There are people who care about the security of their smartphones and use apps such as AppLock+ in order to secure their portable companions, and then there are those who are completely paranoid about potential breaches of their phones. These are the people the UnaPhone Zenith which recently emerged on the crowdfunding website Indiegogo is designed for. The device, described by its creators as the world’s “first truly private and secure smartphone” won’t even allow its users to install any apps in the name of security, but that’s just the beginning.
Zenith is basically an Elephone P9000 with a custom operating system based on Android 6.0 Marshmallow and called UnaOS. However, despite using Google’s code base, it features exactly zero of its apps, libraries, and frameworks in order to minimize any potential data mining and its developers have fixed all of Marshmallow’s security vulnerabilities. In addition to that, many system services which the creators of Zenith concluded are unnecessary or present a potential security risk have also been removed from the OS. In other words, the UnaPhone team did everything that was humanely possible to achieve a maximum level of privacy and the only change users will be allowed to make to the system is to initiate official over-the-air updates from developers. Naturally, these updates will be heavily encrypted. So, no custom ROMs, no third-party apps, and no… well, any apps whatsoever. Zenith won’t be identifiable based on used carriers, it will automatically encrypt its storage, have a locked bootloader, disabled Android Debug Bridge (ADB) access and unachievable root access. In other words, it will be practically impossible to tamper with the device in any way imaginable.
As for the aforementioned app limitation, the creators of Zenith will pre-load their device with 40 extensively tested apps which should cover all regular user needs. Naturally, several of those will be communication apps which will feature heavy end-to-end encryption and UnaPhone is and will be polling its users regarding apps they would like to see featured on the device once it launches. Apps which don’t make the cut prior to device’s launch could still be included in one of the future UnaOS updates depending on demand. The team is also offering an even more customized experience for business users who can request custom variants of the phone’s OS and hand-pick the apps they want on their Zenith model.
At the moment, UnaPhone is also considering the idea of a secure app store which will allow users to install certain approved apps after all on their device but that scenario is still far from reality. At the moment, the company is looking to raise $200,000 on Indiegogo in order to give the initial push to its creation that’s allegedly already ready for manufacturing. If a paranoid phone such as this one is something you’d be interested in, you can pledge to help fund it by following the link below. In this crowdfunding phase, a basic version of Zenith will set you back $439.