumbered with a phone that sticks out like a Nokia,” she said.
“But the price will be prohibitive for most people.It’s children from low-income families who are most at risk from harm online and £99 a month is out of their range.That’s not this company’s fault, but is a function of today’s digital ecosystem.“The government must make stronger policies to protect all children and not just those whose parents have enough money to do it themselves.”
Stephen Colbert on Pentagon deal with Musk’s Grok AI: ‘Such a bad idea’
Late-night hosts mocked the Department of Defense’s contract with Elon Musk’s Grok AI, Donald Trump’s White House decor and Maga infighting over the Epstein files.“Trump got elected last year by making two promises: racism and bringing down inflation using racism,” said Stephen Colbert on Tuesday’s Late Show. “So far, not so great”, as, thanks in part to Trump’s tariffs, inflation increased in June to 2.7%. And it could get worse, as Trump announced he would impose a 30% tariff on European goods starting in August
Post your questions for Craig David
It is, incredibly, 25 years since Craig David broke out with his debut album Born to Do It, a classic of British garage and R&B. The Southampton-born musician has since proven to be one of the former genre’s greatest ambassadors: he has said his recent single, Wake Up, is about “respecting my garage roots” and the importance of preserving genres and cultures “for generations to come”.That mission feels typical of David, a tireless and earnest pop presence due to release his ninth album, Commitment, next month. You can see the esteem he commands from the collaborators on it, among them Toddla T, Wretch 32, Jojo and Tiwa Savage. “Making music still turns me into that giggly, excited little kid who wants to feel the magic of it all,” he has said
The left must learn to take (and make) a joke | Letters
George Monbiot manages to achieve something quite remarkable: an essay on the corrosive potential of humour that ignores the decades-long tradition of the left wielding satire like a broadsword (How does the right tear down progressive societies? It starts with a joke, 10 July).Did we all dream Spitting Image, Saturday Night Live, Have I Got News for You, Ben Elton, or Jo Brand’s “battery acid” quip about Nigel Farage? The left practically invented modern political satire as we know it – and rightly so. Holding power to account through ridicule is not only legitimate but essential. But suddenly, when humour points the other way, it becomes seditious? Dangerous? Please.Humour is neither inherently leftwing nor rightwing – it is anti-hypocrisy, anti-power and often subversive
Stephen Colbert on Paramount’s $16m settlement with Trump: ‘Big fat bribe’
Late-night hosts rebuke Paramount’s settlement with Donald Trump and mock the Maga movement infighting over the Jeffrey Epstein files.Stephen Colbert returned to The Late Show on Monday after two weeks in Turkey – “I heard so many great things from Mayor Adams about it,” he quipped – to blast his network’s parent company, Paramount, for settling with Donald Trump for $16m. “As someone who has always been a proud employee of this network, I am offended,” he said. “And I don’t know if anything will ever repair my trust in this company. But just taking a stab at it, I’d say $16m would help
London arts centre to amplify global majority voices and ‘urgent questions’
A new London art institution aimed at promoting global majority voices wants to be a space for “difficult, urgent questions” alongside civil debate, according to its founder, who claims freedom of expression is under threat.Ibraaz will open this coming October in Fitzrovia, central London, and Lina Lazaar wants the 10,000-square-foot Grade II-listed building to become a bastion for respectful debate without the “aggression” seen in a lot of political discourse.It is funded by the Kamel Lazaar Foundation, the philanthropic organisation named after Lina’s father, the Tunisian businessman who founded financial services group Swicorp before becoming a supporter of the arts in his home country.Lina Lazaar’s father has long advocated for north African and Middle Eastern art, but Ibraaz, which began life as an online platform, will launch as a home for global majority art and artists.“There has never been a greater need to create the conditions for genuine dialogue and a space for inquiry,” Lina Lazaar said
‘I broke down in the studio from all the raw emotion’: Richard Hawley on making The Ocean
‘I’d quit heavy drugs, got married and started a solo career … then my label dropped me. This felt like the last roll of the dice for me as a musician’My wife, Helen, had driven our two young kids down to Porthcurno beach in Cornwall. It’s where Rowena Cade had carved the Minack theatre into the granite cliffs. I’d been playing a gig so arrived two days later, and for a boy from a smoggy industrial city, the blue sea and palm trees felt revelatory.Roger, the landlord of the old smugglers’ pub, told me everyone had gone to the beach, so I took my boots off, rolled my suit trousers up and walked towards them
White House seeks inspection of Fed building as Trump piles pressure on Powell
‘Worse than Covid’: hospitality bosses blame Reeves’ budget for UK downturn
OpenAI launches personal assistant capable of controlling files and web browsers
UK’s £225m AI supercomputer, Isambard-AI, launches in Bristol
The Open 2025: first round updates as Fitzpatrick shares lead at Royal Portrush – live
Scheffler and Lowry ride out storm while Morikawa gets bogged down again