frank. phone says it’s still alive despite Indiegogo shutdown

Earlier this month, we reported that the crowdfunding site that’s colloquially been known as the “Kickstarter With Fewer Rules” is tightening its belt in an attempt to keep project creators honest. Indiegogo now requires more transparency from its project creators, which was reflected in their updated terms of use. Shortly after this new policy went into effect, the frank. phone project was shut down for “a violation of Terms of Use.”

It was inevitable that the project would be canned after Indiegogo made these changes to its policy, as they were directly a response to criticism of the frank. phone’s campaign. The phone’s pitch story is that a 17-year-old in Canada is tired of paying $1,000 for a phone and decided to make his own. The reality is that a handful of people are rebranding a Chinese-import and hoping to pass it off as an edgy alternative while making a few bucks in the process. They even admit as much in their response to Android Police calling them out.

So, we’re currently working with a pre-made mould from a Chinese manufacturer, the one you see on Alibaba. However, the ordinary person cannot reasonably purchase the one on Alibaba as the minimum order is 3,000 phones. We’re working with the mould, making customization and improvements, such as the upgrade to the front camera and the upgrade to Android 7.0, and introducing it to the North American market.

Despite the setback with the Indiegogo campaign, the folks behind the frank. phone are saying the phone will release eventually. They’ve requested a list of backers from their Indiegogo campaign, but Indiegogo has yet to comply.

Indiegogo may not have worked out but we aim to move forward with our commitment to getting you our product at cost-savings and in a shorter time period. Please bear with us as we work out the kinks and formulate our next steps. We’ll give you an update with details as soon as possible.

They even take some parting shots at the online community that revealed that frank. phone is just a rebranded Chinese phone with these words:

So, in the craziest of ways, thank you to the online community who tore our project apart; you simply supplied us with constructive criticism, an enormous amount of research, and an opportunity to help us help our Frankensteins.

Interesting. Did you back the frank. phone when it was live on Indiegogo? The phone mold they claim to be using is from a Legoog-branded smartphone that runs Android 6.0 Marshmallow, which is what is rumored to be on the pre-production frank devices. Further, Android Police makes a good point when they suggest that the software support for this phone will be non-existent, even if it does release. What do you think?