> Innovation = < Design
// April 1st, 2009 // No Comments » // Random Stuff
Wasn’t it great when mobile phones had absolutely no functionality beyond the ability to talk to your friends and family, and use your club fingers to hammer out an SMS message.
My Vodafone mobile contract is on the way out in the next couple of months and I’ve been spending the odd hour having a look at random handsets .. with pushy sales agents trying to get their latest models into my hand. And I’ve come to the conclusion that mobile phones were better when they didn’t have cameras in them, when they didn’t have music players in them, when they didn’t allow you to pinpoint your location using high resolution GPS, and when they didn’t allow you to browse the world wide web, or collect your email on a real time basis.
It seems to me that as technology has enforced new developments on our mobile phones over the last 5 years, that mobile phone creators such as the mighty Nokia, Samsung and SE have decided to start paying their mobile phone design teams about a billionth of what they were paid 5 years ago and are turning out the same 3 mobile phones.
The first is the yawn-tastic simple mobile phone which is laiden with as much tech as possible, and invariably released in pink, or brushed aluminium. Pink and brushed aluminium are not acceptable design finishes.
The second, the first in the new breed of mobile phone archetypes, is the PDA phone - these phones have qwerty keyboards are large and black… and every manufacturer has released at least 10 of them.
The final generation is the new iPhone clone! Do we really need more sleek aluminium touch screen tablets? Apart from the fact they’re scratchy and all look the SAME - can you all say greasy smudge finger marks!
Please, someone make me a mobile phone that is designed for me, that is a phone, and allows me to send my friends a text messaage. Please someone make me a handset that fits nicely in my hand and pocket. Please someone make me a phone that doesn’t make me sick or have a touch screen interface.
Y’know, actually, please, someone just give me a Nokia 8100.
