BoingBoing posted a short movie by The MIT Media Lab’s Knotty Objects group and noted hardware hacker Bunny Huang ask the question, “What if phones were designed to please their owners, rather than corporations?” In Southern China, where the majority of the world’s mobile phones are made, there’s a vibrant market for phones designed for all conceivable niches, where carrier subsidies, marketing campaigns, patents, trademarks, and other corporate-serving restrictions are ignored. If there’s a possible market demand for a particular design, then someone makes a phone to meet that demand. It’s a brief video, but worth a watch.
I want to see longer-lasting phones, in terms of material durability, and I want a longer-lasting battery. I gave my Galaxy S4 a Zerolemon case and battery, and it looks and feels like a brick now, but at least it can go a few days in the country. I’m still trying to get CyanogenMod onto it and go WiFi only, if I can just consistently get a ring when my number’s dialed.
Edited 2015-07-25 17:58 UTC
Talking about sturdiness: I’m a proud owner of the Caterpillar B15Q, rugged and plain Android 4.4 experience. Believe it or not, after a year of ownership they still push out OTA updates. In my opinion the most underestimated device on Earth.
The UI requirements of the modern smartphone pretty much demands it is a flat slab of glass that is usable with just your thumb 90% of the time.
Note that all the interesting designs shown off were not smartphones.
And, it is incredibly easy to find a phone that isn’t locked-down, even from major manufacturers. The fact that 70% of phones sold in the US are locked down means that at least 70% of people don’t care.
And, people do customize their phones to a large degree: They do so via cases, which allows people to change their phone’s exterior with the weather.
My friend’s phone is a panda bear.
Drumhellar,
The logic is faulty. You can’t take a specific aspect about a product and conclude how 100% of it’s owners feel about it just because they bought it, which is what you are doing. Our purchasing decisions are complex, aggregating many factors, both pros and cons.
For example: one big factor for US users in particular is carrier contracts, often requiring users to buy their branded phones which are locked to their networks. Many users (and perhaps even a majority) would consider this a con if asked directly.
Keep in mind that I don’t have any data directly showing how users feel about these things, but I just wanted to point out why drawing conclusions about specific consumer preferences from product sales data is error prone.
Edited 2015-07-25 19:35 UTC
You’re right. It is more correct to say, that the fact that 70% of the phones sold in the US locked down show that 70% of people don’t care enough about a locked-down phone to affect their purchase decisions.
Drumhellar,
That’s much better, as long as you aren’t insinuating that those 70% are happy with locked down phones. Most sources say 7-10% of iphones are jailbroken, and even more than that are carrier “unlocked”, so clearly there is some demand for less restricted devices even within the market segment who purchase restricted devices. Anyways, your last post doesn’t contradict this so I expect we’re in agreement.
What a shitty video.
My last great phone was Nokia N900. Before that – Nokia E70. And these were great phones, really kicking iPhone’s ass. Well, not in shiny and “woo touchscreen so magic” way, that’s why they took over, because general stupid public dictates the products.
I hate iPhones with a passion. And by meaning iPhone – I include iPhone clones like Android and Windows Phone too. They’re one big touchscreen with bullshit sandboxed OS with very primitive software that does one thing and cannot communicate with other software in the phone… I’ve administrated plenty of FreeBSD servers with my E70 – you ssh into server, have full keyboard.
Still, this video is total crap made for iPhone loving hipsters, not solving any problems, not showing what can be done to solve iPhone (which degraded phone evolution by at least 10 years) problem, nothing. It’s shit. Waste of time.
Even if trying to criticize iPhone, it is part of iPhone culture.
So pathetic.
Edited 2015-07-25 18:34 UTC
There are plenty of facilities for apps to communicate with each other.
And, you can always root your phone, especially with Android and the availability of custom firmware.
I can SSH into my phone and get a tcsh shell, which is kinda neat. Pointless, but neat.
You can do that on Android as well:
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.pocketworkstation….
And iOS:
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/serverauditor-ssh-shell-console/id54…
And Windows Phone:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-US/store/apps/The-SSH-Client/9WZDNCRCWN…
And BlackBerry 10:
https://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/content/64401/?countrycode=…
Wafflez is trolling as usual.
Yeah, you can, but trying to use an onscreen keyboard in a terminal app is a pain. Typing commands and paths using the standard keyboard is a PITA, to be polite. There are custom keyboards like Hacker’s Keyboard that make accessing special keys (CTRL, ALT, ESC, tab, etc) simpler, but you still lose valuable screen space to the keyboard. You have to chose between portrait, where the keyboard only takes up ~40% of the screen, but lives are half as long or don’t is tiny; or landscape where the lines are full-length, but ~50+% of the screen is lost to the keyboard.
You can make the keyboard smaller, but then it’s harder to hit the keys. And typos when connected to a remote server can be quite costly and dangerous.
So, yes, it’s possible to use a terminal on a touchscreen-only phone. But it’s not something you want to do a lot, nor is it painless.
