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Why today's phones are so boooooring?

andreyor.st

11–20 of 58 posts

Re: Why today's phones are so boooooring?

#11
I think it's an outward reflection of how the decision makers at these companies think. A look into their psyche. They're probably boring, conservative, unimaginative, dull people, concerned with raising profits and nothing else.

Ask them their "vision" and they'll probably tell you a larger screen, or a thinner body. Some kind of optimization of what's there, and not something new and wacky.

Re: Why today's phones are so boooooring?

#14
>what do you get on the back usually? A mat glass with too many cameras and a logo that you gonna cover with a phone case anyway.

Meanwhile, there’s a ton of aesthetic design in cases. The essay doesn’t make that point building on the quote above, but that seems to be the simplest answer.

Re: Why today's phones are so boooooring?

#15
To be honest I think that it's good direction. Why one should be excited about a phone or a pair of headphones? It's a tool like a hammer, shovel etc. There is one more angle - when it's boring it's more environmentally friendly, there is much less incentive to buy new shiny, blinking toy when it mostly looks and works just like old toy.

Re: Why today's phones are so boooooring?

#16
>So, here’s a question - when were you last excited for a new phone? Well, I mean really excited?

Probably either the OnePlus One or the PinePhone (if that even counts), though getting a phone with a 120Hz screen (OnePlus 8T) was somewhat cool as well. My PC monitors are still 60Hz so it was kind of novel to me.

There was also the Gemini PDA, but that thing was a huge mess and has made me skeptical of any other UMPC ventures or ARM devices with chips I'm not familiar with.

At this point you could probably get people excited just bringing back removable batteries, SD card slots, and headphone jacks.

Re: Why today's phones are so boooooring?

#18

>Why today’s phones are so boooooring? Because the HW part of the UX has been commoditized to a giant screen where the big difference in style and UX is made by the SW and UI. In fairness LG has tried experimenting with different HW UX over the years to distinguish themselves[1], and they went bust doing it because consumer weren't into that and voted with their wallets to those making boring phones like everyone els…

I miss my LGs for exactly this reason. They were just about the only ones doing anything 'new' beyond "hey our camera is 12% better than last year!"

My Pixel 7 Pro is great and all, but it doesn't do anything _interesting_

Re: Why today's phones are so boooooring?

#19
>Why today’s phones are so boooooring?

The author explains that the backs of phones are the primary distinguishing factor with inconsequential differences in screen resolution and refresh rates.

And then...favorably points out how the backs of headphones are the primary distinguishing factor with inconsequential differences in driver response.

Am I missing something?

Re: Why today's phones are so boooooring?

#20
These feature phones didn't have (many) third party apps. Smartphones are all rectangular touch screens, so creating an app that works on different devices doesn't require huge amounts of work (technical and design).

If manufacturers come out with phones that stray too far from the rectangular touchscreen paradigm, the majority of app developers aren't going to customise their app for the phone, unless it's really succesful.

I used to make apps for Smart TVs, when Samsung release their "Sero" rotating TV, supporting portrait orientation AND the orientation changing whilst in the app was too much work, so we just ran it in a letterbox mode.

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