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There was a stretch where phone design went bananas

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Re: There was a stretch where phone design went bananas

#21

Post by RicoElectrico »

mhaberl wrote: post #16
shubhamjain wrote: post #7

I did some investigation around this. At their peak, Nokia launched 46 models a single year [1]. I believe Apple has launched somewhere The genius of Steve Jobs was in showing that you can have whole company focus on making a brilliant device that works for everyone. I still don't get why companies are so much focused on launching hundreds of different models instead of one and leveraging economies of scale. [1]: htt…

> The genius of Steve Jobs was in showing that you can have whole company focus on making a brilliant device that works for everyone No, it doesn't work for everyone. He showed that there are enough people who can and are willing to pay for a premium device. He choose a niche. Nokia uses a classic price segmentation strategy. Read more here: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2004/12/15/camels-and-rubber-...

Yeah, nah. In their lineup much of the models were exactly equivalent, only with a different shell, at best camera or display.

Re: There was a stretch where phone design went bananas

#22

Post by yafbum »

Missing: the Danger Hiptop aka T-Mobile Sidekick, with its swivel-up screen revealing a full keyboard in landscape.

https://amp.www.complex.com/pop-culture/2015/09/history-of-t...

This thing's software is maybe more interesting than its form factor, due to it being a kind of proto-Android stack (Java VM equivalent with some amount of build-time bytecode preprocessing to accelerate it on devices)

Re: There was a stretch where phone design went bananas

#23

Post by abeppu »

Is there a more general framework for understanding when a sudden amount of variation is expected and perhaps rational? The analogy is very loose, but this makes me think a bit of the cambrian explosion, or periods when a sudden environmental shift is followed by a profusion of new species. When a new 'space' is opened, it seems like a range of things can try to fill it, until one strategy becomes dominant, at least until conditions change?

Re: There was a stretch where phone design went bananas

#24

Post by turtlebits »

My favorite phone ever is still the Sony Ericsson P800. It had a full touchscreen, jog dial and detachable stylus. The number pad was just an overlay on the bottom half of the touch screen and could be flipped open or removed.

I got so much flak as it cost as much as an iPhone, but in 2003.

https://www.pocket-lint.com/phones/reviews/sony-mobile/67352...

Re: There was a stretch where phone design went bananas

#25

Post by hn_throwaway_99 »

abeppu wrote: post #23

Is there a more general framework for understanding when a sudden amount of variation is expected and perhaps rational? The analogy is very loose, but this makes me think a bit of the cambrian explosion, or periods when a sudden environmental shift is followed by a profusion of new species. When a new 'space' is opened, it seems like a range of things can try to fill it, until one strategy becomes dominant, at least…

Glad to see this comment - the Cambrian explosion analogy was the exact one that came to mind for me, and I actually think, as you put it, the same dynamics are in play. Lots of different approaches are taken until it is clear that, after time, one is dominant and the best. I remember when the iPhone first came out the whole "tapping on glass" keyboard was highly controversial, but it soon won out (and, IMO, especially because it allows swipe typing).

As an aside, this comment from the tweet thread is genius: "I call this one the Shyamalan because of the unnecessary twist".

Re: There was a stretch where phone design went bananas

#26

Post by Findecanor »

Izkata wrote: post #3

> "OK... what if instead of it flipping, it PIVOTED" Kinda like the LG Wing: https://www.lg.com/global/lgwing

The LG Wing feels like the spiritual successor to the Sharp Aquos 912SH, where you flipped and then rotated the top half. (mentioned elsewhere while I was trying to remember its name)

Re: There was a stretch where phone design went bananas

#27

Post by jwilk »

yafbum wrote: post #22

Missing: the Danger Hiptop aka T-Mobile Sidekick, with its swivel-up screen revealing a full keyboard in landscape. https://amp.www.complex.com/pop-culture/2015/09/history-of-t... This thing's software is maybe more interesting than its form factor, due to it being a kind of proto-Android stack (Java VM equivalent with some amount of build-time bytecode preprocessing to accelerate it on devices)

Non-AMP link:

https://www.complex.com/pop-culture/2015/09/history-of-the-s...

Re: There was a stretch where phone design went bananas

#28

Post by tweetle_beetle »

I actually had the Nokia 7600 pictured at the top of the thread. It's often ridiculed, but I don't know anyone else who had one who can fairly pass judgement. It had genuinely good ergonomics - not disimilar to the fancy split keyboard philosophy. Each thumb had clear acces to specific buttons and the distance between them was maximised, easing strain on the wrists. In the era of T9, it was great. It was also hand friendly for phonecalls - remember them?

In response to sibling comment, comparing it to the iPhone is silly. The iPhone OS 1 was half a decade away when th 7600 was launched and started at $499. This was a cheap, fun phone using well trodden software on a budget. Nokia dominated the market and market segmentation is a natural strategy in that situation - especially before touchscreens allowed customisation/personalisation in software.

Re: There was a stretch where phone design went bananas

#29

Post by consp »

yafbum wrote: post #22

Missing: the Danger Hiptop aka T-Mobile Sidekick, with its swivel-up screen revealing a full keyboard in landscape. https://amp.www.complex.com/pop-culture/2015/09/history-of-t... This thing's software is maybe more interesting than its form factor, due to it being a kind of proto-Android stack (Java VM equivalent with some amount of build-time bytecode preprocessing to accelerate it on devices)

That thing is from 2002, kind of ancient even by side-swipe-keyboard phone standards. Only got my first one when HTC started offering them on our market around the 2004/2005 time (with windows mobile 5, ymmv).

My personal favourite but with shitty keyboard: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC_Blue_Angel

Re: There was a stretch where phone design went bananas

#30

Post by rob74 »

woopwoop wrote: post #13

> They literally designed this entire thing for dads that couldn't get the hang of T9 I had a phone like this, although not that model. It was great, T9 sucked. In fact, it was much more pleasant to type on than a touch screen.

Yup, I was a big fan of phones with actual keyboards, before and after the smartphone era, for exactly that reason. Transferring the muscle memory from typing on a PC keyboard to these mini-keyboards was surprisingly fast, and after that you could simply type without worrying about T9 fucking things up (one classic in German was that it turned "Frohe", as in "Happy Easter" or "Merry Christmas", into "Droge", as in illegal drugs). My collection includes the Nokia 5510 (also memorable for being one of the first phones with a built-in music player, although the memory was laughably small), the Nokia 6822 (I think this was the successor of the phone in the tweet - looks like quite a few "dads" must have bought one) and the Motorola Droid/Milestone.
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