Doing the same on phone with a hardware keyboard is really no different than doing it on a netbook. Especially is you have a keyboard with all the special keys available
Edited 2015-07-26 05:11 UTC
phoenix,
Been there, done that. I agree. I’ve tried many virtual keyboards thinking it would be a useful way to do very minor edits (as a web dev) while on trips, but frankly it’s been so extremely cumbersome (at least for myself) that I just bring a laptop every time in case I need to do work.
Edit: For kicks, I once connected a physical keyboard to an android tablet. Between android and the SSH app, some of the keys weren’t mapped correctly, but I assume this could be fixed and it might not be a bad alternative for some people. The setup would be better with a stand for the tablet or phone too because it really doesn’t ‘have the right angle lying flat with a keyboard. However by this point my preference is just to have a small notebook/laptop instead of the phone accessories.
Edited 2015-07-26 06:18 UTC
In Ubuntu Touch the terminal app is almost ok – it has CTRL+C and the likes built in.
For just over a year, I replaced my Linux-based netbook with an Android-based smartphone, the Sony Xperia pro. Administered many Linux and FreeBSD systems from that phone using ConnectbotVX (SSH client with custom keyboard mapping for the Xperia pro).
Thanks to the landscape, hardware, slider keyboard, the computer that fit in my pocket could be used like the pocket computer it was!
I’d give my left nut for a modern, Android-based smartphone with a landscape hardware keyboard. Something with at least a Snapdragon S801 SoC, 5″ 1080p screen, and 32 GB storage. Basically, stick a slider keyboard onto the LG G2 and update the SoC, and I’ll be in geek nirvana.
I miss the 2010-2012 smartphone craziness, when OEMs were trying all kinds of form factors and screen sizes. Hardware buttons, capacitive buttons, camera buttons, portrait keyboards, landscape keyboards, slider keyboard, swivel keyboards, game pads, music buttons, etc.
Now, every phone is the same rectangular slab of glass. Whoop de doo!
Edited 2015-07-26 05:03 UTC
You still have the option of getting a keyboard case, or foldable bluetooth keyboard. One of the biggest advantages of ultra-thin phones is that even with a thick case, they still fit in the pocket.
Here are a couple options that are specifically made for phones:
* Textblade (bluetooth keyboard): https://waytools.com/products/textblade/1/trailer
* iPhone Keyboard case: http://www.amazon.com/BoxWave-Keyboard-Buddy-iPhone-Case/dp/B00NMY9…
Or else, you can get any foldable bluetooth keyboard with your phone and they will work perfectly.
Edited 2015-07-26 08:31 UTC
I agree. I enjoyed the N900. Downhill ever since.
The narrator in the video makes some pretty big, yet essentially baseless assertions.
I use an iPhone because it does what I want. I do not have a need for more than a single phone number, or to have multiple sim cards. I don’t need my phone to double as a power source (I can live without it).
Most people, including the vast majority of Android users, don’t much customise their phone except to put a different wallpaper or to change the ring-tone (and maybe download a few apps).
But more seriously, the idea that companies make phone to maximise the value for them is economically illiterate. A producer maximises profit, not value. You maximise profit by making the phone as valuable as possible to a potential buyer for the lowest cost you can. The whole point of economic activity is to increase the value to potential buyers – that is why is it called value addition.
Edited 2015-07-25 18:47 UTC
Locking the phone to a specific carrier has no value to the user.
Limiting storage capability has no value to the user.
Largely restricting UI customization has no value to the user.
Restricting the ability to control/admin your own phone has no value to the user.
Think about it another way.. The company wants you to buy their product, and they want to tell you what you can and can’t do with it. Further, they want it to be illegal for you to use it in any way other than they intended. They want to maintain their dictatorship over your property for the entire life of the phone. There’s no value to the user in any of that. But you can get your Facebook and Twitter updates without hassle so there’s your value.
No, they sell you a product with specific limitations. You have the choice to buy their products or not. They are betting that an adequate number of people will find their products useful (and they are winning that bet). I don’t know any company that has sued anyone jail-breaking their phones for example. Granted, they do make it hard, but given that mobile phones generally carry some of the most personally valuable information that anyone can have, I do appreciate them making it as hard as possible for criminals and others to get hold of my information.
mkone,
Based on your response, I think your missing ilovebeer’s point. All of these restrictions are imposed for the sake of the manufacturer/carriers. The users are always free to stick with/revert to the defaults if they so chose, so there’s no real negative. Of course the businesses determine what they want to sell and what restrictions they want to impose in the interests of their business model, however the article is specifically looking at user-oriented design only, without regards to commercial interests. The fact is Apple/Microsoft/Google/ATT/Verizon/etc all have corporate agenda that compromise user choices.
While the article was looking into how this affects mobile phones, I think it could be interesting to apply this kind of analysis to a wider range of products.
Edited 2015-07-29 15:10 UTC
Sounds like a Bluetooth connected keyboard is possible on Android phones. They already have Bluetooth Gamepad for Android devices. What next, Bluetooth rotary dialers?
MadRat,
What’s wrong with progress
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/retired/9803