Consumers are buying a super-secure phone that's not meant for them

Let's get this out of the way right up top: Sikur's GranitePhone is not for you. Security as a feature is nothing new -- BlackBerry's entire existence rests upon it at this point -- but the GranitePhone takes security to another level. While the phone is based on Android, it runs a forked version called GraniteOS that is startling in its simplicity. You can make secure, encrypted voice calls and use Sikur's encrypted chat and messaging service. There's also support for standard GSM calls and SMS messages, and you can take photos or add standard Exchange, POP or IMAP email accounts. But that's it.
There's no app store or even many built-in apps for things we think of as standard smartphone features, and that's all with intention. This isn't a phone for the standard smartphone user, says Sikur CEO Fred D'Avila -- instead, his company built a phone in partnership with hardware manufacturer Archos specifically for governments, big enterprise clients and financial institutions. The challenge will be convincing those potential clients to go with Sikur and the GranitePhone over its better-known competitors.





In keeping with its target markets, the GranitePhone hardware itself is a very standard, unassuming, even boring device with little to set it apart from the rest of the crowded Android field. It's a 5-inch device with a 1080p screen, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 processor, 2GB of RAM and 16 GB of internal, non-expandable storage. It has a 16-megapixel back camera and 8-megapixel front facing camera and a 2,700mAh battery that you can't replace.

http://www.engadget.com/2015/12/07/s...ed-smartphone/