Product · In development
An AI companion that lives in the phone, made for people who aren’t at home with smartphones.
Who it’s for
A modern phone assumes you already know a great deal: that three stacked lines can be tapped, that pulling the screen down refreshes it, which pop-up needs an answer and which one to ignore. Nobody teaches these things. You pick them up over years of use.
If you didn’t grow up with one, any step can be the one that stops you, and often there is no one around when it does. Many older adults are in exactly this position. Booking a clinic visit, paying a bill, keeping in touch with family: one by one these moved into the phone, and nobody asked them first.
We don’t think of them as people who need looking after. They have handled far more complicated things than a phone. What they want is to get their own things done without having to ask someone each time. That is what PalmCore is for.
Three commitments
However clear the instructions are, once you’ve read them you are back in front of the screen by yourself. PalmCore stays. When you set out to do something, it goes through it with you one step at a time, at your pace.
The picture we keep in mind is a patient person in the next chair. They don’t hurry you, and their tone doesn’t change the second time you ask.
When you get stuck, most software shows you the same hint again. PalmCore treats that moment as its cue: someone steps in, and family can help from a distance when they can’t be in the room.
The standard we hold ourselves to is that at no step should a person be left staring at the screen with no idea what to do.
The tiring part of asking for help is often having to explain everything from the beginning. PalmCore remembers what you’ve told it, so next time you don’t have to.
Remembering someone is a responsibility. That is why this commitment can’t be discussed apart from our position on privacy, below.
Privacy
A companion that helps you use your phone will come across very private things. Our position: personal data is handled on the phone first, and leaves it only when it has to.
This is where the design starts. It is not a setting added at the end. It makes a number of features harder to build, and we think that cost belongs to us, not to the people using the product.
When PalmCore is released it will come with its own privacy policy, spelling out how data is actually handled. Until then we won’t make more detailed promises here.
Design position
Where it stands
In development
There is no version of PalmCore to download and no waitlist. At this stage we aren’t showing the product or discussing how it is built. When we can explain it responsibly, this page will be updated.
To learn more or talk about working together, write to us.