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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

#81

Post by pavlov »

tweetle_beetle wrote: post #28

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 fr…

I had the 7600 too, and enjoyed the “lemon” form factor!

But it certainly wasn’t a cheap phone when it launched. The typical Nokia cost around $150. This was the high-end model of Nokia’s feature phone range, and they highlighted it in ads with fashion brands. (The fashion touch was a leather strap you could attach to the lemon phone’s corner.)

The 7600 did include technical innovation: it was the first Nokia model ever to include 3G, and IIRC it was also the first European phone to shoot video (stamp-sized 144p clips).

Re: There was a stretch where phone design went bananas

#82

Post by silexia »

I would love a phone with pre-built grips on it...

I bought a Pixel 6 Pro earlier in the year and the first one cracked then turned into a brick, while using the Google case for it. My second one cracked in my pocket while using the top Amazon case.

I would like a rugged and sturdy phone that won't crack sitting in your pocket and is not slick as snot.

Re: There was a stretch where phone design went bananas

#83

Post by TremendousJudge »

bombcar wrote: post #35
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…

The end result is often called a "local maximum" and what you've pointed out happens time and time again. Cars underwent something similar very early on, but by the time we got to the "Model T" era it was pretty much determined what they would look like.

Arguably, the Model A is the first modern car, moreso than the Model T, which has a lot of quirks that would be unrecognizable to today's drivers. For example, it didn't even had a throttle pedal, and choosing the gears is done through a bizantine system that includes a "reverse pedal". In a Model T you get this distinct impression of riding on top of the car instead of inside it, and it has many other things like this. By comparison, the Model A is remarkably similar to the cars of today, except much more primitive of course.

Re: There was a stretch where phone design went bananas

#84

Post by smallerfish »

nix0n wrote: post #37
arcade79 wrote: post #32

I just wish we could get some smaller smartphones again. I absolutely loved the Nexus One (HTC Passion). Just the right size.

If you want an absolutely minuscule phone, there's Unihertz: https://www.unihertz.com/products/jelly-pro

I don't recommend Unihertz. My Atom XL is riddled with bugs, and tech support are useless.

Re: There was a stretch where phone design went bananas

#85

Post by tonywastaken »

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)

Danger also had a pretty nice App Store model and a nice developer and user community in their phpBB forums. The carriers that supported the Hiptop also had a hosted web interface where you could manage your email, calendar, notes, etc.

Re: There was a stretch where phone design went bananas

#86

Post by 10000truths »

bombcar wrote: post #51
SnooSux wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like the buttons are all real, there are just only 10 of them.

Yeah, which could be really annoying for someone who has a challenge pressing two buttons fast enough to trigger. A hotel I stayed at had touchscreen "requests" for elevators (you put in your floor and it would call a elevator for you) and it was super annoying (trying to get floor 12 would doublebounce on 1 and 2 so you'd often get 11 and 22 before getting 12) until I found a pedestal out of the way that had real bu…

> Yeah, which could be really annoying for someone who has a challenge pressing two buttons fast enough to trigger.

Sounds like that can easily be fixed with enter and backspace buttons.

Re: There was a stretch where phone design went bananas

#87

Post by agilob »

Antrikshy wrote: post #78
agilob wrote: post #4

An alternative is that every single phone looks the same. Black or grey square case with a touch screen. There's literally nothing to design or make interesting, just every second model change rounded corners to sharp corners and call it "new design".

Hardware may be less interesting, but the software is way more dynamic than ever.

Yes, when opening Google Play I'm presented with Games, Apps and Books. Games are designed by psychologists to keep us engaged with unnatural colours, actions and injecting ourselves with dopamine every 30 seconds, and apps? Apps also contains games, but also sponsored content, like I don't remember for how long Disney+ ad was there... since April at least. Very interesting. The other software? All my installed apps have updates about at least twice per month, but I never notice anything changing. Bugs aren't fixed, performance isn't improved, but now my banking app can access my location. Old phones had no "dynamic software" updates, everything worked and never needed updates or upgrades, unless.

We have throwaway hardware that looks the same, made with throwaway software where updates make no difference. We have fewer choices now. It's just Android vs iPhone, both look the same and copy each other design and functionality, both in hardware and software. We had games that were hard and required some planning on paper and hardware that was interesting and unique.

Re: There was a stretch where phone design went bananas

#88

Post by joemi »

tobr wrote: post #79
blululu wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also comes in flip phone form factor: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/2251832310833680.html?spm=a2g... Not into cars. That's fine. How about a phone for people who really like soda: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/2255799830362840.html?spm=a2g... Once you drop the giant screen requirement that all smart phones cater to as their design center you can kind of go nuts on the ID. A relatively modest amount of NRE will let…

> How about a phone for people who really like soda: Just don’t get the Ppesi, everyone knows ColaCaco is the original. Heinkene is good too, known for their PRLMIUM QUIUITY.

Interestingly, the main pic shows the correct brand names, but the individual pics show the modified ones.

Re: There was a stretch where phone design went bananas

#89

Post by aivisol »

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.

The author has no clue what he is talking about. I absolutely loved my Nokia 6822 - you could install a third party SSH client on it and that's how the remote work era really began for me. Next phone for me was obviously Nokia 9300 - also with full QWERTY keyboard. What came later was Android/iPhone which in a way was step back in terms of productivity due to lack of physical keyboard.

Re: There was a stretch where phone design went bananas

#90

Post by yafbum »

tonywastaken wrote: post #85
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)

Danger also had a pretty nice App Store model and a nice developer and user community in their phpBB forums. The carriers that supported the Hiptop also had a hosted web interface where you could manage your email, calendar, notes, etc.

That hosted web interface even got famously hacked by a teenager then posted screenshots of Paris Hilton's info https://www.computerworld.com/article/2569592/paris-hilton-m...
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