The iPhone is largely regarded as one of the most significant inventions of the twenty-first century. It may not have saved lives like many medical breakthroughs or brought us closer to the stars like Elon Musk’s reusable rockets, but Apple’s flagship product has had an impact on practically everyone on the planet. The iPhone condenses the incredible potential of the internet and global communication into a pocket-sized piece of technology. A particular Layer 1 blockchain is now attempting to do what the iPhone did for blockchains.
What is the Solana phone ?
The Solana Saga has arrived. The Saga, which was announced at the recent NFT NYC event, is an Android phone designed exclusively for Web3. The Saga’s hardware specs appear to be competitive with the current market leaders, featuring a 6.67-inch OLED display, 512GB of storage, and a massive 12GB of RAM. While the phone itself is a fantastic piece of equipment, the real story here is the software layer Solana is developing for it.
The Solana Mobile Stack, or SMS for short, is a toolkit designed specifically for building Web3 mobile experiences. The SMS comes with a “Seed Vault” that makes it easy for users to securely store their crypto wallet keys, a dedicated Solana dApp store (like Apple’s App Store without the fees, apparently), and integration with Solana Pay, the Layer 1 blockchain’s answer to Apple Pay.
In all honesty, I was not expecting Solana to release its own smartphone, but in hindsight, it seems obvious. Solana co-founder Anatoly Yakovenko spent 13 years working as an engineer at Qualcomm, along with many top Solana developers. The crypto startup has also managed to poach Jason Keats, the so-called “architect of the iPad Pro,” to help develop the Saga, showing that they mean business. I still personally think they should work on their network which is always shutting down , they keep saying its the bugs which has been fixed but it still keeps shutting down. Then they say its in beta which it is , why should a blockchain in beta stage be making a mobile phone that will have the foundation of this beta chain that stays going down . I really don’t know but I guess time reveal all . They do have some interesting prospects though .
It seems Solana has realized that breaking down the barriers to entry for blockchain tech is the first crucial step toward mass adoption. Currently, setting up non-custodial wallets and interacting with decentralized applications can be clunky at best and downright difficult for those who don’t dedicate a serious amount of time to figuring it out. Like the iPhone simplified using the internet, Solana will be hoping the Saga and SMS can do the same for blockchain tech.
But to have any chance of being as successful as Apple, Solana will need to offer more than just alternatives to already existing applications. For example, to get more people using Solana Pay than Apple Pay, it needs to be objectively better — either in interoperability, user experience, or cost. Solana apps like the move-to-earn hit STEPN have shown it’s possible to onboard huge numbers of non-crypto native users — more so if there are financial incentives.
Like I said above , time reveals all .
Fin